Follow TV Tropes

Following

Web Animation / My Little Pony: Tell Your Tale

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/my_little_pony_tell_your_tale.jpg

My Little Pony: Tell Your Tale is an original web series for YouTube. It is created by Hasbro and Entertainment One. It serves as a spinoff of My Little Pony: A New Generation and is a part of Generation 5. Unlike the movie which was a 3D animated film, this series is a bunch of 2D animated shorts. The show debuted on April 7, 2022.

The story picks up where A New Generation left off and continues the adventures of Sunny Starscout and her friends as they get into wacky hijinks around Maretime Bay. Its first season intersects with the events of My Little Pony: Make Your Mark, though due to scheduling shifts, some episodes of Tell Your Tale were released before the seasons of Make Your Mark that they were intended to follow.

New episodes were uploaded every Thursday on Hasbro's Youtube channel as seen here. However, they have changed their schedule to run on a bi-weekly basis. As of March 27, 2023, the show is now available on Netflix.


Tropes in Tell Your Tale include:

  • Absurd Phobia: In "Zipp's Flight School", Windy, one of the trainee fliers, is terrified of daisies.
  • Anachronic Order: The episodes are shown in no order with things like a tour of Maretime Bay occurring after Pip starts her own business in town.
  • Artifact of Doom: The necklace that allows Opaline to communicate with Misty turns out to be this in "As The Misty Clears"; it contains some form of dark magic that makes the Mane Five act like the opposite of who they really are when they wear it.
  • Audible Gleam: In "Starscout Code", Izzy has a box full of gems that both glow and make noise as they do so. Hitch even refers to them as "noisy glowy gems".
  • Badly Battered Babysitter: In "Baby Critters Club", Jazz is hired to look after the critters at the Brighthouse while the Mane Five are away. She spends most of the short running around and desperately trying to keep the critters under control.
  • Bad Review Threat: In "Welcome to Mane Melody", Phyllis threatens to give Pipp's mane salon a review bad enough to put it out of business (which she claims to have done to several other businesses) if she's not one hundred percent satisfied with Pipp's work.
  • Bedsheet Ghost:
    • In "Nightmare Roommate", the girls encounter what they think is a ghost, but it's actually Izzy using her magic in her sleep to make Pipp's bedsheet move around.
    • In "Haunted House", this is Misty's costume as well as a series of props she uses to scare the ponies.
  • Berserk Button: In "The Game is Ahoof", touching her sunglasses is this for Zipp. She spent the whole episode conducting a crime scene investigation just to find out where it went and/or who took them.
  • Brain Freeze: Happens to Pipp and Hitch in "Zipp's Yes Day", following a smoothie-drinking contest. Izzy, who threw most of her smoothie away to make it look like she drank it fast, fakes this.
  • Butt-Monkey: Each of the Mane Five are put through the wringer in almost every episode.
    • Misty suffers this in all her failed attempts to grab Sparky.
  • Call-Back: Sunny and Hitch's Secret Handshake from the movie makes a return in "Pony Partay".
  • The Cameo:
    • Sprout's face appears on a wanted sign outside the sheriff's office in "Nightmare Roommate".
    • Alphabittle makes a brief appearance in "Clip Trot", enjoying Pipp's "Pony hop" video.
    • Sugar Moonlight appears on a magazine cover in "Zipp's Yes Day".
    • The nameless balloon pony from the movie appears on the back cover of a magazine that Misty and Zipp read in "Dragon Dad".
  • Canon Immigrant: Violette Rainbow, who debuted exclusively in the dubiously-canon G5 comic series, made the jump to animation with season 2 of Tell Your Tale, with a silent cameo in the premiere followed by a notable speaking role in "Swirlpool Starlight".
  • Companion Cube: In "It's T.U.E.S Day", Izzy, lonely when all her friends are too busy to celebrate the Unicorn holiday with her, creates a Unicorn-shaped companion out of random objects that she calls "Señor Butterscotch".
  • Composite Character: The Mane Five are a group of friends like the Mane Six. And most of their plans end in epic failure before they pick up the pieces and try again, very much like the Cutie Mark Crusaders.
  • Continuity Snarl: In the Tell Your Tale episode "Misty Moves In", the Mane cast initially give Misty a bed in the center of their common bedroom at the Crystal Brighthouse, which causes her problems due to lack of privacy. Realizing their mistake, they move it to a windowed nook of the same room and outfit it with a stylish privacy curtain. This contradictsMake Your Mark's "Father of the Bridlewood", where Misty is offered a home at the Brighthouse and is provided with the nook space immediately without any conflict.
