Ronald Whitman sat nervously at a table in a conference room in the offices of The Education Network. The product of almost a year of his life was about to be screened. This was his make or break moment. One of the indistinguishable network executives snaked her finger up to the play button. They'd all introduced themselves, but their virtually identical clothing, and hair styles made identification of them hard. He wasn't sure, but he thought this was named Zoey, but it might have been Meagan, or Suzie. Ronald sat back and relaxed, which was fairly easy to do in an office chair that cost as much as his car.
On the screen, the image of small town in the desert at night appeared. On the other side of a river, a series of tallish building rose against the mountains.
"Live from the Pelican Hotel and Casino Laughlin, the Chaos Capital of the Earth, it's The Discord Show! Featuring Discord!" The announcer said.
The scene changed to the inside of a hotel ballroom that been hastily converted into a theater. At one end, there was a stage, with rows of stacking chairs laid out in front of it. About half of the chairs were filled. When it became clear that there weren't going to be enough people from the internet to actually fill the seats, Ronald had spent two hot days on the river walk, handing out tickets. The hotel had even given out free tickets to guests. Still, they'd filmed for a half filled audience. There was a loud noise, and the stage filled with fog, as Sirius by the Alan Parsons Project thundered out. Moving lights danced over the fog, from a truss above the chairs. The fog cleared, revealing Discord standing in front of a plastic kiddie pool containing a fountain spraying chocolate milk into the air.
"We have a great show for you tonight!" Discord said.
One of the executives paused the video.
"You said this was pony related." Zoey/Meagan said.
"It is pony related. Ponies aren't the only things that come from Equestria you know." Ronald argued.
"Viewers don't want to have to do homework before they watch a television show. If we advertise something as having ponies, we want it to have ponies, not some kind of monster that doesn't look like a pony." She replied.
"We have surveys to back that up." One of the other executives said.
"Good Point Ethan." a third executive chimed in.
"Thank you Nathan." Ethan said. "Look, the perceived flagging quality of network late night comedians has created a situation where such shows don't appeal to the 18 to 34 demographic. We'd have a hard enough time selling your show as it is, let alone the fact that it doesn't include a pony."
"You know, this show has potential. How about if we replaced that thing with that one pony with the head phones and the glasses." Nathan said. "We could have her do a fake newscast where she reads the news in a way that highlights how backwards Republicans are."
"You mean Vinyl Scratch? But that wouldn't be my show, that would be a copy of Jon Stewart, but with a pony." Ronald argued.
"Exactly. Advertisers don't like taking chances. They want a proven formula, and the Daily Show is definitely a proven formula. Add in a pony, and I'm seeing a ratings gold mine." Zoey/Meagan replied.
"It needs a reality element. Apple Wars is currently the number one show on Thursday. Add in a reality element, and you'd have a sure fire hit." Ethan said. "People love to watch interesting ponies do interesting things."
"So you're saying that I should turn my simple late night comedy show into a Daily Show knock off, but I should add in a reality element." Ronald said.
"Maybe you could lose the Daily Show part, and just make it a reality show." Nathan said. "We don't to be accused of making a derivative knock off show. We had enough of that with Locker Battle!"
Ronald's head was spinning. He didn't want to make another reality show, just with ponies. He wanted to make art. Well, not art. What he really wanted to do was impress his favorite little pony, Fluttershy. That's why he'd hired Discord. He hoped that Fluttershy would have come to see Discord in Laughlin. He could have impressed her at the after party, and they'd of surely hit it off. But, Discord had said that Fluttershy was too shy to come to Earth. Ronald hadn't even seen her when he'd been in Equestria finalizing the contracts, even though he'd spent two unnecessary days in Ponyville looking for her.
"Maybe you add one of those kids, you know, the ones that are always trying to figure out what tattoo they should get on their rears." Ethan suggested helpfully.
"Every you crazy fan boys love those kids." Meagan/Zoey replied.
Ronald didn't have the mental strength to correct the network executive about the near universal hatred of the Cutie Mark Crusaders in the pony fan community. He desperately wanted to be anywhere but here. The executives were still spouting ridiculous ideas.
"Enough!" Ronald shouted. "How about I make a show where I throw a bunch of ponies and humans in a house on the East Coast, and have them do stupid stunts! The person or pony that fails to humiliate themselves by the end of the episode will be voted off the island."
He hadn't meant it as a serious proposal. He'd been halfway through preparing to storm out of the room when he saw the shocked looks on the executives' faces. They were looking at him like he was some kind of Messiah. Ethan hugged him, and Meagan/Zoey was staring at him like he was some kind of genius.
"Just one suggestion. We'd need to get that one pony. You know, the one that's always shy and hiding from everything. That would make your proposal perfect." Nathan said.
"Now, that's something that we could sell to advertisers." Ethan said.
Ronald didn't want to agree with it. He couldn't agree with it. It was a terrible idea. But, he doubted that he could stop it either. His idea would somehow mutate into something even worse without his intervention. Besides, his failed pilot had cost him money. He had to borrow almost it, and that was in addition to his own student loans. Besides, this was his one chance to make it big. If his show was even one tenth as successful as the executives seemed to think, he'd be able to build up enough cred that he could eventually distance himself from this coming abomination.
Not to mention Fluttershy! The network clearly wanted Fluttershy, albeit for their own evil voyeuristic reasons, but he'd still be working with Fluttershy. Hadn't he went with the less then obvious choice of host for his show just to try to get Fluttershy? Now he was virtually guaranteed access to Fluttershy. The network could open doors for him that he has a lone producer could never have opened. There were still ponies in Equestria that thought the network was the government of earth after all.
"We'll need an island." Meagan/Zoey said.
"I know a guy from Nantucket." Nathan said. "He's got a house that we could rent out."