My Little Pony, pre-FIM

The G3 clips I've seen have rather stiff animation, too. I want to pin that on the character designs for some reason.

Maybe FIM has spoiled me in this respect. (Though it's not entirely flawless, either; sometimes the characters' tails seem awkwardly attached when they are walking/running and shown from behind)

edited 12th May '11 7:19:39 PM by AnonymousUser

Gen 1 had the odd animation errors, but some stuff was really pretty. ^^ Can't say I cared much for the Flutter Ponies in the movie, though by the time the show rolled around and they got...pretty much depowered, I mellowed out towards 'em.

edited 12th May '11 7:29:23 PM by lalalei2001

I remember thinking the Flutter Pony toys were pretty, but the ones in the series were selfish jerks. Especially in their movie debut.

That clip...

Ooh this has better background art
Ponies look weird.
Getting ready for a show? Mmph.
"What are we gonna do?" MY GODS YOUR VOICE MAKES ME WANT TO PUNCH YOU. ABANDON SHIP! *close*

Okay, so I just watched two of the short G3 episodes (what are these, anyway? The description says they're "Webisodes," which I assume means they first aired on Hasbro's website).

First, this one, which was linked in the Friendship thread. Afterwards I watched this one.

... I gotta be honest, I dunno if its just because I had a bad day or something, but I actually found these charming in a way. I mean yes, the plots are banal, the dialogue borderline retarded, and the ponies all look like they're on the verge of breaking apart in every frame of animation, but... it all just gets a laugh out of me.

I also appreciated that Pinkie Pie in the second video has a few things recognizably in common with her Friendship is Magic incarnation.

Some dialogue highlights:

"I'm a good knocker." —Scootaloo unthinkingly makes a double-entendre.

"I was just keeping it warm for you." —Scootaloo looks pleased when someone almost touches her ass.

"Cool beans! It's pink!" —Scootaloo is easily impressed.

"You are such a sweetie, Sweetie Belle."
"Yeah, I am!" — Sweetie Belle strokes her own ego.

"And I'm having the best day ever, watching my friends have their best day ever!" — Pinkie Pie reveals her inner voyeur, and inspires a sequel to Cupcakes.

I'm gonna try to watch A Very Pony Place now.

I liked the G3 movies for what they were-pretty, sugary fluff. I had a whole folder of screenshots from Gen 1 and Gen 3, but lost them. :( I liked the unicorns and wished we'd gotten more about them before it was canceled.

Didn't have time to finish A Very Pony Place, guess I'll have to watch the rest tomorrow... if I can stomach it. To be honest, those short little cartoons were okay but the same thing stretched to over thirty minutes is a recipe for driving me to murder.

To be kind though, I did think the interaction between Pinky (is this an early version of Pinkie Pie?) and Minty was amusing though, especially the conversation about the sock drawer. I found the phrase "shine on!" kinda narmy since it sounds hippie-ish, and thought it was funny that Lily was embarrassed about "lighting up" (both because that phrase can be a euphemism for smoking and because I kept imagining that her glowing horn was some sort of unicorn erection).

... Come to think of it, I think tomorrow I'll just try some G1 episodes.

Megan (i'm assuming) in the Sea Ponies video looks like a lot of the humanized FIM Applejacks i've seen. I don't think this is a coincidence.

You assume rightly.

Funny thing is, they met the Sea Ponies because Megan jumped in a river to rescue Applejack... who later gets turned into a dragon.

I wonder what our Applejack would say to that?

I've seen the first series (My Little Pony And Friends, the first season, which I have on DVD set), the two specials and three of the G3 movies (Princess Promenade, Runaway Rainbow and Minty Christmas). I have not yet seen the Friendship Is Magic series although I'm not sure if I'd like it or not (I don't even know where one would look for it, is it on TV, DVD and/or is it a web video series?). I think my favorite is the first series but that might be the Nostalgia Filter talking, although I also enjoy the G3 movies. Both have pros and cons for me that I'm not sure which I like better, so here's my opinions on both:

• Original series: Has more interesting stories, characters have more interesting personalities and don't just say catchphrases all the time, I like the ponies' names better (that one is probably Nostalgia Filter because those names inspired several names of characters I made up)
• G3 movies: I find the characters' personalities a little harder to tell apart, they seem to be more defined by their hobbies rather than their personalities in this one, some of them are a little repetitive with saying their catchphrases (mainly the Breezies), Spike is an annoying British Stuffiness stereotype in this one, but I still like the stories and like the cuteness (although there doesn't seem to be much real conflict even without villains)

I like the series in general for its large amount of female characters, the ponies' names (I just like weird names like they have) and some of the stories are interesting.

edited 14th May '11 3:05:51 PM by Rainbow

Rainbow, did you ever think of looking for "Friendship is Magic" on Youtube? Every episode is up there, some even in high-definition. Just keep in mind that the series sorta changes gears after the first two episodes. (If you're in America, it plays on The Hub every Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday).

edited 14th May '11 4:10:02 PM by MoeDantes

Thank you for telling me that it's on Youtube. I wasn't sure if they had full episodes or just clips. I may look into it. I think I've read on this site that the plot changes gears after the first two episodes, too.

