voice perfectly. Rainbow claims it doesn't sound anything like her.
With the reveal of the cast of Tantei Opera Milky Holmes voicing the Japanese dub of FiM, it's been noted that not only some of the characters but even their color coding has been adhered to (Rarity shares Hercule's hair color, and Nero and Sherlock are quite similar to Applejack and Pinkie Pie respectively).
Ascended Fanon: Lauren Faust, as a Promoted Fangirl, listened to the fans very hard, to the point of canonizing Unicorn Pegasi (On the other hand, since the only winged unicorns we've seen thus far are God-Tier, a lot of Pony-sonas just got a whole lot more Sue-y).
She also listens to the fanbase when it comes to which background characters become Ensemble Darkponies, and we're gradually seeing this bear fruit. For instance, Derpy Hooves has been officially canonized, being included in episode storyboards as a Where's Waldo-style challenge in season 1 ("Derpy" is even her canon name according to some Season 2 concept art) and getting lines, a ditzy personality and even being called "Derpy" by Rainbow Dash in S2's The Last Roundup.
While it's unknown if it was intended to be so before the fandom reaction, Luna's characterization as The Atoner seeking to make up for her actions as Nightmare Moon was probably one of the most common fanon interpretations of her character.
While Tara Strong isn't necessarily a celebrity, she's probably the most well known voice-actor in the show, the only recurring member of the cast that isn't a member of The Ocean Group, and was the first actor Lauren Faust approached for the show when she was making the original pilot.
Cathy Weseluck as Spike as well as the mailpony in "The Last Roundup" and Truffle Shuffle in "Ponyville Confidential", Tabitha St Germain as Pound Cake and the Pegasus versions of Dr. Whooves/Time Turner and Meadow Song, Jan Rabson as Mulia Mild, and Ashleigh Ball as the buffalo who talks to Spike in "Over a Barrel" as well as one of the dragons in "Dragon Quest" (unless the dragon in question is Crackle). Also, while both Derpy and her original VA Tabitha St. Germain are female, Tabitha later revealed that at the time she was recording the episode "The Last Roundup", she thought Derpy was male and voiced her as such.
Possibly Spitfire in the Polish dub. She's voiced by a man, but she might just be male in that dub. Luckily she's voiced by a woman, starting from "Hurricane Fluttershy".
Spike also fits this trope in the Japanese dub, being voiced by Motoko Kumai.
Money, Dear Boy: While he later came to appreciate the role, John De Lancie originally became Discord for a quick buck. He had completely forgotten about it by the time fan mail started rolling in.
Sweetie Belle's singing voice is Michelle Creber, who usually voices Apple Bloom. This makes Sweetie Belle's version of "Fluttershy's Lullaby" all the more awesome when you learn that Michelle was 10 when she sang it.note It becomes obvious it's Michelle in that song once you notice Sweetie Belle sings with a noticeable twang. She fixes that by the Hearts and Hooves Day song, though.
In "Sleepless In Ponyville", we find out exactly why they have Michelle sing Sweetie Belle's songs. Turns out Claire Corlettsinging takes Cute, but Cacophonic far beyond 11, into numbers that were previously just theoretical.
And Pinkie Pie's singing voice is Shannon Chan-Kent. Andrea Libman, however, voices Fluttershy for both her speaking AND singing parts. The explanation is that Daniel Ingram had Shannon, a friend of his, do some of the original demos (including the main theme) and Hasbro liked her Pinkie voice so much they insisted on keeping her as the singing voice.
According to Andrea herself, she does some of Pinkie's singing, probably on the shorter songs but she hasn't elaborated beyond that. According to Daniel Ingram, Pinkie songs sung by Andrea include "Happy Monthiversary" from "Baby Cakes" as well as "You're a Cranky Doodle Donkey", the "Welcome Song" and "Cranky Doodle Joy" from "A Friend in Deed".
Also, Twilight Sparkle's singing voice is Rebecca Shoichet, and Rarity's singing voice is Kazumi Evans. Not that Tara Strong and Tabitha St. Germaincan't sing – they've both performed some singing roles in other shows in the past. For Tara Strong at least, this is due to her recording her lines separately (she’s based in a completely different country after all), and the ensemble songs require the actresses to be recorded together.
Background ponies generally have different voices from episode to episode, even when they're consistently named (as with Rose, who's been addressed by name in "Bridle Gossip" and "A Friend in Deed"). These voice changes have been especially noticeable in the case of Sweetie Drops/Bon Bon; her five speaking parts so far generally sound completely different from each other.
With the exceptions of the Gameloft app, The Hub's commercials for the show itself, and the app's trailer, anything outside of the show that requires voice acting (toy commercials, talking toys, the live show, etc.) and isn't using audio ripped from the show itself doesn't use the original voice actors. Tara Strong has said she'd be more than willing to voice any and all Twilight Sparkle toys, seeing as she's voiced toys before.
On this show, Ashleigh Ball (Applejack) plays Michelle Creber's (Apple Bloom) older sister. On Dinosaur Train she plays her mother.
Here, Michelle Creber plays the main child character while Madeleine Peters (Scootaloo) plays her tomboy best friend. On Martha Speaks, Peters plays the main child character and Creber is the tomboy friend. They also happen to be good friends in Real Life.
Subverted so far with Matt Hill (Soarin') and Samuel Vincent (Flim, one of the Pegasus bullies). They're usually cast as best friends, but so far this isn't the case here.
Also subverted with Shannon Chan-Kent, Maryke Hendrikse, and Scott McNeil, all of whom voice characters in Maryoku Yummy, but have yet to have their respective characters interact with each other on-screen (unless you count Pinkie Pie's performance in "Over a Barrel").
Invoked with the upcoming Japanese release, as five of the voice actors from Tantei Opera Milky Holmes have been confirmed as five of the mane six.
Interestingly, Cathy Weseluck and Motoko Kumai, the English and Japanese voice of Spike, had both previously played Pepper in Hamtaro in the English and Japanese versions, respectively.
Andrea Libman pulls double duty as Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie. (How's THAT for acting range?) It's particularly evident when Fluttershy starts cheering towards the end of "Sonic Rainboom" and sounds nearly identical to Pinkie. She also voices Pumpkin Cake, making "Baby Cakes" full of this.
Andrea has proved that she is capable of easily switching between the two voices on the fly. Pinkie-voice apparently gives the other actors a headache.
Ashleigh Ball voices both Applejack and Rainbow Dash. Now go watch "Fall Weather Friends" again, and marvel.* Ashleigh has talked about how weird it was to be challenging herself to a race. She also voices one or more of the nurse ponies* likely including Nurse Redheart in the "Baby Cakes"Cold Open (when trying to get Pinkie to shut up, the nurse has a slight but noticeable Southern drawl), the male buffalo who talks to Spike in "Over a Barrel", and one of the dragons in "Dragon Quest".
Unlike Andrea, Ashleigh (being a professional singer), does sing both her characters' parts. At one point near the beginning of the "Winter Wrap-Up" number, you can hear her switch from singing as AJ to Rainbow Dash mid-line.
Tabitha St. Germain voices Rarity, Princess Luna/Nightmare Moon, Granny Smith, Rarity's mom, Mrs. Cup Cake, Pound Cake, Photo Finish, (in the original version, at least) Derpy Hooves, but the only pairs of these characters who've had on-screen, two-way conversations are Rarity with Photo Finish and Rarity with her mom.
Word Of God confirms that Tabitha also performs Twilight Sparkle during the studio recordings in Vancouver (Tara Strong, based 2000 miles and an international border away, overdubs her part later), demonstrated by this behind the scenes video. In other words, Tabitha probably talks to herself more than any other actress on the show!
This gets subverted in "Luna Eclipsed", Luna doesn't talk to the other Tabitha characters and Rarity's scene was cut for timenote And again, Tabitha does Twilight's scratch track (Tara Strong records separately later), who spends most of the episode talking to Luna. It must have been a fun day at the studio for her.
Michelle Creber voices Apple Bloom and does Sweetie Belle's singing. The two of them talk to each other as part of the song in "Hearts and Hooves Day".note Although given the technicalities of that song – Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom sing in unison several times – Michelle probably was not ever switching voices on the fly.
You'd think this wouldn't happen with Tara Strong since she only voices one character. It happens quite literally in "Its About Time" when Twilight talks to her future self.
There's also one of the best songs in the show, "This Day Aria", which is Cadance singing with Chrysalis, who's disguised as Cadance herself.
Averted for the Japan dub by casting Applejack/Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie/Fluttershy separately.
Actually, just about every non-English dub casts six different actors for the Mane Six, making the original the only one that fits this trope.
Voices In One Room: The Vancouver-based voice actors typically record together, for both speaking and singing. (note that this leaves out Tara Strong and John De Lancie, who live in LA and overdub a scratch-track).
What Could Have Been: From various interviews we've learn the cast setup could have been just a little different...
According to Lauren, she initially wanted Tara Strong to voice Pinkie Pie, and Tara wanted to voice her with a Bubbles-esque voice.
Kathleen Barr, the voice of Trixie and Queen Chrysalis, apparently did a "very good" audition for Celestia.
Ashleigh Ball had auditioned for Spike, and thought she got the role as she got a phone call back for it.
