# The success of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 24, 2019, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-success-of-my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic/832969 "2019-04-24T01:42:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-success-of-my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic/832969/21 "2019-05-08T16:22:58Z")
> [@bmoak](#): > > But there have been plenty of other reboots of old shows that have come and gone without the the success of My Little Pony. For example, Strawberry Shortcake had a reboot right around the time MLP starting getting big, and it didn’t catch on or last very long, even though it aired right before MLP on Discovery Family. People who were nostalgic for My Little Pony from the original incarnation seemed to be more into the toys than the cartoon, IIRC. I have suggested in the past that part of the reason for MLP’s successful reboot is actually \*anti-\*nostalgia. The original MLP was practically an icon of the crappy advertisements foisted on a generation of kids under the guise of entertainment. Just by being cleverly written, with real adventure stories and substantial characters amidst the cuteness, it’s an indictment of the cartoon wasteland that birthed its original incarnation. Maybe other reboots didn’t attempt the same transformation. Maybe they didn’t succeed at it because their writing wasn’t up to the task. Or maybe they just weren’t derided enough for an unlikely redemption to draw attention to them. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-success-of-my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic/832969/22 "2019-05-08T17:36:41Z")
You’ve got me curious now about the original MLP. Is that streaming somewhere? > [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Yes, defeats of enemies ranges from convincing them to be friends with you to blasting them to bits to stripping all their powers and locking them in a cage in Hell. (Well, technically Tartarus, but…) And fights can be on the [landscape-altering scale](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXXU41qGbPg). Whoa. :eek: And that wasn’t even the end of the fight! Looked clearly to be a riff on climactic superhero movie fights. But yeah: I definitely expected it to be much more consistently in the “convince them to be friends” vein. Was that the case more in the first season or two? ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-success-of-my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic/832969/23 "2019-05-08T20:23:12Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > You’ve got me curious now about the original MLP. Is that streaming somewhere? Well, [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p45XUXM-TAk) is a clip from one of the earlier series (possibly not the first, I donno.) Here is a compilation of opening sequences from various generations of the show. (BTW, this season is the last of the current generation of MLP, which is getting rebooted again after that.) > [@SlackerInc](#): > > But yeah: I definitely expected it to be much more consistently in the “convince them to be friends” vein. Was that the case more in the first season or two? (spoilers ahead) Refreshing my memory with [this](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic) list, most of the conflicts were between main characters–the first few seasons featured an explicit “lesson” at the end where the main character Twilight Sparkle wrote a letter to her mentor describing what she learned about friendship in the episode (think something like the “knowing is half the battle segment from G.I. Joe, but integrated into the episode.) There were a few bad guys” that showed up in one off episodes, but they were for the most part just “chased away”–no dramatic defeat but no making friends either.There were no “big bads” in season one other than the one in the two-parter that opened the first season (the “big bad” being the sister of the aforementioned mentor) who was indeed convinced to be friends. The second season had two “big bads”, neither of which were convinced to be friends. The first one was in the two part season opener and it was John De Lancie as (pretty much) Q. The second was in the two part season finale. That two-parter is actually one I’d recommend to someone who just wants to sample the series and get an idea of it–it has most of the elements of the series–interpersonal minor conflicts (and cooperations) between the primary cast members, a “big bad” and fight scene, and several songs. It can be seen [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIUX7977Rpc&list=PLZJ2nWdT9cIL3Ni4Yf2JmGFMM7pa5zGTF), broke up into a playlist of 13 “chapters.” “Big bads” are actually fairly rare in the series and some of them are returning characters from earlier seasons who end up becoming friends and recurring characters. (Probably because of fan popularity, like how they could never really get rid of Spike on _Buffy_.) ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-success-of-my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic/832969/24 "2019-05-08T20:39:37Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > You’ve got me curious now about the original MLP. Is that streaming somewhere? I have no idea and don’t care to look. 