The year 2013 was quite rocky for me. Without diving too deep into my personal affairs, I'll just say that the year marked the beginning of my transition into adulthood. Why transition? Well, in my opinion, maturing is a rather long, complicated process, especially if you come from a rather unfortunate background. It may take years to heal and grow, and on top of that, you also have to learn how to navigate through this world. Taking care of bills, cooking healthy and nutritious food, cleaning, all this mundane stuff can be quite confusing and exhausting. As I'm writing this text in 2023, ten years have passed after a small series of events that pushed me towards current path. What does this all have to do with Pinkie Cooper you may ask?

In October 2013 I came home after a series of international flights back and forth to solve some bureaucratic issues that I was, as you might have already guessed, completely clueless about and kept failing at. It was an exhausting year, but at the end, when the matters have been taken care of, I could have rested for a while. Sometimes my resting and having fun consists of window shopping; I don't know why, but even when I have money to spare, I just enjoy expoloring stores without buying anything. Back then I didn't have much money though. I don't remember when or where exactly, but at some point I noticed that toy sections and toy stores have some really outstanding dolls. My attention was immediately drawn to them the moment I noticed their animal features; I always loved anthropomorphic characters since I can remember myself, and I would have killed for a doll like this if I were a kid.

Pinkie Cooper dolls were everywhere, and I mean everywhere. I think at some point I also spotted a fakie. Whenever I look at these dolls, I think of fall 2013. Of weather, of my own headspace at the moment (though, vaguely), of events that occured that year. I really wanted to get one, but didn't have money for them. Then they just kind of dropped out of my mind completely. That is, until recent few years. I randomly stumbled across Pinky and Pepper Forever*, a comic by Eddy Atoms featuring two characters heavily based on their toy counterparts, and initially didn't even recognize them. Having some sense of deja vu, I felt like I'm supposed to know who these characters are, and it finally clicked when I reached the panel with Pinky's Final Piece, depicting the customized version of the doll. I don't know why, but I was pleasatly surprised, even though like I said, I never had a chance to get any of the dolls during their official run. I'm not even interested in dolls in general that much, but for some reason these puppies stole my heart back then, ten years ago. Maybe I just projected importance of my real life changes onto these dolls, maybe I'm just a bit nostalgic about that time of my life, despite how hard and confusing it was, or maybe their design seemed too special and unique to me. I don't know.

*you can read the comic for free on Silver Sprocket website. Content warnings are listed in the beginning of the first part. Part 1, Part 2

This summer I finally decided to get some of the dolls. Went on a small hunt online and managed to get three Pinkies and three Peppers for pretty much dirt cheap. Didn't manage to get my hands on Ginger though, which is kind of disappointing. I also decided to work on this page, as a way of diving into this small obscure interest of mine, and also to practice coding web pages. If you see this page and it looks ugly, that's probably due to me not having any clue about what the hell I'm doing. Or, maybe, I made something look ugly or outdated on purpose.

As I was doing my research on Pinkie Cooper and the Jet Set Pets toy line, I kept having all sorts of thoughts and feelings, some of them aren't really about dolls themselves. Rather about passage of time. Things changing. Us changing. Lost media. That kind of stuff, you know. I mentioned this somewhere below as I was writing the part about web episodes that were created to promote toys, but Pinkie Cooper media franchise has slowly started to step into the realm of lost media. I can't find all episodes in 1080p, even though at some point they existed. Flash games are unplayable and I couldn't find them anyway as well. Toy line itself didn't last long and has been quickly forgotten about.

Now, in retrospect, I believe that dolls were doomed from the start. There is essentially nothing special about them other than them being, well, dogs. Sure, cute and eye-catching ones, but that's about it. Okay, maybe those mix-and-match hair/ears is a pretty interesting gimmick. Other than that, there's nothing special about the franchise as a whole: outfits are kind of lame with the exception of Travel Collection; a very unusual body type which makes picking new clothes and shoes much harder than for generic Barbie-like dolls (I assume, at least, judging by experiece of my own childhood, there was never a shortage of stuff you can get for a Barbie/Barbie-type doll); the cartoon made to promote toys was really generic and never aired anywhere outside of official YT channel and web site; children in early 2010s were less interested in toys, so old marketing strategies couldn't have worked out; a lot of people probably thought it's weird for dogs to have pet dogs, and not going to lie, I don't really get what they were going for here either. Was that an attempt at introducing pet collecting aspect into the franchise? From what I know, Enchantimals managed to make this work out years later, but, eh... I guess the market was either not ready for it in 2013, or the execution was not performed properly, or... these Jet Set Pets are, essentially, boring. Some sellers included these puppies in packages when I was buying dolls and there's barely any appeal to them.

