Have you ever sniffed a pony’s butt?

In 1982, kids throughout the country had their noses pressed up against the vinyl tush of My Little Pony.

The sweetly scented buttocks of My Little Pony gave off the fragrances of peaches and berries. It was the pony with hair that draped down in thick, curled locks. Girls took out their tiny combs and placed their pony on their lap and combed until the cows came home. Some girls just combed it while others braided the soft hair and some eccentrics played “see what happens” and used a curling iron.

The joys and success of the toy spawned marketing campaigns, a daytime cartoon and a movie. Was there anything these ponies couldn’t do?

Romper Room was the first to come out with the toy. They called it My Pretty Pony. Under their chins was a trigger, and when it was pulled, the ponies twitched their ears, winked their eyes and swished their tails. It was a hard, plastic pony and was made more for show than play.

Hasbro took over the stable in 1982 and changed the design, cutting the cost per pony in half while maintaining the concept.

These ponies needed to look their best and as their keepers, you needed to brush constantly. Your mother may have helped collect the Pony Points that came with each pony. Collecting enough points let you buy ponies that only fan club members could purchase. Or your brother would break in and kick over the poor helpless ponies and toss them around the room. Girls had to run and hide the scissors before My Little Pony turned butch.

In retrospect, the My Little Pony design was similar for most ponies. If you owned a regular, a scented and a unicorn, you had all of them. But kids had to have the green pony with the blue hair and the blueberry tattoo on its behind. And the blueberry smelled more like a scratch-and-sniff pepper sticker.

Subsequent ponies sat, walked, trotted and reared, but of course, nearly every one of them had that silky, brushable, braidable hair.

There were Ponies with cute names like Firefly, Moondancer, Bow Tie, Colorswirl and Sundazzle.

Supply didn’t meet demand and soon, key chains and lunch boxes arrived. The next hoof that dropped on the country was a film hoof. “My Little Pony – The Movie” had hundreds of ponies primping, prancing and posing. The 1986 film helped draw the final curtain to the My Little Pony experience.

It was a good ride, but in 1991 Hasbro released a 10th anniversary edition of the ponies and stopped production. But Hasbro couldn’t walk away while that Pony had the soft glimmer in her eye. So in 1997, it held another re-release party, nothing too big, with mainly friends and family.

Today, you can find My Little Pony on sale at Ebay.com for about $1.50 a piece. That could be cheaper than what they went for 20 years ago. Yes, all good things must come to an end, but the braided hair and aromatic behinds of My Little Pony will live on.