😛 > [@](#): > > Whoa. :eek: And that wasn’t even the end of the fight! Looked clearly to be a riff on climactic superhero movie fights. > > But yeah: I definitely expected it to be much more consistently in the “convince them to be friends” vein. Was that the case more in the first season or two? It’s kind of a superhero slice-of-life show in pastel pony clothing. Twilight Sparkle was already in roughly the same weight class as a Kryptonian in the first season. The other members of the Mane Six aren’t that powerful, but they’re not slouches, either. You could write a superhero profile for any of them. They do tend to lean toward “make friends” and interpersonal issues, especially in the earlier seasons, but even so, there were action scenes and some outright fights. Even the “make friends” incidents tend to touch on some tropes that you see with superheroes: Defeat Means Friendship, I Know You’re in There, and Heroic Spirit come to mind. Even the nonviolent confrontations sometimes qualify–Professor X doesn’t beat his enemies into submission, and neither does Fluttershy, but they win just the same. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2019, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-success-of-my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic/832969/25 "2019-05-09T00:35:30Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Here is a compilation of opening sequences from various generations of the show. (BTW, this season is the last of the current generation of MLP, which is getting rebooted again after that.) Did you forget the linky? What does a reboot mean for an animated series that hasn’t been off the air for any extended length of time? ---
**Author:** ![Fair\_Rarity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fair_rarity/32/153_2.png) [@Fair\_Rarity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fair_Rarity)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2019, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-success-of-my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic/832969/26 "2019-05-09T00:39:57Z")
If I have to watch the old MLP (which I watched some of them new back in the day…) now, they’re intolerable. Cheap 80s animation, overly sentimental. But when I was the target demo? They were the shit. My kid loved all the other generation movies and shows they show on The Hub (or whatever it’s called now), but I didn’t like to watch them too. And it was the same for Strawberry Shortcake. Loved her as a kid. Can’t stand the old stuff now, don’t like the new ones very much. Kid loved it all, but has outgrown them. FiM has a lot of the elements of Loony Tunes that make them eternal (ignoring the stuff that hasn’t aged well, like the sexism and racism). Slapstick, bad guys who do more than just steal a pile of berries or some dumb shit. Edgy humor and stuff aimed at grown-ups. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2019, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-success-of-my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic/832969/27 "2019-05-09T03:18:07Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Did you forget the linky? > > What does a reboot mean for an animated series that hasn’t been off the air for any extended length of time? [Not a whole lot to link](https://www.equestriadaily.com/search/label/Generation%205%20My%20Little%20Pony?m=1), they are keeping details pretty quiet. ---
**Author:** ![bmoak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@bmoak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bmoak)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2019, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-success-of-my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic/832969/28 "2019-05-09T03:23:20Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > But yeah: I definitely expected it to be much more consistently in the “convince them to be friends” vein. Was that the case more in the first season or two? Original show runner/series developer wanted to do more adventure stories and Hasbro wanted to focus more on the friendship stories. The basic compromise is that the seasons would (mostly) open and close with two-epsiode epic stories built around a villain who is a danger to Equestria, and the rest of the season is mostly friendship episodes, especially in the first two seasons. Even though the first few seasons of episodes had ending with Twilight writing a letter to Princess Celestia about the friendship lesson she learned, the episodes are not really built about didactically teaching about friendship. A lot of the eps in the first two seasons are basically built around taking two of the Mane Six and bouncing their contrasting personality traits off each other. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2019, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-success-of-my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic/832969/29 "2019-05-09T03:28:51Z")
actually strawberry shortcake has been rebooted twice in the past decade … ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2019, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-success-of-my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic/832969/30 "2019-05-09T03:30:21Z")
> [@Balance](#): > > It’s kind of a superhero slice-of-life show in pastel pony clothing. Of course, there is [an actual superhero episode](https://www.equestriadaily.com/2013/12/power-ponies-episode-followup.html?m=1). ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2019, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-success-of-my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic/832969/31 "2019-05-09T03:36:45Z")
