LPS: a collector-built community

One aspect of LPS collecting makes the hobby simultaneously exciting and frustrating: these toys were released before the age of the internet really took hold, back when that familiar (& terrible) dial-up modem sound filled homes, and AOL was the norm. ;)

Since the internet was still so novel in the mid-nineties and was absolutely sparse in comparison with today's web, there was no official LPS presence online - information about LPS was gleaned only from back-of-box pictures & information, pamphlets, and TV commercials.  The Paw Print Club, which I had hoped would provide some sort of link with the amazing folks behind LPS, proved to be short-lived and didn't provide much of any communication between collectors & Kenner.  We generally had no behind-the-scenes access to all of the exciting LPS stuff that was happening on an official level.  Toy Fairs, where upcoming toys are showcased, are big news in collecting communities these days - I had no idea they even existed when I was little!

Response from Kenner employee to LPS collector Shannon K.

Kids could write letters to Kenner the old-fashioned way, of course, and many received responses (like the letter above) - but because the responses were individualized and not broadcast, the information wouldn't be disseminated anyway.  A vast web of LPS fans existed all over the world in the nineties, but none of them had contact with each other.  

Without the internet being used to catalog LPS releases as they came out, provide online sales venues for new sets, or bring fans together, so much of LPS collecting back when we were kids was based on hearsay and was very much limited by region... for example, I had no idea that the farm animals in the Zoo Play With Me Pets assortment even existed until a friend returned from an out-of-state trip, triumphantly bringing home the calf and the lamb!  I was shocked (and admittedly jealous), since I hadn't even seen advertisements of them on packaging.

I recall seeing the 1995 Sparkling Ponies (the fillies) in a pamphlet as a kid and searching for them, but they never appeared in our town.  When I started collecting as an adult I was surprised by how little I knew about LPS - so many sets & so much merchandise had been released, but I hadn't seen many of the pieces!  With toys being released nowadays, they are almost always for sale online as well as in stores and are cataloged online as they are found.

My childhood LPS folder - I did my best to organize the collection!

So, without an official guide from Kenner, LPS collectors in the 1990s & early 2000s got creative and tried to organize the collection themselves.  I tried making my own hand-written checklists, but they were only based on incomplete pamphlet information and my own collection.  When I was in high school and had gotten a web site editor, I decided that I wanted to make an LPS web site (called the Country Garden, of course!), and you can also see my little hand-scribbled design for it in the folder above.  (I ended up not building the site until much later - 2010!)

When I was daydreaming about making an LPS ID site, I went in search of LPS information online and found Tabby's List of Littlest Pet Shop (I believe the site appeared in the early 2000s) - it was a goldmine!  Looking at it was bittersweet, though - there were so many sets I was missing or hadn't ever even heard of, and by that time, LPS had been discontinued.  Still, I printed out Tabby's list and used it as a way of inventorying my own collection.  A lot of Tabby's information was based on prototype photographs in pamphlets, so some of the colors weren't quite right, or variations were missing (I wouldn't realize this until much later) - but, overall, it was an amazing compilation of info & photos, and the LPS community today has Tabby to thank for getting us started.  Her site gave us the skeleton of information needed to map the whole LPS collection, which, as you know, is quite an intricate web!  Tabby also had a message board to facilitate sales & trades.

In the late 90s/early 2000s, the MLPSC also appeared - it was a club for My Little Pony & Littlest Pet Shop, run by collector Jill R.  I must have not come across this club until after it had closed, since that's the only explanation as to why I wasn't a member...but it was a great start at uniting collectors.

I didn't do anything with LPS during college, but in 2008, my love of these toys was rekindled, and I went in search of information online again.  This time, I found Zuse's fantastic site (oh my gosh - all sorts of variations I hadn't ever seen!!), which led me to Misty's Kenner LPS Forum.  I was a bit astounded to see a whole community of LPS collectors, and being a part of that forum has taught me so much about LPS.  I decided to try my hand at making my own reference site, which had been a long time coming, and it has really been a labor of love.

The sticking point, though, is that we still have no reliable way of getting "official" information about LPS - we have to make assumptions.  Collectors are fortunate to occasionally find former Kenner employees who can offer some perspective, but we ultimately have very little contact with them.  The Perky Playful Bunnies, for instance, are assumed to have been an Easter release that was exclusive to Target - but this is just based on what collectors can remember about when the set was released (I personally never saw it as a kid).  As I've continued to flesh out my LPS web site, I've done my best to use any "official" LPS information available to make corrections (groups of similar sets, like the Ready to Go Pets, for instance, were called "assortments" in Toy Fair catalogs, so that's the terminology I use).  Still, a great deal of information is based on assumptions - especially regarding international releases, which are especially mysterious.  (We only recently discovered that the "Italian bundle" was in fact released and not just a prototype, and we're constantly revising our understanding of international variations in the My Real Pets assortment!)

The LPS line was brought to life again in the early 2000s by Hasbro (who bought ought Kenner), but the toys had little resemblance to the ones of our childhood.  Collectors have tried to engage Hasbro in an effort to get information about LPS from them (what was the story with the Pony 'n Pet Stable?!), but we've all come back empty-handed.  It seems that they either don't have older records or aren't willing/able to share them.  Funnily enough, Hasbro's web site has some .pdf instruction files for G1 LPS toys posted!

In the case of a toy line like My Little Pony, the collector community is huge, and Hasbro regularly references earlier generations of the toys - the MLP Fair logo often has G1 ponies on it.  LPS, however, remains mysterious - perhaps our community is small enough that it hasn't caught the attention of folks in more official positions.  Whatever the case may be, we're left guessing for the time being, working to build our understanding of the collection on anecdotal evidence and on advertisements.

That's half the fun, though! ;)  Like I said, it's a bit frustrating at times, since it often seems that we're in the dark - but it's also a fun adventure & helps to unite our close-knit collecting community together.  Ultimately, LPS is a collector-built community - we've cataloged the information together, and I'm so proud of the effort that everyone has contributed!