Happy Birthday, Lauren Faust · 7:29pm Jul 26th, 2021
Today is Lauren Faust's birthday. She is the woman who was responsible for the creation of FiM as we know it. If not for her desire to reinvent the MLP brand after 25 years worth of obscurity and mockery, G4 might well have just been a blip on the radar in the 2010's and never spawned the fandom as we know it today. And of course, we know that Faust took inspiration from the very beginning, from G1 (more specifically the short lived cartoon series from 1986).
It's also worth mentioning that Lauren was no stranger to cartoons when she was recruited by Hasbro. Her husband is Craig McCracken, responsible for the creation of The Powerpuff Girls (originally called The Whoopass Girls), Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends and Wander Over Yander. And for the former two at least, Lauren Faust wrote episodes for the show and at times helped oversee production (albeit indirectly, and her writing usually left a lot to be desired).
In the last year or two we've come to learn that Lauren had to battle hard to get her vision for the show approved, from the beginning Hasbro was interested in the typical format of two eleven minute episodes when most shows still stuck to that (the 2010's would see the rise of more shows that opted for twenty two minute episode formats). And throughout Season 1, Lauren was frequently in dispute with Hasbro over the intended vision for the show. Among other things: She didn't want Rainbow Dash to become Scootaloo's sister, she wanted Zecora to be a second mentor to Twilight and she wanted all the mane six's parents to be either dead or traveling. She was Executive Producer for Season 1 and a consulting producer for Season 2, but stepped down at the end of Season 2 due to disagreement from Hasbro over Princess Cadence being an alicorn instead of a unicorn. After that, Lauren primarily worked on her own projects, largely with D.C.
Happy birthday, Lauren. While I may not agree with all of your plans for the show and think the show did get better after your departure, I still appreciate what you brought to the table. We were lucky that Hasbro was willing to reach out to you and accept some hard truths about the franchise. Hopefully, they haven't completely forgotten those lessons for G5. While I know you're not involved with it and probably wouldn't accept if given the offer, I hope G5 will be something that you can approve of.
i hope she can enjoy it
Whoo! Happy birthday Lauren Faust!!!
Happy Birthday Lauren Faust!
Thats awesome happy birthday! If I coukd say it to her G4 literally saved my life. So I honestly appreciate her and her work. And I only hope she does well in the future.
Happy birthday to her!
Happy birthday!
Happy Birthday, Lauren!🎉🎊
And thank you!
Eleven minute episodes... mlp g4 would not have become what it was if it had eleven minute episodes.
Happy birthday to a remarkable woman!
Thank you for giving us one of the best animated series of the 2010s, Ms. Faust.
Happy birthday from all us weirdos!