Is This Thing On?
Fluttershy was hosting her weekly tea party with Discord. It was the usual affair, with cookies and tiny sandwiches and elaborate china plates and flying coat racks with wings and whatnot. Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie were all invited as well, and the table they all sat at was bigger as a result. For a while, it was a rather quiet affair though. The only thing missing was the dialogue.
"So..." Twilight began. "Has anypony here heard about the Ponyville Live Entertainment Festival?"
"The Ponyville what?" Rainbow Dash responded. "What the hay is that?"
"It's a festival for, well, live entertainment, and it's happening tonight. Anypony who wants to perform live on a stage can do so for free. The best part is it's free!" Twilight explained.
Fluttershy shuddered at the thought. "P-performing live?! Yeah, that's not exactly my cup of tea," she said. "I'll just stick with watching others do it."
"So for this Live Entertainment Festival or whatever it's called, you can do anything?" Discord asked.
"Of course! You can sing, read poetry, do stand-up comedy, anything you want!" Twilight said.
"Stand-up comedy, eh? Well I know what I'll be doing," Discord said. "Telling jokes onstage to an adoring audience, simply marvelous. It should be easy, considering that I'm the funniest guy in all of Ponyville."
"What?!" Pinkie Pie objected. "That is not true! I am the funniest mare in all of Ponyville, and that's a fact!"
"Oh really now?" Discord raised one of his eyebrows. "You wouldn't know funny if it punched you in the muzzle."
"That's it, Discord! It is on! I challenge you to a comedians' duel at the Live Entertainment Festival!" Pinkie shouted.
"A comedians' duel?" Discord said.
"Yes," Pinkie confirmed. "We'll both go up on that stage and tell jokes, and whoever gets more laughs from the audience wins the title of Funniest In Ponyville."
"Hmm...interesting wager," Discord said. "I accept your challenge, Pinkie Pie."
"Then it's a duel!" Pinkie said. "Um, Twilight, where is the Festival?"
"It's at the Ponyville Amphitheater, silly," Twilight said, chuckling slightly.
"Alright, then it's a duel!" Pinkie said.
At around sunset, the Ponyville Amphitheater's stage lights turned on, illuminating the stage. The seats surrounding the theater were all filled. Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Twilight sat near the front, excitedly waiting to see what kind of creative acts would grace them, particularly those of Pinkie Pie and Discord. Unfortunately, the Festival didn't start off too hot. The first act was literally just somepony reading the dictionary until they got whisked offstage by a cane. This put half of everypony in the audience to sleep. Luckily, the next act was a loud musical number that promptly woke everypony up. After that was Discord's act. After walking onstage, he conjured up a microphone to use and cleared his throat.
"Good evening, everypony! I just flew in from Manehattan, and boy are my arms tired." Discord got no response from the audience, not even someone coughing. Not even crickets dignified his joke with their chirping.
"Ugh, is this thing on?" Discord tapped at his microphone, confirming that it was indeed on. "Hmm, okay then. Knock knock!" Discord tried again. The audience remained entirely silent.
"Hmm...tough crowd," Discord said. "What's the deal with airline food, anyway?"
Rainbow Dash turned to Rarity on her right. "Wh-what the hay is airline food?" she whispered.
"Thank you, my little ponies, I'll be here all week!" Discord said. "Ooh, here's a funny joke! Why couldn't the foal see the pirate movie?" The audience responded with silence. "It was rated 'arr!'." Now, instead of being silent, half of the audience began to boo Discord, while the other half laughed, probably ironically.
"Get off the stage!" somepony called out from the audience, which got everypony laughing where Discord had failed.
"Oh, come on guys, these are jokes. Don't you know what jokes are?" Discord said.
"Yeah, I'm looking at one right now," somepony else in the stands jeered, causing the audience to break out into laughter yet again.
"Rrgh, you little ponies wouldn't know comedy if it came up and bit you in the flank!" Discord yelled.
Suddenly Pinkie Pie walked onstage pushing her giant party cannon in front of her. "Hiiiiiii!" she called out to the audience, who began cheering for her.
"Woo! Alright! Go Pinkie!" Rainbow Dash cheered.
"Pinkie, what are you doing?" Discord said. "This is still my act!"
"Not anymore!" Pinkie pulled the string on her cannon, blowing confetti into Discord's face, and took the microphone away from him. This got a couple of laughs from the audience. "How's everypony doing tonight? I just flew in from Canterlot, which is weird, because I don't have any wings." This got the audience to laugh even harder, and got Discord to question how she made that joke work when he didn't.
"So I was making cupcakes for my pet Gummy, because he's an alligator and everypony knows alligators love cupcakes, when I realized that Gummy was actually the one making the cupcakes, and I was in the batter! So I ate all the batter and then Gummy turned into Twilight Sparkle, who asked me if this joke was going anywhere. I said to her 'pickleberry kumquat avocado' and she just walked away. And that's how Equestria was created." Discord took the microphone from Pinkie as the audience laughed and cleared his throat.
"Sorry about that, folks," Discord said. "Anyways, why is pink even a color? It's like they were trying to make red, but didn't have the budget to do it. Am I right, or am I right?" As always, the audience remained silent, with the exception of the one pony who coughed. Discord tapped at his microphone again. "I swear, you can never tell if these things are on." Pinkie took the microphone from Discord once again.
"Who here likes ice cream!?" The audience cheered in response to Pinkie Pie. "Who here likes cookies!?" Once again, the audience cheered. "Well good, because I don't have any of either of those!" Discord seized the microphone from Pinkie yet again.
"Give me that!" he said. "Honestly, ponies these days. They think that they can just steal other people's thunder and get away with it."
"Well it is a free country," Pinkie replied flippantly. "Also, how would one steal thunder? It's a sound, it's not like you can hold it or anything.
"It's a figure of speech," Discord said.
"Ooh, I know some other figures of speech," Pinkie said. "Like 'when the going gets tough, the tough get going'. Fortunately, I'm not very tough, so I'll be here for a while." Once again, the audience let out hearty guffaws. "Thank you, thank you. Oh, have you guys ever heard of the stallion that stole fire but had his mane catch fire as a result? I guess he really got burned on that deal!" More laughter ensued for the Element of Laughter.
"Well I guess this act is dead now," Discord said.
"Ooh, ooh, I know how we can revive it! Let's have a hoedown!" Pinkie Pie suggested before going offstage briefly. When she came back onstage, she dragged back a grand piano, which immediately began to play an upbeat tune by itself.
"A hoedown?" Discord asked puzzledly.
"Just improvise, it's easy!" Pinkie advised him before breaking out into song:
When you sing a hoedown, you have to do it right
Unless your name is Discord, in which case you'll flop tonight
I'm not saying that Discord is bad at jokes
But when he tells them to living things, then he really chokes
Discord grumbled and took the microphone as the audience cackled their heads off. He thought for a few seconds and then began to sing his own hoedown:
I don't really get hoedowns, like what is the big deal
When Pinkie Pie is singing, I just don't see the appeal
I prefer stand-up and I'm sure you can agree
That the funniest comedian is obviously me
The audience didn't exactly agree with him, as they began to boo him once again. Having failed to entertain the audience on numerous occasions, Discord was forced to concede. "Alright, Pinkie Pie, you win," he said. "You are officially the funniest mare in all of Ponyville."
"Yay! Do I get a prize?" Pinkie asked.
"No," Discord said.
"Aww...okay. Goodnight everypony!" Pinkie waved to the audience before bouncing offstage, leaving behind her grand piano. This was awfully convenient for the mare performing the next act, as she had forgotten her piano at home.