  • Creative Sterility: In "All That Jazz", Jazz confesses that the hooficures she gives ponies are based on an online library of designs, which causes her to panic when she uses them all up. Izzy helps her to gain the creativity to make her own designs.
  • Cynical Mentor: In "Zipp's Flight School", Zipp is roped into teaching some Pegasi how to fly better. She is not happy about it and has little faith in their ability to learn. Only after seeing a Pegasi mother encouraging her foal (reminding her of a similar childhood moment with Queen Haven) does Zipp start to take her position more seriously.
  • A Day in the Limelight:
    • "Neighfever" is one for Dahlia who previously only made a brief, non-speaking appearance in the movie.
    • Rufus also gets one in "One Trick Pony" after only background appearances and a brief cameo in "Nightmare Roommate".
    • "All That Jazz" is one for Jazz Hooves, as is "Baby Critters Club".
    • "Snow Pun Intended" revolves around Posey Bloom and her dislike of snow.
    • Opaline of all ponies gets one in "Opaline Alone".
  • Denser and Wackier: This series, like Pony Life before it, focuses more on comedy and is a lot sillier.
  • Demoted to Extra:
    • After playing an important supporting role in the movie, Phyllis only appears in two shorts (the second being a voiceless cameo).
    • While Alphabittle doesn't get it as bad, his appearance are still few and far between.
  • Don't Think, Feel: In "Foal Food", Sunny goes to Hitch's Grandma Figgy to find out how to make his favorite treat from foalhood. Instead of simply giving Sunny the recipe, Grandma Figgy demonstrates how, encouraging her to "bake with your heart, not with your hooves".
  • Dumpster Dive: As the title would suggest, "Dumpster Dive" features Izzy leaping into a dumpster to find something to "uni-cycle" into a replacement part for Sunny's lantern.
  • Early-Bird Cameo:
    • The Pippsqueaks (Seashell, Glory and Peach Fizz) make brief appearances in "Sisters Take Flight".
    • Rufus makes a minor appearance in "Nightmare Roomate", way ahead of his spotlight episode "One Trick Pony".
  • Fountain of Youth: In "Making a Foal of Me", Pipp accidentally adds magical glitter to her face mask cream, which causes Sunny, Hitch, and Izzy to turn into foals (and Cloudpuff to become a puppy). The glitter makes a return in "Nightmare Night Market", with Sunny and her friends all being affected by it (leaving it up to Alphabittle to save the day).
  • Freak Out: Hitch goes crazy with worry when Sunny is nowhere to be seen in "Sunny-Day Dinners".
  • Fun with Acronyms:
    • In "Zipp's Flight School", W.I.N.G.S means the Wonderful Institute for No Gravity Skywalking.
    • In "It's T.U.E.S Day", the titular holiday for unicorns stands for The Unicorn Expression of Sparkle Day.
  • Given Name Reveal: "A Home to Share" reveals that Hitch's crab friend is named "McSnipsalot".
  • Gasshole:
    • At the end of "Puphunt", Cloudpuff gets a nasty case of indigestion after eating the bath bombs and hoofprint supplies Queen Haven sent to Pipp and Zipp, much to the trio’s disgust.
    • Sparky is the most prominent character around flatulence-based humor in this series:
      • In "Haunted House", he farts fire after drinking too much smoothie.
      • He does it again in "Secret Canter," incinerating a bunch of holiday decorations.
      • He does it again at the end of "Sparky’s Sick" with Misty unfortunately behind him in her latest attempt to capture the dragon. Thankfully, she only comes out smelling horrible…
      • Once more in "Attack of the Bunnisus," where he tries to get out of the way before it happens but is too late and ends up inadvertently starting the campfire Hitch was trying to make, much to his embarrassment and Hitch's disgust.
  • Gone Horribly Wrong: Happens considerably a lot with most of the ponies' plans either due to them, not thinking things through, getting carried away, or just plain bad luck.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: In "Under The Mistytoe", Opaline erupts with jealous rage upon witnessing the Mane Five's Cutie Mark magic combine with the magic of the Brighthouse's Prisbeam and the Wishing Star to create a spectacular aurora.
    Opaline: Did you see that?! That magic! That power! It should be mine! All mine!
  • Halloween Episode: "Nightmare Night Party" and "Haunted House".
  • Here We Go Again!: "The Unboxing of Izzy" begins with Izzy getting stuck in a unicorn-capturing box. In the end, the others finally get her out, but then Hitch gets caught in another one of the boxes.
