Description

Rainbow Brite is a media franchise by Hallmark Cards, introduced in 1984. The animated Rainbow Brite television series first aired in 1984, the same year Hallmark licensed Rainbow Brite to Mattel for a range of dolls and other merchandise. A theatrical feature-length film, Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer, was released by Warner Bros. in 1985. The franchise was rebooted in 2014 with a three part mini-series released on Hallmark’s online streaming video service, Feeln. A line of new merchandise by Hallmark online and in its shops debuted in 2015.

Premise

In Gen 1 continuity, and most of the franchise’s backstory, a young girl named Wisp is brought to a grey, desolate land with the mission to bring colour to this fictional world by locating the Sphere of Light. Along the way, she befriends a furry creature (called a sprite) named Twink and a magnificent horse named Starlite and finds a mysterious baby who turns out to be the key to her mission. With the help of her new friends, Wisp locates the legendary Colour Belt and rescues the seven Colour Kids, who had been trapped by the King of Shadows. Using the Colour Belt, Wisp and the Sphere of Light defeat the King of Shadows, liberate the sprites, and bring colour and beauty to the land, henceforth called Rainbow Land. Wisp is renamed Rainbow Brite in honour of her new role as leader of the Colour Kids, who are together in charge of all the colours in the universe.

The Colour Kids spread colour across the universe from the Colour Console inside the Colour Castle. Each Colour Kid is in charge of their respective colour, has a personal sprite and manages a number of like-coloured sprites that mine Colour Crystals from the nearby Colour Caves. These crystals are processed into Star Sprinkles which are the essential components to brightening and colouring any object or place. Rainbow Brite and the Colour Kids’ mission is often complicated by the likes of Murky Dismal, his sidekick Lurky, and other villains. Brian, a boy from Earth, sometimes assisted Rainbow Brite in her adventures.

In the movie, Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer, the setting expands to include the diamond planet, Spectra. All the light in the universe must pass through Spectra before coming to Earth. However, Earth soon falls into a wintry darkness when the diamond-obsessed Dark Princess decides to steal Spectra for her own. Rainbow Brite and her horse, Starlite, must team with Spectra’s boy warrior, Krys, and his robotic horse, On-X, to defeat the powers of darkness and save Spectra, Earth, and the universe.

First Generation: Mattel

For the first Rainbow Brite generation (1984–1987), Mattel produced the dolls and many of the toys along with a large line of school supplies only sold in Italy. Other Rainbow Brite licensed merchandise was produced by various companies. This included many story and activity books by Western Publishing (Little Golden Books), a number of puzzles, a line of costume jewellery, banks and suitcases by Kat’s Meow, clothes, toys, games, doll and child furniture, radios, child cosmetics, linen, towels, personal care items, lamps, figurines, VHS videocassettes, audio cassettes, records, bicycles, bedding, curtains and much more sold in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

The Mattel line of toys and dolls was quite large. There were three large dolls, five medium dolls (Emotions) 12 small dolls, nine animals, 50 sprites (including those that came with the small dolls), four large boxed toys, ten boxed wall-hangings and doll carriers, and 27 small carded toys for a total of 111 different items and this does not include generational (some dolls were sold in two different boxes over time in some markets) and international packaging variations. These toys were expensive for their time and Mattel responded by producing a lower priced line of toys sold loose with tags called the ‘Emotions’ line. The Emotions line included five dolls including a 15″ Buddy Blue doll that was sold only in Canada. The extra sprite in the line happened to be Champ. Also included were five Sprites, Starlite the horse and Lurky. Oddly enough, the Emotions dolls were larger than the small dolls in the regular line, but the Emotions horse was smaller than the normal version. As such the Emotions dolls were neither in scale with the Emotions horse or the regular Mattel version. And of course the Emotions dolls were too big to sit on the Emotions horse or the normal one.

Mattel’s Dress Up line of dolls and horses is the most sought after part of the entire Mattel line, particularly Moonglow who was only sold in Germany. Although Stormy’s doll was shown in the Mattel catalogue and on the backs of the Dress Up doll boxes, she was never produced for retail even though the character did appear in some cartoon episodes and several German comic books. There was also a line of catalogued clothing for the Dress Up dolls, but like Stormy, it was never produced. The two horses, Starlight and Sunriser, were made from hard plastic rather than being stuffed. They were in fact from Mattel’s line of ‘Barbie’ merchandise. The Dress Up line was only made for about one year. That makes the two horses and Moonglow very difficult to find today, especially MIB. The Tickled Pink and Rainbow Brite Dress Up dolls are somewhat difficult to find these days compared to the rest of the Gen 1 line.