Confessions of a Brony

The second season of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is coming to a close and the hype of this extraordinary series is taking on a fever pitch with The Hub posting an advertisement for it in the New York Times' wedding notice section last Sunday. Furthermore, Tori Spelling was slated to host a public screening of the episode, although she took ill and Dancing with the Stars host Brooke Burke had to substitute.

Looking back, it's still hard to imagine this would be so significant to me a year ago, I tried seeing the first episode, but the cutesie opening exposition just turned me off.  However, seeing the sheer intensity of the unprecedented fandom from this show just became too strong and audacious to ignore. So, I decided to seriously see what the fuss was about

At first, the series seemed largely ordinary with an epic fantasy adventure story very much in the spirit of the franchise's first TV appearance in 1984, but with an odd wry humour puncturing the property's notorious overwrought earnestness.  However, the first hints of what the series would be truly appear in the title sequence that begins with the usual superficial lyricism and suddenly dives into a rock tune that makes it really clear that the show will be taking a different path.

 However, as you watch the series in proper order, the characters and the show's style will start inculcate the realization that there is something much more ambitious happening.  It does take awhile, but this show will manipulate your expectations and gleefully thwart them with increasing skill as you grow to understand Twilight Sparkle and her friends. It takes awhile, but the accumulated rapport through the first eight episodes will entangle you like growing vines.

Until episode 9, "Bridle Gossip," when it will suddenly grab you as the series suddenly and truly hits its stride. This episode finally works with the same kind of character based humour that made Jim Henson's Muppet Show become the enthralling demographic spanning TV masterpiece in the 1970s. Specifically, this story about prejudice only works when you know the characters and how the jokes play to their most fundamental natures. Moreover, your patience will be rewarded at the 3/4 mark when you are laughing hysterically as two characters take a silly hyperactive song repeated endlessly in the story and reluctantly have to improvise in the most bizarre circumstances. I could show you the clip, but like I said, it only really works when you are willing to know the characters well enough to understand the humour.

After that, you will be watching this series voraciously as that broken ice allows you to accept the show's deft charm and heart with an opened mind.  Furthermore, the wildly creative fandom will entrance you equally well, whether it the endless fan fiction creativity displayed at Equestria Daily or the tuneful filk songs of the Beatle Bronies.

If you need a better representation of my feelings, then click the latter gang's version of George Harrison's "Something" to truly hear articulate the way it should be:

This is not say the show is flawless; the second season suffers from the Hasbro Inc.'s mandated loose continuity that makes some episodes like "Sweet and Elite" make no sense since the high society treat the Mane Cast like hick nobodies after they have become the national heroes decorated by their sovereign while some characters like Rainbow Dash and her overbearing arrogance gets a bit grating.

But on the whole, the series is a delight that is sadly apparently coming to a close with only 13 episodes scheduled for next season to apparently reach the typical animated series episode cut off of 65. Regardless, what a gloriously relatively long strange trip it has been and I hope to enjoy the rest while there is still some distance to go.

MLPFIM: Beyond the TV

It's amazing how the My Little Pony Friendship is Magic series can envelope one's interest so completely.

That can be easily shown by all the fan works about it by the adult fans who take the basic premise and characters and run with them like creative track stars.

For instance, I have been enjoying a new fanfic series of crossover stories with the TV series, Stargate SG-1: Stargate Equestria.  I know, that sounds like an impossible combination, but the writer makes it work far better than you'd ever expect with a real understanding of both media properties.  Just the scene of where the hotshot pegasus Rainbow Dash learns the real responsibilities of being an provisional Captain of the US Air Force when Col. O'Neil dresses her down for disobeying his orders shows a special understanding to mix the aesops of MLP with the hardheaded military realism of SG to amazing effect.

Then there are flights of fancy where the fans' imagination takes them to all sorts of places.  For instance, there the stuff they do with this popular sequence with the season finale's big musical number, "At the Gala":

Such as making a male version of the piece:

Not mention what some clever editing can do such with as the theme song for the classic superhero comedy animated series, Freakazoid:

And then they really get creative after that:

Ah, media addiction; the all encompassing thing to enjoy where you least expect it.  Now, I'm finding if Big Bang Theory get do it itself and Stargate SG-1 can it again.

Confessions of a Self-discovered Brony

Coming to the library today, I was expecting to have a startingly personal confession, but I'm apparently late for the party as usual as noted by today's National Post story.  Namely, I discovered this week that I'm a Brony, a fan of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

If someone told me that I would find this old Hasbro toy property appealing in any form, I would have said that they were insane. Yet seeing this fandom, I finally got past the first episode's cutsie prologue to discover  this incredible series.  That's what happens when a series is created by an genius like Lauren Faust who cared enough to make something was once a coldly created and sexist piece of merchandizing tripe into a engaging surprise of television animation.

How did she do it? By injecting an infectious sense of humour that playfully sets you up for the usual cutsie drival like in the old 1980s animated versions, and then gloriously subverts it with the kind of intelligent gags that are not afraid to cast a jaundiced eye to the cliches. That quality is then combined with unexpectedly complex characters who will appeal to you deeply as they reveal the enthralling complexity of their personalities.

No one more exemplifies this than the Pinkie Pie character. In lesser hands, she would be simply an annoying hyperactive ditz with the squeaky voice, but the writers understand the same humour as Gracie Allen did of a character who is not stupid, but is an intelligent freespirit who sees the world in her own completely unique way and is unafraid to joyously express it. For as much as she takes getting used to in the beginning, she will enthrall you as one of a brilliant facet of this animated mosiac.

Yet, the focus heroine, Twilight Sparkle, is the perfect anchor for this series. A quiet bookish intellectual, she is the exact same appeal of Hiccup in How to Train Your Dragon who rises to any occasion and crisis when called upon.  Yet the writers are unafraid to avoid this genre crippling sense of delicateness and joyfully put her  through the gauntlet of outrageous slapstick character driven comedy in the finest tradition of Looney Tunes.  Meanwhile, her companion, Spike the Dragon, is the perfect straight man for this odd series as the only recurring male character, viewing the antics around him with his own childish perspective that molds the whole show into a stunner.

With this writing, there is that beautiful flash animation that creates the brightly coloured fantasy world of MLP that is magical, but never overpowering in its intensity.  Meanwhile the music is deftly inspired with a dose of knowing confidence, especially when the songs get gleefully subverted for gutbusting laughs that know no age maximum.While the series doesn't always succeed in maintaining the crossover appeal, even the occasional exclusive kidvid shtick displayed have a special warmth to see adult viewers through until the series' sophistication returns.
 
In short, this series is a family show in the best sense, much like Sesame Street in its glory years where all walks of life can enjoy this magic. The Hub network certainly seems to understand as their marketing is even playing to the adult audience, eager to build their audience share with the power of the peripheral demographic.

This is the sampling:

And this is the real thing.  Get through the prologue and you'll see where this series will take you:

While Faust's departure from the series as a producer is a worrisome development, I'm hoping that the sheer audacity of this new fandom and the network's delight in profiting from this new pop culture cache will be enough to keep it going for some time to come.

And that is why I am a Brony.