Woman of a Thousand Voices: Tabitha St Germain is essentially the Billy West of the show. Again she voices Rarity, Princess Luna/Nightmare Moon, Granny Smith, Rarity's mom, Mrs. Cup Cake, Pound Cake, Photo Finish, Derpy Hooves (in the original version, at least), and multiple other background ponies. Even her co-workers often mention in interviews how blown away they are at Tabitha's talent. Tabitha herself was very surprised to hear that her co-workers had such praise for her.
Staff and Production
Bad Export for You: The McDonald's Happy Meals toys in Malaysia. For whatever brain-dead reason, Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack and Princess Celestia are not available in the country. Since the show is not available in the country because no Pay TV provider carries Boomerang (Cartoon Network Southeast Asia now also carry FIM, though), McDonald's and Hasbro probably thought they could get away with this...
Some of the dubs, from the previews of episode 3 (different from the actual broadcast version) seen so far, seem to be of the low-to-no-budget variety. The Canadian French demo (now gone from official site) is probably the worst.
For unexplained reasons, Discovery Kids skipped the fifth episode during the initial Latin-American airing. It was later shown after episode 14, followed by an ongoing hiatus.
Now there's reports going around that Boomerang's airings of the show in some regions are incomplete, bringing in only half of each season.
MLP has always been popular in Europe, but that didn't translate to the UK. Despite having no language barrier and a sizable fanbase, they got Season 1 and nothing else.
Banned In China: So far, 8 episodes have been skipped in Turkey due to the country's conservative Muslim standards. Notably this affects most episodes featuring celebrations comparable to real-life religiously-influenced holidays.
Some episodes have been censored as well. This most notably removes pretty much every instance of one character having a crush on another. Hilariously, Spike's secret crush in "Green Isn't Your Color" was changed to him noticing that "Rarity put on weight."(!)
This also happens with the version broadcast on Cartoon Network Arabic.
The cake served at The Hub's office party during the airing of "A Canterlot Wedding" is a smaller version of the wedding cake Applejack was seen making in the first part.
Executive Meddling: Lauren Faust has said that Hasbro's management of the show has generally been fairly easy-going, and she's been allowed a lot more freedom than she expected, with some exceptions:
Faust would have preferred to do a series with an overarching storyline, probably keeping the Magical Girl stylings of the first two episodes, but Hasbro wanted the episodes to be viewable in any order.
On the other hand, Faust says "a lot of fans now seem to think that I had a grand scheme for a big, dramatic, serialized magical-girl style of a show. Actually, it was always my intention to have the show partially 'adventure stories' and partially 'relationship stories,' as I called them in my initial pitch bible."
There weren't quite as many adventure stories in the first season as planned, but that was more budget restraints than Hasbro outright dictating it.
Ironically, multiple fanfic authors have decided that Fillydelphia is a Crapsack City.
Hasbro requested the inclusion of specific characters, though notably not how to use them – only that they be in the show in some form. This is why Cheerilee became a teacher and got Happy Meal toys as part of the McDonald's promotions.
This also seems to apply to Shining Armor and Cadance, though in that case the wedding was also mandated.
Judging by the blog post linked in YMMV under Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch, she would have preferred to add a few more guy ponies for a better-rounded society (and possibly making the Periphery Demographic less peripheral).
Rarity's fashion focus came about due to Hasbro mandating that at least one of the mane cast had to be a fashion pony.
After her speaking role in "The Last Roundup" brought her to full Ascended Meme status, it would appear that poor Derpy Hooves got hammered by this trope rather hard; the episode now has a new version that has been edited to change her voice, (mostly) "fix" her eyes, and remove reference to her name.
Because the above censorship row happened while episodes 53-65 were in production, Derpy has only a few appearances in Season 3. She's still in the intro, though, and also appeared in the finale five times.
In Season 3's "Wonderbolt Academy", one of the trainees was supposed to be Wild Fire, layout artist Sabrina "Sibsy" Alberghetti's pony. In the final version of the episode, the pony has been recolored and given a new cutie mark – although they forgot to change the chalk board, which still prominently features Wild Fire's flaming-tire cutie mark in at least one shot (and they forgot to recolor her in a different shot). When asked about this, Sibsy's reply boiled down to "These things happen."
God Does Not Own This World: Lauren Faust, despite being the main creative force, has neither absolute control nor ownership of the franchise. This is punctuated by the fact that she demoted herself to consultant producer for Season 2, and then left the show entirely.
God Never Said That: Lauren Faust and company have been misquoted or misunderstood a few times. For example, it's a common belief that the show was pitched as much more Magical Girl adventure style but Hasbro demanded a more Slice of Life format. This isn't true, as Lauren has stated that she planned to have a mix of adventure and Slice of Life from the beginning. The reason why there aren't more adventure episodes is because they're harder to produce on a tight schedule while still being enjoyable.
William Anderson (FiM's background music composer) also did the background music to the Earthworm Jim cartoon.
Dave Polsky (writer of "Feeling Pinkie Keen", "Over A Barrel", and "Too Many Pinkie Pies") created The Buzz On Maggie.
Merriweather Williams (writer of "Mysterious Mare-Do-Well", "Hearth's Warming Eve", and "Dragon Quest" among others) was the original head writer for Adventure Time and also worked on Sponge Bob Square Pants and The Angry Beavers.
Current show editor Meghan Mc Carthy (who usually is the one magazines like Entertainment Weekly talk to about things) has written for Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends (specifically, the episodes "Berry Scary & "Bus the Two of Us") & Fish Hooks, and was the head writer on Class of 3000.
Keep It Foreign: Unlike what happened with the original My Little Pony series, the foreign versions of the show keeps the original MLP logo in English, with only the Friendship is Magic subtitle translated into the local language, possibly due to Hasbro's request, regardless if the viewers, especially the younger ones, can pronounce the name of the show or not.
There's a good justification for that: In some languages like Spanish, for putting a good example, the name of the franchise was translated as Mi Pequeńo Pony. The problem here is, Mi Pequeńo Pony refers to a male pony, and since all the main cast is female, and since Spanish doesn't have gender-neutral versions for the same name, maybe Hasbro decided to use the original English name, since it's gender-neutral and avoid the unavoidable Unfortunate Implications about translating the name using a forced male version of that name, not only in Spanish but in many other languages too.
Also happens in the Japanese version, but dealing with the honorific titles: Princess Celestia (and Luna) are addressed in Japanese with their English title "Princess" (プリンセス) rather than "Hime" (姫) or "Queen" (Jou'ou/女王), since in Japanese culture, a princess is rarely portrayed as a ruler, compared with a queen. But, since Hasbro is possibly forcing the Japanese translators to keep the "Princess" title despite this cultural tidbit, maybe they decided to use the English honorific title as a compromise, though it's worth noting that the Japanese website refers to her as "女王・プリンセスセレスティア" (Jouou Princess Celestia, literally "Queen Princess Celestia", with the Princess title as part of her name in Japanese).
Jayson Thiessen, the show's current chief director and showrunner, has a deviantARTaccount, a Twitteraccount and a YouTubechannel, and is not shy about communicating with fans (at least about things he's allowed to discuss).
A layout artist commonly going by "Nayuki" posts on the Allspark Forums, offering several bits of behind the scenes trivia. He's also the one who drew the San Diego Comic Con 2011 Pony Poster, which contained all the shout outs to fans and fanon.
Senior storyboard artist Sabrina "Sibsy" Alberghetti is another popular staff member that talks to bronies regularly. Her OC Wild Fire made a cameo in the show.
And many, many more. Many of them are on Twitter now, and more seem to be joining it all the time.
Also, Friendship is Magic is actually the firstMy Little Pony show to be aired in Japan. Note that there was no My Little Pony Japanese dub before Friendship is Magic.
Meme Acknowledgment: Quite a lot of them, which is fitting given the show's extremely fan-friendly status.
This season 2 promo acknowledges acknowledged the fan terms "brony" (term for fans of the show, usually defined as the older male ones) and "DJ Pon-3" (for the DJ pony seen in "Suited for Success").
May 30, 2012 saw the announcement of a special edition toy for Comic-con. The toy packaging is nameless, but contains a gray pegasus pony with blond hair, bubbles cutie mark, and yellow walleyes. The package is complete with muffins on the box art.
WeLoveFine's officially licensed My Little Pony line of shirts is at least half ascended memes.
Also inverted in a way: Ghost of True Capitalist Radio would often describe himself as "Melting Pot of Friendship" to deflect accusations of racism. He also hates the show and its fandom. So a "fan" recorded Tara Strong saying in her Twilight Sparkle voice that she's a Melting Pot of Friendship. Ghost took it well.
A DVD box set featured a "Now 20% cooler!" sticker.
Of the worst kind, due to deals made with TV networks outside of the US. To date, the complete series has only been released for sale on the iTunes Store, which does not sell videos to those living in the remaining two-thirds of the world, and not even all of them are available outside the US in the one-third of the world where the iTunes Store sells videos. The show's other commercial digital releases (Netflix, Google Play, and YouTube) have all the episodes from the first and second seasons, but as the trope suggests, they're known and/or presumed to be region-locked. Selected episodes have also been released on the LeapFrog App Center, but that's region-locked toonote As of March 2012, the videos are only available on the US and Canada app sites and only four pairs of episodesnote "Dragonshy" with "Swarm of the Century", "Friendship is Magic, part 1" with "Friendship is Magic, part 2", "The Show Stoppers" with "Stare Master", and "Applebuck Season" with "Boast Busters" are available.
