‘My Little Pony’ is not just for girls
Now I know what you’re all thinking. Why the hell does a 20-year-old man enjoy a little girl’s show about ponies?
Well, I can tell you it isn’t out of nostalgia. I never watched the show growing up.
I’m not usually a fan of shows marketed as girly, either. My favorite show of all time is “Babylon 5,” an adult science-fiction series.
So why the hell did I marathon the entire first season in two weeks and eagerly wait for each episode of season two to air on Saturday mornings?
To put it simply, it’s not what you expect.
This is not the “My Little Pony” anyone grew up with. The ponies in this new series (titled “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic”) don’t just sit around and have tea parties while talking about boys (Not that they always did in the old series.)
As I discovered, the show is less about what the individual plots of each episode were (although they are excellent) and more about the characters. The main ponies include a wide range of diverse personalities, and as the show goes on, we grow to know them more and more.
For example, the character Pinkie Pie is shown to love throwing parties and generally making everyone happy. That doesn’t sound like anything special, but in one episode, she thinks all of her friends hate her and she consequently has a mental breakdown.
While it is mainly played for laughs, it says a lot about her character, and that attention to detail is what I love so much about the series.
The head developer of the series, Lauren Faust, who has worked on such shows as “The Powerpuff Girls” and “Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends,” said, “cartoons for girls don’t have to be a puddle of smooshy, cutesy-wootsy, goody-two-shoeness.”
She has certainly shown all that and more, considering the show has reached a broader audience than ever expected. While originally intended for a younger female demographic, the show soon exploded in popularity with older male fans, who have adopted the name “bronies.”
What appeals to each fan varies dramatically, but for me, it all comes down to the fact that I emotionally connected with the show.
In the 24th episode of the series, Spike, a dragon, is best friends with a female pony named Twilight Sparkle. Twilight makes a new friend (who happens to be an owl), and Spike quickly feels as though he’s being replaced.
Once again, it’s played for mostly comedy, but the range of emotions Spike shows in this episode remind me of when I was in a similar situation with my own friend. It got to the point where I actually got a little misty eyed.
Yes, a grown man got emotional because of an episode of “My Little Pony.”
But that just shows how, well, magical the show is. If this article has piqued your interest, give it a shot.
If anything, go on YouTube and see what the Internet has done to it. Nothing beats seeing clips from this show set to Wu-Tang Clan songs.
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The YouTube videos are definitely a good way to start. It was the especially brilliant “Ponycraft II” video (the audio of the Starcaft II trailer, with video material from the series) that got me hooked.
I find that the show, on top of being entertaining, has attracted such a wide range of artists that keep me astounded. There’s music, pictures, comics, and fan fictions with word counts rivaling Lord of the Rings. It really is an amazing culture.
My friend was into it and I didn’t mind it but then I realized it was spreading everywhere. Once memebase made a section just for bronies that was the last straw, so I downloaded the entire first season and watched the whole thing. Now I am checking Equestria Daily and my DiviantArt messages frequently for videos, fanfic and art… I even started to get into the more…suggestive art and fanfics
Now eagerly waiting for season 2 episode 3 like the rest of us
Rainbow Dash is the best pony
*cue the who is the best pony debate*
He told it like it is, nice job Shamus. The show is deffinatly not for little girls like its previous generations. What makes the show so damn good is the fact they scrapped the design of the previous generations, and gave them a full reboot. They look more like characters then mutant deformed ponies doing tea parties. The ones in the previous generations were a tad bit closer to anatomy. But who wants anatomical correctness in a cartoon? Its a CARTOON, its supposed to be an entire change from what the real world is. Lauren Faust and her team did an amazing job in redesigning the show, I never would have figured that the material I would use to cheer myself up out of a long day would be a show about adorable Ponies who share adventures based on how good it is to have someone to watch your back. “Friends.” Friendship is Magic, and I’m a brony.
