Retrospective Review: Baby Cakes and The Last Roundup · 6:11am May 28th, 2021
S2E13 Baby Cakes
So this was an episode that came completely out of the blue. There was no indication of Cup Cake being pregnant, let alone with twins. I'm assuming there was a toy involved.
"That makes sense, right?" Sure, but if you're a pegasus stallion with a beige coat or a unicorn stallion with a yellow coat, I wouldn't recommend dining at Sugarcube Corner.
Of all the things I would hate about being a non-unicorn pony, changing diapers by mouth is #1 on the list.
Pound Cake and Pumpkin Cake are cute foals with great personalities, but they are totally overpowered. Hey, Starlight Glimmer? You know your ability to fly using only your magic? Guess what? A one month old filly can do that.
Pity the Cakes' monthly budget. They're going to have to write off so much flour.
Best not to think about the state of the floor and furniture after Pinkie Pie just decides to not diaper the foals.
Overall, I like the episode. Cute babies, slapstick, Pinkie Pie randomness, and a moral that fits for a children's show. Children that age might ask for a pet, or slightly older children might be looking to taking a babysitting job, and "it's not just fun times; it's a lot of work" is something they need to learn.
But there's no way this episode would happen like that.
In a realistic story, Pinkie Pie would have expressed a desire to babysit some time during the pregnancy, and the Cakes would have said that Pinkie Pie would have to become more responsible before that would happen. Maybe she takes a new parent class with the Cakes.
There's no real reason for the rest of the Mane Six to be present in this episode. They aren't especially close to the Cakes, so why are they waiting in the hospital? And why would the Cakes want them to babysit? None of them have any particular experience, particularly Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle.
Hey, Pinkie Pie? Remember your Pinkie Sense? Shame it doesn't work to anticipate foals' magic surges, or to find missing foals.
And I just don't get Pinkie Pie's sudden desire to be responsible. She had the perfect thing going: play with the foals, and return them to their parents for all the messy stuff.
S2E14 The Last Roundup
Are we sure Applejack has more blue ribbons than Rainbow Dash?
I hate how Apple/iTunes ruined this first speaking role of Derpy.
Why is the rodeo competition in Canterlot? Why not the pony equivalent of Texas or Calgary?
We get another episode with the same ponies from Ponyville appearing in both Canterlot and Dodge Junction.
The cherry sorting scene--classic I Love Lucy reference.
Kumquat is a great word.
The chase scene is a classic, but we again have carriage ponies acting and being treated like human world animals, and really, how could two pegasi keep up with four trained earth ponies?
While there are elements to like in this episode, it's overall a big miss for me. Like many other episodes I don't like, it comes down to one of the main characters going against her element. Applejack lies to her friends and abandons the work on her own farm (and we've already established they have a hard time keeping up with the work). That does not make sense.
This episode reminds me of something commonly seen on The Simpsons, where Homer abandons his job for a hobby, a hare-brained scheme, or sometimes another job entirely. (But only for that episode, of course.)
Should the Cake twins have grown older during the series?
I'm thinking they could have done the normal sitcom thing (the new baby, introduced a few seasons into the show, is a baby for one season and 4 years old the next).
I would have liked to see the Cutie Mark Crusaders and other school foals grow up as well.
She could just naturally be a very big mare, and some women don't show very much (if at all) during their pregnancies.
That's the terrifying thing. They aren't.
This sort of thing presumably applies to all pony foals as their bodies adjust to their magic. See also Flurry Heart.
In order: Pinkie invited them, and because the Cakes want to avoid Pinkie at any cost and may well have asked the entire town before resorting to her.
Hey, nothing wrong with wanting to grow beyond being a living punchline.
Weight differential? Big stagecoach versus tiny wagon... though three times the passengers complicates that.
And yes, the Cake twins and other foal characters absolutely should've aged.
Why is the rodeo competition in Canterlot? Why not the pony equivalent of Texas or Calgary?
For some irony, the actual rodeo Championships are in San Francisco.
And that works just fine on The Simpsons, because Homer is a known idiot whose notional job is clearly (and comically) not getting done.
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It also works on The Simpsons, South Park, etc. because those shows, and others like them, basically run on the tropes of Negative Continuity and Rule of Funny. They not only don't concern themselves overmuch with consistent world building or character development, they will routinely, and deliberately, ignore and contradict their own continuities whenever it suits them to do so.