  • How Do I Shot Web?: When magic was returned at the end of the movie, it seemed like the Pegasi had gotten the hang of flying pretty quickly. This series proves otherwise in both "Zipp's Flying School" and "Sisters Take Flight"; Most Pegasi are shown struggling with basic maneuvers and landing, and suffer a fair amount of midair collisions.
  • I Need to Go Iron My Dog: Everypony has an excuse to get out of helping Pipp make a clip trot video except Izzy.
    Izzy: And... yeah, I can't think of an excuse! Gotta go!
  • Instant Humiliation: Just Add YouTube!: In "My Bananas", Sunny experiences a humiliating fall that gets films by nearby ponies. She quickly becomes an Equestriawide laughing stock.
  • Interquel: The episode "Dumpster Diving" takes place during the events of the Make Your Mark special where Izzy tries to fix Sunny's lantern that her father made for her, and once she finishes it she presents it to her as a gift.
  • Late-Arrival Spoiler:
    • Since this series follows on from the events of A New Generation, this is a given, with Sunny's Alicorn form and the Brighthouse being two such examples.
    • "Maretime Bay Day 2.0" and "Neighfever" include a major surprise from the ending of the Make Your Mark special - namely, that the Earth Ponies now have plant-growing magic.
    • Opaline and Misty, recurring antagonists in Make Your Mark, make their debut here in "Dragon Dad". And Misty performing a Heel–Face Turn (as shown in the final episode of Chapter Four) is brought up in "I've Seen Fire And I've Seen Rain(bows)".
    • The Breezies, who appeared in the MYM episode "Family Trees (Part One)", appear in "Nightmare Night Market". The reveal that Alphabittle is Misty's father (from the second part of that story) is also brought up.
    • "Crystal Ball" brings up multiple elements from the Secrets of Starlight special, most notably the fact that both Comet the Auroricorn and Allura the villainous snow leopard are now in Maretime Bay.
  • Laughing at Your Own Jokes:
    • In "The Unboxing of Izzy", Sunny laughs after making a job about Hitch thinking "outside the box".
    • In "Sunnyday Dinners", Pipp laughs when she invokes the Title Drop after comparing it to "sunday dinners".
    • In "Pony Partay", Sunny's reaction to Izzy featuring arts and crafts at her party is to joke that she loves a good "craft-ernoon". She promptly laughs her head off.
  • Literal Metaphor: In "Clip Trot", Posey asks Pipp if she's been living in a cave. As it turns out, she was. Hitch took them on a camping trip where they had to hide from a storm in a cave, leaving Pipp without a "Canternet" connection.
  • Lots of Luggage: In "Sisters Take Flight", Pipp packs so many things for the move to Maretime Bay that she requires both Thunder and Zoom to carry it all for her.
  • Loud Sleeper Gag: In "Nightmare Roommate", Zipp, Pipp and Sunny get very little sleep as a result of Izzy's snoring being too loud, as well as her sleep-talking.
  • Lunacy: In "Moon Festival", the moon is currently at its closest point to Equestria, which happens every ten years. Anyone exposed to its light has their magic supercharged.
  • Mythology Gag:
    • In "Mane Melody", the pony who gives Pipp a three-star rating resembles Posey, a pony from Generation 1. She has a similar color scheme, green mane and tail bows, and a flower cutie mark. She's even called Posey Bloom in the toyline.
    • In "Foal Me Once", the art gallery has several pieces featuring G4 characters in parodies of famous artworks, including Rainbow Dash in a "The Scream" Parody and multiple pieces featuring Tree Hugger.
    • Princess Luna's cutie mark is one of the hooficure designs in "All That Jazz".
    • In "Nightmare Night Party", Sunny dresses up as Nightmare Moon for Pipp's party, while Jazz (after accidentally tumbling through a rack of outfits) ends up looking like Rainbow Dash.
    • Opaline's necklace corrupting the Mane Five into their opposites is similar to what Discord did to the Mane Six in "The Return of Harmony".
  • Noodle Incident:
    • Just what did Rufus do to get himself arrested in "Nightmare Roommate"?
    • In "My Bananas", Izzy suggests that Sunny deal with her humiliation by wearing a disguise and starting a new life somewhere else, claiming that it worked for her.
  • Official Couple: Jazz and Rocky become one at the end of the aptly-named "Jazz Hearts Rocky".
  • Parental Bonus: In "Dumpster Diving", Izzy is looking for a ring to use for fixing Sunny's lantern. She checks out a key chain hanging on Rufus' hip from behind him and says "too small". Rufus hears her and looks pretty disheartened by the comment.
  • Parent with New Paramour: In "Mare Family, Mare Problems", Pipp and Zipp learn that Queen Haven has started dating Alphabittle.
