Moondreamers was a Merchandise-Driven cartoon that aired as part of the anthology series My Little Pony 'n Friends alongside Glo Friends and Potato Head Kids. It ran for 16 episodes with 2 serials.
The Moondreamers are a group of celestial people led by Crystal Starr, the designer of the stars. They operate out of their HQ in Starry Up, a fortress floating out in the emptiness of space and has many, many highways made of Applied Phlebotinum that converge there. Whimzee is another important figure among the Moondreamers, as she uses her imagination to create dreams for Dreamcasting.
The jobs of the other Moondreamers are to help Whimzee create these pleasant dreams and then deliver them to Earth's children. Each of the other Moondreamers also fulfills the role of literally running the known universe manually. The Moondreamers themselves seem to come in two varieties: Christmas Elves and Fully Dressed Cartoon Animals.
The Big Bad of the series is Queen Scowlene, who torments everyone with her nightmare crystals because she herself can't get any sleep. The story begins with two tagalong kids, Blinky and Bitsy, traversing one of the space highways to Starry Up to become Moondreamers. After a bit of trouble getting in, the two accidentally unleash Sealed Evil in a Can Queen Scowlene while tagging along to watch how they make dreams, setting up the premise of the series.
This show contains examples of:
- Alliterative Name: Bucky Buckaroo and one-off character Carter the Cosmic Cartographer from "The Star of Stars". For Added Alliterative Appeal, the latter is described as someone who "makes maps."
- All There in the Manual: According to the Moondreamers Annual, Crystal Starr was the first being to ever dream, which created Dream HQ in Starry Up.
- Applied Phlebotinum: Whatever it is that runs all the Moondreamers' stuff.
- Artifact of Death: Whimzee's Imagination. Whimzee's ability to create dreams is Imagination, which if misused can kill both her and others. This fate is just narrowly avoided several times.
- Bad Butt: Bucky Buckaroo is the closest this series gets, as he's a cowboy and expert star wrangler.
- Batman Can Breathe in Space: Everyone seems to be able to, not just the Moondreamers.
- Berserk Button: Do not question the importance of the Moondreamers in the presence of Sparky Dreamer.
- Big Bad: Queen Scowlene is the main antagonist of the series and causes all of the problems the Moondreamers run into.
- Big Good: Crystal Starr is the leader of the Moondreamers.
- Bioluminescence Is Cool: The Moondreamers glow in the dark and don't seem to need to regularly recharge their batteries.
- Chained Heat: Sparky and Bucky find themselves stuck together with Galactic Glue in "Stuck On Bucky" and have to learn to work together to foil an evil Scowlette invasion while waiting for the glue to wear off.
- Chekhov's Gun: Combined with Chekhov's Lecture and Briar Patching in "Whimzee, Come Home!" In that episode, Whimzee thought she'd lost her imagination, so her mentor sent her into the Cave of Imagination, "the ultimate test". Before she goes in, he tells her to remember that "Nothing is forgotten. Nothing is ever forgotten." Just beyond the cave entrance, she falls down to the cave proper down below, and starts walking backwards upon landing. She realizes everything is backwards in that section until she crosses a line. Later, when she and Celeste are fleeing from the cave's nasty resident queen, she remembers her mentor's words and heads back the way they came, crossing over into the backwards section. She begs the queen not to push them down a bottomless black pit. The queen conjures the pit, but when Whimzee jumps down (while holding Celeste's hand), they go up.
- Christmas Elves: The Moondreamers that are human in appearance pretty much look like children.
- Cool Big Sis: Dream Gazer. She is the eldest and wisest of the Moondreamers and the others often turn to her for wisdom
- Cool Horse: Should a star horse be brought to Monstrous Middle and breath its foul air, it will gradually transform into a giant armor-plated fire-breathing bat-winged Hellish Horse, called a 'Night Mare'.
- The Dragon: Scowlene's daughter, Scowlette, is her main enforcer who'll do anything to make her mom proud.
- Dreams vs. Nightmares: The eponymous Moondreamers are in conflict with the nightmare-spreading Queen Scowlene.
- Fantastic Aesop: Remember kids, if you ever come across a manhole cover in space, leave it be, or else you'll unleash an evil queen that will trap everyone in everlasting nightmares in which their darkest fears come to life.
- For the Evulz: Scowlene's reasoning for wanting to take over and destroy Starry Up? Because it's there. Also it's something to do. The Mind Rape of children at least has jealousy of their sleep as an additional motivation.
- Fully-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Some of the Moondreamers.
- Furry Confusion: Roary and Ursa Major are a pair of talking animals that walk on all fours and don't wear clothes, and then you have the non-human-looking Moondreamers, Galaxia and the Snoozers, which are fully dressed cartoon animals.
- Gone Horribly Right: Scowlette's plans tend to work too well and put her in danger, like being in range of a bomb she set and being chased by Zodies she set free.
