Shout! Factory was nice enough to send us the press promo of the upcoming DVD, The Friendship Express. The package contains an e-mail explaining the DVD in general, and includes promotional material (4 episode clips – The Cherry Picking Line – Canterlot / Christmas – The Opening Song – Buffalo Stampede). The DVD trailer (embedded after the page break) is found on their YouTube channel.
The DVD contains 5 episodes..
– Friendship is Magic Part 1 and Part 2
– Hearth’s Warming Eve
– Over a Barrel
– The Last Roundup
As it occurred to me one night, outside the first two pilot episodes, the rest of these episodes contain the train (Over a Barrel the exception, has the train, but the cool one pulled by ponies). Thus its name.
The DVD has added bonuses for its target demographic, though I foresee people coloring the sheets..
– Theme Song Singalong
– Meet the Ponies
– Printable Coloring Pages
And as always I know these are people who are disappointed in the fact its not a “Season 1 Boxset” or something other than basically a bare bones DVD. I’ve talked about it here before, Hasbro contracted Shout! to produce these DVDs. Shout!’s job is to sell them to the retailers, who in turn sell to us. We know Hasbro has only begun to acknowledge the fanbase directly, while the sub-contacted companies have been well aware of us (The Hub, Shout! and of course Studio B). But in the end its the retailers (Target, Wal-Mart) who dictate what they want in these DVDs. Retailers are unaware of this community, thus they want a cheap product they can sell to parents for their kids.
The Friendship Express is currently available for pre-ordering at Amazon and Shout! Factory‘s own store. The DVD itself will be available in stores on February 28th, not sure what stores exactly, I assume anyone who is carrying MLP product (seems to be namely Target & Wal-Mart).
On the flip side we will be bringing information about other MLP DVDs release, as there is one gearing up for European countries. At the moment I know Germany is about to get their own DVD, and we’ll bring you details about their releases for you non-us people who can’t get their hands on the iTunes or Shout! DVDs.