Hub Upfront · 7:16pm Mar 21st, 2013
A day or two ago, Hasbro officially released it's upfront for the Hub. For those who don't know, an upfront is a meeting designed to sell advertising space for new and returning shows months before they begin airing. Think of it as a means of plugging the shows ahead of time so they can generate interest, and thus increase the cost for purchasing a thirty-second advertising block on the network. And since the Hub's been starving for advertisers, anything would be welcome.
Anyway, what does this have to do with pony? For the most part, it's stuff we already knew. Season Four is slated for a winter release, alongside Littlest Pet Shop and Rescue Bots. During the Summer, we've got the rest of the Aquabats Super Show! episodes being cranked out (the show's most likely done if the buzz is to be believed), alonside the usual staples of Family Game Night and Pound Puppies. Unfortunately, Dan Vs. has apparently been cancelled; I kind of heard about this a week before, but still, it's depressing to see the show go. It was like what would air on [adult swim] if, you know, anything good ever aired on [adult swim] to begin with.
New shows? Most of them are properties Hasbro acquired. We have Russel T. Davies' Wizards vs. Aliens and...um, SheZow, a show about a twelve-year-old boy who's a crossdressing superhero or...something. All I know is it's Australian, so it's either the most badass thing ever or will kill you within five seconds. Stan Lee's apparently doing an animated movie next year, there's a new Sabrina series this Fall, Prime is ending this Fall with a movie, and so forth. Overall, nothing too revolutionary.
...Except for one thing: no mention of Equestria Girls. At all. Not even of the supposed movie that's coming out.
So was the show pulled? Are they just going to silently bury it? Or has it been pushed back to give it more time to develop? And what of the supposed movie? Was that just a pipe dream as well?
Dunno. Just...thought I'd throw this up here.
Huh, that's rather interesting. I kind of hope they pulled Equestria Girls. Never liked the concept. I hope the movie will come eventually though.
Actually, the supposed movie is supposed to be mid to late next year. Though I hope they didn't pull the plug on Equestria Girls. I was actually looking forward to seeing how DHX would pull off the anthropomorphic pony concept.
In a previous journal entry, I theorised that Equestria Girls might be a multi-part story within FiM Season 4. This feeds into that theory.
I'm wondering if they've decided to have a few anthro episodes to test the water. If the fan reaction is good, they commission a full season for next year. If not, they back off and either bin or drastically rework the concept.
Equally possibly, EG the toy line is going ahead but Hasbro, after reviewing an unshown pilot episode, have decided that the show doesn't meet its marketing needs.
I kinda hope they pulled Equestria Girls too... Or at least let it develop more. The concept... could be pulled off, but the character design? Just... huh?
Well... I'm fairly sure this isn't the case, but the horrible thought keeps nagging at me: What if the fourth season of My Little Pony is Equestria Girls? After all, the official title is My Little Pony: Equestria Girls.
If there are two shows they will have to do the parallel universe thing; one in which the ponies go on with their lives, and one in which they get transferred to Earth (or wherever) and turned into Bratz clones. Unless they do crossovers... or... or...
Now I'm scaring myself.
Hmmmm
WHAT!!!! They pulled the plug on Dan VS.!!!!
I loved that show so much....
I think most of us bronies just wanna see Equestria girls come out so that we can whack it with sticks and laugh at it
I KNOW I DO! 
936765 Well, it was a very formulaic show from the start. I'd say it stayed its welcome
936790
Yes it was formulaic, but the charm was how much adult humor they squeezed into some of the episodes
i think i speak for more then a few people when i say that "Equestria girls" never sees the light of day
Noooo, not Dan Vs. ! D:
I loved that show. :C
936711
Well, that "mystery source of DOOM" who accurately predicted everything we lost our collective shit over this season said something in S4 would be much, much worse....
Dammit, now you've got me worried.
Hmm, the lack of news on Equestria Girls does seem curious and a little worrying...
