Tropedia

  • Before making a single edit, Tropedia EXPECTS our site policy and manual of style to be followed. Failure to do so may result in deletion of contributions and blocks of users who refuse to learn to do so. Our policies can be reviewed here.
  • All images MUST now have proper attribution, those who neglect to assign at least the "fair use" licensing to an image may have it deleted. All new pages should use the preloadable templates feature on the edit page to add the appropriate basic page markup. Pages that don't do this will be subject to deletion, with or without explanation.
  • All new trope pages will be made with the "Trope Workshop" found on the "Troper Tools" menu and worked on until they have at least three examples. The Trope workshop specific templates can then be removed and it will be regarded as a regular trope page after being moved to the Main namespace. THIS SHOULD BE WORKING NOW, REPORT ANY ISSUES TO Janna2000, SelfCloak or RRabbit42. DON'T MAKE PAGES MANUALLY UNLESS A TEMPLATE IS BROKEN, AND REPORT IT THAT IS THE CASE. PAGES WILL BE DELETED OTHERWISE IF THEY ARE MISSING BASIC MARKUP.

READ MORE

Tropedia
Register
Advertisement
Farm-Fresh balanceYMMVTransmit blueRadarWikEd fancyquotesQuotes • (Emoticon happyFunnyHeartHeartwarmingSilk award star gold 3Awesome) • RefridgeratorFridgeGroupCharactersScript editFanfic RecsSkull0Nightmare FuelRsz 1rsz 2rsz 1shout-out iconShout OutMagnifierPlotGota iconoTear JerkerBug-silkHeadscratchersHelpTriviaWMGFilmRoll-smallRecapRainbowHo YayPhoto linkImage LinksNyan-Cat-OriginalMemesHaiku-wide-iconHaikuLaconicLibrary science symbol SourceSetting

Tropes-specific[]


Voice Actors[]


