What I Thought About "Call of the Cutie" · 12:02pm Sep 30th, 2015
Episode Review
Well, I wasn't looking forward to this one. After all, I write about balancing Diamond Tiara and making her more than a flat, cardboard cutout antagonist, and here comes the Pink Weasel's first flat, cardboard cutout role. Let's get this over with.
Ahhh, the Ponyville Schoolhouse. A classic location. What do we have in the room, today? Books, a telescope, a trash can (with trash in it, too), a bunch of what look like wood carvings of Princess Celestia... and what looks like a drawing of a planet with a debris ring alongside some kind of mathematical equation. Are they doing astrophysics or something? Seems a bit advanced for little kids, but whatever.
Then we get to the episode's focus, and a closeup of... okay, no, it's way too easy to fill this review with butt jokes, and they've been done to death already. Closeups of cutie marks, 'cause that's the episode's focus. Ponies barely even have buttocks, anyway.
For some reason, Cheerilee has a different tale at the beginning of this episode. Also, that face is awesome. Her interpretation of her cutie mark is... weird, honestly. Makes you wonder about what kinds of weird, abstract cutie marks there are out there.
Holy crap! Did you see that?! That gold-maned unicorn from the front row just turned into Sweetie Belle! Dude! I... I dunno what this means. Sometimes, I really wonder how errors this big get sent out. Reminds me of that one episode (can't recall which) of Muppet Babies where almost every color on the screen was way off for a few frames. I guess they don't have enough time to check for this stuff, or something. And based on the blue Scootaloo (AKA Archer, who is best background filly), I'm guessing they were gonna have Sweetie and Scoots in the schoolhouse, but took them out at the last minute for some reason. Would've made more sense if they'd been there, so people wouldn't be confused about them suddenly appearing out of seemingly nowhere, but we'd also be able to see that they had no marks, so it would've ruined the surprise.
Note: Twist says she has peppermint sticks (I think that's what she said), and offered some to Apple Bloom, but Twist has nothing. No saddlebags, no satchel, no purse, no duffle, no jars, no pockets, no backpack, no bag of holding, no chest, no footlocker, no messenger bag, no knapsack, no containers of any kind. Did she mean she had them at home? That's not what it sounded like. Does she keep them in her mane? Are her glasses edible? Is "peppermint thtickth" some sort of weird euphemism for something else?
Or did the animators just miss a memo?
Huh. I'd forgotten that Apple Bloom is adorable. Oh, and why does she even want to go to the party at all? Is it just because all her friends are going? Could'a slipped in a mini message about how that kind of thing isn't always the most important. I guess she just wanted to be one with her peers, though later, we only ever see her hang out with her two Crusader friends (with few exceptions). Weird.
I love how, even back in Season One, Applejack was a practitioner of the "Are you a freaking idiot?" look she gives to silly ponies. After five seasons, she's pretty masterful at it. Also, I bet Bon Bon used all those apples for some kinda secret spy project, like using them as recording devices and scattering them all over. Though, I wager that'd go about as well as the CIA's spy cat (got hit by a bus minutes after release), and ponies would eat her bugged apples.
Is it bad that it often slips my mind that Rainbow is a girl until a shot like this comes up? I'm sorry, but she just rarely has the typical "girly" vibe (don't even). That's the point, yeah, and she's still awesome, I just sorta forget sometimes. I never think of her as a guy, though, I just think of her as Rainbow Dash.
I should probably say something about the cutie mark questing montage, but my notes don't have anything about it. It was neat, funny, and worked well. 'Nuff said.
You know, Pinkie's Cupcakes song should probably be forever ruined by that infamous fanfic of the same name, but I thought the fic was goofy and funny, so the song isn't really affected by it. It's short, catchy, very Pinkie-ish. Some Pinkie jingles are annoying, but this wasn't bad. Also, I'd hate to see the last batch of cupcakes if those burned lumps are "much better".
And then, Berry went from an overprotective mother to the town drunk. Yay, fandom?
That table cloth actually makes a decent dress, in a pinch. Simple, but pleasing to the eye. I'd also like to point out the fact that neither Diamond nor Silver's outfits show off their cutie marks, like, at all. I guess the animators/storyboarders missed another memo, there. That, or Diamond hallucinates when dress shopping.
