Lemurthon: Griffon the Brush Off · 3:05am Feb 8th, 2017
Whenever I did a S1 marathon, I'd get to this exact spot, and I'd think to myself: "Oh gawwwwwwwwwwwd, this episode." Back then, you see, I had a really negative knee-jerk reaction to the bundle of clumsy diabetes that is Pinkie Pie.
Here I am, six years later in 2017, and...
Oh gawwwwwwwwwd, this episode.
Still, poni poni poni is poni poni poni.
Let's get crackin'.
Griffon the Brush Off
-First, I just wanna say that I've never digged the way MLP spells the word "griffon," but bah gawd have I gotten used to it (King, that Jezebel!)
-"Hoof-biting action overload!" omg... I get it now
-No denying that S1 Pinkie Pie is a spectacular cannister of cute.
-Oh look, more Sassy Twi. Nifty.
-Even S1 Rainbow Dash is annoyed by Pinkie
-Mountain? In the middle of Ponyville?! Too crazy to be fake! Geologists HATE it! Click here!
-Derpy the underped
-Twi-faec
-Oh look! It's a cartoon! Thanks for reminding us, Faust
-All things considered, this is a cute introduction, with great musical bits
-gawd, that adoraPink when she's framing the cloud
-see, girls are allowed to get grumpy in a girls' cartoon
-Spike humming the classic MLP theme
-interesting how quick the ponies are to express concern over Spike's hiccups
-Celestia sure had a lot of cameos in S1
-nice way to have RD warm up to Pinkie
-Pinkie Pie wants to hang out in Rainbow Dash
-epic diabetes in RD and PP galloping out of the prankster gift shop
-I know this is all in good fun, but I suspect Rarity and the others would be super pissed at these two
-implying that scientist!Twilight doesn't have a photographic memory
-was the apple prank worth the Herculean time and effort it must have taken to PAINT ALL THE APPLES IN AJ'S RANCH?!
-with Pinkie expressing concern over Fluttershy, we see the severe difference between her caring S1 version and her later kaizo counterparts
-I'm eternally bothered by how Rainbow's stained eye switches sides once she looks into the lake, and no—it's not just the reflection. It switches from left eye to right eye.
-just how big is Rainbow's cloud house?
-I dig Gilda's voice
-subtle pink highlights to Griffon's bird parts... ew
-PINK FACEPLANT
-smoothe trampoline animation
-Gilda calls RD "dude." Something about that has always stuck with me, although I think I've transferred the dude-ism to RD in fanficcing
-okay, the fucking gyrocopter is pushing it
-"You're dorking up the skies, Stinkie Pie!" Good line. Even if Gilda insinuated that Pinkie filled the sky with penises.
-In these early episodes, they went superrrrrr out of their way to include Twilight so that the season would have a thematic narrative. Although Twilight was barely required for this episode, I dig the fact that they show her drawing hasty conclusions about Pinkie's "jealousy."
-Also, adorable angry Pinkie. It must have been hard for the writers to figure out how to do her "angry" or "sad" at that point
-Remember, little girls. Sometimes it's not all in your head. Sometimes strange and unrelateable foreign people really are two-dimensional bitchy stereotypes!
-Here we witness the first and worst cardinal sin of bronydom: making Fluttershy cry
-And the background ponies just look on
-Gawd, I love love love love love love the commercial evil!face transition of "This calls for extreme measures, Pinkie Pie style!" If only I had first witnessed that on the Hub when it first broadcasted. Makes me smile and laugh every time.
-"I'm a year older than you." Maud Pie-ism before Maud Pie, delivered by Fluttershy
-Whenever I see MLP-flavored party favors at a store, I think about this episode... and this whole "party" scene.
-doesn't anypony feel off-put by how often Gilda is getting pranked?
-Thank you, RD
-When Gilda grabs Pinkie by the neck, I think we have our first "Squee."
-Rarity loves purple tails, confirmed
-something about Gilda, blindfolded, grasping a tail and sliding across the floor on cake frosting just screams "THIS IS A CARTOON SHOW, LULZ"
-"Come on, Rainbow Dash! I said we're leaving!" It's shiet like this that fuels GildaxRainbow as a lesbian relationship in my head
-Pinkie Pie turning her head upside down to talk about Gilda's frown is a great, subtle cartoonism. Very Pinkie Pie.