As for DVDs, Edel Germany GmbH, InnoForm Media, and Madman Entertainment have released or are releasing Season 1 (and in Madman's case, Season 2) in their respective countries, Edel having released episodes 4-6 with only the German dub, InnoForm's DVDs putting the episodes Out Of Order, and InnoForm & Madman's DVDs respectively being locked to Regions 3 & 4. However, aside from those, only "The Ticket Master" has been widely released (in some countries, only through limited-time promotions) on DVD outside the US (one or more countries have received multiple episodes), and those dubs are different from actual broadcast versions.
Those in Southeast Asia who can't get Boomerang, which has somehow obtained the rights to air parts of programming based on Hasbro's franchises almost everywhere outside North America, are screwed, since not all providers carry Boomerang. (For Southeast Asia, as of now, FIM is also on Cartoon Network) Nick Jr.? Only in Germany and Netherlands, though "A Canterlot Wedding - Part 1" can be watched for free with Spanish fansubs on a MexicanMLP website, and the German dub of the entire first season can be watched for free on Nickelodeon's German and Swiss websites. And naturally, all the videos on The Hub's website are region-locked to the USA, even the short clips (and proxies apparently don't work) – the videos on Hasbro's website may be viewable from outside the USA, but would require navigating to the US version of the Videos page.
A French My Little Pony magazine published by Panini has printed at least two original stories, one of which has also been printed in their German magazine mentioned below.
A German My Little Pony magazine published by Panini has printed at least eleven original comics and at least four original stories, one of which has also been printed in their French magazine mentioned above.
A Hungarian My Little Pony magazine has printed at least one original story.
A Norwegian My Little Pony magazine published by Egmont has printed at least six original stories, two of which have also been printed in the Polish magazine mentioned below.
A Polish My Little Pony magazine has printed at least five original stories, two of which have also been printed in the Norwegian magazine mentioned above.
The long-awaited American releases of the Blind Bags skipped the second wave, jumping straight from the first to the third and moving forward from there. Not necessarily a bad thing, though, considering that Wave 2 had multiple instances of naming-fail.
For over two years, this was the case for Japan. Indeed, it was generally assumed that Japan would never get anything Pony-related due to Hasbro's likely inability to deal with stiff competition from the Hello Kitty and Pretty Cure franchises (and Japanese culture itself heavily averting All Girls Like Ponies*
because Japan is so heavily urbanized, most little girls have never seen ponies, much less formed any affection for them
Old Shame: As Lauren Faust pointed out in the page quote on the main page, the biggest obstacle against potential viewers giving Friendship Is Magic a chance is the reputation for being Merchandise Driven and Tasting Like Diabetes that My Little Pony had gained in the previous 28 years of its history. In fact, this show first attracted /co/'s attention because of a post on Cartoon Brew accusing Faust of being a corporate sellout for taking this job even before the pilot aired.
One of Us: Lauren Faust apparently is very aware of /co/'s obsession with the show, and (before leaving the show) would often post little in-jokes on her deviantART profile. Also, see Ascended Fanon.
She also once posted on Ponibooru prior to its shutdown, upon learning of a piece of art thanking her for all the work she put in over the previous three years that told her in no uncertain terms that yes it had been worth it.
Due to her non-involvement with the show as of Season 3, coupled with her moving on to other projects, she is not nearly as visible as she used to be, and has moved into the mode of indirectly informing fans that she'd prefer not to be bugged about Pony anymore.
Some of the directors, animators, and other folks who work on the show are also well aware of the Periphery Demographic. Song writer Daniel Ingram in particular has talked about the bronies in recent interviews and answered fan questions and has DJ-P0n3 fanart on his Facebook page (His favorite pony is Rainbow Dash).
Ingram has also commented favorably on the efforts of certain Youtubers to remix his Pony songs. In fact, he was willing to personally help out one remixer who was having trouble figuring out the chord progressions in "At The Gala".
Some people who work on children's cartoons aren't too proud of their work. Friendship is Magic animators draw OCs and cosplay.
William Anderson is definitively a brony. His homepage opens to a ponification of himself. There is also a photo of himself, in his studio, working on an episode of Friendship Is Magic.
Claire Corlett's obsession with Minecraft has become something of a meme in itself. Other fans would see her as a "Human Pinkie Pie" in her videos on Youtube, due to her misadventures she brings out in her videos.
Lauren Faust played with the G1 toys as a child. She even named her Deviant Art handle "fyre-flye" after her favorite G1 pony. (note that she did this before Hasbro asked her to do the show)
A few other staff members also have fond memories of the older shows. And a lot more became very fond of it in the work process.
Ingram brought Mando back to play (and sing!) for Littlest Pet Shop 2012 (also produced by DHX Media). Mando has also since collaborated with Michelle Creber (and her parents) several times on musical projects.
Rule34 — Creator Reactions: "I'm a big girl. When stuff gets too icky I just find something else to do."
Lauren eventually had to clarify this, insisting that fans please not remind her that Rule 34 Pony art exists.
Tara Strong jokingly posted this along with some other pictures of characters she's voiced on her Twitter, then later asked what Rule 34 and trolling was and said "Dear Princess Celestia, the Internet scares me". Then again, she's been in the business long enough to see the trend, and she's known for having a quirky sense of humor on her twitter account, so who knows at this point.
It's pretty much confirmed at this point that Tara is totally trolling the bronies, and most of them know it too. The problem is the fans who take her seriously...
Screwed by the Network: Thus far actually subverted within the US. Despite originally having a terrible airtime for new episodes – the middle of the day on a Friday! – on a non-mainstream channel that's only available on upper-tier cable and satellite packages, the show's been doing very well even with its target demographic, and The Hub considers it one of its A-list shows (moving it to the lucrative Saturday Morning slot for Seasons 2 and 3). Outside the US, however, this trope is being played depressingly straight:
A relatively mild example is in Canada, where the show airs on Treehouse TV, a channel otherwise dedicated to pre-school programming, and the airing times verge on the completely random. Let's hear it for DVRs.
Thankfully, the first two seasons are now available on the Canadian version of Netflix. Netflix To The Rescue?. This is before Treehouse TV has aired the rest of the second season.
In Singapore, it was broadcast on Okto..... On Weekdays, at 12 PM. With absolutely no commercial at all. Are you trying restrict this show to toddlers? Let's just hope that they put it into a better time slot when they decided to broadcast Season 2.
They did. They put Season 2 on Wednesday and Thursday at 6:30 PM, a primetime slot just one hour before Transformers Prime, quite appropriately. Cue the fandom rejoice.
You think Singapore has it bad? It's screwed to the extreme by NTV 7 in Malaysia. The show was supposed to premiere on March 3, 2012 on said channel, almost a year after it premiered in Singapore. It was yanked in the last minute and replaced with Lily The Witch. More egregiously is that the sting overlay still shows the airing show as My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. It's like the Screwed by Fox Network joke in Futurama taken up to 11 in which the show was screwed before it could even premiere!
Yes, NTV 7 finally brought Season 1 in on July 5th (one year after the season finale premiered in Singapore!), but seriously, 8:30 AM, and only one airing a week with absolutely no repeats? And season 2 and 3 are still up in the air- NTV 7 wants to assess season 1's ratings before committing to season 2 according to Hasbro Malaysia. And no, unlike Singapore, no Pay TV providers in Malaysia carry Boomerang. You guys should really consider yourself lucky.
New episodes of Season 2 were originally being aired on Saturday at 9 AM (''The Hub'' operates only on Eastern Time for most packages), but are now pushed back to 10 AM... and later changing the timeslot to 10:30 am for season 3 (which unfortunately for those on the other side of the country, will force them to wake up early to watch it at 7:30 am.)
Discovery Kids, yes that channel still exists in latin america, they seemingly doing this with the series, first with a dub without the necessary quality (some Times, other the Dubs who are aware of the fandom do they best) and transmitting the series on a schedule that even not bad is definitely anti bronies (And whitout re-runs on the same day), not to mention that recently took out the series even when not finished transmitting the entire second season, that has been going out in groups of a few chapters (things seemed to improve when transmitting it went from half an hour to an hour, but soon that too was ruined by putting the episodes out of order and repeating only certain episodes too much). the Television Channel 5 in Mexico has been for years, the channel of the cartoons, buy the series put her in a relatively uncomfortable time and soon take it off, only to put it back at a different time. At leat the dont do the same they do to Pretty Cure (Even more awfull Dub, and transmitting it a the 03:00 a.m. in the morning.
Stargate City: You can tell the official Equestria map poster was drawn by the Vancouver natives at DHX Media, since its depiction of the city of Vanhoover in the northwestern corner includes the distinctive silhouettes of Harbour Centre and Canada Place.
Throw It In: Derpy Hooves (see Ascended Fanon) was only cross-eyed in her first appearance because of an animation mistake (or an intentional gag). She had normal eyes for her next few appearances, until the team heard about the popularity of the cross-eyed Derpy and decided to keep her that way.
