The Rewatch Has Begun! · 2:35am February 14th
Hello again pony peoples!
I’ve been crazy busy lately thanks to work… but I’m finally free of doing makeup hours (My boss decided to pay me for some days I didn’t actually work in December, which was as nice as it was a real mess to sort out). But now that I’m finally not stuck working six days a week (which, even if it’s only part time, is crushing), I’m finally able to do things again.
One of those things is rewatching the show, along with OleGrayMane, from the beginning to end. It’s something we’ve meant to do for a long time but we’re finally sitting down and doing it!
So far, we’re in the beginning Season Two. Season One has so many good episodes… but most of all, I think it has some of the best characterization in the series. In my opinion, especially late in the series, the Mane 6 started to get kinda Flanderized. Pinky and Rarity were I think the characters who got it worst, but they weren’t alone.
I’m continually surprised, though perhaps I should not be, of how much has gotten muddled in my mind. I’d forgotten that it’s Pinky who first calls Rainbow Dashie? It’s in Sonic Rainboom… and I’d forgotten that it is Rarity, and not Fluttershy who mentions Dash is nervous. Fluttershy only remarks that Dash has only done her trick once, and is struggling to reprise it.
Also, gracious are the Mane 6 young in the first season! They are visibly slightly smaller than some of the background, adult, ponies and Celestia even calls Twilight (I think) as “child”. And “my little ponies” of course! Seriously, the Mane 6 are tiny compared to the Princess in Season One!
Speaking of Celestia, she’s a great character in the first season. Faust did a great job making her both a character you can take seriously, and yet who also has a hint of having more to her character than just her role, even being a bit mischievous.
The show is much more “cartoony” than later seasons both in tone and references. It’s charming, and definitely different from the rest of the show. I like it but it definitely wouldn’t have fit the tone of the show as time went on. The gags are hilarious though!
In the same line of thought, Bird in the Hoof is a great episode but it kinda feels like it doesn’t fit the show quite so well as other episodes. It seems more like the sort of thing Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends would do, which makes sense considering it was a Cindy Morrow episode.
I’m also of the opinion that the season conclusion, Best Night Ever, might be the best season ending too! It’s a great deconstruction of so many tropes, and overblown expectations that other stories probably would have played straight. MLP hilariously played with our expectations and crafted a great, low stakes conclusion that focuses on the central theme of friendship. Personally I sort of prefer that over the usual “save the world” type of conclusion, though it’s probably good that they didn’t do it all the time as it might get a bit dull with repetition.
Season One has so many iconic and fandom defining moments. It’s been a real treat to watch them again, and recall the heady days of those first few years of the fandom.
God, that makes me sound old…
Um, anyways, I’d love to hear everpony’s thoughts on the first season and also their memories of first watching the show as it aired. MLP is one of the few shows I have ever watched as it aired, fairly religiously, and every single episode. Is it the same for you guys?
I’ll post more as we watch more episodes with my thoughts and opinions on them, as I rediscover this show we all love and enjoy.
Enjoy your trip down memory lane!
Same here! Starting with the season two premiere I was watching the episodes 'live' or as soon as I could after the initial airing. It's one of the few shows I've stayed vested in until the conclusion, and is easily the longest series I've ever watched every* episode for.
Interesting story - I'd seen some of G1 as a child (specifically Rescue At Midnight Castle) and I had multiple friends try and hook me on FIM that first season. To the point where I watched the premiere 2-parter four times without it doing anything for me. It was too predictable (too much foreshadowing). After season 1 ended I randomly clicked on Suited For Success and that's what finally hooked me. I was getting close to tapping out halfway through that episode. When Rarity starts singing Art of the Dress I was about to 'nope out', but then she started breaking down mid-song. That piqued my curiosity enough to keep watching. The fact that the next two episodes I watched were Sonic Rainboom and The Cutie Mark Chronicles, sealed the deal. These are still among my favorite episodes from the series, with lines that never cease to crack me up. Like
for example. Too loud?