-Is it just me, or is RD a bit quick to part ways with Gilda over an event like this?
-"Dear Princess Celestia, I learned that griffons—as a non pony species—can exhibit the properties of a non-reedemable metaphor."
THOUGHTS
Have I mentioned that I watch a shit-ton of Star Trek and I lurve it to death? Some of you have noticed.
Anyways, one of the biggest, most common sins of Star Trek is to take an entire alien civilization and simplify them into a single cultural identity, when in fact--realistically speaking--a hypothetical alien civilization should be capable of expressing several. One reason for this is budgetary concerns restricting episodes to showing the "alien of the week." Another reason is that--to simplify a science fiction allegory of philosophical or political commentary--it helps for writers to have an alien character represent a single pigment of the sociological color wheel. For this reason, we have the Klingons all representing "honor" and the Cardassians all representing "totalitarianism" and the Vulcans all representing "logic" and the Ferengi all representing "capitalism" and etc.
In MLP: FiM, it would seem, the griffons all represent "douchebaggery." This might seem an extreme statement, until we remember that we don't see another griffon besides Gilda until the end of S2, and then it's a really uptight, egotistical chef. When we finally do see a griffon community... (gasp!)... it's full of jerkwads. It took Season Six to give us a griffon who falls outside of the Asshole Zone.
Maybe I'm reading too much into this... just like I read too much into Spike's "boy-shaming" in The Ticket Master, but I almost wish that Gilda would have been cast as just another pegasus instead of a griffon. I feel that the glaring difference distracts from whatever message the episode's trying to give.
And about that message. Boy do we go ass-over-elbow in getting there. The first time I watched this, I knew in my heart that all of the pranks on Gilda at the party were done on purpose by Pinkie Pie. And then when it's revealed that all of the pranks were--in fact--coincidental... I couldn't help but feel that the story twist was a tad bit convenient. And... y'know... convenient plot contrivances is a common thing in kids' cartoons (and in Star Trek, lulz).
We the viewers get a catharsis out of all the bad karma that falls on Gilda, regardless of its moral implications. But real life hardly ever works that way. Jerks will get what they want. Bullies will win in the end. Con artists will bed our moms, our bosses, our governments. And oftentimes extreme attempts made to get back at them will blow up in the opposition's faces. That's the opposite of what happens in this episode. The douchebag gets her comeuppance, and any potential wounds suffered by the attached parties are swiftly and conveniently cleaned.
Sure, it's a cartoon. But the sheer convenience of Gilda being humiliated and the fact that she's a seemingly two-dimensional and irredeemable character personified through a distinctly un-equine creature has always rubbed me the wrong way. Not that I'm offended by it, but it just seems... a tad bit lazy from a writing perspective.
Thankfully, though, the show has portrayed far greater depth in later episodes... perhaps even to address these concerns. We've seen the griffons shown in a far more positive light, and we've even seen Gilda come around. Also, episodes like Amending Fences have shown that emotional conflict is a great deal more complicated and internalized than a cartoon world would normally have us expect.
Also, for all of its awkwardness, this episode is animated super-well. Also, the prank sequences from the first two acts are adoracute and worth watching more than once. And I do like Twilight's inclusion, however tiny. It's nice to see her being humbled through her written lessons to Princess Celestia.
But, no denying, I was kinda/sorta on Gilda's side in her impression of "King Lame-o" early on. S'all good... in time, even the Pinkster would eventually win my appreciation.
-SS&E
I've always liked this one way more than most people. I like that saving the world together didn't make Pinkie and Dash insta-besties. And showing that pranking Fluttershy would be a step too far is such a nice touch. I love that PInkie keeps her dignity and doesn't stoop to Gilda's level, and that Gilda stumbles into the pranks because she has to be first at everything. She creates a trap for herself by being greedy and then assuming the worst of Pinkie. I actually find a lot of maturity in this episode, and don't see it as necessarily less complex than later episodes. The only thing I don't like about Griffon the Brush Off is kinda hard to put my finger on. It just feels . . . early. I get an early season one sense off of it somehow. But really, it's actually a favorite of mine.