- The Heart: Crystal Starr.
- Hover Board: The Hover Bike variety. The Moondreamers and other entities of the cosmos typically get around on the science-y/fantastical highways of space on these.
- The Igor: Igon is a weird three-legged troll creature that's one of Professor Grimace's experiments Gone Horribly Wrong.
- I Just Want to Be Special: Blinky and Bitsy. The whole reason they went to Starry Up was to become Moondreamers, and for this reason.
- Improbably Cool Car: While the other Moondreamers drove around on hover bikes, Bucky Buckaroo had a car that could leave the space highways and explore uncharted territories.
- Informed Ability: Crystal Starr is supposed to be the Moondreamers' leader, yet she is never shown ever actually taking command like one would expect.
- Insufferable Genius: Sparky Dreamer is a know-it-all who takes great pride in her intellect and tends to be very strict about rules and regulations. She's the one who often has to fix other peoples' messes and the one time she disobeyed the rules and let Bitsy and Blinky into Starry Up a Sealed Evil in a Can was unleashed.
- Introdump: In the first episode, when Blinky and Bitsy reach Starry Up, the Moondreamers all sing a song about who they are and how they run the universe.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Sparky Dreamer. She's an Insufferable Genius, cranky, and a very strict rule enforcer. On the flipside, she'll never turn down someone in need of help and her reasoning for wanting everyone to follow the rules is pretty justified, since the Moondreamers run the universe on manual pilot.
- Juvenile All Along: The monster Igon recruits to help him take over Monstrous Middle and Starry Up turns out to be a baby, and his parents get him to leave everyone else alone.
- Mad Scientist: Professor Grimace creates robots, creatures, and other inventions for Scowlene to use in her pursuits.
- Make a Wish: The Moondancers grant wishes made off shooting stars.
- The Mentor: Dream Gazer, the eldest and wisest Moondreamer. Also the Sandman, who taught Whimzee how to create dreams.
- Mr. Fixit: Sparky Dreamer, with a side of into Wrench Wench and Gadgeteer Genius.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: Blinky kicks a manhole cover, which causes it to come loose and free Scowlene, and that's what starts all of the Moondreamers' woes from the first episode of the series on.
- Non-Human Sidekick: Bitsy, Blinky, and Celeste have fantastic animal sidekicks that accompany them everywhere—Roary the lion, Ursa Major the solar bear, and Galaxia the dragon, respectively.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: Scowlene at times. She's even attempted to straight up murder the children, Blinky and Bitsy.
- The One Guy: Bucky Buckaroo. There are actually a few other guys on the show, but most of the time it's just Bucky representing the male gender.
- Only Sane Man: Crystal and Sparky seem to get this role a lot.
- Painting the Frost on Windows: Celeste and Galaxia are responsible for bringing on the night that the rest of the Moondreamers work in.
- Physical God: The Moondreamers are a race of supernatural beings that manually run the universe.
- Schmuck Bait: On one of the Moondreamers' many roads to and from Starry Up, there's a manhole cover that leads to Monstrous Middle that no one's allowed to open. Blinky and Bitsy are immediately drawn to it, and when Blinky gives it a kick, Scowlene and her monsters are unleashed.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Queen Scowlene, sort of. Apparently, a manhole cover keeps her out of Starry Up, yet she is able to go anywhere else in the universe before then.
- Shapeshifter Showdown: A battle akin to the one in Disney's The Sword in the Stone occurs in "Whimzee, Come Home!" between Whimzee and the Queen of Imagination courtesy of magic amulets.
- Spoiled Brat: Scowlette, Scowlene's daughter. Despite this, the former is still fiercely loyal to the latter.
- Sufficiently Advanced Alien: The Moondreamers, again. Compounding their Physical God status, they also have a lot of machinery that allows them to run the universe.
- Tagalong Kid: Blinky and Bitsy.
- Talking Animal: Roary and Ursa Major.
- Theme Naming: Bucky Buckaroo. Go ahead. Guess what his overall appearance, personality, and motif are.
- Villainous Badland, Heroic Arcadia: The Moondreamers live in the celestial realm of Starry Up, giving good dreams to all the sleeping children of the world. But the evil Queen Scowlene and her minions live in the Monstrous Middle, a dark realm between Earth and Starry Up filled with malicious monsters of all sorts, where they plot to keep everyone awake and make them just as miserable as the insomniac Scowlene herself.
- What Does This Button Do?: The tagalong kids ask this about a manhole cover in space, which somehow kept Queen Scowlene and her minions out of Starry Up, the Moondreamers' home. Naturally, Blinky gives it a kick and loosens it enough to open it up.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Queen Scowlene is allergic to animal hair.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Scowlette is all about pleasing mommy, at any cost.
- World of Technicolor Hair: The Moondreamers have pink, red, and just about every other colored hair you can imagine.
- Yandere: Princess Scowlette, who was willing to kill to please her mother.