Every Version of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

The Toy That Launched a Universe

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic did not begin as a story. It began as a product. Hasbro's My Little Pony toy line launched in 1981, producing a string of animated specials and a feature film through the 1980s that were enjoyable but thinly written, designed chiefly to sell plastic. The franchise sputtered, revived twice in the 1990s and 2000s with new generations of ponies, and each time failed to find lasting cultural traction.

Then Hasbro hired Lauren Faust.

Faust, a veteran of The Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, was given the brief of rebooting the line for a new generation of girls. What she delivered, debuting on The Hub network in October 2010, was something considerably more ambitious: a fully realized fantasy world called Equestria, an ensemble cast of six distinct ponies each embodying a different personality and "element of harmony," and writing that respected its audience enough to include genuine stakes, character growth, and humor that worked for adults too.

The result blindsided everyone. Friendship Is Magic attracted not just children but a substantial adult audience, generating fan art, music, conventions, and one of the most prolific fan-fiction communities in internet history. The show ran for nine seasons and 221 episodes, concluding in 2019. Along the way it produced theatrical films, direct-to-video specials, a spinoff series, an extensive comic book run from IDW Publishing, a concert film, and dozens of games. The franchise did not stop there: a Generation 5 reboot arrived on Netflix in 2021 with My Little Pony: A New Generation, followed by new animated series continuing in that setting. What follows is a guide to the major entries in this world.