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Referenced By / My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/briar_bramble.png
Meet Briar and Bramble.
Not ponies, but kelpies. No relation at all!

Given this show's immense popularity, it's no surprise that other works would make reference to it and its fanbase.

NOTE: A lot of these examples fall under the trope, My Little Phony. However, they are references nonetheless. If you find or know of a work that references the MLP franchise as a whole, list it there or here, not here. Just keep in mind that the example has to be dated after 2010 for it to be at least most likely a reference.

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    Advertising 

    Anime & Manga 

    Card Games 

    Fan Works 

    Films — Live-Action 
  • There's a scene in Transformers: Age of Extinction that has a scientist holding a Rainbow Dash doll... that turns into a gun.
  • In Ted 2, a statue of Pinkie Pie is seen when Donny is talking to the Hasbro president.
  • A flashback seen in Pitch Perfect 3 has Fat Amy wearing Friendship is Magic-themed pajamas as a child...even though it wouldn't have premiered during the timeframe where this flashback took place.
  • In Deadpool 2, Deadpool initially refers to Yukio as "Pinkie Pie from My Little Pony".
  • In the movie Playing with Fire, MLP-themed decorations can be seen at several points throughout, and some of the characters can even be seen watching an episode together (the footage shown on the TV is from the pilot, but the discussion they have is about the season 7 episode "Secrets and Pies").
  • In the opening of Black Widow, a six-year-old Yelena Belova is shown to have a Twilight Sparkle plush toy, in 1995.
  • In To the Bone, Pearl is a young adult with a childlike manner who loves the show. She has a blanket with Applejack and Rainbow Dash on it, and Pinkie Pie-themed decorations at her birthday party. Ellen quips that she "lives in fucking ponyland."
  • Ghostbusters: Afterlife: Podcast is a brony and uses a Rainbow Dash-styled flash drive. He claims the series finds its footing in the second season.
  • The main cast of Friendship Is Magic makes an Intercontinuity Crossover in Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers.

    Literature 
  • At one point in Artemis Fowl, Foaly tells Mayne "Listen, nephew, if you want to strap a horn to your forehead and go to conventions on the weekends, that's completely fine".
  • In the poetry anthology Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty, the poem "Boy Toy Villanelle" mentions a Princess Cadence doll.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Pinkie Pie appears in The Aquabats! Super Show! episode "Cowboy Android".
  • The Comic Book Men episode "BronyCon" takes place at BronyCon 2014.
  • In the Modern Family episode "Schooled", Haley is given Friendship is Magic-themed bedsheets.
  • One episode of The Colbert Report has Stephen saying "I want to give a big shout-out here out there to all my bronies who may be watching." He even drives the point home by making a horse-riding motion. He did another a few months later, though he admitted he had no idea what it meant. When he did find out, he promptly took them back.
  • One $800 dollar question on an episode of Jeopardy! was "Applejack & Pinkie Pie are 2 of the teensy equines in this toy line". Said question was answered correctly as simply "My Little Pony".
  • A Rainbow Dash doll can be seen inside a backpack in the Adam Ruins Everything episode "Adam Ruins Security".
  • In the season 4 premiere of Legends of Tomorrow, Ray Palmer and Nate Heywood are revealed to be bronies and the latter calls a unicorn "Twilight Sparkle".
  • Odd Squad:
    • In the Season 2 premiere, "First Day", Party Pam holds five balloons that correspond with the theme colors of Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Twilight Sparkle, and Fluttershy. Two pink balloons representing the theme color of Pinkie Pie can also be seen tied to her food cart, along with two other blue balloons and two other yellow balloons.
    • The B-plot of "Mr. Unpredictable" has Orla and Oswald put on Paper-Thin Disguises and create fake aliases in order to sneak into a villain-oriented counterpart to the Odd Squad Academy known as Villain University, which is similar to the plot for "Friendship University" outside of the two agents' plan being to find out more information about an alumnus and not to expose the school as a fraud.
    • In "Negative Town", Olympia goes to a restaurant and is served rock soup, which is soup with a rock in it, similar to the Pie Family's traditional Hearth's Warming meal in "Hearthbreakers". Bonus points for the writer of that episode, Nick Confalone, having also written for Odd Squad once before.