This whole thing got started because Lauren Faust was pitching to Hasbro an animated series based on her own dolls, Milky Way and the Galaxy Girls. We almost got an original property and My Little Pony would still be in G3.5, or someone else would have handled the reboot – thisDeviant Art gallery includes several pieces of old concept art, some of which is in a different style than G4 ended up using.
Several characters had name changes for legal reasons. Twilight Sparkle was Twilight Twinkle (a G3 pony), Princess Luna was Princess Selena, Apple Bloom was Appleseed, Big McIntosh was Big Apple, Gilda was Grizelda, and Zecora was Shaman.
Along with Big Apple, Sweet Apple Acres was going to be called Big Apple Orchard or Big Apple Farm - the idea was that Applejack's brother inherited the farm while she just ran things. It also was originally not supposed to be in Ponyville at all, but in a different town known as Fillysire.
In the original pitch, Apple Bloom was alone in her quest for a Cutie Mark. Lauren was asked (not forced, as she puts it) to add Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo and the Crusaders were born. Oddly enough, Lauren Faust always thought they should have their own Spin-Off show for preschoolers (where kids learn how to do stuff while the Crusaders are engaging in new activities looking for their cutie marks).
In Lauren's original pitch for the show, Pinkie Pie was a Pegasus and Fluttershy was an Earth Pony. The entire cast went through a design change, from G1 Ponies to G3 Ponies (though some of them are In Name Only).
Lauren has said she had a sea ponies episode in mind, but it didn't get made under her watch. We almost got shoo-be-doo'd!
That said, we are apparently getting sea ponies in the Expanded Universe!
The show was originally going to be named My Little Pony Adventures.
Trixie was originally going to be a boy, until the episode's scriptwriter suggested to Lauren to make the character female. Lauren admitted in an interview that this change was absolutely for the better.
Lauren originally designed several monsters to be cuter and prettier thinking Hasbro wouldn't let her get away with the monsters being "too scary". Turns out she was wrong and Hasbro didn't think her original designs were scary enough.
On the other end, the Ursa Major was much uglier and scarier before getting toned down (and it's still pretty ugly and scary). Interestingly, in this case, the change was not due to worries that it might be too scary but because it the difference between adult and baby was too drastic and executives were worried that the intended demographic might not recognize the larger monster as being the same species.
The show was originally intended to be 1/3 adventure stories, but it quickly became apparent that the extra workload they entailed meant they were difficult to pull off on the very tight production schedule. Lauren said that the main casualty of this was Zecora, with her originally planned mentorship role not really needed.
Similiarly, Lauren originally envisioned a lot more diversity in body types for the ponies, but that too would've been more work for the animators.
Word Of Godsays that "all eps have sort of "placeholder" titles and lots of them change." The episodes with known Working Titles are:
"Friendshipis Magic" may have been "Mare In The Moon". This ended up being used as the alternate title of part 1.
"Swarm of the Century" was originally called "Pied Piper Pinkie" before a story meeting.
According to Lauren, Rarity had a scene scripted for "Luna Eclipsed" where she goes overboard designing an outfit to soften Princess Luna's demeanor, leading to another humorous misunderstanding, but it apparently got cut for time, so Rarity is ultimately an Absentee Actor (though her voice actress is still present as Granny Smith and Lunanote and Twilight during the studio recording.).
Pinkie Pie's "Piggy Dance" song from "Baby Cakes" was originally written for "The Best Night Ever" as a longer song to the tune of the "Chicken Dance", but was cut at the last minute due to time restrictions.
There were plans for an episode centered around Big McIntosh. The episode was supposed to have little dialogue coming from the star character. However, it was dropped for a probable number of reasons (namely, that silence can get very boring).
According to Amy Keating Rogers, Derpy's scene in "The Last Roundup" was originally going to be a little longer, complete with a flashback on how the Town Hall got ruined. She was also named Ditzy-Doo (a character previously mentioned in "Winter Wrap Up" that Lauren Faust considered using Derpy's design for), but was referred to as "Derpy" at the director's request as a Fandom Nod. Considering what happened later, this nod probably was not the best idea (though certainly well-meaning).
According to M.A. Larson, the Ponyville Schoolhouse's school paper was originally called The Horse's Mouth instead of Foal Free Press, and Featherweight was originally called Milquetoast and he was Namby-Pamby's little brother.
The "Smile Song" was originally going to sound very different, and include a talk-sing "patter" section with lines by a number of characters (most of whom ended up either only having silent cameos in the episode or not appearing at all): Derpy Doo (then named as such due to Amy Keating Rogers not having been aware of the full name "Derpy Hooves" at the time), Hairy, Shimmy Shake (who was to be Twist's mom), Rarity, Fluttershy, multiple Polo Ponies, and multiple cows.
Lauren said at a Bronycon panel that she originally proposed making Rarity the Element of Inspiration, but this was rejected for being too hard for kids to understand.
Lauren has said that she planned for a Scootaloo episode, which would have revealed that Scootaloo is disabled and would never be able to fly like the other Pegasus Ponies. This episode did not get made, possibly because it sounds too sad, or because Hasbro wants to keep possibilities open. It remains to be seen what would happen in a Scootaloo episode once it airs!
It took 3 seasons, but Scootaloo finally got an episode. However, it focused on her relationship with Rainbow Dash rather than why she still can't fly.
Write What You Know: Meghan McCarthy said at the Canterlot Gardens convention that the reason many ponies go a little crazy in the episodes she writes is because they were mostly composed in the wee hours of the morning as she grappled with deadlines, the ponies' stress reflecting her own.
Write Who You Know: Twilight Sparkle's personality is based on that of Lauren Faust's mother, as well as girls she knew in school who were high academic achievers but didn't act like stereotypical nerds. Lauren also says Fluttershy is based on herself as a child.
Fandom
Approval Of God: Hasbro and/or The Hub have sent official material to popular fansites Equestria Daily and Ponychan, including exclusive interviews with the show's creative staff. Everfree Radio, a project that started on Equestria Daily, regularly gets clearances to conduct surprisingly lengthy interviews of the show's actors, animators, composers, and writers.
Derpy Hooves' name and personality, all extrapolated from an animation glitch in the first episode.
Ever since the Pegasus Derpy became the unofficial mother of the Unicorn Dinky (in fanon), fans tried to explain how that's possible; theories ranged from the father being a Unicorn to it being in their DNA – complete with detailed Punnet Squares to justify it. "Baby Cakes" revealed that the Cakes' new baby twin foals, Unicorn and a Pegasus, got those traits from their parents' other family members.
Mr. Cake: That makes sense, right?
As of "Magic Duel", Alicorn is a canon term for a Winged Unicorn. Possibly.note The scripts themselves usually use "Unicorn-Pegasus" or "Pegacorn". As mentioned multiple times throughout various MLP subpages, "alicorn" specifically refers to the material that a unicorn's horn is made of, nothing more. Pony fans began using the incorrect term probably due to Rule Of Cool. Though an argument can easily be made that "alicorn" as synonym for "Winged Unicorn" is a corruption of the French words for wing ("aile") and horn ("cor" or "corne").
Actually, as of "Magical Mystery Cure," the term is now undeniable, as Rarity refers to Twilight as an alicorn.
Lauren herself had previously used the term in interviews.
All There in the Script names from the toy line include Cherry Berry, Lotus Blossom, Lyra Heartstrings, and Sunny Rays. Of course, most of the ascended Fan Nicknames are generic enough that they could just be cases of I Knew It, and the name "Cherry Berry" had previously been used as the British name of the G1 pony Crunch Berry.
Defictionalization: The fanmade ones (for the official ones, see this trope's listing in the Staff and Production folder):
Some have actually tried to make muffins with Applejack's "baked bads" recipe. With some tweaking (most notably gummy worms for earthworms) you can produce something "reasonably palatable◊". Using actual worms, though, brings them closer to what the episode purports.
When one of the actors at the second Bronycon mentioned that she would enjoy seeing a particular drawing, the MC quipped that there would be at least a dozen pieces of relevant fanart by the end of that day (less than 12 hours).
Dye Hard: Golden Harvest (Carrot Top)'s hair was briefly green in "Boast Busters" as part of a gag and goes back to orange right afterwards.
Rarity: No! Green hair? Not green hair! Such an awful color! Golden Harvest: ...Well...I never!
Fan Community Nicknames: Fans who are older than the target demographic are known as "bronies."
Many female fans call themselves "pegasisters".
While other female fans dislike the term and prefer to just be "bronies", considering it gender-neutral.
Another term is "bronette", nowhere near as popular as "brony" or "pegasister".
Fandom Life Cycle: Currently seems to be in Stage 4, "large and organized".
An argument could be made for Stage 5 (sufficiently ingrained in contemporary culture for even the people not familiar with it to know a lot about it). More and more newspapers and news companies are doing reports on the show, the fans, the toys, etc. If it isn't Stage 5 now, at the rate things are going, it will be by the end of 2013.
It's getting there. The fanbase has now been referenced on Saturday Night Live (not positively, mind you, but then no "nerdy" thing ever is).
The main six ponies are referred to collectively as the Mane Six by fans, though it's not a term used in show.