That comic at da end. Omg I love it!
I agree that Gilda being a griffon, and the implied stereotype of griffons as assholes, and the fact that it took so long to show another side to griffons kind of rubbed me the wrong way, too. And I'll agree that maybe it would've been more effective if she'd just been another pegasus, rather than displacing such unpleasant qualities onto an "Other" without wider context or nuance. But otherwise, I actually like this episode fairly well, and agree with most of what 4413609 said.
One of the great things about re-watching S1 is to mark the evolving relationships not only between Twilight and the rest of the gang, but also between the other members of the group. This episode and Look Before You Sleep are prime examples of how these ponies became friends and not just a collection of individuals drawn together by a crisis.
Actually Rainbow Dash and Rarity seem to say Griffin. Some say Griffon. Thing is both are correct, as is gryphon. I remember both spellings being used for varying levels // areas where griffons ranged in the old MMO Everquest.
I love rewatching this episode. Pinkie Pie talks in a normal voice. Rd and PP bond. Fluttershy really acts like a shy person would. Rainbow dash does the loyalty thing (depending on your perspective).
Yeah . . . . . too bad "28 Pranks Later" basically wiped this episode from existence.
It's often hard to believe that Gilda shares a VA with Sonata Dusk, innit? (And REALLY hard to believe they both share a VA with Revy.)
*spittake*
The thing that bothers me most about this episode? Is why the hell is it a birthday party with a birthday cake with candles and presents?! Surely the writers could do better than that...
Well, the main problem there is that most antagonistic species (or non-antagonistic antagonist species) most Trek crews clash with are one-and-out encounters, so they HAVE to get pigeonholed into the Planet of Hats trope. It makes sense when a starship crew is only dealing with government or military aspects of an alien culture. When a race endures long enough to be fleshed out, you get to see the lines blur, like in several TNG episodes where we got to see the way rank-and-file Romulan soldiers and ordinary Romulan citizens live, or DS9 where we see the Ferengi society experience rapid explosive growth and revolution, largely due to Quark's mommy, Rom, and so forth. But a lot of the asshats Trek crews run across, like the Tholians or any "You've got a Borg on your ship DIIIIIIIE!" people Voyager ran into? All you ever see is one representative Hat (or a shipload of them or a village of thme), so it's not so much that it's bad writing as it is "unfortunate representative sample".
To bring this back to MLP, though...yeah, Gilda was a jerk, so later on ponies stereotyped griffons as jerks, and then we found out a lot of griffons ARE jerks because, well...they live in a shithole. Speaking from personal experience, living in a shithole turns you into a miserable jerk. But a lot of them aren't jerks, and now we're getting griffons like Gabby who are slowly taking off the Hat.
I dunno, Gilda gave us something unique up to that point, and paved the way for later exploration of griffon society and meeting other griffons. If Gilda had just been Lightning Dust, a jerkass pegasus with a bug up her butt?
Well...
Notice how Lightning Dust has been completely forgotten by the writers? Yeah.
I don't know what I have against this episode. But it's the only one in the season that I have never watched again (well, once it was in the background while I was in an pony reunion playing card games with fellow pony enthusiasts).
-implying that all scientists have photographic memories and all that "writing down data" business is just for the journal articles.
Presumably as big as she wants it to be. When your house is made of what you work with all day...
But yeah, I appreciate this episode for the tools it provided. Griffons/griffins/gryphons/catbirds were the first sign of not just other sapient species in Equestria—Spike and Steven Magnet demonstrated that—but other species that could relate with ponies when fully grown. Other easily conceivable and relatable civilizations. That was all kinds of huge; all the fun of Star Trek's interspecies incidents without any need for dilithium.
Also, it was fun.
Six years later, I still do.
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It's true!
Well, it did give us a new species to fanfic about.
Every time I see this scene, I Can't help but think that Twilight Sparkle would immediately dive into a lecture on lab safety... Possibly with chairs, rope, duck tape, and a Clockwork Orange reference involved.