Show of hands, how many knew Hallmark was releasing ornaments this year? Okay, next question: how many ornaments are they releasing? If you based your answer on the header, you'd be wrong. Hallmark is releasing a grand total of FIVE (and counting) My Little Pony ornaments this year, with a fourth one being a ornament version of their Itty Bitty MLP Pinkie Pie Plushie.
I will not be reviewing that ornament today, because there really isn't anything else to say about it aside from it being a perfect ornament recreation of the Itty Bitty MLP Plushie line. Instead, I shall be reviewing the three ornaments pictured above!
And the fifth Ornament was just discovered this morning as a Target Exclusive of Songbird Serenade! I don't know what we did to deserve getting all these MLP ornaments from Hallmark, but I really don't care. This truly is a Pony Kind of Christmas!
Now I know we've never reviewed ornaments before, however I am taking it upon myself to give these three from Hallmark a look. Why? Well, just look at Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash! Those sculpts are really on model!
Be sure to check out the full look at these three after the break!
There is no better pony to start this off with than the most awesome pegasus in Equestria! She's so awesome in fact her ornaments are flying off the shelves!
…
Which is not hard to do when the store has to order a specific number of Pinkie Pie ornaments to get one Rainbow Dash. Yes folks, the 2017 Hallmark Rainbow Dash ornament is a rare ornament. From what I've gathered from visiting 4 different Walmarts (including the single biggest Walmart I have ever been too in Sanford Maine), Rainbow Dash is a chaser item in the Pony Ornament box. If your box has six Pinkie Pies, odds are there is only going to be one Rainbow Dash in it.
If anyone from Hallmark is reading this post, or anyone has any addition information, please let me know, so I can update the article.
UPDATE: Ask and you shall receive! Reports are coming in that the Rainbow Dash ornament has been spotted as available at Target, CVS, Toys R Us, Meijers, & Shopko. Apparently it was just limited at Walmart. Amazing to see what Christmas news comes out when the date changes from October 31st to November 1st.
Anyways, this ornament is not a part of Hallmark's Keepsake Ornament line. What does that mean? Well, for one thing the ornament itself is on display to the open air and is doing all the advertising for the product. You're literally seeing the ornament in the packaging before you buy it.
And with views from the left side,
views from the back side (which shows the ornament comes with ribbon already tied on for right out of the box hanging)
and views from the right side the prospective customer can get a clear picture of what the entire ornament looks like. This is an approach with pros and cons though. On the positive side, you can clearly see what you are buying. On the negative side it leaves the product open to be damaged. It could be damaged in shipping. It could be damaged as it is stocked on the shelves. Or it could be damaged while it is traveling home in the trunk of your car.
The other negative with exposing the product like this is the consumer can clearly see any and all manufacturing errors. I'm specifically talking about the paint job on Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash since the ornament itself is one solid mold.
The top of the box is designed to be hung from standard peg hooks. This isn't a surprise when one remembers how a good percentage of merchandise sold in the USA hangs on pegboards prior to being snatched up by consumers, so the fact the packaging was designed like this is a nice feature.
What isn't as nice of a feature is how the cardboard hook on the package makes it neat to impossible to display this ornament (and others like it) in any other way except with a peg hook display. The cardboard hook can only be flattened down after the package has been opened. Which is something that can't be done in the retail world since opening the package instantly makes it no longer new.
The bottom of the package contains the standard copyright information you'd expect to find on as required by US law. Copyright date, trademark, licensor, licensee, and country of origin. Which in this case, this ornament was manufactured in China.
So, with the exterior package complete, it's time to take a look at the ornament itself. You know, outside of the box. Yes I know the box doesn't hide anything about the ornament—
I'm just going to open the box!
So now we can see the plastic packaging which hold the ornament in its cardboard packaging. The plastic is molded to form fit the ornament, which means it won't shift in the package during transit. Whether the transit is on a boat being shipped from China to the US or in a plastic bag in a car heading home after purchase doesn't matter. The ornament will not leave the box.