And sometimes "The Mane Cast" or "The Mane Seven" if one's willing to include Spike.
Also, if any of the Mane Characters has a breakdown, shows off a different personality, or otherwise something is different about them than usual, it tends to get its own nickname – such as "Pinkamena" for straight-haired depressed Pinkie, "Flutterage" for Fluttershy's rampage in "The Best Night Ever", "Flutterbitch" for Fluttershy's Discorded personality in "The Return of Harmony", and "Psycho Twilight" (or "Crazy Twilight") for Twilight's breakdown in "Lesson Zero". There are many, many more; too many to really list them all here.
At least, up until "Green Isn't Your Color". The nickname seems to have officially transferred to Photo Finish since then (despite clear evidence that Photo Finish is actually based on "Vogue" fashion editor Anna Wintour).
The big red dragon from "Dragonshy" seems to have attracted the nickname "Basil", after a dragon from the G1 series.
Thanks to some fans fooling around with YouTube's So Bad, It's Good auto-caption function, a lot of fans have taken to calling the Sea Serpent from episode 2 "Steven Magnet".
These captions have also inspired the nickname "Reginald" for the green dragon in "Owl's Well That Ends Well".
Pinkie's sisters are often called Blinkamena/Bellamina Marie ("Blinkie") and Inkamena/Isabelle Lilly ("Inkie"); likewise, her parents are often dubbed "Clyde" and "Sue". There's a theme here.
Prince Blueblood, Celestia's infamous very-far-removed nephew, was known for a while as "Prince Astron", since he wasn't referred to by name during his first appearance (during Rarity's fantasy sequence in "The Ticket Master"). When he turned out to be a pompous jerk in "The Best Night Ever", he quickly attracted a host of unflattering nicknames, including "Prince Glueblood" and "Prince Douchebag".
A certain fan's comment on some fan-art of Princess Luna's adult self found on Ponibooru before the reveal has led to Adult!Luna being referred to as "Moonlight Dream".
Discord is sometimes referred to as DisQord to draw attention to his voice actor having played Q from Star Trek. Some fans have also taken to shortening his name to "Disco", because of a short clip of him doing "the running man" while hopping around in Celestia's stained glass windows.
The boulder that Discord tricks Rarity into lugging around was dubbed "Dan" by the fans as a result of Youtube captions. Then the next episode came out, revealing that Rarity had named it "Tom". The boulder is now sometimes known as "Tom Dan" by fans.
This particular one became less common after Ponibooru disappeared, and with it all of the idiosyncratic image tagging.
"Tia" is a common pet name for Celestia used by her younger sister Luna among the fandom.
From "Lesson Zero", Rainbow Dash's aerial dive that utterly decimated Applejack's old barn and left a rainbow-colored mushroom cloud has been given many different nicknames like the Atomic Rainboom, the Sonic Rainbomb, or the Sonic Rainnuke. The latter seems to be the most popular.
The Nice Hat that Cheerilee gives Spike in "Secret of My Excess" has made the fans give Spike the nickname of Smooth Criminal, to go with all the Michael Jackson jokes.
The Japanese fansubs on Nico Nico Douga have led to a few: 'Aniki' (Big Bro) for Big McIntosh and 'Air Waifu' for Rainbow Dashexplanation
RD's second most identifiable trait to the Japanese fans (after being a Bokukko) was her Innocently Insensitive nature, known in Japanese slang as 'kuuki yome' (short for 'kuuki yomenai' = 'can't read the atmosphere'). And those two words happen to be homonymous with 'air' and 'wife', alluding to RD being a pegasus and connecting it to the My Waifu meme.
The changeling that took up Pinkie's request to transform into her has become popular enough that ponibooru dubbed the changeling Doomie, based on the line that got it to transform in the first place ("Do me! Do me!").
The idea that Lotus Blossom (the pink-haired blue pony who works in the spa) has a twin sister named Aloe originated in Fan Fiction. In "Green Isn't Your Color", we see her Palette Swapped twin for the first time. Turns out there are Europe-only G1 and G2 twin pony toys who look very much like them.
A common fandom interpretation of Luna was that she'd be The Atoner trying to improve her image. That's pretty much the exact plot of the season 2 episode "Luna Eclipsed".
This was uploaded over two weeks before "Sisterhooves Social".
Some fans predicted Silver Spoon would show some hidden kindness because she has a heart in the handle of the spoon in her Cutie Mark. In "Family Appreciation Day", she's the first pony to start applauding Granny Smith's story about the foundation of Ponyville.
It was never implied that Spitfire was Captain of the Wonderbolts in her first couple of appearances, but most fans assumed she was after "The Best Night Ever", probably due to her being the more level-headed of the two named Wonderbolts. This was confirmed in "Hurricane Fluttershy" and further confirmed in "Wonderbolt Academy".
It was very common for fanfics to have the events of "Boast Busters" result in Trixie's life being ruined. Turns out that's EXACTLY what happened.
Ever since the first episode, fans have speculated what the future holds for Twilight Sparkle. It was fairly common belief early on that Celestia was grooming Twilight to be her eventual replacement, and while that hasn't come to pass, she's now an Alicorn Princess. The Element of Magic is after all, as Twilight herself puts it, a "Big Crown Thingy". Helps that one of the show's staff drew a sketch of Side Story Bonus Art a month after the pilot episode aired.
For two years prior to that, fans often referred to this possibility as Twilight "ascending". That's pretty much exactly what happened.
Rarity calling the newly transformed Twilight "an alicorn" in the Season 3 finale finally elevates that long-popular Fan Nickname for the Winged Unicorns of the series to canon status. (The "Alicorn Amulet" in "Magic Duel" already introduced the word itself, but didn't yet make quite clear what it referred to).
Several seiyuu fans thought that Kikuko Inoue would be a perfect voice for the Japanese version of Princess Celestia. It turns out she will voice her in the official Japanese dub according to a translation of the official site.
Internet Backlash: In the earliest years of the fandom, openly mentioning that you liked the show almost anywhere on the Internet was a very bad idea. This has died down somewhat as the fandom has grown and more and more people have watched the show, but the more open and obnoxious bronies are still hit with a lot of bile (and, of course, have broad generalizations about the fandom as a whole made around them).
For the better part of a year, Princess Luna was often portrayed in the fandom as a meek, soft-spoken woobie. It was a surprise when Luna's reappearance in "Luna Eclipsed" portrayed her as a bellowing Large Hamwith a taste for the macabre, but no less a woobie for it.
A minor case with Vinyl Scratch, who returns in "A Canterlot Wedding, Part 2". Most fans believed her eyes were red behind the Cool Shades; they actually turned out to be magenta. Close, but no cigar.
There's a popular Doctor Who companion named Rose. Given the popularity of Doctor Whooves in this fandom, it's a little surprising that Rose, a minor recurring and named character in the show, doesn't show up more in crossover fanworks (most of them instead use Derpy as The Doctor's Companion).
Presumably because Rose here is A) a ginger where DW's Rose was a bottle blonde originally brunette and B) shallow and panicky, where DW's was still somewhat shallow but not to the extent of MLP's Rose and she's much more level-headed.
Celestia is also the name of a popular astronomy software.
Changelings have invaded Canterlot!...No, not the Zerg, a race of bug-like shapeshifting creatures that follow an evil Queen...wait, now that's just confusing!
Separated by a Common Language: For those outside Northern America it's really weird seeing Ponyville going nuts for cider in The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000. This is because "cider" in the US and Canada primarily means a soft drink (like apple juice but spiced and much less processed), while everywhere else cider is alcoholic by default.
The US and Canada certainly do have alcoholic cider (even if it's not the norm), and given the ponies' expressions after drinking it – and Berry Punch's reaction to NOT getting to drink it – this ambiguity was definitely intentional on Studio B's part.
Besides this wiki, there are also quite a number of other wikis dedicated to MLP:FiM such as ones which focuses more on the fandom and fan works. One of these fandom focused wikis is the My Little Pony Fan Labor Wiki. Created to cater to the fandom, this is where the main FiM wiki dumps various fan materials in. Another one is the Fallout: Equestria Wiki, a wiki dedicated to the Fallout EquestriaFan Verse.
Bloopers
As the show is animated primarily in a fairly old version of Adobe Flash, many Bloopers are as likely (if not more likely) to be the result of software error as they are to be the result of animator error. A scene may look perfectly normal within the program itself, but when exported to video, a layer may fail to render, or else be rendered in front of another layer that it should have been rendered behind.
A good place to see these bloopers pointed out is a fan series called "My Little Bloopers: Mistakes are FOREVER!", maintained by YouTube user WhitehawkePAUNCH.
General
Most animation goofs can be attributed to the fact that most characters have an asymmetrical design and the animators, rather than creating a different set for each side of said characters, merely flip it to the other side. This is also the explanation for the ponies wearing inverted number tags during "Sonic Rainboom", and why most of the ponies have reversible numbers like 8 and 11 in "Fall Weather Friends".
