My Little Pony (2004 series)

My Little Pony is a American animated series based on Hasbro's eponymous toy brand developed by Bonnie Zacherle. The serie was first broadcast on January 12, 2004, in Discovery Kids (currently Discovery Family), following a different model from several other animated series, with divided episodes and 5 parts (pu chapters) that were shown between Monday and Friday, at 9 am and repeated at 5:00 pm, each week came with a new episode.

Due to this daring model, the series had to rely on a team of more than 180 animators, divided into 3 groups of 60 each, who took turns producing episodes. the series was directed by Vic Dal Chele, being supervised by Robert Wintrop and Margaret Loesch.

This is the longest-running work based on the My Little Pony toy line, having originally run for 8 years. The series ended in 2012, due to the budget cut for the production of this series in order to reduce expenses, but since the 3 animation groups did not conform to the salary, the end of the series ended up being the chosen path.

Early production
In early 2003, Hasbro started to manufacture the 3rd generation of the My Little Pony toy line, and along with this start of manufacturing, came the debate between making some production to promote the series or not, since G2 had failed to be successful due to the lack of a work to bring commercial appeal to toys. The idea of a production that promoted G3 ended up winning among the company's executive branch, and a feature film was initially designed for theatrical release, however, it was abandoned due to lack of interest from producers, so a plan B was orchestrated, which in this case was an animated children's series, which Hasbro executives found viable, as they already had subsidiaries to be able to animate it, and a channel where it could be displayed, Discovery Kids.

When discussing the format that the series would follow, another impasse occurred, as some defended intact episodes of 20 minutes, and others defended in episodes that were divided into parts, which would last around 30 minutes, and would be shown throughout the week. Those who defended the split episodes said that this would assure the audience through curiosity of what was to come in the later chapter.

Season 1 (Jan 5-Aug 6, 2004) = 31 episodes (155 chapters) Season 2 (Apr 11-Dec 2, 2005) = 34 episodes (170 chapters) Season 3 (Mar 6-Oct 13, 2006) = 32 episodes (160 chapters) Season 4 (Mar 5-Nov 9, 2007) = 36 episodes (180 chapters) Season 5 (Mar 17-Sep 19, 2008) = 27 episodes (135 chapters) Season 6 (Mar 2-Nov 6, 2009) = 39 episodes (195 chapters) Season 7 (Mar 15-Oct 22, 2010) = 33 episodes (165 chapters) Season 8 (Feb 7-Sep 30, 2011) = 34 episodes (170 chapters) Season 9 (Dec 23, 2011-Jun 29, 2012) = 28 episodes (140 chapters)