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, McDonald's and Hasbro probably thought they could get away with this...
    • Some of the dubs, from the previews seen so far, seem to be of the low-to-no-budget variety. The Canadian French dub 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.
    • In Canada, the show runs on Treehouse TV (which is geared towards preschoolers). The channel massively censored some episodes, the most well-known one being the silencing of all instances of the word "loser" from "Boast Busters", "Call of the Cutie", and "Party Of One". Keep in mind that the show is produced in Canada.
    • 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.
  • Creator Backlash: After stepping down as showrunner, Lauren Faust expressed a powerful dislike that Twilight and Cadance were made Alicorns, feeling that it devalued Celestia and Luna's status as such, even if she did intend for Twilight to become Celestia's successor. When Equestria Girls launched, Faust said that she would have quit right then and there if Hasbro had made her do it.
  • 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:
    • The overabundance of pink and hearts, particularly in the design of the toyline.
    • Making Celestia a princess instead of a queen.
    • 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."
    • She also originally wanted the show's setting to be called Fillydelphia, since most of her family live in Philadelphia, but got Executive Vetoed. Fillydelphia ended up being mentioned as a separate town in "Swarm of the Century", "A Friend in Deed", "It's About Time", and "Hurricane Fluttershy" instead.
      • 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).
    • After season 2, she has announced that she's only working as a consulting producer instead of an executive producer. Inverted in that it sounds like that she had too much to control as opposed to too little.
    • 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 (or some other stuff that we won't go into here) 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.
  • 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, its 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.
  • Line to God:
  • No Export for You:
    • 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. Netflix has all the episodes from seasons that have finished airing, as well as the episodes that Shout Factory has released on DVD. Selected episodes have also been released on the LeapFrog App Center, but that's region-locked too[9]. As for DVDs, Germany has a pair of 3-German-episode Region 0 DVDs from Edel Germany GmbH, while Australia and New Zealand will start getting a five-volume Region 4 DVD set of Season 1 from Madman Entertainment on June 20th, 2012. 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 may have received multiple episodes)--and even if you're willing to import, the two non-Shout Factory volumes, Celebration at Canterlot[10] and Adventures in Ponyville[11], are sold only at brick-and-mortar stores (in Celebration at Canterlot's case, only Target stores), so good luck finding them! Those who can't get Boomerang, which has somehow obtained the rights to air programming based on Hasbro's franchises almost everywhere outside North America, are screwed, since as noted in Screwed by the Network, not all countries have pay-TV providers that carry Boomerang. Nick Jr.? Only in certain parts of East Europe, though the German dub of the entire first season can be watched for free on Nickelodeon's German site as well as on Nick Jr.'s German site. 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 main site may be viewable from outside the USA, but would require navigating to the US version of the Videos page.
    • Some parts of the Expanded Universe:
    • Judging by these listings, it appears that the American release of the Blind Bags will be skipping wave 2 and jumping straight to waves 3 & 4. With only three waves announced at the 2012 New York Toy Fair and a fifth wave in the works for the European release, it's unknown if the second wave will ever make it to the US.
    • This was the case in Japan for over two years. It was assumed that My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic would never be released in Japan due to Hasbro's inability to likely deal with competing Pretty Cure and Jewelpet franchises. Thanks to Bushiroad, the this show is dubbed in Japanese and aired in 2013.
  • 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 Sure Why Not below.
    • And has even posted on Ponychan a few times.
    • 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 favourably 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, while wearing a T-shirt that says "BRONY".
  • Promoted Fangirl: Lauren Faust played with the G1 toys as a child. (She even named her Deviant ART handle "fyre-flye" after her favorite MLP G1 character.)
    • 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.
  • Rule 34 Creator Reactions: "I'm a big girl. When stuff gets too icky I just find something else to do."
    • Lauren did eventually have to clarify this a bit, 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 Strong 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 having a terrible airtime for new episodes—the middle of the day on a Friday! (until Season 2 that is)—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. Outside the US, however, this trope is being played depressingly straight: For most of the world (barring the East Europe Blocs, where the rights went to Viacom, who airs it on Nick Jr in that region), the show's rights went to Time Warner, which is screwing it over by airing it on Boomerang instead of Cartoon Network. In many parts of the world, as in parts of the US, Boomerang is almost always a premium add-on channel, whereas Cartoon Network is bundled with the basic packages, so it would have a wider audience on the latter. Aside from that, as stated before, some countries don't get Boomerang even if they get Cartoon Network.[12]
    • Another 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.
    • And how the network screwed it. Treehouse mutes out every uttering of the word "loser" (except once, when Rainbow Dash says it) and rarely airs an episode about bullying.
    • Screwed to the extreme by NTV 7 in Malaysia. The show was supposed to premiere on March 3, 2012 on said channel. It was yanked in the last minute and replaced with Lily The Witch. More egregiously is that the show ID 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!
    • Network to the Rescue: Recent episodes are shown on the Hub website for free, the show is now being shown three times a day on the Hub network itself during the summer when its younger audience will be off from school, and every episode can still be found in full length HD form on YouTube, since little effort has been made to remove them by the corporations who own the copyrights and trademarks (the notable exception to this is that Hasbro has taken considerable effort of late to keep the iTunes rips off of Youtube, since that directly affects their sales, as well as runs the risk of pissing off Apple, which no one wants to do).
  • Sure Why Not: 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.
  • Throw It In: Derpy Hooves (see Sure Why Not) was only cross-eyed in her first appearance because of an animation mistake. She had normal eyes for her next few appearances, until the team heard about the popularity of the cross-eyed Derpy.
  • What Could Have Been:
    • 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, and who knows how that would have turned out.
    • 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 Macintosh was Big Apple, and Gilda was Grizelda.
      • The storybook version of the pilot episodes does call Luna "Selena."
      • 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!
    • Composer Daniel Ingram posted to his SoundCloud profile an early version of "Hop, Skip, and Jump" from "Dragonshy" in response to receiving 3500 likes on his Facebook page.
    • The show was originally going to be named My Little Pony Adventures.
    • Trixie was originally going to be a boy.
    • 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 God says that "all eps have sort of "placeholder" titles and lots of them change." The episodes with known Working Titles are:
    • Adventures in Ponyville was going to have a Fluttershy game, which can be glimpsed here and read about here.
    • 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 Luna[13]).
    • Kathleen Barr, the voice of Trixie, apparently did a "very good" audition for Celestia.
    • Pinkie Pie's "Piggy Dance" song from "Baby Cakes" was originally written for "The Best Night Ever", but was cut at the last minute due to time restrictions.
    • There were plans for an episode centered around Big Macintosh. 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).
    • Princess Cadance previously wasn't going to be a Winged Unicorn. Lauren was surprised (not necessarily pleasantly) at this development.
    • 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" as a Fandom Nod.
    • 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.
    • According to Lauren, she initially wanted Tara Strong to voice Pinkie Pie, and Tara wanted to voice her with a Bubbles-esque voice.
    • Lauren had planned for Twilight to acquire the power of self-levitation at some point.
    • While Nightmare Moon is presented as an alternate persona for Luna, Faust had intended for Luna to have been corrupted by outside sources. While this didn't make it into the show, it did form the basis of the second comic arc.
    • Starlight Glimmer's original name was Aurora Glimmer but had to be changed due to Sleeping Beauty.


