MLP Marathon Bonanza S6 E13-15 · 9:09am Nov 26th, 2017
Stranger Than Fan Fiction
Besides Slice of Life, this is probably the episode I’ve heard the most about in terms of fan pandering, but it totally makes sense because, I mean… c’mon. Just look at that title. In any case, I’m kinda looking forward to this episode after I enjoyed Slice of Life so much.
Well, I can’t say that I liked it quite as much as Slice of Life, mostly because that was just a really fun episode all around and its silliness worked to its benefit, but this was pretty good all things considered. I liked the early bits at the convention quite a lot, and the lampooning of fandom critics and also convention culture. I especially liked that Patton Oswalt’s character is basically a nitpicky “MLP Daring Do used to be good” kinda jackass. I’ve never really understood that mentality of wanting to hate a thing because it’s newer. You’re free to feel how you want, but you’re wrong.
Rainbow Dash has pretty much always had the best faces from the first season on.
So, obviously Patton Oswalt’s character is pretty great, and he’s basically always funny so I thought he did a great job. I also thoroughly enjoyed seeing another Daring Do episode because I’ve got a big crush on Daring Do and how awesome she is, and this one wasn’t quite as adventurous as the last, but I liked it all the same. That being said, the moral at the end feels slightly muddled because it felt like it was going to be that you shouldn’t be a nitpicky asshole, but then really it was more that nitpicky assholes and more general fans exist and both are acceptable, which I’m pretty okay with. I think it’s good to teach kids that you don’t always have to agree with your friends to like them. God knows I’ve got some friends I don’t agree with.
Also, I enjoyed Oswalt’s (presumably) unscripted rant at the end of the episode.
The Cart Before the Horses
S’cute, I suppose. It’s not a great episode, and it’s not terrible. The conflict that the CMC didn’t get to design their own carts because their sisters just did it all for them is pretty relatable. I certainly know how it feels when I made a soapbox derby car years and years ago, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that all of their problems could be solved if they just did a sister swap (not in a dirty way). Sure, there’s still the issue of the older ponies doing everything for them, but maybe they would have gotten to help more if they were actually helping build a cart they liked.
Cheerileader is pretty cute though.
All in all this is a pretty forgettable episode. The song is cute in its own way, and I particularly like the chorus lines. I also think that AJ wearing aviator glasses at the end of the episode is pretty fucking cool. It’s a shame to me, because I feel like this episode might have been better served being about all the CMC competing to win strictly a speed race and that they would have to come to the conclusion that winning isn’t everything, and that they should feel happy for their friend winning (presumably Scoots) instead of feeling bad about losing. That might have been a more interesting story.
28 Pranks Later
So, I guess cookie zombies are a thing now.
Well, I like the concept of this episode a lot, that they flip the tables on RD’s pranks and get her back, but the execution of it is pretty meh. I mean, maybe I’m just a big asshole, but I thought all of Rainbow’s pranks in the beginning were pretty funny, especially the one where she kept dropping scrolls on Spike’s head so he would keep sending them to Celestia until she was in a Scrooge McDuck-like pool of scrolls. That’s pretty funny, but apparently this makes Rainbow Dash a dick or something, and so she has to learn a lesson that you shouldn’t do fun things because some people are lame, or something.
Again, maybe I’m a dick, but rainbow mouth seems pretty funny to me.
While I thought the moral of this episode is a little odd since it seems to be suggesting that you shouldn’t mess with people who can’t take it, which isn’t a bad message, but it does so in a way that makes it seems like no one can take a joke. I mean, Twilight sitting on a whoopie cushion while trying to be serious. I think that’s just objectively funny. But whatever, I guess I missed the point of this episode. Again though, cookie zombies is a cool concept and I like the twist on Rainbow even though it’s quite obvious from the viewer’s perspective.
And that’s why you always prank responsibly.
28 Pranks Layer was a cavalcade of, How much can stuff thar Striker hates can be crammed into 22 minutes,"
Yeah, fucking hated it. I hate zombies so damned much. I thought her pranks were horrible and Dash should've gone to jail for some of them. I make no apologies for my views here.
You nailed it with 28 pranks later. Rainbows pranks were great it's everyone else that's wrong.
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Thank god F.M. Demarco didn’t write for FIM ever again after that episode. It was so bad that Hasbro axed him from productions and sent him back to How to Train Your Dragons: Riders of Burk/Race to the Edge.
As Hiccup quoted:
P.S. As much as the episode is shite, the CCG card works really well in a Frighten Deck along with Torch and other such cards.
It amazes me how 28 Pranks gets such strong, divided reactions from the fandom. c.c It was a cool, show-tone zombie episode! Though flat not liking zombies at least makes sense...
And for the record, it's not that things are new, it's that standards change over time and not everyone agrees with those changes. In the name of understanding.
Hated 28 Pranks Later with a passion. One of my most disliked episodes of the entire series for me.
I absolutely loved 28 Pranks Later. It teaches Rainbow a valuable lesson, don't go pranking ponies unless you know they will enjoy it and what she did to Cranky was horrible. Many people may not see it that way but unless you have had a bad run in with a skunk, you won't understand it....and I can completely understand Twilight's displeasure over the whoopie cushion. Those things are a lame joke shortcut that, in all reality, have zero humor to them.
The Cart Before the Ponies was probably one of the most lackluster episodes of the series. My general thought was, "Just switch who you're working with! Scootaloo could have decided to go with Rarity for creative, Sweetie Belle could have gone with AJ for the antique with no chance of winning and Apple Bloom could have gone with Dashie once they saw what they had created."
I did enjoy "Stranger than Fanfiction" a lot because it seemed to be the fandom in a nutshell. You had Quibble Pants who disliked the newer Daring Do books....just like the people who hated it when Twilight became an Alicorn. To be honest, I think that is exactly what the writers were hinting at, Quibble being just like them, one who complains about the direction things have gone. The episode did have a silly charm to it that did work in its favor and everything ended well in the end. What a shame the fandom couldn't at least learn to put up with each other the way Dash and Quibble did in the end. Some people hate everything after season 3, some people quit watching because of Starlight and then there are those of us who enjoy all of it.
Yeah, I remember this being my thought when I watched it.
28 Pranks later also breaks a previous rule about not pranking fluttershy.
You have yet to see this show lampoon its fandom. Somewhere in the middle of Season 7...
Oh yeah, that's pretty much the obvious solution. Got me irritated at Applejack, myself. No, Apple Bloom, she won't question your Applehood over what kind of cutie mark you get. She's got more important issues to question it over, like what kind of prize you want to win in a derby.
What annoyed me in 28PL was that Pinkie seemed to have forgotten or discarded her own principle from Griffon the Brush-Off, you know, when we first learned Pinkie was a prankster? One might say -- and one has said -- that perhaps RD thought, given The Scare Master, that Fluttershy would be able to take a prank now. Which is fair enough. And I totally get RD being unwilling to apologize until you nail the shoe on the other hoof. But Pinkie is defending her actions even as the fact that Fluttershy called them all there to talk about it demonstrated that she still wasn't okay with it. It isn't until they tell her to tell Rainbow to stop that she even tries.