Characters on the show usually use "anypony" instead of "anybody," but the show slips up and uses "anybody" on occasion, even when addressing or referring to characters who aren't ponies.note This can be justified by claiming that "anybody" encompasses all species, while "anypony" refers only to other ponies, but sometimes "anybody" is said when ponies are the only intended subject of the sentence, and in "The Return of Harmony Part 1", "nopony" was used twice to deny non-pony characters. It could be that using "anypony" when it isn't technically correct is similar to calling a not entirely male group "you guys." Word Of God eventually said that "The general rule was they said 'everypony' even if Spike or donkeys, etc. were in the group being addressed."
Applejack's freckles are layered above her eyelashes.
It almost seems to be a Running Gag for saddlebags to appear and disappear at random, as this happens just about every time they're used. The single most extreme example is in "Dragonshy", where everypony's saddlebags appear and disappear at random throughout the entire episode.
Each character who has freckles (e.g. Applejack and Snails) has at least one scene where one or more of their freckles vanish, only to reappear seconds later.
Applejack in particular, as her season 1 running animation (which was used a lot) had them missing.
Due to the time and difficulty of creating multiple unique ponies, any time there's a crowd scene, background ponies will be doubled. Especially noticeable with ponies like Sweetie Drops/Bon Bon that have unique mane colors.
In several crowd scenes, many—if not all—of the generic background ponies will be blank-flanked.
Though it's hard to notice, a certain aerial shot of Ponyville*
" and partially in "The Return of Harmony Part 1"]] contains multiple Trixies—what's more, all of them are blank flanks, even though Trixie already has a cutie mark.
Quite a few animation errors happen to Cheerilee. The most common error for her is the top of her normally two-toned mane becoming solid-colored, but (as detailed below) she's also had a different tail and sometimes cutie mark (the same as those of background Pegasus Parasol / Showers, who Cheerilee shares the upper half of her mane style with), had a missing leg, had her face disappear, and had a different eye color.
This video provides an extensive overview of most of the errors throughout the first season.
Friendship is Magic, part 1 (Mare in the Moon)
When Twilight first lands in Ponyville, Big Maintosh is shown with sparkles around his cutie mark.
When Twilight is introduced to the Apple family, Applejack shoves a green apple in Twilight's mouth. A few seconds later, she spits out the pieces of a red apple. The same scene also includes this rather bizarre◊ animation error with Twilight's eye.
Maybe her inherent magical field caused it to go ripe.
That, or her mouth bled.
Twilight's Cutie Mark is missing when she is shown after Fluttershy bumps her out of the way to talk to Spike.
Friendship is Magic, part 2 (Elements of Harmony)
There is a scene where Princess Celestia's tail is coming from her Cutie Mark rather than straight behind her.
At the closeup of Luna nuzzling Celestia, Celestia's body looks like a swan due to her hind legs having vanished.
The Ticket Master
Applejack talks about getting "these Golden Delicious in the barn by lunchtime" while she's transporting two baskets of bright red and green apples (and just possibly one yellow one on the other side that is barely visible for a moment). The number of green apples also decreases between shots.
When Twilight finds Fluttershy doing her 'spring cleaning', her wings start flapping out of sync.
During a group shot of Twilight's friends, one of Fluttershy's wings is blue.
When Rarity yells "Makeover!" and Spike flinches, his "ears" disappear.
Griffon the Brush Off
After Rainbow Dash collapses after Pinkie Pie finds her at the lake, the view switches and Dash's wings disappear.
In this same scene, every time Pinkie Pie raises her forelegs, her water wings disappear.
The circle of ink is initially around Rainbow Dash's left eye. When she looks at her reflection in the lake, the ink circle is suddenly on her right eye.
Dragonshy
When Rainbow Dash runs and jumps off the ledge, her Cutie Mark is different—specifically, it's an old, unused design.
When all the others pile up behind Fluttershy to push her towards the cave, Rainbow Dash is second in line right after Twilight Sparkle. When they look up from behind her in the next shot, she is farthest away instead.
Towards the beginning avalanche zone segment, Fluttershy is startled by a falling leaf landing on her flank. As she screams "AVALA—!!", she is temporarily drawn with Twilight Sparkle's almond-shaped eyes instead of her usual Tareme.
Look Before You Sleep
When Applejack knocks Rarity off the bed, Rarity has an extra leg for one frame.
In the following scene, the bedsheet is missing its stripe at its top.
Bridle Gossip
A tray of cupcakes spontaneously appears on the table Pinkie Pie is standing on at the end of her song about Zecora.
When Twilight says "Catchy", Pinkie Pie is standing on the table, but when she responds "It's a work in progress", she is standing on the floor without having moved.
...but then again, Pinkie has rather the history for appearing in places she shouldn't. Watch 'Green Isn't Your Color' if you don't believe me.
After Appletini puts a makeshift bridle on Rainbow Dash and attempts to ride her off, the leaf on the bridle disappears momentarily as Rainbow protests.
Right after Twilight and friends get into Zecora's place, Zecora's golden bracelets change from one arm to the other.
Twilight is seen using her magic to brush her hair... and then it is revealed her horn was limp. Perhaps the Poison Joke doesn't actually have any effect on the horn's powers, only its appearance.
Or levitation of very small objects was the only magical ability Twilight retained.
Swarm of the Century
When Spike complains that the parasprites are messing up his cleaning, the window next to him shows a night sky instead of day like all the other windows.
Rainbow Dash's goggles appear and disappear at random when Twilight's group is back at Ponyville.
Pinkie Pie's accordion moves from her right flank to the left and then returns to her right flank.
Princess Celestia's wings switch from unfurled to furled between shots.
Pinkie Pie holds the trombone completely incorrectly at the end (moving the slide with the wrong hoof and supporting the instrument from the wrong side), as well as the fact that the physics when Pinkie Pie both mimes and plays the trombone are reversed. When she sings the "Daaaauuuuuuuuu-uh!" glissando, her arm should move out then in, instead of in then out. When she plays it at the end, the pitch is rising at the beginning of each "wah!" as she moves the slide out, which is the opposite of how a trombone works. Still hilarious, though.
Winter Wrap Up
During the opening scene when Twilight goes outside only to find that she's a little bit too early for the titular wrap-up, the entire exterior shot is devoid of snow.
Joke goes that she's just THAT early.
Both Rainbow Dash's and Applejack's team armlets spontaneously swap from one foreleg to the other, or disappear entirely.
In the song, Cheerilee is missing a leg when she pulls a cart.
Call of the Cutie
During the classroom scene at the beginning, Cheerilee has Parasol's tail for two shots and the Sweetie Belle Palette Swap at the desk to Twist's left is replaced by Sweetie Belle herself for two other shots.
During the scene where Rainbow Dash is coaching Apple Bloom on getting her Cutie Mark, Rainbow Dash says "I said, are you ready?" as the camera zooms in on her face. When the camera cuts back to Apple Bloom, her ear is missing.
In the shot where Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle reveal that they don't have their Cutie Marks, the porch outside the door overlaps the floor inside the door.
Fall Weather Friends
Applejack and Rainbow Dash play horseshoes at the beginning of the episode. Rainbow has the closest horseshoe to the stake before Apple's final throw, but when the shot changes to first person, Apple's first horseshoe is closer.
Rainbow Dash is drawn without her wings when the race is about to begin.
During the race, after Rainbow Dash trips, the thundering herd of ponies that goes past includes another Rainbow Dash.
The Rainbow Dash clone is also visible mixed in with the pack when Applejack trips. Both times she's wingless and ropeless.
Suited For Success
When Rarity brings her friends in to see their (first) new dresses, she leads them to stand directly in front of her bed. A couple of shots later they're standing in front of the door, with the bed behind them on their left.
Rainbow Dash's "What?" during the song has the wrong inflection. It's done with the tone of "I didn't hear you" when it should be the tone of "What is it?"
Rainbow Dash's Cutie Mark is absent when Rarity discovers her in the tree with Opalescence.
This is not necessarily an error; what we saw very well may have been the INSIDE of her flank, in which case no Cutie Mark would be visible.
When Twilight models her dress in the second fashion show, she isn't wearing earrings, but is seen wearing them in later shots.
Feeling Pinkie Keen
When Twilight first starts spying on Pinkie Pie, Twilight's Cutie Mark is missing up until she pounces on Spike.
Twilight and Spike disappear for a split-second during Pinkie's second "twitchy tail" incident.
Sonic Rainboom
When all the ponies are in the library, Fluttershy switches from standing on the floor next to Rainbow Dash to standing on the stairs (but still next to her) and back again.
When Rainbow and Fluttershy are flying towards Cloudsdale, in the shot where the city is revealed, both of them have their right wings on backwards (or mirrored, since they still show the underside feathers on the underside).
Right before Rainbow suggests that she and Fluttershy could show the others around Cloudsdale, a brief shot past her from behind shows her wings folded, whereas for the rest of the scene and immediately before and afterwards they're spread.
The ponies are asked to wear white coats and white hard hats during their visit to the weather factory, but Twilight's hard hat disappears between scenes and Applejack's hard hat is replaced by her cowboy hat for no apparent reason.
Stare Master
Scootaloo's wings appear and disappear during the entire scene where the CMC is trying to catch Fluttershy's chickens.
In the next scene, when the girls promise not to do any more crusading for the night, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle are animated speaking each other's lines.