"Outshined and your own cute-ceañera? Can you imagine how embarassin' that would be?"
Well, Apple Bloom, they don't have to imagine it, because that's exactly what happened. Not that it was your fault. She wouldn't have been upstaged by the pre-CMC if she hadn't made such a big deal over Bloom's lack of a cutie mark. Hoist by her own petard, she was.
Hey, Scootaloo had a spine, once upon a time. That's nifty. And—Sweet Sunset's boots, it's Squeakie Belle! I'd forgotten just how she sounded way back then. Out of all the characters, I'm sure she's had the most dramatic vocal progression over the seasons. Sounds totally different, these days.
Twilight: "I, for one, think you are three very lucky fillies."
Diamond: "Lucky? How can they be lucky?"
Twilight: "They still get to experience the thrill of discovering who they are, and what they're meant to be."
Oh, dearest Twilight, if only you knew the nightmares the future held for these three. Literally.
"Sometimes, the thing you think will cause you to lose friends and feel left out can actually be the thing that helps you make your closest friends and realize how special you are."
And apparently can push away your old friends. Bye-bye, Twist.
Alright, I've put it off long enough. Time to talk about what may be this episode's weakest point: Diamond Tiara.
Seriously, what is this filly's deal? In this episode, she's got no backstory, no personality aside from being a douchewagon, and zero visible motive. Her entire shtick in this episode seems to be hating ponies without cutie marks, which is almost sorta like hating people who haven't gone through puberty. Or maybe like hating virgins? Nah, more like hating people without a dominant hobby? It's weird and irrational. She just seems to be some little jerk who's all like, "I have a cutie mark now, and ponies without them totally suck, even though that would mean that I used to suck until last week."
Does she hate Apple Bloom? I always figured she might resent the Apple family for having been responsible for her family's business success, as I would guess her daddy told her the story before of how his business began. Yet, Diamond goes out of her way to verbally prod at Twist, too, so she seems to be more focused on cutie marks. Based just on this episode, I really don't know what her problem is. She's just a jerkwad.
Uhhh... 7/10, I guess. Errors, single-layer cardboard antagonist (not even corrugated). Nothing stand-out, but enjoyable.
I actually think DT only got worse as time went on. Until her previous two "official" appearances, that is.
I disagree!
This episode is what makes Diamond Tiara. Yes, she's a bully. Yes, she's being dumb. And when she got shown up at her own party, she was totally broken up about it. Even Silver Spoon couldn't console her.
That display of insecurity was something I'd never seen in a bully character before. She wasn't a mere obstacle or villain bested by the story's designated protagonists; it actually hit her on a personal level. It was that moment that first interested me in her as a character.
Someone wrote a fic here a long time ago in which they learn advanced physics in class, and may have been astrophysics. Too lazy to look it up.
As for 'weird explanation of cutie mark', I call early installment weirdness. Or teacher explanation weirdness. Or both.
The Cupcakes song/jingle! Wow! I remember that! Something like 30 seconds long. It's also a pretty 'classic' music piece of FiM. Infamous!Cupcakes notwithstanding. (And for the record, I find the fic... Somewhat just there. At the time, it was a little freaky, but now I look at it much like you'd look at a historical event.)
I'll need to rewatch for Squeakie Belle. Because I don't remember. Time and maybe gradual change has gotten to me.
I sort of agree with the two comments above about DT. At this point in time, she's basically your 'antagonist of the episode', and at the time, it didn't matter. However, because of repeat appearances, she looks more shallow. I also don't remember if they expand on her backstory a little (but not likely, because I would remember something like show-canon backstory details, and people are still writing different ones).
She just pretends to herself that being a teacher is her life choice, even though she's always wanted to be a gardener. And that she totally doesn't hate that bunch of genetical fuckups in front of her.
Hmm, someone should write that. Not like Cheerilee's Garden, but just a report on the state of mind of a Stepford teacher.
(on a side note, after my short job training as a teacher, I immediately realised that the author of Cheerilee's Garden probably is one).
The editor is colourblind, I guess. That, or Sweetie's magic sometimes screws up.
