Category: Western Animation

From The Archives – Pinkie Apple Pie Review

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4x09_2Here’s a post I did in early 2015 for my MLP Season 4 retrospective that never got published because why not. I’ve avoided editing because I wanted to keep it authentic to my old writing so it might be iffy, but I still think it’s good stuff. Enjoy!

Pinkie Apple Pie is the second episode in Season 4 to do something completely and utterly world-shaking, except unlike Daring Don’t it understands the weight of its own development and draws the line. Though it is suggested Pinkie is an extremely distant relative to Applejack, it’s never confirmed nor denied by the end of the episode, meaning it avoids both severely tampering with the series canon and existing simply as a narrative device to get a Pinkie Pie and Applejack episode.

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(Equestria Daily Tryout) New My Little Pony Series Announced

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NOTE: THERE ISN’T A NEW MY LITTLE PONY SERIES. THIS WAS A HYPOTHETICAL PIECE I WROTE FOR EQUESTRIA DAILY. BUT I THOUGHT IT MADE SOME NICE POINTS ABOUT THE ACTUAL STATE OF THE SERIES IN 2017 AND WAS WORTH MAKING PUBLIC.

Hasbro has announced in an investor call a spin off show of My Little Pony focused around a bat pony named Sweet Velvet and her friends. While set in same world, Velvet’s adventures take place outside the kingdom of Equestria. Hasbro hopes to target boys and girls equally with the show and impending toyline. Only this picture of Sweet Velvet was shared at the time of the call.

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My Little Pony: The Movie (2017) Review

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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic was special to me. Still is. For six years it’s been one of my post shameful admissions and yet I see no real reason to be ashamed. I like things gosh darn it. I like sincere things that fill me with joy, I like things that are funny and exciting and genuine and touching, I like things that inspire a little goodness in me. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic gave that to me at a time when I needed it most, and no matter where it goes it’ll always be special to me for that.

Sadly My Little Pony: The Movie is a little late to the party (insert hackneyed Pinkie Pie joke here). The once booming curiosity of its adult fandom has dwindled in numbers comapred to the default market of incredibly young and impressionable girls, with the presence of young boys and adults and equally enthused parents at my local premiere only being a footnote. And yet My Little Pony: The Movie still manages to ooze with happiness and love. It takes Lauren Faust’s original adventure-driven concept and elevates it to a scale that I only ever dreamed was possible, leaving me more enthused about My Little Pony than I’ve been in a long time.

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How Bojack Horseman Does ‘Politically Correct’ Humour Right

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‘Political correctness’ is an ugly term to a lot of people. To them it represents a threat our ability to speak honestly about challenging things, a silencing of dialogues that can help us become stronger and learn new things, a fear driven act of censorship even. Especially when it comes to comedy, people see it as a threat to creativity itself. But let me offer another idea: political correctness has the power to make comedy not only more creative but actually funnier.

And you know who agrees with me? Bojack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg. No kidding, you can read his exact words right here. You know who also agrees with me? Mr. Peanutbutter himself Paul F. Tompkins. So how does a dark gritty comedy like Bojack Horseman manage to be surrounded by such sensitive people? The short answer is that ‘political correctness’ isn’t about not saying things. It’s about questioning how and why you’re saying them. And Bojack Horseman is a stellar show when it comes to self-questioning.

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Let’s Talk About Fandom

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Rick & Morty has been all the buzz lately. And that’s great because it truly deserves it, it’s an intricate and funny and moving series. Its third season has been its most profound yet, giving genuine introspection into the character of Rick Sanchez and how toxic and destructive a human being he truly is. But that’s not what my social media feeds have been interested in. They’ve been talking about the fandom, the would-be real life Ricks who find themselves in almost every online community spewing indulgent nihilistic hatred on everything they touch.

Some friends have even expressed being turned off the series by this, which just really sucks. On one hand I can’t blame them but on the other it’s really just not fair. It’s not fair that people find themselves unwilling to have new media experiences because of hostile fan culture, and it’s not fair on the creators of earnest good works that they need to be accountable for crappy people. So what should you do if something you want to get into has a rubbish fanbase?

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The Beauty and Sadness of Bojack Horseman’s ‘Fish Out of Water’

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I have no hesitation when saying there has never been a better time to be a fan of western animated television. More things have grown on me, blown my expectations away, touched me and brought me to tears from this medium than ever before. But none with the sheer emotional gravitas of Bojack Horseman. That a sneering pop culture satire built around so many unlikeable individuals could carry this much sincerity and vulnerability itself is a feat well beyond many of its peers, but that it never lets go of that dignified seriousness and takes it into so many dark and extraordinary places is what puts it at the apex of its craft. ‘Fish Out of Water’ is at once one of the most ambitious and most tragic episodes of the series. It’s wonderful, it’s funny, it’s experimental, it’s deeply painful, it’s Bojack Horseman.

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What happened to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic?

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Let’s talk about My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Yes, that My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. The once revered and controversial show about cartoon horses learning the magic of friendship is still going strong with a seventh season and a feature film on their way later this year, but it seems to have more years behind it than ahead of it at this point. The viewer base and the overall enthusiasm towards the series has seen a significant drop-off, and most notable fandom personalities have moved on to other things (sometimes as in the case of Digibro much bigger things). There’s been a lot of reasons for this, both specific personal reasons and reasons that broadly reflect the current state of the series. Putting aside fandom drama I want to talk about the direction the show has gone in and how that’s sparked disinterest.

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On Representation

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Broadly speaking we tend to see society become a little more open towards different groups over time, and with that comes slowly but surely increasing media representation of them. A cynical way to look at this is that it’s simply because their existence has become profitable, and that’s certainly a very valid way to look at it given the slew of middlebrow oscar bait exploiting historical prejudice and hamfisted tokenism. A more positive way to see it is that media representation gives us a platform to humanise different groups, to become aware of their existence and their validity as individuals. I believe both perspectives can be true at once, and in that sense there needs to be conscious thought about how representation is implemented.

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Recent Funcurve Content Roundup

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As you may have noticed, this blog has been pretty dead over the last few months. Meanwhile, my content stream for Funcurve has continued and I’ve just neglected posting any of it here. So in the interest of consistency I’ve decided I’ll just post everything I’ve done since then right here. Links to it all can be found after the break.

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A Look Back on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Season 4 Part V – ‘Rarity Takes Manehattan’ Mini-Review [SPOILERS]

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Find the other parts of my S4 retrospective here.

It’s crunch time, and I’m gonna try to get out as many episode reviews as I can before Season 5 premieres. I ended up having more to write about than I expected for Rarity Takes Manehattan, so it’s going to be its own post just like Flight to the Finish. Enough chitchat, it’s pone time!

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