I was amazingly impressed by the character driven stories as well, but what also amuses me to no end, are the HOARDS of pop culture references and themes in the show. Some are small, like a shout out to a Benny Hill style chase scene, complete with parody music, and a Scooby Doo style door scene. There was the episode Fall Weather Friends, where during a racing competition, the local bookworm and nerd extraordinaire, Twilight Sparkle, chooses to enter the race. Her athletic friends laugh at the idea of her entering, suggesting that she has read “The Egghead’s Guide to Running”. Twilight’s racing number… 42. Any true “nerd” will know that 42 is the answer to life, the universe and everything, according to “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. More small shout outs exist for everything from Gremlins, Looney Tunes, to Harry Potter, to Lord of the Rings, to Apocalypse Now. The list is massive. A visit to tvtropes.com reveals the impressive hold on all things modern culture that this show has mastered and assimilated.
Both Season 1 and 2 feature epic 2 part openers dealing with villains. Season 2′s villain was a trickster spirit of chaos named Discord. His character was a shout out to the character “Q” from Star Trek… and his voice actor, John DeLancie, actor who actually played “Q”. Part of me imagines that the conversation went something like this at the recording studio “Yeah John, just do ‘Q’.” If that’s not enough, and entire episode was essentially a tribute tot eh classic Trouble with Tribbles episode from the original series.
As if Star Trek references aren’t enough, the production crew has seen fit to also take on the cinematic juggernaut Star Wars. Both of the closing scenes of the Season 1 and Season 2 openers parody the theatrical legend. The season 1 close is a musical parody, imitating the music and scene elements from “Star Wars Episode 1 Phantom Menace:, specifically, the musical number titled “Augie’s Great Municipal Band”. The season 2 close is even more impressive, parodying at least 2 separate scenes. The first is a chase scene with Rainbow Dash, where she flees with the cloud that she, in her altered mental state, believes is all that remains of the floating city of Cloudsdale, which she believes was destroyed. The music during this chase scene imitates The epic musical score from the escape from Cloud City in “Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back”. The closing scene to the episode is a blatant parody of the Yavin IV Medal Scene from “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope”. A youtube video exists playing them side by side for comparison purposes.
And was it just me, or did anyone else notice a line in the above mentioned chase scene that appears to be right out of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 during the balloon chase, Twilight says “Applejack! Last rope! Make it count!”. This sounds a lot like a possible homage to Sgt. Foley’s “Ramirez! Last mag! Make it count!” line from MW2. Still it’s a generic enough line that it might be considered a throwaway line. Still, considering all the things this show has going for it… You never knmow
To top off all that… the musical numbers! WOW!!! “Winter Wrap Up” and “So Many Wonders” are amazing original pieces. Art of the Dress and At The Gala are amazing homages to Putting It Together (from Sunday in the Park with George) and Ever After (from Into the Woods). Both are Stephen Sondheim compositions, and they are paid homage and parodied to exquisite perfection. The MLP works are truly and surely themed and written for the show and it’s characters, and yet both songs perfectly match the context of the original songs. In “Art of the Dress”, Rarity becomes increasingly stressed with the endless demands by her friends to change the dresses she’s making for them from her original concepts, when Rarity knows the changes don’t match the vision she had for her friend’s dresses at all. This matches perfectly with the theme from “Sunday in the Park with George”. In “At the Gala”, the girls sing of how amazing their night at the royally hosted “Grand Galloping Gala” will be. The gala turns into an utter disaster. This is certainly in line with the events of “Into The Woods”, where all the happiness of “Ever After” is utterly shattered afterwards when the consequences of the first half of the play come back to bite the characters.
This show is epic on so many levels. I could probably write a book on this stuff… But I think TV Tropes is halfway there. Needless to say, i’ve only scratched the the surface of what the show has to offer.