So let's have the ornament leave the box!
I love the sculpt of this Rainbow Dash figure. It is so freaking accurate to the show it almost hurts. Not only that, but they don't skimp on any of the colors on her mane/tail! Her eyes are show accurate, the wings are properly sculpted, and pose is taken straight from the show. I'm pretty sure it's from episode 1 of season 1, but I could be wrong.
However, her wings have been adorned with glitter. So all is forgiven! Just look at that profile! She is properly proportioned to the show!
And this is the single best part of the ornament. At a price point of $7.99, this ornament has Rainbow Dash's cutie mark on both sides of her flank. I know Hasbro generally leaves the cutie mark off of one side of the figure as a cost saving measure, but I haven't seen a CM on both sides of a pony since Funko stopped making their MLP Line.
Just look at how happy Rainbow Dash looks! So bloody cute!
I can attest the screw eye is located in a really good place on Dashie. Not surprised since Hallmark generally nails the center of gravity point on their Star Trek Starship Ornament line (I have every ornament from that line except the first two).
And the view from the top really is incredible.
Yes, this ornament can indeed stand on its own.
Dashie is also talented enough to lie on her back and showcase the Hasbro copyright tattoo she has on her stomach.
When how complex Rainbow Dash's character model is taken into consideration, the MSRP this ornament is sold at, and the quality of the overall product, there is only one conclusion one can make about this ornament. The quality is astounding! For everything you get out of this ornament, one would think the price point would be at least double of what it is, but it is just $7.99.
If you happen to be lucky enough to find Dashie at your local Walmart, be sure to snatch her up!
Now, if this is what Hallmark can do with a complex character like Rainbow Dash, I wonder what they can do with a character whose design is much more simple… and colored in different shades of pink.
She's freaking perfect!
Every angle.
Her cutie mark placement on both flanks.
There really isn't a single thing about this ornament which is a flaw.
Aside from the box only giving retailers (Walmart) the option of hanging this ornament on peg hooks.
And she only costs $7.99! I don't… I can't… HOW!!! How is this possible!
I must open the box and investigate this at once!
Same molded plastic to keep this ornament from moving in transit in the box! Since this is part of the same line as Rainbow Dash, this isn't a surprise. Okay, now to look at the Pinkie Pie herself!
All the colors are freaking right. Hallmark molded in the lines which run through Pinkie's mane in the cartoon!
Though I do find the placement of the eye bolt on Pinkie's rump to be rather telling. Where Rainbow Dash is a top heavy figure, all of the weight in this one is in her tail. So the balance point actually being where it is makes a lot of sense.
I highly recommend super gluing the knot of the hanging ribbon together to prevent it from coming undone while hanging on the tree. This could be to prevent it from falling and thus breaking when it smacks on the floor.
Why do I get the feeling she just ate a cupcake.
Look at how thick and balloony her tail is!
And I know a number of other ornament makers wouldn't have made sure Pinkie Pie's ear was correctly colored when it's so buried in the mane like this. It really is a sign of the quality of this ornament when details like these are paid attention to.
And of course Hasbro's Copyright and Trademarks are tattooed onto her belly.
So what's my final review of this figure. I think that's best handled in song.
Go to your nearest Walmart, find this ornament, and buy it! Even if you don't celebrate Christmas, buy it anyways so you can decorate something with Pinkie Pie goodness.
Why these two aren't Hallmark Keepsake ornaments is beyond me. However, this year Hallmark also has a My Little Pony Keepsake Ornament… for Generation 1 of My Little Pony.
Said pony is named after (and subsequently inspired) a certain Generation 4 pony from Amending Fences, so let's go take a look at Hallmark's Generation 1 Moondancer Keepsake Ornament.
I have been collecting Hallmark Christmas Ornaments for a very long time. Whenever I think of Hallmark ornaments I think of boxes like this. Hallmark's logo on the top, picture of the ornament in the box in the center, and the ornaments name on the bottom.
