Lady Lovely Locks

Lady Lovely Locks and the Pixietails is a character property created by American Greetings Corporation (creators of Strawberry Shortcake, Care Bears, and Popples among others) in the mid-1980s. The characters were licensed for a toyline by Mattel, and for a syndicated animated television series by DiC in 1987. However, only 20 episodes were produced in all.^[1]

Toy line

The Lady Lovely Locks toyline was created by Mattel and produced from 1987 to 1989. The toyline consists of character dolls that are approximately 8.5 inches tall, with certain dolls having long, colorful locks. Most dolls came with three to four Pixietails (small plastic squirrel-like animals with long silky tails). The Pixietails could be worn in the hair of either Lady Lovely Locks or the child. Additional items in the toyline were other pets and setting playsets.

Animated series

The premise of the series is that Lady Lovely Locks is the princess of the Kingdom of Lovelylocks. She and her friends are aided by the Pixietails in keeping the kingdom safe from its enemies. Among the hero characters of the show are Lady Lovely Locks, Maiden Fair Hair, Maiden Curly Crown, the Pixietails, Prince Strong Heart, Shining Glory, Silky Pup (a puppy), and Silky Mane (a pony). The main villains are Duchess Ravenwaves, Hairball and Comb Gnomes, the latter of whom tend to speak in rhyme. The series was produced by the French and Japanese animators of Rainbow Brite and Jem, among other cartoons of the '80s.

Hi-Tops released five Lady Lovely Locks videos in the '80s. More recently, the videos re-appeared on the market. They resurfaced as part of the DVD set "Girls Rule Vol. 1" which included the following cartoon series: Jem, Rainbow Brite and Lady Lovely Locks. Several of the episodes are also available on a DVD in the "Biggest DVD Ever" series for Lady Lovely Locks. Two episodes have never been collected except on the Australian VHS edition.

The series episodes are as follows:

1. "To Save My Kingdom"
2. "Cruel Pretender"
3. "Vanished"
4. "The Wishing Bone"
5. "The Discovery"
6. "The Lake of Reflections"
7. "The Menace of Mirror Lake"
8. "Blue Moon"
9. "The Bundle"
10. "In the Kingdom of Ice"
11. "The Power and the Glory"
12. "Prince's Broken Heart"
13. "The Noble Deed"
14. "The Doubt"
15. "The Dragon Tree"
16. "The Capture"
17. "The Keeper"
18. "The Rally"
19. "Fire in the Sky"
20. "To Take a Castle"

Characters

Protagonists

• Lady LovelyLocks - the main protagonist. She wears a pink dress and has blonde hair with streaks symbolizing her royalty in three colors: soft pink (dawn), gold (sun) and lavender (twilight). She is the princess of Kingdom LovelyLocks, as well as its main source of power and life. She is a very loyal, brave, kind, selfless, polite, resourceful, optimistic, dependable and friendly individual who always treasures her home.
• Maiden FairHair - a maiden and best friend of Lady Lovely Locks who wears a blue dress and has her brunette hair done in waves. A natural beauty, party-planner, daydreamer and painter, she is very serene, cool-headed, and intelligent, but would sometimes lose track of something important and/or, to the extent, her sense of direction.
• Maiden CurlyCrown - another maiden and friend of Lady Lovely Locks who wears a yellow dress and has her orange hair done in curls. A funny and imaginative girl with a big heart, she loves making up stories, styling her hair, and collecting bugs, but is somewhat impulsive and, despite being quite smart, would sometimes get herself into trouble.
• The Pixietails - tiny, magical creatures with bodies resembling small animals and long, flowy tails with the power of flight. They are the delightful helpers and partners of Lady and her friends who often speak with an "-ix" suffix. They also possess the power of creating magical shields. Each type has an association with the corresponding person; for instance, Lady's were bunny-like (and the most prominent in the series), FairHair's were chipmunk/squirrel-like (and the most patient), and CurlyCrown's were bird-like (and the fastest).
• SilkyMane - Lady's kind-hearted, trusty royal horse who always understands her thoughts and feelings.
• SilkyPup - Lady's happy-go-lucky, yet trouble-prone pet puppy who has a secret crush on the Prince.
• Shining Glory - a blind, yet very wise and powerful sorcerer and wizard, and the beloved mentor to Lady and her friends. He often aids Lady with his magic. It is also said that he has adopted the Prince after he was cursed.
• Prince StrongHeart - originally a human, but was turned into a dog as a result of a dreadful curse. He often visits the castle gardens after since he was adopted by Shining Glory. In times, the opportunity for him to turn into human again comes; however, he rather puts this aside into helping his companions, such as coming to Lady's rescue when she is in danger. He was not much likely seen in his previous appearance.

Antagonists

• Duchess RavenWaves - the main antagonist. She wears a purple dress and, like Maiden FairHair, her black hair done in waves. She is the mean, jealous, cruel, stubborn, selfish, domineering, cold, careless and conniving ruler of Tangleland, as well as the main archenemy of Lady LovelyLocks. Duchess always plots evil schemes to take over the kingdom of LovelyLocks for herself, and believes that cutting off a piece of her rival's hair would do it.
• HairBall - a former apprentice of Shining Glory who is now in employ of RavenWaves. Deemed untrustworthy by good people, he specializes in magic and is very practical when it comes to making and causing trouble. He also acts miserable when he feels defeated; however, this makes him quite sympathetic to his peers.
• Comb Gnomes - creatures with big ears and wild-looking hair and fur and henchmen of Duchess RavenWaves and accomplices to HairBall. They are very mischievous and mean-spirited, yet lazy and irresponsible during a plan and become upset when their part of a planned scheme fails. They are also archenemies to the Pixietails, as they all have magical powers, of which theirs is a lightning attack.

Books

A number of tie-in books were released alongside the toyline and animated series. Among these books are "An Enchanting Fairy-Tale Adventure", "For the Love of Lovely Locks", "Lady Lovely Locks Original Story" (1987), "Silkypup Saves the Day", "Silkypup's Butterfly Adventure" (1987) and "The Golden Ball".

Pop culture

In the eighth season episode of the series That '70s Show, "Killer Queen", the character Randy says: "Donna, Hyde's already given me a nickname. It's Mrs. Lady Lovely Locks." This is an anachronism, as the Lady Lovely Locks line of products were not produced until after the mid-1980s.

German audio tapes

In Germany, ten audio tapes were produced by label Europa, which extended on and continued the story lines that were never resolved by the short running TV-show. Not only did the tapes dive into Lady's childhood, they also resolved Prince StrongHeart's curse by turning him human, featured the couple's wedding, the birth of their daughter, as well as the infant's kidnapping by Duchess RavenWaves and her glorious rescue. While each character had her or his own voice actor, the series was narrated by Hans Paetsch. The voice actors differed from those used in the animated series.

Releases

In Germany the first 3 episodes (6 counting the way Germans numbered them) were released on 3 VHS tapes, containing just the plain episodes dubbed in German with the intro and outro scenes as well as a TV commercial for the Lady Lovely Locks toy series.

On 13 November 2015 the entire series has been released on DVD in Germany containing both, German and English audio (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo) under the name "Lady Lockenlicht" which translates into "Lady Locks Light". It uses the broadcast TV material as seen on German television, which is 1:1 identical to the English video material except that it is converted to PAL and therefore slightly faster than the original NTSC format (PAL-SpeedUp).

References

External links

• Lady Lovelylocks and the Pixietails at the Internet Movie Database
• Lady Lovely Locks and The Pixietails - Unofficial Website
• List of Pixietails