Littlest Pet Shop (often referred to by the acronym "LPS") is a long-running toy line featuring miniature animals that children can "adopt." The toys were originally introduced in 1992 and produced by Kenner, and consisted of animal figurines with simple built-in gimmicks and accessories to keep them in. Hasbro relaunched the toy line in 2005 with cartoony-eyed and bobble-headed animals, which every refresh of the brand has retained ever since.
Four tie-in cartoons have been made for the toys:
- Littlest Pet Shop (1995)
- Littlest Pet Shop Presents
- Littlest Pet Shop (2012)
- Littlest Pet Shop: A World of Our Own
Several Video Games have also been made of the toyline:
- Littlest Pet Shop: Biggest Adventure (Plug n’ Play)
- Littlest Pet Shop (Nintendo DS and Wii, 2008)
- Littlest Pet Shop VI Ps (PC, 2008)
- Littlest Pet Shop: Friends (Nintendo DS and Wii, 2009)
- Littlest Pet Shop Online (PC, 2009)
- Littlest Pet Shop 3: Biggest Stars (Nintendo DS, 2010)
- Littlest Pet Shop 2023 (Roblox, 2023)
A subset of the fanbase has a sizable presence on YouTube, known as "LPSTube", where they use the toys to make Web Video Series, skits, vlogs, and short films.
This toy line contains examples of:
- Adaptation Dye-Job: The first wave of Blythe dolls have a wide variety of hair colors depending on what toyset they're part of. The tie-in webisodes usually depict Blythe as blonde (with one episode showing her as a redhead), while she's brunette in Littlest Pet Shop (2012).
- Art-Shifted Sequel: While not technically a sequel, the soft-reboot that was G4 (or G3 depending on who you ask) had a radically different look and plastic quality compared to previous generations, with softer plastics and exaggerated, almost Animesque designs. Funnily enough, there was a series of Limited Edition pets in G2 that were designed after mod styles that bear a striking resemblance
to G4 pets. - Ambiguous Gender: The majority of the G1 and G2 pets (2005-2008) LPS are genderless, as the pets lack official descriptions and names, and the majority of designs have eyelashes.
- Animal Gender-Bender: Most of the named peacocks have feminine names (e.g. Aviva, LaDessa, Lora) but have the colorful plumage and large tails of males.
- Animated Adaptation: The toy line has three animated TV shows, with two sharing their names with the franchise as a whole (one made in 1995, one made in 2012) and one having the subtitle A World of Our Own, Additionally, there's a miniseries of webisodes titled Littlest Pet Shop Presents.
- Blind Bag Collectables:
- Beginning with the third generation of pets, various assortments of blind bagged pet toys were introduced for sale. These pets usually have fewer painted-on details than their counterparts that can be seen through the packaging before they're bought.
- Generation 6 has a line of pets in food costumes. Called Hungry Pets, they're sold in blind boxes shaped like cans of pet food.
- Generation 7 introduced a new twist on the formula: pet carrier-shaped blind boxes are the only way to buy single packs of pets... unless you're in a country that forwent the blind box gimmick entirely and just made the pets visible from the get-go.
- Canon Immigrant: Blythe was originally a completely unrelated fashion doll released by Kenner in the early 70s. While she only lasted for a year, she attained a following in Japan and had new dolls produced in the country in the early 2000s by Hasbro partner Takara. Hasbro themselves released collector-oriented Blythes in the United States during this time before introducing a modified version to the LPS line in 2010.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- The original iteration of the toyline was produced by Kenner and had more realistically-proportioned animal figurines. After Hasbro took over production of the toyline, the animal toys became bobbleheads and gained a more cartoony appearance.
- The first generation of Hasbro toys typically stuck to making animals with realistic color schemes and designs, with the exceptions usually being either non-domestic animals or pink poodles. Amazing Technicolor Wildlife would become increasingly common beginning with the second generation.
- Many G1 pets use two different colors for their irises (such as purple/pink and green/brown) instead of different hues of the same color, a practice which became drastically less common in later generations.
- Although the toyline's target audience was always intended to be girls, the marketing, presentation, and design of the toys was more gender-neutral in the earlier years of the franchise and its relaunch. Succeeding generations were more heavily marketed to a female audience, including things such as more prominent pink and purple color schemes, fashion dolls, two-packs consisting of mother and child animals, pets with glitter, and a sub-line themed around fairies.
- Exotic Eye Designs: Several pets in the second generation of Hasbro releases have pupils with varying shapes to indicate personality types. These include but are not limited to diamonds (Fanciest), mud splatters (Messiest), and hearts (Friendliest).
- Firehouse Dalmatian: Dalmation #469 comes with a miniature playset decorated to look like a firehouse.
- Friend to All Living Things: Blythe, both from the pre-show Blythe Loves Littlest Pet Shop sets and the 2012 show. In the former she is a pet-sitter who takes care of just about any animal, even pets considered wild animals, and the latter depicts her as working at Littlest Pet Shop and taking care of the Day Campers.
- Hollywood Chameleons: One of the original pets from the 1990's was a chameleon with the ability to change color via temperature sensitivity.
- Improbably Female Cast: Pets with a feminine appearance far outnumber the masculine ones.
- Later-Installment Weirdness:
- The late 2000s and early 2010s saw Hasbro begin to experiment with more elaborate gimmicks for the pets than magnets in their feet they could use to hold onto things. While starting fairly simple with additions such as glitter and flocking, they soon diversified with battery-operated pets that could walk, pets designed to be colored in with markers, and pet packs that came bundled with a free month-long premium subscription to a LPS MMO.
- Pets released around the same time the 2012 cartoon came out lack bobbleheads entirely and have smaller and thinner limbs than their predecessors. Additionally, the design of their eyes differs drastically from older pets; more of the eye's structure is visible (giving them a rounder appearance), shading in the irises is done via vertical marks instead of two horizontal bands of color, lines around the eyes' edges are bolder, and the centermost eye shine is in cool colors instead of being white.
- The toyline as overseen by Basic Fun returns to the second generation's design principles with one noticeable change: the symbols representing the pets' personalities take the form of body markings instead of Exotic Eye Designs. The few pets to still use symbols in their eyes also have body markings.
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Licensed Game: The series has several made for different consoles such as the Nintendo DS and Wii. - Ridiculously Cute Critter: The whole toyline consists of tiny bobblehead animals with large eyes and cheerful expressions.
- Talking Animal: In most media, the pets have the ability to talk.
- Technicolor Eyes: A lot of early pets in the Hasbro iteration of the toyline have two noticeably different iris colors, with a common combination being purple and pink (e.g. #84, Huskies #37-39).
- Tuft of Head Fur: A lot of pets, including longhair cats, bees, "wolf-cats"/Maine Coons, foxes, and the like, incorporate tufts of hair on their heads.
- Virtual Pet: In 2007, Hasbro released a line of handheld Littlest Pet Shop digital pets similar to the Tamagotchi toys.
- Visual Pun: The Dandelion Fairy from the Fairies sub-line resembles a lion.
- Worm in an Apple: There's a 2-pack in the G3 collection that contains an inchworm (#1443) and a pigeon (#1442). Included in the 2-pack is a hollow apple for the inchworm to hang out in.