Funnily enough, initial inspiration for this page came from me walking around stores and realizing that I don't see much G4 My Little Pony toys and merch here anymore. I have figurines that I bought 12 or 13 years ago, and it's strange to think how they're considered old and somewhat rare nowadays. It made me think how things change, how, no matter how big something is, it still will end one day and everything that goes with it will fade into obscurity, get lost, get forgotten, until eventually there would be no trace of it on this planet. But anyway, on a bit smaller scheme of things, MLP is still essentially a major part of toy-based culture. Both old generations and G4 are cult classics that left a massive imprint on thousands, probably millions of people since '80s. Pinkie Cooper, on the other hand, was so fleeting, so... forgettable. And yeah, I'm aware that it's still a brand to sell pieces of plastic, but reading the old dead twitter page was kind of haunting, heartbreaking and depressing. No engagement. Roughly 300 followers. There isn't even any announcement about the dolls getting discontinued in spring 2014, even though there are records of people getting the announcement via email. Their official instagram account has almost no content, except for some low effort posts and promos for unreleased toys.

Hope you enjoyed this personal and a little bit existential entry of mine. Scrolling below, you will find assorted official content, — mixed with some thoughts of mine here and there, — that I decided to archive on this humble Pinkie Cooper appreaciation page of mine.

Pinkie Cooper and the Jet Set Pets was a fashion doll line designed by Carter Bryant (known for creating and designing Bratz; another fashion doll line that is still popular, remembered and cherished among thousands, if not millions of people all around the globe long after its debut in 2001) and his sister Anjanette Abell. According to Bryant, he aimed at creating a doll that was sweet, cute, stylish, more sophisticated, glamorous and not as edgy, compared to Bratz. He took inspiration from Anjanette's pet dog, Cocker Spaniel of the same name as the main protagonist of the series, Pinkie Cooper. However, a lot of users online seem to note more visual similarities (the fur pattern especially) with another breed of dog, English Toy/King Charles Spaniel. Ideas and work for the doll initially began in 2009, and in February 2013 the line made its debut at a toy fair. Later that year in July the Runway Collection series hit the market.

Dolls were developed and released by The Bridge Direct, a company that has merged with Tech 4 Kids into a new company called Basic Fun! in 2017. Unfortunately, there is no mention of Pinkie Cooper dolls anywhere on Basic Fun! website, and the old official The Bridge Direct website is now defunct. Which is kind of a bummer, if you check archived copies you'll get a massive blast from the past. The page reeks of late 2000s web design and I remember visiting it while it was still up and running. Interesting thing to note, mentions of Pinkie Cooper have disappeared from the website as early as of summer 2014, just a single year after the series release to the consumer market. Few months prior to that, in March 2014 The Bridge Direct announced that they discontinued Pinkie Cooper dolls. (Source 1, Source 2) Web Archive copy from May 30th still features ads for the toy line with the link to the official Pinkie Cooper website, while the copy made on August 11th doesn't have any mentions of neither toys nor the website whatsoever despite pinkiecooper.com still existing for four more years until some point around spring 2018. I'm not sure how corporate business operates, maybe it is common for brands to start wiping out mentions of their products shortly after deciding they're not going to make them anymore, however, I do find it rather desolating. Okay, maybe desolating is a strong word to describe some obscure toys not being mentioned by a company that made them, but you get the general idea. It is weird, if you also consider the fact that there was barely to no official announcement about discontinuation.

In June 2013, Nelvana Enterprises, Inc., a Canadian animation studio (responsible for Rock and Rule; an adult animation cult classic that I urge everyone to watch, especially if you're a fan of late 70s/early 80s music) aquired a license for creating and animating short web episodes that used to be hosted on the now deleted official Pinkie Cooper YouTube channel and featured on the official Pinkie Cooper website which, as mentioned earlier, has also been shut down.

Webisodes were even more short lived than the toy line itself it seems. There's only seven episodes, each is roughly 3 minutes long. Episodes used to exist in 1080p quality on the official YT channel but I couldn't find any trace of them online, except for the first episode being available here and there. I did manage to find all of them in 720p though, downloaded so I can archive them myself, feel free to check my reupload playlist below!

══✿══╡°˖✧✿✧˖°╞══✿══ YOUTUBE PLAYLIST══✿══╡°˖✧✿✧˖°╞══✿══

Regardless of these web series fading into obscurity and bordering on being lost media at this point (at the very least, this is true for episodes in 1080p), it's hard to say that anything of true value has been lost. There is nothing special about these episodes other than having appealing character designs. The voice acting, the main theme song, the scripting and plot lines, the setting, it's all you can expect from a generic cartoon made to promote toys for girls age 4 and above.

Webisode release dates, for the record:

1. A Three Piece Outfit, July 15, 2013
2. Party Troopers, August 30, 2013
3. A Dress to Impress, September 6, 2013
4. Fortunately Unfortunate, September 20, 2013
5. Diamond in the Ruff, October 18, 2013
6. Oh, Rio-ly, November 18, 2013
7. Runaway Runway, December 6, 2013

After digging online for a while I managed to find a blog entry from K Design Studio by Kristine Verbeek, a graphic designer and illustrator. The post features assorted merchandise that she designed for Pinkie Cooper franchise, but sadly, presumably none of them have ever seen the light of the day, unless there were prototypes of these products that were never made public.