    Theme Parks 
  • At Universal's Halloween Horror Nights in 2015, in one variation of The Carnage Returns show, after one of the victims of Jack the Clown and Chance interrupts their fun, they try to decide on a number of acts they could do to kill her off. Chance eventually suggests "The Brown Derby". Jack responds, "... but where are we going to get Chris Brown, a Brony, and an exorbitant amount of Ex-Lax at this time of night?"

    Video Games 
  • Mari0 has the Sonic Rainboom as a cheat, which is performed by reaching a enough speed through portals. Mario gains Rainbow Dash's mane afterwards. Said mane is also available as one of the in-game hats.
  • The Borderlands series: In multiple games:
  • Maxwell's brother, Scratch, from Scribblenauts Unlimited somewhat resembles Vinyl Scratch. The player is also able to spawn the Element of Magic and Twilight's gala dress from Suited for Success
  • The sorceress's hut in Candy box! 2 has three books on the shelf who's spines spell out "MLP". Furthermore, typing in "MLP" on the computer will result in the game printing the word "PONIES" over and over again.
  • One of Diana's taunts in League of Legends is "The Moon will rise! The night will last forever!" Furthermore, one of Hecarim quotes is "Suffering is magic!"
  • The Player-Owned Ports in RuneScape contains many references to the show. For example, "Twilight Sparkle", "Nightmare Moon", and "Element of Harmony" are all possible ship names. Also, each of the six regions in the archipelago has an island named after one member of the main six, and has a description to go with it.
  • In Team Fortress 2, The Heavy will sometimes say "Everyone! Friendship is stupid magic!" Furthermore, an item called "Magical Mercenary" somewhat resembles Fluttershy. Wearing it gives an extra voice line that's a play on the phrase "Friendship is Magic" (sans the Medic and Pyro).
  • Injustice 2 has the below exchange between Harley Quinn and Mr. Freeze, which doubles as an Actor Allusion for Tara Strong:
    Harley: Can you make me a pony?
    Mr. Freeze: It shall make the twilight sparkle.
    Harley: [laughs] I was hoping you'd say that!
  • One of the global quests in AdventureQuest has the player saying "I would say Friendship is Magic, but that sounds like a catchphrase from a really bad kid's show."
  • One question in Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games asks what the name of Daisy's jump. One of the answers is "Rainbow Dash".
  • One of the crash messages for Minecraft is "I just don't know what went wrong!"
  • Some of the cars in Watch_Dogs have keychains inside them shaped like one of the characters.
  • A plushie of Derpy Hooves can be seen at the store of Octodad: Dadliest Catch
  • The Boxxy Quest series: In both games, Princess Celestia appears, but more references exist, for each game:
    • In BoxxyQuest: The Shifted Spires:
      • In the FAQ Woods, asking a sign for an explanation of the Derpy condition has this reference to the name of Derpy Hooves / Ditzy Doo / Muffins:
        Or "ditzy", if you want to be all "politically correct" about it...
        Anyway, this status condition means that you become clumsy and uncoordinated, and you won't be able to dodge enemy attacks! If you don't want to hurt yourself, you can use Thursday Night Balm to clear everything right up~!
      • Equestria shares a border with the Boxxysphere.
    • In BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm:
      • Princesses Celestia and Luna can be seen as guests at the Great Summit.
      • Pinkie Pie has a cameo during the party sidequest. As an Easter Egg, Pinkie can even be swayed to temporarily join the team, as a nod to Catie’s well-known love of the character.
  • Terraria: NPCs will sometimes say " "Someone once told me friendship is magic. That's ridiculous, you can't turn people into frogs with friendship." Furthermore, the NPC, "Party Girl", somewhat resembles Pinkie Pie. She even sells her own version of the Party Cannon called the "Confetti Gun".
  • In Dungeons of Dredmor, most of your weapon crafting is done using the "My Little Anvil Junior Smithing Kit". The description states that "Smithing is Magic".
  • In Fallout 4, the logs in the office of Arlen Glass at Wilson Atomatoys Corporate HQ contain several references, including "I just don't know what went wrong", "I can't afford to be tardy. Clock is ticking, Arlen. Clock is ticking", and "I can't believe I skipped Marlene's recital to sit with a bunch of pink horses and watch paint dry."
  • In Infinite Craft, possible crafting recipes include Twilight Sparkle, Princess Celestia, and Princess Cadance.
  • "Discord" and "Trixie" are available as Downloadable Content for Rock Band 2. These songs are possibly for Writing Around Trademarks, as their connections to the actual show are subtle, and can easily be taken out of context.
  • SCP – Containment Breach: Using SCP-294 - a coffee machine that can give any kind of liquid requested - the player can request "Pinkie Pie's Greatest Ability" as another word of "Fourth Wall". However this has been removed from later versions of the game likely due to legal reasons.
  • Them's Fightin' Herds: It's true that the game originated as a My Little Pony fighting game before getting Screwed by the Lawyers, but the new IP still managed to sneak in a few references among its many others that can double as a Mythology Gag:
    • Three of Oleander's alternate palettes resembles characters from the show, specifically Trixie, Queen Chrysalis, and DJ-PON3/Vinyl Scratch (with Fred having Octavia Melody's color scheme for the later). Arizona also has a color scheme based on the NSFW character Milky Way from the fandom. note 
    • The "BFF Pendant I" and "BFF Pendant II" both have +6 Friendship for a "stat", referencing The Mane Six. While the descriptions say "Friendship sure is magic!" for the former and "Magic sure is friendly!" for the later.
    • Some of Oleander's bot names include 'My Little Pwning', 'Fhtng is Magic', 'So not a princess', 'Dusknight Glitter' and 'I used to wonder what dark magic could be'.
    • Two of Tianhuo's bot names include 'Not a pigasus' and '20% Hotter (Yeah I went there)'