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.
  • Ascended Fanon:
    • Derpy Hooves' name and personality, all extrapolated from an animation glitch in an early episode.
    • Ever since the Pegasus Derpy became the unofficial mother of the Unicorn Dinky, fans try to explain how that's possible; theories range from the father being a Unicorn to it being in their DNA. "Baby Cakes" revealed that the Cakes' new baby twin foals, Unicorn and a Pegasus, got those traits from their parents' other family members.
Cquote1

  Mr. Cake: That makes sense, right?

Cquote2
Cquote1

 Rarity: No! Green hair? Not green hair! Such an awful color!

Golden Harvest: ...Well...I never!

Cquote2
  • 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".
  • Fan Nickname: By the truckload.
    • 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" 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" for Twilight's breakdown in "Lesson Zero". There are many, many more; too many to really list them all here.
    • Almost every background pony has a nickname, and it'd be way too much to list them all. See our Character page and Ensemble Darkpony page for a list of the more prominent ones or here for a more complete list. Be warned, there's a lot of them.
    • Many fans call the Mayor of Ponyville "Mayor Mare", sometimes with the first name "Cougar".
    • Rarity's costume and make-up for the Best Young Flyer Competition in "Sonic Rainboom" seems to have led to people calling her "Pony Gaga".
      • 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).
      • Coincidentally, Lady Gaga is a fan of the show.
    • 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 river serpent from episode 2 "Steven Magnet".
    • 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 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".
      • Lauren Faust and the staff have since regretted implying Blueblood was related to Celestia at all and have pretty much Retconned it. The original plan was to have him be a duke, but the idea was dropped because they were concerned that the target audience wouldn't understand what a duke is (turned out for the best since some bronies didn't know either).
    • 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 the fans.
    • "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.
    • Scootaloo has been given the name "Terry" thanks to a Stylistic Suck fancomic.
    • The Japanese fansubs on Nico Nico Douga have led to a few: 'Aniki' (Big Bro) for Big Macintosh and 'Air Waifu' for Rainbow Dash[14]
    • 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!").
  • I Knew It!:
Cquote1
Cquote2


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.


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.[28]
  • 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 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[29] 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 missing leg, had Fluttershy's tail, had her face disappear, had a different cutie mark, and had a different eye color.
  • Twist earned her Cutie Mark in "Call of the Cutie", but in "The Show Stoppers" and "The Return of Harmony Part 1" she's back to being a blank flank. In "The Cutie Pox" and "Family Appreciation Day", she goes back and forth between having her mark and not having one.

Season 1[]

  • 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 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.

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.

Griffon the Brush Off[]

  • After Rainbow Dash collapses after Pinkie Pie finds her at the lake, the view switches and Dash's 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 Fluttershy'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 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.
  • 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.

