Tuesday, November 11

Peppermint Rose

I loved shows designed for girls in the 80's like Rainbow Brite, Lady Lovelylocks, Strawberry Shortcake,Care Bears, Popples, She-Ra, and Jem; Peppermint Rose came out in 1992 by Mattel, a line of dolls and stuffed animals with perfume scents of a mix of flowers and candies. Since it was created by "Those Characters from Cleveland" (who also created Strawberry Shortcake, Lady Lovelylocks, Care Bears and Popples), American Greetings made the cards and wrapping paper. TCfC was the toy design division of American Greetings.

Anyhoo, they made one animated special, probably as a pilot but it was never specified. It was syndicated and when it was going to air, one of the toy commercials had a voice-over for it, announcing to 'check your local listings.' So I did and the special aired on a Saturday morning in my area (Miami, FL) at 7 on what was WDZL 39, which is now SFL. I recorded it but with time the tape became unplayable and I no longer have it. I am kicking myself as much as I did with the fact that I gave away my Care Bears and could have sold them to eBay. Anyhoo, the special was later sold on VHS.

The special was about a typically spoiled brat teenage girl Rose, who was home alone and taken by a elephant-dragon, who I think her name was Petalpuff, but I am not sure. She was taken to another dimension to a dark land that needed their help. She was greeted by Diminutive, a little wizard. Actually, the story was told as a flashback, the show started with the girls in their 'hero' outfits and Diminutive said Rose wasn't always a fair and chaste girl. Anyhoo, the land was savaged by flower-eating bugs, three brothers and their mother. Rose traveled to Bagoona, which smelled horrible. On her way, she had to outsmart a roach-man with a riddle. When they arrived to the castle, Petalpuff went back to Earth to find her friends Lily, Daisy, and Violet, who supposedly were in a singing group. They all sung to 'tame the beast' and all the bugs became good and everything became bright and beautiful when they brought the peppermint rose patch back to its sacred spot. Diminutive then gave them their outfits and new names or rather, titles.

Merrymint Violet, the only black girl, was in the cartoon and dolls, but not included in the other stuff like stickers, puzzles, cards, wrapping paper, etc. The other outfits were different, but this one was a lot like Peppermint Rose's. I guess this was like their 'AA Barbie.' AA meaning African American. Her other friends were Vanilla Daisy and Lemon Kiss Lily. In the toys she was called Lemon Kiss Lilly and in the cartoon she was called Lemon Drop Lilly. The toyline of course didn't pick up and just became obscure. I know the dolls were still sold until 94 or so.

There were also little rabbit-like friends in plastic figurine and plush figure forms. They had different names, but there only seemed to be three in the cartoon. Also, I got to mention that the animation in the toy commercials were different than the animation in the special. This also occured with Jem, most of the animation in the commercials was the same but sometimes given to another company so it varied.