When Fluttershy warns Cutie Mark Crusaders of the cockatrice, you can see her Cutie Mark on the inside of her rump, possibly due to poor copy-pasting of hindquarters in Flash.
When Fluttershy stares down the cockatrice, seen from the side, her wings are tucked, clearly frozen in stone. Seen from the front, they're open and giving her much more presence.
We could be seeing from the cockatrice's perspective. He might see the wings out when they really aren't because Fluttershy's Stare is just that intimidating.
The Show Stoppers
During the montage where the Cutie Mark Crusaders are trying to get Cutie Marks for rock-climbing, all three fillies have orange eyes. Apple Bloom's eyes are supposed to be that color, but Scootaloo's are normally purple while Sweetie Belle's are normally green.
Twilight and Cheerilee walk into the library. After Scootaloo pops up out of the pile of books, Cheerilee is suddenly wearing a pair of saddlebags.
Shortly afterward, when the Crusaders walk out of the pile, Scootaloo is missing her wings (again).
The audience at the talent competition consists, ironically enough, entirely of adult ponies with no Cutie Marks (plus Applejack).
When the Cutie Mark Crusaders are walking away from the stage, the objects in front of the back wall and parts of the back wall itself move as the camera pans across.
A Dog and Pony Show
During one of Spike Big "NO!" moments Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash are missing. Even more bizarre is this error only appears in the iTunes version◊. According to Jayson Thiessen, this is because somehow an older version of the episode was sent to iTunes.
Green Isn't Your Color
When Spike is telling his secret to Twilight and Pinkie Pie, Pinkie Pie's head suddenly and blatantly vanishes.
During a shot when Photo Finish is walking away from the camera, we briefly see she has Twilight Sparkle's cutie mark.explanation Ponies in this show rarely turn away from the camera (due to Hasbro mandate), especially in any direction other than straight back. But Photo Finish walks off at an unusual angle, and the animators probably used the only walk cycle of that they could find, Twilight's. They either didn't notice the visible cutie mark, or did but forgot to change it.
Over a Barrel
When we see some Appleloosans dancing their Wild West dances, the town hall can be seen damaged with a huge hole in the place of clock tower, even though the tower didn't collapse until later in the episode.
A Bird in the Hoof
Applejack can be seen wearing her cowboy hat for one brief shot during the dinner for Princess Celestia. In all other scenes from the dinner, Applejack is hatless.
Fluttershy's wings disappear as she runs to catch Philemena before she bursts into flame.
The Cutie Mark Chronicles
In Pinkie Pie's flashback, her Cutie Mark can be seen on her flank in the scene before she actually gets it.
Shots of the moon in the episode do not have Nightmare Moon's silhouette, even though the flashbacks take place at a point in time when she should still be imprisoned.
Party of One
When Pinkie Pie is interrogating Spike, right at the beginning, the shadow of Spike on the wall is not moving but static in a crouching position.
In the conga line in the end, each pony's tail should logically be between the hooves of the one coming behind her, but instead the hooves both cover the tail.
Watch the party hats in that whole scene. At first they all have patterns that correspond to their Cutie Marks. Over time though, some become generic, some have another pony's hat, and some disappear entirely.
During the "Pinkamena Party" sequence, the party hat colors are inconsistent. "Rocky"'s hat changes color at least twice.
When Applejack sets up her stand and makes a sale, her shoes are mysteriously absent in a few frames.
Later in that episode, Rarity's golden tiara disappears for a frame during one of her temper tantrums.
Similarly to the example above with Pinkie's trombone, the harp player during the "Pony Pokey" segment is supporting his harp from the wrong side.
Season 2
The Return of Harmony Part 1
In the opening shot, Cheerilee's face disappears for a few frames after the camera finishes zooming out.
The episode's title is displayed with two spaces between the words "Harmony" and "Part" instead of one.
The Stained Glass Window depicting the ponies and the Elements of Harmony changes many times before and during the time Discord is showing off his knowledge of the mane cast. In the scenes before he shows up, the window is normal. When he appears, Twilight disappears from the top, then in the next scene he's in the previously not present area Twilight is in, disappears again when Rainbow Dash charges the window, and finally reappears when he says that Twilight's got the most elusive element of all and when he dances on her head. One might chalk this up to his powers, though. In the same scene, Discord is depicted as a stone statue in one window, which has disappeared in its next appearance (shortly before Discord appears in the window personally) even though Discord came to life from a different window.
The long carpet in the tower corridor does not remain at all consistent (the trim, the pattern on the trim, and the center weave each disappear at random in every shot shot).
When the ponies discover the Elements of Harmony are missing, Pinkie Pie declares she's going to be outside in the chocolate milk rain and runs out of frame—but after the commercial break is in exactly the same position she had been before running out of frame, in the middle of the ponies, as if nothing had happened. (There is no indication that any time actually passed at all between those shots.) Then again, trying to make any sense of Pinkie Pie is doomed to failure.
At one point Discord seems to be missing his wings. Given their small size and the fact he's a Reality Warper, it could be explained he just made them disappear for whatever reason.
When the mane six split up in the labyrinth, Rarity (who's supposed to be hornless at this point) has her horn when Fluttershy screams.
The vision shown to Applejack involves everypony still hornless and wingless, except Twilight – but the close-up of her face shows her hornless too. Granted, it's a fake vision, but it's still probably not meant to be inconsistent like that.
Around the first time Applejack lies, her visible eye is the shape of Twilight's or Rarity's instead of the normal oval for one shot. While eyes in this show can be pretty expressive, there's no apparent reason for this, and it's unprecedented for her.
The Return of Harmony Part 2
Right after defeating Discord Rainbow Dash briefly has Fluttershy's cutie mark.
As the ponies enter Twilight's library, when Fluttershy stomps on the plants outside the door, they disappear for one frame.
Rarity's eyelashes disappear for a split-second slightly after Applejack's Han Solo wink in the finale.
Twilight opens a box containing thirteen cupcakes, all with pink icing. Worried that one has more icing than the others, she begins "fixing" them up, resulting in barely a dollop of icing on each cupcake. When she's putting the lid back on the box, not only do the cupcakes have the same amount of icing as they did when she opened the box, but they're all different colours.
Near the end, when Spike is watching Twilight and Celestia in the library, Twilight's mane and tail are as straight and groomed as they normally are. In the next shot of Twilight, her hair is back to being messy and unkempt.
When Twilight first shows up at the picnic, Rainbow Dash's wings are up. In the next shot, they're folded down. In the shot after that, they're up again.
When Pinkie Pie tells Twilight she's "such a crack-up," Pinkie is in front of Twilight, off of the blanket. In the next shot, she's with the rest of the Mane Cast, behind Twilight, and on the blanket (Though this is Pinkie Pie we're talking about).
After the background ponies stampede through the picnic, Rainbow Dash and the folded up blanket both disappear. Also, Pinkie Pie moves back quite a ways.
Luna Eclipsed
At the beginning of the Mayor's speech (specifically, when she says "Thank you, everypony"), the audience consists of the same group of ponies twice. That normally wouldn't be an issue, except this crowd includes the Cakes, who are not supposed to be duplicated.
When Luna says "Huzzah! How many points do I receive?," she has part of her hair from her season 1 design.
This happens several times throughout the episode, apparently due to her mane's design being changed very late in production.
Sisterhooves Social
One of the more common bloopers is inverted: when Applejack is covered in purple goop from Applebloom, her freckles are not missing when they're supposed to be.
During the race, Cloud-Kicker's baseball cap randomly glitches out for a couple frames, leaving only the brim.
The Cutie Pox
In "The Cutie Pox", Applejack's hat briefly disappears while Pinkie Pie is confessing to how many corn cakes she ate.
May the Best Pet Win!
When Rainbow Dash skids to a halt before saying "Guts!", a duck which is supposed to be in the background is layered improperly, so it appears to be floating in front of her face.
Right after Rainbow Dash says that she might want a pet, Fluttershy's mouth disappears for a couple of frames.
Fluttershy's wings briefly flap completely out of sync during the song.
Toward the end of the episode, there is a "through the binoculars" shot of Rainbow Dash being carried to the finish line on Tank the Tortoise's back. None of the ponies at the line are even wearing binoculars in the following shot.
Sweet and Elite
The number of Wonderbolts in the derby changes between shots.
Not only that, but the referee standing on the side of the track is an Earth Pony.
Though this might not actually be a blooper, but an instance of continuity. Remember the Cloud-Walking spell from Sonic Rainboom?
Secret of My Excess
As June Bug walks away from Spike, a glitchy third basket repeatedly appears and disappears.
Family Appreciation Day
Cheerilee has Parasol's tail (again) and trio-of-umbrellas cutie mark for two separate shots just before she talks to puppet Granny Smith.
Baby Cakes
Just as Mr. and Mrs. Cake are leaving Sugarcube Corner to deal with their catering gig, Pumpkin and Pound Cake are shown playing on the ground in the buff, despite their diapers having been changed not long before. The next shot with the twins in it has their diapers reappear.
Hearth's Warming Eve
The characters in the play raise a banner for Equestria, then the play ends, the actors take a bow, and the ponies sing. However, after the song begins the banner disappears for no apparent reason (it simply vanishes between shots of the stage, and doesn't reappear).