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.

The Best Night Ever[]

  • When Rarity's charming a couple of her neighbors, pay close attention to Noteworthy.
  • 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 and reappears 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.

Lesson Zero[]

  • When Twilight starts to imagine what it will be like to be sent back to "Magic Kindergarten", a Pegasus filly that's appeared before is shown with a horn added on. Word of God has stated that she was supposed to be a normal unicorn like the other fillies in that scene.
  • 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.
  • 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 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.

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.

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 Fluttershy's tail (again) and a trio-of-umbrellas Cutie Mark (the same as that of background Pegasus Parasol/Showers, who Cheerilee shares the upper half of her mane style with) 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 later two don't have wings (which should be visible, even if under the harnesses).
    • Less animation error, more vocal. Apparently someone forgot to tell Derpy's VA that Derpy was a girl. (It still works anyway.)
    • 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!"

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. Interestingly, they're the same color as those of a background unicorn who otherwise shares Cheerilee's color scheme (and whose eye color wasn't revealed until this episode).

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 grunt.
    • Inversely, while Applejack , Rarity, and Pinkie are visiting Rainbow, 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.

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 of an alicorn.
  • The hour that the Crusaders have to cure Cheerilee and Big Macintosh of the love poison keeps switching between 4:00 to 5:00 and 5:00 to 6:00.

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.

Others[]

  1. The actual phrase used in the show is "20% cooler", but that could have a meaning that doesn't fit the trope.
  2. Kind of. Several other works could be credited with the inspiration as well, but this one most clearly.
  3. Don't imagine him wearing a tutu and faux wings and holding a wand. Been there, can't get it out of my head.
  4. It becomes obvious it's Michelle in that song when you notice Sweetie Belle sings with a noticeable twang. She fixes that by the Hearts and Hooves day song, though.
  5. Ashleigh has talked about how weird it was to be challenging herself to a race.
  6. likely including Nurse Redheart
  7. 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.
  8. Although given the technicalities of that song, Michelle probably was not ever switching voices on the fly.
  9. As of March 2012, the videos are only available on the US and Canada app sites, and only three pairs of episodes ("Dragonshy" with "Swarm of the Century", "Friendship is Magic, part 1" with "Friendship is Magic, part 2", and "The Show Stoppers" with "Stare Master") are available
  10. containing "The Ticket Master" and "Suited For Success"
  11. containing "Swarm of the Century", "Sonic Rainboom", "The Cutie Mark Chronicles", and the Family Game Night Season 1 episode featuring Leah's and Sabrina's families
  12. If you think about it and apply Insane Troll Logic, CN's reason to screw Hasbro over is very clear, and it appears that Hasbro's management are probably Genre Blind. Cartoon Network and Boomerang are owned by Time Warner. Time Warner also owns DC, whose toy rights are with Hasbro's arch-rival, Mattel. Aggravating things is that Hasbro themselves currently hold the toy rights to DC's rival Marvel, which in turn is owned by Time Warner rival and former Hasbro broadcaster Disney. Why Hasbro didn't think about this themselves is beyond anyone's guess.
  13. and Twilight during the studio recording.
  14. 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.
  15. a name Hasbro had used for a G1 pony in the UK
  16. on The Friendship Express
  17. on The Friendship Express
  18. on Celebration at Canterlot and The Ticket Master
  19. on Applebuck Season
  20. on Adventures in Ponyville
  21. on Celebration at Canterlot
  22. on Adventures in Ponyville
  23. on The Friendship Express
  24. on Adventures in Ponyville
  25. on Lesson Zero
  26. on The Friendship Express
  27. original version on The Friendship Express
  28. 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."
  29. used in "Bridle Gossip" and partially in "The Return of Harmony Part 1"
  30. The MLP equivalent of the Blue Angels
  31. The Psycho Rangers counterpart to the Wonderbolts that Nightmare Moon cooked up in the pilot
Advertisement