  • Power Incontinence: "Alicorn Issues" revolves around Sunny's struggles to control and call upon her Alicorn form at will.
  • Produce Pelting:
    • In "Diva and Conquer", the crowd at Bridlewoodstock threaten to throw tomatoes at Hitch if his act isn't good.
    • In "Scents of Adventure", Posey readies a tomato after Pipp's second attempt at a new perfume runs out during the demonstration.
  • Reverse Psychology: In "Zipp's Yes Day", the rest of the Mane Five talk Zipp into agreeing to a "Yes Day" by claiming she would never be able to pull it off.
  • Rhymes on a Dime: Hip Hop Bunny Bop.
  • Running Gag:
    • Hitch getting hit with fruits in "Zipp's Flight School".
    • Newspapers flying into ponies' faces in "Another Pony's Trash".
    • Misty ending up on the receiving end of Sparky's antics throughout "Dragon Dad".
  • Secret Room: The Brighthouse is revealed to have one in "Misty-rious New Room", with Misty being led there by a flying spell book. The room seems to have a voice of its own, as it tells Misty she can return any time.
  • Secret Santa: "Secret Canter" revolves around a Bridlewood variant, with Izzy telling her friends that the gifts must be homemade, not bought.
  • Sequel Episode: "Maretime Bay Day 2.0" takes place a short time after the events of the Make Your Mark special. As such, it references events from the special, such as the Earth Ponies gaining plant-growing magic.
  • "Shaggy Dog" Story: Zipp spends most of "The Game is Ahoof" trying to find her lost shades, only to discover at the end that they were under her pillow the whole time (this being after she accidentally steps on and breaks them).
  • Shipper on Deck: The end of "Secret Ad-Mare-Er" reveals that Izzy ships Zipp with Rocky Riff (to Zipp's annoyance).
  • Shout-Out:
    • In "The Unboxing of Izzy" the Maretime Bay movie theater now features a film called Trotformers, which Izzy later sees in "It's T.U.E.S. Day".
    • In "Pony Partay", Zipp calls herself "Pony Hawk", after skateboard legend Tony Hawk.
    • In "Nightmare Night Party", the Pippsqueaks dress up as the Grady twins.
    • "Sneaksy Strikes Again" revolves around Izzy taking on the persona of a secret street artist, similar to the real life Banksy.
  • Sick Episode:
    • "A Day in the Life" shows Pipp becoming sick after overworking herself.
    • "Sparky's Sick" revolves around Sparky getting ill and the Mane Five trying to figure out how to cure him.
  • Sure, Let's Go with That: In "Sunny-Day Dinners", Sunny is overjoyed when it seems Izzy is the only one who remembered about the hike to Prancing Point she arranged with her friends. Izzy actually didn't remember (and just happened to be at the same place as Sunny because she was busy collecting stones), but goes along with Sunny's assumption anyway.
  • Title Drop: Said in "Sisters Take Flight", "Nightmare Roommate", "Sunny-Day Dinners", "Neighfever" and "My Bananas".
  • Ungrateful Bastard:
    • In "Lost in Translation", Hitch helps the Racoonicorns and Pegasnails resolve their dispute. When he asks if he and Sunny can have some of the "schmoogleberries" the animals were fighting over, both sides immediately attack and drive them away.
    • In "Nightmare Night Party", Misty sabotages the party on Opaline's orders so Opaline can see the ponies using their magic to fix things. Rather than give Misty any kind of credit for her work, Opaline coldly tells her not to dawdle on the way back.
  • Unreliable Narrator:
    • In "Sisters Take Flight", Izzy claims that many Bridlewood Unicorns were there to see her off before she moved to Maretime Bay. It is then shown that the only one actually there was a foal with a kazoo.
    • In "The Game is Ahoof", Zipp relates a trip to the beach where Hitch suddenly decided to steal her sunglasses (while laughing evilly). Hitch is quick to point out that that never happened.
  • Very Loosely Based on a True Story: In "Snow Business Like Show Business", a movie is made revolving around the events of the Secrets of Starlight special. Pipp has the production greatly exaggerate and dramatize what happened, claiming that it will make for a good story. In the end, Sunny is able to convince her to stick to the facts.
  • Villains Out Shopping: Misty hangs out with the Mane Five in "Sunny's Smoothie Moves" without even once trying to snatch Sparky.
  • Voice Clip Song: In "My Bananas", Sunny crying out the titular words as she makes her iconic tumble is reworked into a "funky dance mix", quickly enough that Izzy knows it by heart by the time Sunny returns to the Brighthouse.

Top

The Mane 5 Get Corrupted

Opaline’s necklace does this to the Mane 5.

How well does it match the trope?

3.4 (5 votes)

Example of:

Main / CorruptTheCutie

Media sources:

Report