What a load of pony baloney!
Hasbro: 2009
Okay, let's be honest, if you're one of the lucky people who know me by now, you know that I, for lack of a better terminology am a male fan of the current rendition of My Little Pony. Yes, that means I am a Brony. Now, before I'm bombarded with either brohoofs, or pitchforks, I'm a fan of this current generation, not so much the other three.
And how can you blame me? The show has earned its popularity with its great writing, excellent mix of action and comedy, and some of my favorite characters of all time.
Especially Rarity. AKA The best pony.
Except for maybe Bart Simpson pony.
The second series, My Little Pony Tales wasn't too bad either, but you could tell that they were going for a less equal opportunity feel here. Now from ponies on adventures, we went to ponies going to the ice cream shop, and talking about boys and makeup, and estrogen. It wasn't that good, but it could be worse.
Case in point
Now we reach the Nadir of the My Little Pony franchise, and the focal point of our Review Du Jour. In the mid 2000's Hasbro rebooted the franchise after a rather dormant sleep. In addition to toys came a series of animated videos. The show never got a full TV series, chock full of saccharin, and devoid of any conflict or story. In other words, what idiotic executives think should be perfect for little kids. The franchise underwent three different designs as it went along. It started with what were basic pony designs...
To Generation 3.5, or the commonly called Chibi/Popeye leg era. And trust me, there's enough crappy content in both of these eras that make them worth talking about in later editions. But the most legendary of bad G3 eras was the "Newborn Cuties" Era. You know, ever since Muppet Babies, it seems that everyone wants to make cartoons characters into babies/kids, and it almost never works. And it certainly doesn't here, with bad animation, awful characters, and overall brain aching stupidity.
But why should we prolong the suffering anymore? Let's review this thing.
There are two shorts in the Newborn Cuties line, and today, we'll look at one of them. This is "Over Two Rainbows". We open this short with text that says "Once Upon a My Little Pony Time"
Come on, you couldn't go for "Once A-Pony Time"?
From there we get a really bland intro where the camera pans over different landscapes in Ponyville, as we also see Pinkie Pie looking into a book. We then get our title for the story. And that lasted almost a minute. What a crappy intro, even for this. No characters, no real information about what this is about. Just shots of houses and hills made by some cruddy flash animators. Pinkie tells us of the time that Sweetie Belle first came to Ponyville.
And yeah, not even 5 seconds into the story, and already anyone call tell that this is gonna suck. Backgrounds look bland, and the characters are dead eyed, and look more creepy than cute. Especially Scootaloo up there in the right. But we'll get to her soon enough. We see the ponies (or foals I guess) are having a pretend fashion show.
With Rainbow Dash being the star attraction, of course. Also, if you're just experiencing this for the first time, and you came in through G4. Yes, this is the G3 equivalent of Rainbow Dash. How she went from a fashion obsessed character...
To THIS still boggles my mind. Praise the lord, and Lauren Faust for that though.
Rainbow Dash clearly learned all her facial expressions from Derek Zoolander
And to further prove the overall cheapness of this short, the mouths never move, nor do the characters ever make more than maybe one or two different expressions in the whole 11 minute story. That's just bad. Hell, even Clutch Cargo had better animation than this.
Pinkie Pie and Cheerilee continue to snap the same pictures of Rainbow Dash, until something of interest actually happens in this shorts, as the clouds begin to darken.
Oh snap, Nightmare Moon is back and she's sick of this shit. Eternal Night for you rejects.
A random lightning storm sweeps over Ponyville. And the four babies head into their playhouse until the storm stops. But first world problems arrive as Rainbow Dash loses her scarf from the wind. The whole storm scene results in the best animation in the whole short. It still looks like shit, but there actually seems like there's movement and more effects than any scene with the actual mane characters. The storm subsides...
And we get a double rainbow! Oh my god! What does it mean, other than me using a dead as fuck meme?
Why the birth of a newborn pony, of course.
Wait a second. Ponies are born from rainbows in this world? And even weirder of all, did I just technically watch a rainbow sex scene? Hm, not as kinky as I'd have hoped for it to be. The pink cloud with a pony inside slowly descends to the ground (and by that I mean it takes 30 seconds. My little padding) lands in Pinkie Pie's yard. The cloud disappears, and Sweetie Belle is born.
No, not that adorable little dear.
Not even this thing from some abridged show I don't even like (But hey, references)
This abomination.
The other dead eyed ponies go visit this strange unicorn sitting in mud (at least I hope it's just mud). Cheerilee (I think, since their mouths don't move, and I their voices are too damn similar) thinks it might be a dragon fairy, or fairy eating dragon. Cheerilee is an idiot folks. All the ponies fawn over the new baby, except for Dash who doesn't seem to care for the new baby. Can't blame her. Suddenly, a light comes down on Sweetie Belle, and she makes this face.
GAH! KILL IT WITH FIRE!
That shot right there completely says it all when it comes to the utter fail that this cartoon has going for it. Their attempts to make these characters cute and lovable falls on its ass when you see how downright ugly and creepy they can look. Seriously, that one image alone could give you nightmares.
Being a unicorn, Sweetie Belle manages to make flowers appear with her magic. This impresses the ponies, though honestly I think jiggling keys in front of them would blow their minds even more. However, Rainbow Dash, not giving two shits about anyone but herself, just wants her scarf.
So, Sweetie Belle shuts the priss up by putting her in a bubble, and dropping her in a puddle. Wow. This thing may be creepy, but you'd best not fuck with her.
Rainbow Dash bitches that Sweetie isn't even supposed to be in Ponyville, since unicorns only live in Unicornia. My Little Segregation? Sweetie Belle then uses her powers of hypnosis (I think, I have no fucking clue at this point), to suddenly make Rainbow Dash like her more. Dash still bitches about her scarf, but Sweetie cleans it for her.
And so the short ends with the now officially named Sweetie Belle, and the rest of the ponies continuing their super ultra major awesometabulous fashion show, as we do the intro the short in reverse. No, really, that's exactly what they do. But then again, considering the laziness of this short, I'm not shocked.
Sweet Celestia, this is a stinker. Animation is almost non-existent, the voice acting is terrible (the audio gets really low at times), the characters have no personality save for Rainbow Dash, and even that's bland. And there's really nothing of value about the short. It was clearly made with no effort to be merely a colorful distraction for the hapless kids who saw this. It exemplifies the very reason My Little Pony Generation 3 was as bad as people claim it is. As well as shows just why Friendship is Magic is such an amazing contrast of quality.
There will definitely be more G3 in the future for Tooncrap, that I can guarantee. And trust me, it gets worse.