I always felt the action episodes weren't particularly well done. Slice-of-life is where the series excelled. The early seasons had great writing with good character interactions. But as you stated, Flanderization crept in. The thing about the first few seasons is I either loved the episodes or loathed them, but there was very little in the middle. As the show went on the episodes tended toward 'good' or 'okay' but fewer standouts in either direction. An ensemble cast like G1 would've helped things tremendously instead of focusing on the Mane 6 and major supporting characters.
You would think a toy company like Hasbro would know how to handle a franchise with different age demographics (*cough* Transformers *cough*). Bronies hate that the new ponies in stores aren't in the show? Then add them to the show (like how Blossomforth cameoed in Hurricane Fluttershy). Instead, characters get introduced who never had toys at all (Hasbro is a toy company and exists to sell toys, which sometimes I think they forgot as the show went on - Hasbro had to have some level of creative control over things). This would've solved both problems, not to mention it would've helped the show in the long run. Rather than the same characters learning the same lessons over and over again. This isn't rocket science.
So many missteps along the way. Plus, then Hasbro would have more ponies to sell instead of dozens of different variations on the Mane 6 with the occasional new pony.
*I've also seen every episode of G1, and what I've been able to find of G3. One of these days I really need to binge Tales. I've also seen all of Make Your Mark, but only the first forty episodes of Tell Your Tale (I can't access YouTube). G3.5 has the best theme song of any generation of MLP, but I'm not sure I feel the need to watch anything other than Twinkle Wish Adventure... and even I won't go near Newborn Cuties.
Interesting! My opinions, at the moment, are quite close to your own when it comes to the quality of the shows episodes. “Alright” seems to be apt description of most of the later seasons stuff... although I actually really liked what they did with the young six, and forcing the Mane 6 into mentor roles where they had to face new problems for the first time in a long while was a great shake up for the show, I think. Though, perhaps, it should have started about a season earlier than it did. I for one didn’t mind not having so many toys of new characters in the later seasons. I’m not sure that the balloon being so central to the plot of several season one episodes, or famously Pinky’s candy cane pedaled helicopter really added anything to the show or Hasbro’s bottom line. They did drop the ball with not having show accurate toys until maybe season four, however. As for the later seasons and Hasbro’s wandering priorities... well, they had a successful property already, it was starting to “cool off”, and if the last few years have been any indication they have major problems when it comes to corporate leadership which must have been starting to manifest by that point. Though it’s fun and nostalgic now to remember when they would just send you a cease & desist letter vs getting the Pinkertons to go all Homestead on you.
It’s always interesting to hear what it was that “did it” for people in season one and two. It seems like (due to our initial prejudices), nobody loved the series right off the bat. It seems like it always took a few episodes! OGM started watching with “Baby Cakes”, and I think that was what I watched first too, at the time to poke fun at him (ugh the cringe, but in my defense we have an “interesting banter” relationship and I was also a high schooler). I think we watched a couple more season two episodes next: I distinctly remember Mysterious Mare Do Well, and I think Read It And Weep? What sold me was twofold: John DeLancy as Discord in the superlative second season opener, because I was more than willing to watch a “Q” episode (can’t be worse than the Q Civil War episode on Voyager!)... and then one simple sentence.
“Last Time, On My Little Pony”.
This show took itself seriously, as seriously as Star Trek did, and that was both hilarious and deeply impressive to me. It wasn’t afraid to be My Little Pony, but it also told it’s audience that was no reason to not take it seriously. By the end of that two parter, I was hooked!
I think you’ll really enjoy “Tales”. Although it’s definitely less of a “fantasy adventure” than G1 or G3, it’s really got the best characterization and cast of the pre-G4 stories I think. Frankly, outside the first movie and some of the musical numbers I find G1 sort of dull to watch as the pacing is too glacial outside its intended serialized format. And the characters just didn’t have very distinct designs or personalities back then, at least for my taste. I do love how badass the cute little Flutter-ponies are though. G4 Breezies: “we will die to the slightest breeze”, G1 Flutter-ponies: “we will destroy you “:
Tales theme song always breaks me up, too. “Something is starting... right now! Something is starting... oh wow!”, is, objectively, the exact set of sentences uttered when you realize a bar fight is about to ensue.