And the Thunderbolts are basically a superhero team, right? > [@bmoak](#): > > Original show runner/series developer wanted to do more adventure stories and Hasbro wanted to focus more on the friendship stories. The basic compromise is that the seasons would (mostly) open and close with two-epsiode epic stories built around a villain who is a danger to Equestria, and the rest of the season is mostly friendship episodes, especially in the first two seasons. > > Even though the first few seasons of episodes had ending with Twilight writing a letter to Princess Celestia about the friendship lesson she learned, the episodes are not really built about didactically teaching about friendship. A lot of the eps in the first two seasons are basically built around taking two of the Mane Six and bouncing their contrasting personality traits off each other. Interesting! > [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > [Not a whole lot to link](https://www.equestriadaily.com/search/label/Generation%205%20My%20Little%20Pony?m=1), they are keeping details pretty quiet. I meant when you wrote “Here is a compilation of opening sequences…” but unlike the previous “Here”, this one was not hypertext. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2019, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-success-of-my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic/832969/32 "2019-05-09T04:18:08Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > And the Thunderbolts are basically a superhero team, right? [Wonderbolts](https://mlp.fandom.com/wiki/Wonderbolts). No, they are stunt flyers like the Blue Angels except, you know, they are their own planes. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > I meant when you wrote “Here is a compilation of opening sequences…” but unlike the previous “Here”, this one was not hypertext. 🙂 Supposed to be [this](https://youtube.com/watch?v=5vI3YypGhnA). ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2019, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-success-of-my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic/832969/33 "2019-05-09T05:01:19Z")
So, you mean that “My little pony” isn’t only porn? ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2019, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-success-of-my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic/832969/34 "2019-05-10T03:46:09Z")
:dubious: Thanks, Darren. I will show this to my daughter–it will probably blow her mind. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2019, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-success-of-my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic/832969/35 "2019-05-29T21:35:17Z")
The deep questions that occur to me while watching this show. What was Granny Smith called when she was a filly? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2019, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-success-of-my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic/832969/36 "2019-05-29T22:01:01Z")
Don’t know if she had a different name, but [she has a flashback](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lr6BcjOsyQ). ---
**Author:** ![bmoak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@bmoak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bmoak)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2019, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-success-of-my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic/832969/37 "2019-05-30T00:37:06Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > The deep questions that occur to me while watching this show. > > What was Granny Smith called when she was a filly? 😃 Since her now-ancient childhood friends Apple Rose and Goldie Delicious call her Granny Smith, I would assume she was called Granny Smith as a filly and she was named for the type of apple. Mayor Mare is the one you have to ask that question about. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2019, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-success-of-my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic/832969/38 "2019-05-30T00:42:18Z")
LOL, that’s a good one. But it does seem quite the coincidence that she has the appearance of a granny, an apple pie cutie mark, and that name. ETA: > [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Don’t know if she had a different name, but [she has a flashback](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lr6BcjOsyQ). Wait, she’s so old she was around in the wagon train days?? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2019, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-success-of-my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic/832969/39 "2019-05-31T03:15:43Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > What does a reboot mean for an animated series that hasn’t been off the air for any extended length of time? Reboot doesn’t have anything to do with how long the show is gone. It just means starting a new continuity. The word reboot means “to start over from the beginning,” after all. I’d expect a different art style, probably different actors, and the characters will all start fresh again. Possibly a different focus. Though I’d hope they learned from the popularity of FIM and don’t give it the “Titans Go” or new Powerpuff Girls treatment. Don’t make it wacky random humor, or they’ll lose a lot of the people who want to watch it. As for the OP’s question: they made it more intelligent and less infantalizing than the other shows. It’s more akin to the shows we grew up with in the 1990s. And it has adult bonuses, with references and such to other stuff. And it didn’t assume that girls aren’t into action and only want boring fluff, like the previous generations of the show. They kept the relationship stuff, but didn’t make it everything. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2019, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-success-of-my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic/832969/40 "2019-05-31T08:01:03Z")
Cool. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-success-of-my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic/832969.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-success-of-my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic/832969.md?page=3)