936711, 936963
Not sure, but I highly doubt it'll be the fourth season. If it is, then McCarthy has either been fired or cut out of the loop, since she seems to be genuinely surprised that this even exists. AKR has said she's writing for quadrupedal creatures again, and Larson has said something to similar effect. We haven't heard much of anything outside of the vague reddit post that was just an edit of one that was written in Season Two, the tumblr leak made by a person who enjoys setting off flame wars, and a press release that says that a "new IP" is launching with a TV movie this fall, while FiM is continuing in the winter. (The only movie the upfront mentions is the Grand Finale for Transformers Prime.) If the two were one and the same, it's more likely they would have used the same seasonal terminology for both; otherwise, they risk confusing investors and making idiots of themselves later on.
After all, the whole point of an upfront and press releases is to drum up attention for your shows, get people interested, and sell advertising time. They could be holding off the official announcement until SDCC, but that would leave them with a very small window to win over the big advertisers they need to keep the network going, not to mention the customers who have to buy the product to make this all worth it. From a business perspective, this simply makes no goddamn sense.
(Yes, even Equestria Girls makes sense from a purely business view. It's an established brand, making it a far better place to test a new product than with an entirely new franchise.)
I'm just saying that there's a whole lot we don't know about, so worrying about it won't help at the moment. I'm not the most business-oriented guy out there, but there's quite a few holes through all this that need to get plugged. We'll resume worrying once we get to the SDCC announcement.
If they did pull the plug on Equestria Girls, it seems like an odd time to do it, and an odd way to announce it.
Maybe they're just going to make that TV-movie of it, and only make a series if the movie does well? It'd explain why it doesn't have its own time slot; I find it slightly easier to believe that a movie would escape mention in a lineup release than an entire show.
I'm one of the few who was actually kind of curious about Equestria Girls, so...
937096
"...there's a whole lot we don't know about..."
Yeah, that's the problem. Life experience has taught me that there isn't anything wonderful that can't be ruined near-instantaneously by clueless suits. Without reassurance to the contrary, I tend to assume the most probable outcome.
*deep breaths*
So... I'm going to try to forget about it altogether until there is definite news either way. Oh, look! What a bright spring day it is outside. I think I'll take the dogs for a run or play with the lambs.
Somewhere out there, someone is making a fanfic that's meant for laughs where Dan tries to get his revenge on The Hub.
hopefully hasbro shoved equestrain girls back up their ass where it belongs.....
That's weird, I wonder what will happen.... hmmmm.... I don't know. But I will be watching.... ever-vigilant...
I heard that equestrian girls won't be out for another two years. Right now it is in the planning stage where everyone has to work out the details. So that's why it isn't in the line up, simply because it hasn't been created yet.
Sad to hear Dan Vs. and TF Prime will be ending soon.
I always assumed Equestria Girls was either going to be a toy line or an apperal line like that one PPG had a few years back. Course you never know with shows.
938226
Actually, Prime is the one that's ending soon, with Dan Vs. being cancelled for, so far, unknown reasons, but it's most likely because the latter has lower ratings than the formal.
I rather suspect that we'll be finding out what's going on with Equestrian Girls on 1 Apr.
Okay, my current theory is that it's because Equestria Girls was greenlit back when they still thought FiM was going to finish at the 65-episode mark and they wanted to scramble to keep the brand fresh in people's minds. But now that FiM is getting a fourth season after all, they're pushing it back to whenever they need a sales boost down the line.
936970 Equestria Girls always seemed like a piece of fanart to me - a particularly bad fanart at that.
I understand that they want a show to compete with Bratz and Monster High - there is a certain children's demographic for that kind of show and The Hub has none of it. And I understand their need to endlessly exploit their existing franchises.
But jeeeez, it seems like they could have done something different than *that*
Maybe it's just been canned (yay!)
Or maybe it's being significantly revised (also yay)