    Visual Novels 

    Web Animation 

    Webcomics 
  • Elwood (2015) has a nod to the Brony fanbase in the "Horseplay" strip, where a group of male Funny Animal horses, one of whom wears a rainbow-colored wig similar to Rainbow Dash's mane, are seen buying My Tiny Trotter merchandise. When D.W. shows up to buy the merchandise, the store clerk is surprised to see an actual kid coming to buy it, since it's been ages since he sold any of it to its actual target demographic, and D.W. herself points out that she is the target demographic of the My Tiny Trotter merch, not the Funny Animal horse-men. Also, two of the My Tiny Trotter merch pieces seen are practically identical to Twilight Sparkle.
  • Sequential Art asks the question: "Do 'My Little Ponies' crap rainbow?" Followed by an unfortunate Imagine Spot.
  • In the Commander Kitty comic "Mouse Plays Mole", a Rarity doll can be seen in Sock's toolbox.
  • In the final story arc of And Shine Heaven Now, D is briefly seen playing with a Twilight Sparkle toy while his mother Integra works.
  • In Ensign Sue Must Die one of the dimensions Kirk, Bones and the Doctor go hunting for anomalies in is Equestria... where they immediately find themselves surrounded by dozens of Pony Sues. (And Twilight, in a gag about how she was accused of becoming one upon ascending to alicornhood.) One of the Pony Sues later takes part in the battle for the multiverse, while Applejack is part of La Résistance.

    Websites 
  • SCP Foundation:
    • Things Doctor Bright Is Not Allowed To Do At The Foundation:
      128. Doctor Bright possesses the ability of consciousness transfer and the artifact SCP-963. He does not possess any of the following:
      [...]
      13. The seventh element of harmony.
    • SCP-137 is an entity that can possess toys and turn them into whatever its owner would perceive them as. In one experiment log, it possessed a purple winged unicorn toy and declared "friendship is the greatest magic". The toy's name and its franchise is censored with black blocks but based around the number of blocks used, we can infer the character it possessed is Twilight Sparkle from My Little Pony. Plus the junior researcher's name (who did the experiment) being also black boxed, it can be concluded their name is "Brony".

