[6] Rainbow Brite made her animated debut in the syndicated prime-time television special, "Peril in the Pits," which was first aired on June 27, 1984.

[8] The specials became part of DIC's weekly syndicated Kideo TV block of programming starting in April 1986, which were followed up with eight more episodes for a total of thirteen, which is one season in American television,[9] and were rerun until the end of March 1987, after which the show was replaced on the Kideo TV schedule by Lady Lovely Locks & the Pixietails.

In Gen 1 continuity, and most of the franchise's backstory, a young girl named Wisp is brought to a gray, desolate land with the mission to bring color to this fictional world by locating the Sphere of Light.

Rainbow Brite and the Color Kids' mission is often complicated by the likes of Murky Dismal, his sidekick Lurky, and other villains.

In the movie, Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer, the setting expands to include the diamond planet, Spectra.

Gen 2 continuity took a radical departure from any other generation's story, focusing as much on ethnic diversity as the colors of the rainbow.

Despite distribution and marketing in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia, the toy line never reached the success of its predecessor and ended after little more than a year.

This time, Rainbow Brite and her friends' mission was to bring hope and happiness to the far corners of the universe, making hearts lighter and worlds a little more colorful along the way.

Gen 4B consisted solely of web content from Hallmark and only resulted in a minuscule amount of give-away merchandise.

The line began with a limited production of Hallmark's Itty Bittys plush miniatures before expanding to larger Twink & Starlite plushes, a 16" Rainbow Brite doll, a series of hard cover story books, women's clothing, and an expansion of the Itty Bittys line.

For the first Rainbow Brite generation (1984–1987), Mattel produced the dolls and many of the toys along with a large line of school supplies only sold in Italy.

This included many story and activity books published by Western Publishing (Little Golden Books), a number of puzzles, a line of costume jewellery, banks and suitcases by Kat's Meow, clothes, toys, games, doll and child furniture, radios, child cosmetics, linen, towels, personal care items, lamps, figurines, VHS videocassettes, audio cassettes, vinyl records, bicycles, bedding, curtains and other merchandise sold in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

A number of Gen 1B (the second release of the first generation) dolls made for the American and Mexican markets ended up being sold in Germany due to strong demand there.

These were not exported anywhere else in the world and came in their own unique white packaging with all writing except the Rainbow Brite logo in Brazilian Portuguese.

Due to the worldwide popularity of Rainbow Brite soon after she was launched, a number of other companies unrelated to Mattel produced many unlicensed lookalike (fake or bootleg) items that were sold in North America and Europe.

The Tickled Pink and Rainbow Brite Dress Up dolls were mass-produced worldwide, but are somewhat difficult to find these days compared to the rest of the Gen 1 line.

Child actors Tracey Gold, Kellie Martin and Heather O'Rourke, famous for their roles in 1980s television and film, also appeared.

The Canadian importer was Irvine, a company which is currently still in business, and their product packaging was printed in both French and English texts.

There were no other toys or accessories for the second generation dolls other than additional pots of Color-Glo Paint, which were sold in the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia.

Another 15" Rainbow Brite doll with a Color Glo Bear and paint set was prototyped, as was a black version, which was produced in very small numbers.

Hot Topic was the lead merchandiser with a unique Rainbow Brite doll not manufactured by Toy Play and many items of women's clothing, accessories and stationery.

Characters were produced in different sizes, from three to twenty-eight inches tall across the line which went from PVC plastic figurines to plush dolls.

Toy Play indicated that the missing color would be added for future production runs, but this never happened because the line died out before a corrected version appeared.

The playset's box showed pictures of forthcoming product (a Rainbow Brite and Friends Sprites' village playset, an in-scale Starlite with brushable mane, as well as figurine 2-packs to include Rainbow Brite and Twink, Red Butler and Romeo, Patty O'Green and Lucky, Canary Yellow and Spark, and Murky Dismal and Lurky) though these were never produced.

The fourth Rainbow Brite generation (2009–2010) was the 25th anniversary release and was accompanied by a series of web-episodes produced by Animax Entertainment that were available to stream on www.RainbowBrite.com., which no longer exists.

These included Twinkle (a renamed Twink) for Rainbow Brite, Nite Sprite for Moonglow and Twilite for Tickled Pink.

[citation needed] In 2016 Hallmark released another Itty Bitty boxed set featuring Patty O'Green, Buddy Blue, Lucky & Champ.

A limited edition Shy Violet Itty Bitty was released as a Hallmark online exclusive that Summer.

A Starlite Itty Bitty was released in November, as well as 11" Sunriser and Skydancer plushes, and for the first time ever a 16" Stormy doll.

Packaging for the single items consists only of attached tags with the product name, Hallmark logo, copyright notice and barcode, while the boxed sets feature Rainbow Land displayable backgrounds.