It does. It starts with a plotline about somebody wanting to bring about eternal night (gee, that sounds familiar) but then almost immediately turns into a comedic slice-of-life series.

Personally I think the fourth episode, "Applebuck Season" is when it grew the beard.

I just started watching it and I like what I've seen so far, which are the Applebuck Season story and the introductory two-parter (the Applebuck one sounded the most interesting to me of the slice-of-life ones when I looked at episode summaries so I tried it first). Thank you for telling me how to find it, I wasn't sure.

To get back to the subject of the earlier series...

About the first pony series, one thing I like is that they did subvert Beauty Equals Goodness by having ugly or scary-looking characters be good guys and I really like the story about those evil flowers. Upon rewatching certain episodes that I saw on video when I was younger, I now realize that I had misheard some lines and finally realized what the characters were saying. One rather weird example is that in "The Glass Princess," I thought Shady says "all my glands always go all wrong" in her song but she's really saying "all my PLANS!"

edited 14th May '11 7:43:10 PM by Rainbow

Truthfully, I'm only familiar with the G1 series insofar as the first special (which is called either Firefly's Adventure, Rescue at Midnight Castle or sometimes just My Little Pony depending on which version you get), vague memories of seeing the movie as a kid, and one part of The End of Flutter Valley that I have recorded from back in the day.

Youtube will fix that though. I'm loading up "Escape From Katrina" right now.

Also, if I wind up feeling so inclined, Amazon apparently still has the DVD sets of the entire Gen 1 series. I've avoided buying those because the episodes were edited (usually simple things like removing the recaps, but sometimes scenes and songs are missing from the actual episodes) and moreso because recently Shout Factory has been doing fixed re-releases of every Hasbro show that Rhino botched, but, well... the temptation to cave is tempting.

EDIT: I'm a little bit into "Escape From Katrina," and:

The ponies should be glad Sundance ripped their first "Welcome Megan" sign... they spelt Megan's name wrong (with an A in place of the E). Fortunately they got it right the second time.

EDIT 2: Just finished it. It occurs to me that this special could be summed up like this:

Katrina: Bushwillies, be my slaves!
Bushwillies: Go play with yourself!
Katrina: Ponies, be my slaves!
Ponies: Go play with yourself!
Katrina: Hm, guess I better go play with myself.
Lizard guy: That's the Katrina I know!

Overall I liked it but it seems a bit weaker than the Midnight Castle one.

edited 15th May '11 1:53:34 AM by MoeDantes

Did they ever make Bushwoolie or Furbob toys?

Not as far as I know, but you might want to check.

In other news, last night I finished watching My Little Pony - The Movie.

And now I'm trying to suffer through The End of Flutter Valley, but in all honesty the G1 series is making me want to put a bullet through my brain. "Rescue at Midnight Castle" was good, but it seems like G1 was on a constant downward spiral ever sense. My main complaint is that none of the characters from that first special return (except Megan and Spike, who seem to get consecutively more annoying) and pretty much every single character introduced in the subsequent episodes is a Scrappy.

Yes, there are Bushwoolie toys. I think these were the only ones, though.

I take it you never seen Nightshade, Grogar, or Lavan.

edited 17th May '11 1:09:14 PM by SatanicHamster

Those were some hardcore villains. Which reminds me, one of the positive things in the old series was probably the epic proportion of some of the plots. Problem was the characterization, but hey, it could've been pretty good if not for that.

When I look back at those villains, some of the stories that featured them could redone. Such as Cutie Mark Crusaders with Nightshade, an epic battle between Grogar and Princess Celestia, or how the mane cast deals with a lava demon surfs on lava and uses Rainbow powers.

^Fanfic idea: rewrite them as much more impressive legends. Could work. :-)

I found this mentioned in another board. Somebody did some digging around wikipedia and found this.

Look at the cast list and you'll find Ursa Minor.

It looks like getting a demonic centaur and Nazi penguins as villains Fi M seems possible.

edited 17th May '11 6:54:37 PM by SatanicHamster

I liked how in the Magic Coins every Pony's power was useful at some point in the story.

I'm not sure Knight Shade really counted as a villain. Even if he was one at first, he very obviously did a Heel–Face Turn by the end of the story. Zeb and Arabus were the real bad guys in the story.

edited 17th May '11 8:19:25 PM by Rainbow