Pinkie Pie style. Her mane is big enough, I'd say (and that reminds me about how we talked about Sonata storing spare tacos in Adagio's hair). Unless she has them... somewhere else. That, or she has candy canes stashed all over Ponyville in case of a candy cane emergency.
Well, except of the ones Nurse Redheart had to remove from Lyra... (vaguely related to my previous comment).
I'm pretty sure that was Faust's intention (and now that reminds me how I tried to figure out male to female ratio among young ponies from crowd shots in Twilight Time. I ended up with 15 fillies, 5 colts, and Little Red).
Damn. Now I wonder if Apple Bloom and Rarity are somehow related.
Who knows, maybe cutie mark-covering dresses are a part of tradition. Like, at the end of the party you have to do strip-tease, or something.
Well, in Slice of Life Twist and AB were running away from the bugbear together. Apparently it took them only four seasons to reunite.
3431604
In some ways, yeah, she did.
3431693
True, but it's storta like saying, "At least he only punched me five times instead of six." She's still poorly put together, just not quite as bad as possible. She didn't look so much saddened or crushed as she did pissed and annoyed, too. And now I'm seeing her not being upset at being outshined, and just chanting "blank flanks" while nopony else is paying attention to her, like she has no idea it's happening. That would be really weird.
3431934
Probably both, yeah.
Diamond seemed to get a bit more depth as the show went on, just because we learned a bit more about her and the stuff she likes to make fun of. In this, though, she was barely there. Might indeed just be hindsight, though.
3431952
Oooh, cutie mark denial. I like it.
Guess I need to change Twist's reputation from "filly with linty pocket cookies" to "filly with hairy mane cookies".
Mission accomplished; Rainbow Dash is now a gender.
Looked to be under Amethyst's command, though. Maybe she was trying to reunite the two fillies she used to see playing together.
3431952 Actually, a similar story's already been done. It's called "Smiling Flowers", and it actually goes with the interpretation that, despite gardening being her special talent, it's teaching that she really wants to do.
3432797 And, you probably have the opposite reaction, but I'd rather have the bland and kind of generic bully that DT was in this episode, than the b*tch she'd become later on.
3432870
In some ways, she got a little better. In others, she got much worse.
3433208 She only got "better" after she reached her lowest point in Flight to the Finish.
After that, she had her most tolerable appearances in Pinkie Pride and Twilight Time.
Pinkie Pride because she actually seemed somewhat grateful for once.
And Twilight Time because it was actually slightly adorable to see her geek out over Twilight being a princess.
3433296
Don't forget Ponyville Confidential. Yeah, she blackmailed the CMC, but it showed that she was totally cool to them and actually praised them when they were being useful. It implied her hatred of them wasn't totally blind, which coincides with the later Twilight Time.
3433330 True.
Of course, all that does is make me wonder what her major problem with them is that caused her to pick on them as much as she does in the first place.
The fact that she DID praise them and was cool with hanging out with them for any reason implies that it's due to more than just her being spoiled.
3433347
At this point, I figure it's because their crusading probably causes tons of trouble around town, yet they always come out fine and always win. Like that comic pointed out, even if Diamond gets a professional on the job, the CMC still manage to progress by sheer luck. She probably resents them because they're the protagonists. They always come through, and she always gets the short end in anything that involves them.
3433367 That's actually a reasonable interpretation of her actions, and until we get a canon explanation (which will hopefully occur in Crusaders of the Lost Mark), I'll assume that is why.
And I'd love to have a future episode where her and Discord have a conversation about her actions. Maybe it would lead to a duet between the two of them.
Although what comic are you referring to?
3433438
An episode like that would be interesting, yeah.
It was Friends Forever #16. Here's a summary on the wiki, if you don't mind spoilers for it.
3433544 That issue of Friends Forever sounds like it would have been a fun read, and their behavior definitely fits in with what we know about them.
3432797
What if RD's gender is Awesome? And she gets triggered if you deny it.
And Twist really has to keep those candies somewhere. After all, remember who gave her a card in Hearts and Hooves Day... And now I'm thinking that Sparkler wants to make all the kids happy, without understanding what's going on between them.