The box is always very festive in color. Past incarnations of the box have made extensive use of green, gold, red, and white in their designs. Which are the colors associated with Christmas.
The back of the package always tells you what the stated mission of the Keepsake ornament line is. And it always tells you where the ornament is made. Hallmark makes their Keepsake Ornaments in Thailand as opposed to China.
And information about how to join the Hallmark Keepsake Ornament Club is included on the box. Also, this club is no joke. There are over local 700 chapters of the Keepsake Ornament Club in the United States, and members get access to exclusive ornaments not available anywhere else in the world.
If you really like collecting Christmas Ornaments, this club might be something for you to check out.
As for me, I'm perfectly content with just going after the yearly Star Trek Ornaments.
The top of the box generally showcases the year the ornament was released. In this case, the ornament was released in 2017.
And the bottom of the ornament box has the ornament, and the price of the ornament. You'll notice the Generation 1 Moondancer Hallmark Keepsake Ornament costs $15.95, which is 3¢ short of being double the price of the non-keepsake MLP Hallmark Ornaments from Walmart.
So yes, one Pinkie Pie and one Rainbow Dash equal one Moondancer. I'm sure this little factoid will amuse Twilight.
Let's go see if that is really the case, and look at what is inside the box.
It's plasti—tissue paper. From having opened the plenty of Hallmark Keepsake ornaments over the years, I've found it's usually the older ornaments which are wrapped in their tissue paper before being placed into their cardboard box. The fact Moondancer is wrapped in tissue paper is a great throwback to the early years of Hallmark's ornament line.
So what does the figure look like outside of the tissue paper?
No, she does not look like she did in Amending Fences. Though this is a really good image to use for comparison to her Generation 1 version. Let's go take a look at the actual ornament.
And here she is. My Little Pony Generation 1 Moondancer. If you couldn't tell from this picture before, I'll state it right here: the model for Moondancer is a heck of a lot more intricate and complex than either Pinkie Pie or Rainbow Dash.
Just look at her molded mane and tail! There isn't a single speck of paint where it shouldn't be. More to the point, it also looks exactly like her Generation 1 toy.
Don't believe me?
There you go. Even the pose is exactly the same!
The crescent moon of Moondancer's Cutie Mark is painted on the wrong way on her backside, and this ornament does not come with a ribbon already attached to the eye bolt. Generally speaking, for Hallmark's keepsake ornaments the ribbons/ornament hooks are something the owner of the ornament put on themselves. It adds an person touch to the keepsake ornament which you wouldn't normally get from an item mass produced in a factory.
You could put your own 1/4" customized ribbon on it…
And speaking of ribbons, the one detail missing from the ornament is the lack of a ribbon bow on her tail.
But when she ends up giving you a face like that, you can't help but forgive her.
The messed up cutie mark is only really noticeable when looking the ornament from above.
And when looking at the ornament from below, the copyright information is on the base of her tail instead of one her stomach.
Overall, the design of the Generation 1 Moondancer is fantastic, but there is one little detail you wouldn't have noticed about her if you only had this one Hallmark ornament and not the two Hallmark ornaments from Walmart.
All three of these My Little Pony Ornaments are perfectly in scale to one another. It's one thing to be able to create two different lines of Christmas Ornaments for the same brand, but it is quite another to keep both of those lines in scale with one another. This level of detail awareness is absolutely incredible. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie are an absolute must buy for any Brony—whether you celebrate Christmas or not is irrelevant—who comes across them, and Moondancer is highly recommended for those who want a unicorn on their Christmas tree in addition to a Pegasus and Earth pony.
Hallmark's My Little Pony Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash ornaments are available only in store at Walmart.
Hallmark's Keepsake My Little Pony Moondance ornament is online at hallmark.com and at Hallmark Gold Crown stores everywhere.
Twitter: The Illustrious Q