Fluttershy's walking animation skips slightly when she and the other ponies arrive in Canterlot.
The Last Roundup
There is a chase sequence between a stagecoach and a ponycart. Applejack, in the coach, looks over the back and down at Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, who are harnessed to the cart and staring back at her. During the bit shown from the former's point of view, the two pegasi don't have wings (which should be visible, even if under the harnesses).
When Pinkie Pie is just beginning to freak out over Applejack breaking her promise, Fluttershy's tail is missing.
In the scene where Pinkie Pie is talking Applejack to the brink of insanity, Applejack is missing her cutie mark when she yells, "Noooooo! Make it stop!"
After Pinkie startles Fluttershy (leading Fluttershy to respond as such), her wings are notable missing right before she gets up; From the angle she's at, they should have still been visible.
The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000
Just after Applejack tells Princess Celestia she "didn't learn anything," her eye is a lot larger than normal.
During the montage at the beginning where everypony is drinking cider, Cheerilee's eyes are the wrong color (they are supposed to be green, but appear here as magenta – the same color as background pony Berry Punch's).
Read It and Weep
After Daring Do escapes the death traps only to set off a few more, her mouth moves to form words, but all we hear is an annoyed groan. It looks very much like she's saying "Not again."
Inversely, while Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie are visiting Rainbow Dash, Applejack says "Go ahead and eat up," but the mouth-flap animation is far too short to match the line.
Spike's spines are missing from the back of his head in one scene in Twilight's library.
During a scene where Rainbow Dash is laying in the hospital bed, she turns her head and her mane completely disappears for one frame.
Hearts and Hooves Day
During the close-up shot of Mr. Waddle, his frizzed-up hair is back to normal for the one frame in which he faces the camera.
In the book that contains the recipe for the love potion: the first time it's shown to the audience (by Twilight Sparkle) the princess in the illustration appears to be an earth pony, but the other two times it's shown to the audience (by Sweetie Belle) the princess in the same illustration is now an alicorn.
The hour that the Crusaders have to cure Cheerilee and Big McIntosh of the love poison keeps switching between 4:00 to 5:00 and 5:00 to 6:00.
Ponyville Confidential
At the end, when Diamond Tiara is is knocked against the press, her hindquarters can also be seen standing with the Cutie Mark Crusaders in the next shot when they laugh at her.
A Canterlot Wedding - Part 1
At the end, there's an easy-to-miss one when Cadance, actually Chrysalis, uses her magic to capture Twilight. For several scenes, Twilight is on a small set of stairs. However, in the final scene, while Cadance/Chrysalis is walking away, looking behind her you can see that Twilight and the green flames engulfing her have moved onto a flat portion of the floor, and that there are in fact no visible stairs whatsoever in the hall.
A Canterlot Wedding - Part 2
During the sequence when the Mane 6 are running to the vault where the Elements of Harmony are kept, Applejack's hat disappears and reappears at least twice.
Season 3
The Crystal Empire - Part 1
At the beginning of the episode, when the guard opens the doors, his eyes are teal. When he takes his helmet off, his eyes are brown.
Too Many Pinkie Pies
After a few of the Pinkies get zapped by Twilight for looking at the orange-frog, the number of Pinkies in the hallway drops dramatically.
Later in the same sequence, a change of camera angle causes the number of Pinkies to increase from eight to eleven for one shot.
One Bad Apple
While chasing the golden apple float, Scootaloo's wings disappear.
Magic Duel
Just as Trixie banishes Twilight, Pinkie briefly regains her nose when she shouldn't have it.
As Twilight leaves Ponyville, her shadow is disjointed from her body. It returns to the proper place when she starts running.
When Twilight is performing at the end of the episodes, Shoeshine in the crowd in the upper left of the bleachers has no face.
Sleepless in Ponyville
During the second night's campfire, Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo both have their wings missing in several scenes.
Inside the cave, we first see Applejack in a dark green sleeping bag, and Apple Bloom in a light green one. In a different shot, the colors swap.
Wonderbolts Academy
When Rainbow Dash flies away from the Mane Six in the beginning of the episode, the picnic blanket and mailbox both disappear.
Several times throughout the episode, Cloudchaser has the wrong cutie mark.
After Rainbow Dash finishes packing the clouds to stop her friends from falling, her uniform disappears.
Mentioned above, one of the Wonderbolt trainees is a hastily-recolored Wild Fire. Two brief shots forgot to recolor this pony and one shot of the chalkboard shows Wild Fire's cutie mark instead of the replacement one (a sunflower).
Just for Sidekicks
In the scene just before the Mane Six leave the library, the magical aura that is supposed to be around Tank's helicopter device is missing.
When Apple Bloom puts on her goggles, the strap that attaches them to her head never appears. In the same scene, some leftover red storyboard marks can be seen on Angel when he hugs Scootaloo.
After Spike hurries the animals back on the train in the Crystal Empire, Owlowiscious has a bow tie in a few scenes, which had never shown up before that point in the episode. In the same scene, Gummy briefly sports a collar.
When the Mane Six are walking off the train, both Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy are missing their wings.
At the end of the episode when Twilight and Spike walk into the library, part of Spike's leg is layered over his body.
Apple Family Reunion
When Applejack picks up Spike like a lighter, she briefly appears to be holding him with three hooves.
The painting of the "American Gothic" ponies briefly loses the pitchfork after Applejack looks at the night sky.
During the "Raise This Barn" song sequence, while Apple Bloom and Babs Seed are shearing a plank of wood, Babs's eyes are the wrong color (her eyes are supposed to be green, but in this shot they're orange like Apple Bloom's).
Towards the end of the episode, while Applejack is taking a bath, part of Granny Smith's eye is improperly layered.
The group photo at the end shows two young Apple family members as unicorns instead of earth ponies. When the shot zooms out into a photo frame, the two unicorns change to earth ponies.
Spike at Your Service
In the opening, when Spike is about to smell his feet, a group of bees in the upper-right hand corner of the screen is frozen in place.
When Spike is backed up against the cliff by the three Timberwolves, they all have a distinct crown shape in their shadows. None of the normal Timberwolves have a crown on their head; only the large Timberwolf at the end does.
When Spike takes the plate away from the table after serving pie to Applejack and Rarity, the pie is whole, when it should be missing a slice. In the next shot, the pie is properly missing the slice. In the same scene, Rarity's mane is briefly layered over her horn.
Keep Calm and Flutter On
Several times during the episode, the black part of Discord's mane disappears.
When Discord tempts Fluttershy with some ice skates at the frozen-over Sweet Apple Acres, the movement of his wings eventually de-syncs from the movement of the rest of his body.
Games Ponies Play
Just after the train crash, Fluttershy has Twilight's cutie mark.
During the cheer the Mane Six had practiced, Pinkie Pie has Twilight's cutie mark.
In several shots, the crystal ponies aren't properly "crystallized."
Magical Mystery Cure
In the scene where Rainbow Dash is trying (and failing) to tend to all the woodland creatures, she zooms off screen after locking Gummy in a bird cage; during her exit she has her own cutie mark instead of Fluttershy's.
In the scene where Fluttershy is trying to calm the woodland creatures in the cottage, when she says, "feel like giving Rainbow Dash a hard time," she briefly has her own cutie mark instead of Pinkie Pie's.
During the "What My Cutie Mark is Telling Me" song, part of the barn and background is layered over Pinkie as she's complaining about the water chute.
At the scene of the princess coronation, Cadance's hair is up in the ceremonial headdress from "Games Ponies Play." When she approaches Twilight later in the same ceremony, her hair is in its normal style.
During the scene on the balcony, Luna is wearing her normal crown, when she's supposed to be wearing a much more elaborate one.
The picture of the mane six that appears at the end of the opening◊ is frequently reused on official materials, sometimes with the ponies repositioned in order to add Spike and Princess Celestia, but often with one of Rarity's eyes glitched. And that isn't the only problem – the image was designed with the original positions in mind, so the non-visible parts of the ponies weren't drawn (as seen in one background◊ on The Hub's website). This is usually worked around by keeping the missing parts covered, with the other ponies or (less effectively) with the show's logo. But on at least one occasion, Twilight Sparkle's lack of front legs or a tail was left uncovered, creating Twiworm.
Some of the leaves in the background are floating in midair instead of being attached to the vines in the background.
Snips' Cutie Mark is missing.
Hasbro's story galleries don't always use stills from the final versions of the episodes, as some elements of the stills are bright green instead of what they should look like. So far, this has happened with Twilight's book in episode 1'sstory gallery and with an Ursa in episode 6'sstory gallery.
In advertisements for the toys, Hasbro has gotten Apple Bloom and Scootaloo confused on two different occasions, though in both cases the toy sets themselves label the fillies correctly.
On the My Little Pony Facebook page, some images of the cast in their Nightmare Night costumes was posted as a teaser for the upcoming episode. This is all well and good, except that the caption identified Rainbow Dash's costume as a Wonderboltnote the MLP equivalent of the Blue Angels, when she's rather clearly dressed as a Shadowboltnote the Psycho Rangers counterpart to the Wonderbolts that Nightmare Moon cooked up in the pilot.
The initial release of Tank's trading card IDs him as belonging to Pinkie Pie (instead of Rainbow Dash).
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