As the article says, aside from all the “bonus” draws that putt you in, the show is VERY character driven. I WANT to be friends with people like these ponies. I WISH they were real. The show creates complex characters with intricate personality, and you truly do want to care for these digital scribbles in some studio’s computer monitors. It compels you to want engage the fan community and enjoy the art, the fanfics (and get mad when a grimdark fic hurts a favorite pony), the comics, the PMVs (Pony Music Videos), and even the rare original fan animations. It makes you see a life size Rainbow Dash plush toy sell on ebay and think… I wish I had $4900 for that, and not, WHAT WERE THEY THINKING (well, some of that second bit too! LOL)!!! It makes you appreciate all the fan created materials such as custom pony toys and sculptures, paintings, normal sized plush toys, clothing, and so many things you never thought of them. Clocks, paper crafts, buttons, bumper stickers, chalk art, graffiti, cakes, video games.
There is literally no end to the creativity of the My Little Pony fan community.
I find I neglect all other forms of entertainment these days, my video games, TV, other web entertainment such as my web comics… They all suffer, all to absorb as much fan generated MLP content as possible. I need to finish Fallout 3… maybe reading the 40 chapter Fallout: Equestria will get my Fallout urge fired back up.
Ohh yes, Friendship is Magic. I love this show. It’s just completely adorable, AND it’s relatively mature compared to other shows you see on TV. Compared to the crap being spewed out by Cartoon Network nowadays, this is like a shining ray of hope.
Expressive, well-designed characters that are both adorable AND very mature.
NOBODY THOUGHT IT COULD BE DONE.
Ponies did it. Imagine living with one of the ponies from Equestria. It would be adorable like a pet, yet it would be sentient & mature like a person. You could scratch behind its ears, AND talk to it like a human being. It would have its own emotions & opinions and would become very angry at you if you wronged it. It’s this clashing of completely different cartoon dialects that makes so many people interested in the show.
Second, the episodes themselves. It has slapstick for the young’uns, and very very mature humor for the adults. It truly is a show for ALL AGES. Not just children. There’s also action, and hilariously awkward conversations (mature humor). The episodes are sitcommy and character-driven. By all means, the ponies are the people in Equestria. They’re intelligent. Refer to point #1.
Third, THE WORLD IS NOT PERFECT in this show. SO MUCH SHIT GOES HORRIBLY WRONG, and the main characters have to go fix it. But half the time said “shit gone horribly wrong” affects them personally. Like Episode 5 (Griffon the brush-off), which is about Rainbow Dash’s griffon friend who has become an asshole over the years they’ve been apart. The episodes have life lessons (required for a show with a target demographic of children), but they aren’t stupid. They’re about racism, usurping, replacement, friends gone bad that need to be let go, and the likes. Episode 5 actually affected me personally, because I was in the EXACT same situation as Dash when I first saw it. One of my friends had gone bad, and I was holding onto said friend by a thread, hoping, hoping he would come back. He never did. I had to let go.
Last, the commuuuniiitttyyyy. Bronies have produced some of the best art, literature, and ORIGINAL MUSIC I’ve ever seen. I’m glad to be a part of such an enormous community that is nearing the size of the Trekkies.
This is probably my favorite cartoon of all time next to Ed, Edd n’ Eddy. In fact, since Ed Edd n’ Eddy FINISHED, this is moving in to fill the gap that it left. The gap that was previously inhabited by slapstick humor, awkward conversations, and a well-written plot.
It was replaced with slapstick humor, awkward conversations, and a well-written plot.
TL;DR version: This cartoon is incredible compared to today’s other cartoons. Watch it. It will bring peace of mind.
Garuu Spike, you forgot the Pony that looks like a pony version of The Doctor played by David Tennent! and Derpy Hooves! the pony with a fan created backround that was integrated into the show.
Ok so there was a pegeasus pony with goggly eyes, fans called Derpy Hooves. fans gave her the job of Mail Carrier. later in the first season she was portrayed as that, messing up because of her eyes.
Nerds
To every comment above hilroy I must say… Eeyup.
Hilroy 3 words for you. Haters gonna hate
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