- Adaptation Displacement: Greg says in this blog entry
that this is happening to Captain Hook the Biker Gorilla note , that an increasing number of people thinking that Greg created the story, and Aurora Dawn stole the idea from him. He attempts to rectify this by linking to the original fanfic, and vowing to credit Aurora the character as Aurora Dawn's creation every time she's used, such as in the short "Investment Losses". - Alternative Character Interpretation: Does Twilight refuse to acknowledge Fluttershy's existence over something that happened in the past or does she really just have trouble remembering her?
- Awesome Music: Pinkie is hooked on a feeling.
- Smarty Pants' Villain Song, the colorfully titled "Bones and Skin".
- "Rainbow Fun Factory".
- "Tubby Wubby Pony Waifu".
- Hell, pretty much any song from this series, as well as a lot of the BGM from Mentally Advanced. This despite Greg's admitted inability to sing. Somehow he still makes it work.
- Smarty Pants' Villain Song, the colorfully titled "Bones and Skin
- Canon Defilement: There is no Sweetie Belle!
- Crack Pairing: Greg brings this up after the end credits of episode 14, regarding some of his viewers, shipping Hastur with Fluttershy. Though he isn't against.
- Fandom Rivalry: Had a pretty big one with Friendship is Witchcraft. Especially when the creators attempted to do a crossover and failed.
- Genius Bonus: There's a quite a few of them.
- In "Griffon the Brush-Off", Pinkie tries to spray Fluttershy with aqua regia. Aqua regia is a highly corrosive liquid able to dissolve gold and platinum.
- During "Winter Wrap-Up", Twilight and Rarity's conversation is derailed by discussion of several words with "hippo" (or "hypo") in them; some of those words are rather obscure.
- Twilight's description of the perils of intestinal surgery is scarily accurate.
- Twilight says that Apple Bloom was "born from consanguineous mating".note
- In "Griffon the Brush-Off", Pinkie tries to spray Fluttershy with aqua regia.
- Growing the Beard: Captain Hook The Biker Gorilla is arguably one for Rainbow Dash Presents, though others may argue Cupcakes (the preceding episode) was where the beard started to grow.
- For Mentally Advanced itself, Episode 3 (the Gilda episode) is where the series started to become funny, and Episode 7 ("Bridle Gossip") is the point where things really began to hum.
- For the "Negative" episodes, the art quality took a huge leap between episode 4 and episode 5.
- For Mentally Advanced itself, Episode 3 (the Gilda episode) is where the series started to become funny, and Episode 7 ("Bridle Gossip") is the point where things really began to hum.
- Hilarious in Hindsight: "Rainbow Dash Presents" becomes even funnier with "Read It And Weep" announced.
- Rainbow Dash Presents: Captain Hook the Biker Gorilla begins with a Take That! at Equestria Daily and their bias towards Friendship is Witchcraft, including the Space Jam remix of "Pinkie's Brew" making front page for no real reason. Eventually, a Space Jam remix of "Rainbow Fun Factory" made it to Equestria Daily's front page, perhaps as a result of said complaints.
- Pretty much everything Pony-related Greg and his team make ends up on EQD's front-page nowadays, including Captain Hook the Biker Gorilla, which was begrudgingly given its own post with a descriptor saying simply "You win." – apparently a number of Equestria Daily's users had also been complaining about the site's pro-Witchcraft bias.
- Rainbow Dash Presents: Cupcakes has Pinkie cut off Rainbow Dash's wings with the intent on using them to make a hat. And now We Love Fine has a Rainbow Dash Winged Baseball Hat for sale.
- The same video would not be the last time Blue Swede's "Hooked on a Feeling" would be used in a hilariously dissonant sequence.
- Rarity is racist against non-Unicorns. Many fans believe her father, Hondo Flanks (Fan Nickname "Magnum") is an Earth Pony. Although Word of God has implied he is probably also a Unicorn, later confirmed in the episode "Inspiration Manifestation".
- Rainbow Dash Presents: Captain Hook the Biker Gorilla begins with a Take That! at Equestria Daily and their bias towards Friendship is Witchcraft, including the Space Jam remix of "Pinkie's Brew" making front page for no real reason. Eventually, a Space Jam remix of "Rainbow Fun Factory" made it to Equestria Daily's front page, perhaps as a result of said complaints.
- Jerkass Woobie:
- Twilight, due to her constant abuse by Princess Celestia.
- Dazzler is likely an invocation of this trope. "GET IN MY VAN!!!"
- Memetic Mutation: "THE HEAD IS BACKWARDS!"
- More Popular Spin-Off: Rainbow Dash Presents.
- Not that Mentally Advanced isn't also popular. The difference could be due to MAS constantly getting pulled due to copyright trouble whereas RDP, which uses no show assets, stays online regardless.
- Nightmare Fuel: Now has its own page.
- Nightmare Retardant: Rainbow Dash Presents frequently does this with the fics it parodies. A great example is the Rainbow Factory parody, which ends with the factory workers discovering that running crayons and a picture of a pony's family through the machine produces rainbows just as well. They then let the kids go so they can see their families again.Surprise: Aw man! I can't believe we're going to pony hell for nothing!
- Signature Scene: Thrackerzod's escape plan in Rainbow Dash Presents: Captain Hook the Biker Gorilla, due to being a massive Shout-Out to Legends of the Hidden Temple.
- Tear Jerker: Now has its own page.
- They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Some people claimed this over the new theme song. Perhaps telling that Greg only used it twice before dropping the idea of a theme song completely.
- The switch from traditional abridging to episode screenshots, done partly to speed up editing and partly to avoid copyright claims (the latter ultimately failed).
- Later, and more pointedly, the switch from episode screenshots to hand drawn images and/or restarting the series from the beginning. To be fair, the first of those was done out of desperation brought on by ContentID necessitating taking down the videos; the alternative would have been ending the show entirely.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: If Discord being Killed Off for Real remains true, that means Fluttershy getting to help redeem him and making an actual friend for once, probably won't happen.
- Unexpected Character: Breezen, a villain from Generation One that many viewers may have not heard of, has taken over Discord's place in the Season Two premier.
- The Woobie: Even when played for laughs, Fluttershy still manages to be this.