    Web Videos 
  • PieGuyRulz:
    • In "Every Episode of SpongeBob Season 3 Reviewed", he notices that the episode "My Pretty Seahorse" references My Little Pony, "before Friendship Is Magic was a thing!".
    • In his Pie Week 2014 recap, he mentions at one part "Of course there's going to be a My Little Pony episode about pie! Why wouldn't there be?". Most likely referring to either "Over a Barrel" or "Somepony to Watch Over Me".
  • The Completionist: Jirard wears a pair of Rainbow Dash wings throughout the review of Spyro the Dragon (1998), which he promised to a friend.
  • Channel Awesome:
    • The Nostalgia Critic has taken many jabs toward the show and its fanbase. His philosophy being every single time someone says the word "pony" on the internet, the views go through the roof. Doug Walker himself is just indifferent towards the show in general and doesn't mind either the fans or haters. He's just making fun of the overabundance of the show online.
    • One episode of Ask That Guy with the Glasses has a question that asks if either Rainbow Dash or Twilight Sparkle is the better pony. Ask That Guy says that it's a matter of opinion, followed by him begging to just letting him like ponies.
  • In the opening of RedLetterMedia's Half in the Bag episode on Blade Runner 2049, Jay describes the film using the synopsis of My Little Pony: The Movie (2017) as a gag since both movies were released on the same weekend.
  • Sonic Stopmotion Adventures: Knuckles mentions Fluttershy is his favourite pony in Inhibitor Ring Disaster.
  • In Steam Train's playthough of "Secret of the Magic Crystals", one of them says that the meteor got the horses their cutie marks.
  • MovieBob, while not confirmed to be a brony, has made many references to the show in "The Big Picture".
    • In his Family Guy episode, he stated that admitting to liking Family Guy is like bringing up a discussion on whether Friendship Is Magic or Adventure Time is the better show. He then shows a picture of someone saying "It's Adventure Time", though he never said that was because he hated the show.
    • In "Science!" a picture of the main six hugging each other from "The Cutie Mark Chronicles" is shown at one point.
    • A vector of Pinkie Pie briefly appears in "If the Oscars Were the VGAs".
  • In Classic Game Room Undertow's review of "My Little Pony: The Runaway Rainbow", Derek sings the first part of the theme song near the beginning, as well as saying he used to wonder what friendship could be as well.
  • During Brows Held High's review of Exterminating Angels, Kyle scolds his audience for being turned on during the lesbian sex montage and shows the clip of Pinkie singing "Evil Enchantress" instead.
  • CGP Grey occasionally makes references in his videos, usually involving cutie marks.
    • In "5 Historical Misconceptions Rundown", Rarity's cutie mark is added to Lady Godiva's horse, and Napoleon's horse appears to bear a screw cutie mark.
    • "Groundhog Day Explained" features a groundhog with Trixie's hat and cutie mark, as well as a hyperlink to a video of Trixie.
    • In "You Are Two", when explaining the concept of left- and right-brain separation, left-brain holds up an Applejack toy that right-brain now has to justify holding, with the answer "Because it's the best pony."
  • In Colder, the Northuldra chief gives a miniature Pinkie Pie to the King of Arendelle.
  • In this Pretty Cure YouTube Poop, "Love is in Bloom" is played over a clip of Yukari and Akira dancing together.

    Western Animation 
  • In the Sanjay and Craig episode "Road Pizza", Sanjay finds that Craig has eaten his pony toy.
  • Teen Titans Go! has a Show Within a Show called "Pretty Pretty Pegasus", which Raven is a fan of. Most likely an Actor Allusion to Tara Strong reprising her role.
  • MAD had at least five skits either parodying MLP or at least having a cameo by a pony. Even going so far as having Tara Strong reprising her role as Twilight in some instances.
  • The Bob's Burgers episode, "The Equestranauts", directly parodies the brony fanbase. Even going as far as to having it's own version of BronyCon.
  • In the Littlest Pet Shop episode, "Littlest Pet Shop of Horrors", Blythe is seen riding a rather large Applejack plush as part of her Halloween costume. Most likely an Actor Allusion to the fact that both characters are voiced by Ashleigh Ball.
  • In the Sonic Boom episode, "Fortress of Squalitude", when Dr. Eggman hires Amy to redecorate his lair so that he can get on the cover of a magazine, Amy hangs a painting with ponies resembling Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity on his wall.
  • In the Gravity Falls episode "The Last Mabelcorn", Mabel encounters Celestabellebethabelle an unpleasant unicorn with Celestia's mane and Rarity's cutie mark.
  • The 2015 reboot of Danger Mouse features a pony (used by recurring villain Dawn Crumhorn) who looks suspiciously like Twilight Sparkle.
  • DuckTales (2017):
    • An episode has a pair of kelpies, a.k.a. "Murder Ponies", named Briar and Bramble, who were voiced by none other than Tara Strong and Andrea Libmannote  respectively.
    • There's another episode in the same show that's titled "Friendship Hates Magic!", after Friendship Is Magic.
  • Robot Chicken had a sketch that showed a brony rodeo (or "brodeo") in which people ride brony cosplayers in a rodeo competition. One of the bronies breaks their leg, and their rider has to put him down.
  • The Owl House: One of the shorts stated that Hexside no longer teaches the magic of friendship due to budget constraints.

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