January 22, 2019 • 48 mins
Wanna be part of our Mane Six? Grab those headphones and get ready to be best friends because we're talking about the My Little Pony franchise! This week Dani and Ify are joined by Transgender SuperModel Arisce Wanzer to discuss these very pretty ponies and the world that surrounds them. The three touch on where MLP came from and how it grew into a media empire spawning its own unique fandom. Whether your new to the ponies or a full on Brony you'll get your kicks on today's episode of Nerdificent!
FOOTNOTES:
GEEK REPLY: The Brony Fandom Has an Image Problem
WaPo: The Grown Men Who Love My Little Pony
DailyDot: My Little Pony: A Study
TheWrap: Top 5 Episodes Ranked: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hey, what's up. It's Nerdificent. How you doing nerd fam
As always, I am sitting acus from me Danny Fernandez. Yeah,
today we're talking about a little something, my little something.
I was going to say our little something. Now that
sounds like we're having a baby together. Sometimes whenever I'm
(00:31):
holding naomie or child, everyone's like, that's and that's if
he's wife. People say that all the time, like on
the twitch stream or something back when we're on hyper
and that is if he's wife. People talk or and
I kind of I could see that. Maybe that's close.
You knows Latin, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Um, we are
(00:55):
talking about my Little Pony and Browny Con. I'm excited
about is because I don't know if you grew up
with it, Iffy, but I grew up with my Little Pony. Yeah.
It was in the background, but it was when they
were really trying to like really shove gendered brands to kids.
So like the boys got you Jos and the little girls,
you have Barbie and my Little Pony, and and you
had Polly Pocket and I forgot what was the other one?
(01:19):
Was the other one Max power or something? Um? I
played with everybody's toys. I think I have said on
here that I notoriously I would. I would, I would
switch out Ken and M My Barbie would bang M
G I Joe and Batman Bruce Wayne. Um. We are
(01:40):
joined today by transgender supermodel and television host a Reice Wanser.
Thank you Hello. I know you wanted to talk throughout that,
so I was like, I don't want to. I don't
want to stifle you anymore. I'm glad I can laugh
at your guys loudly now because everyone's like, where is
that third voice coming from? It's just always here in
(02:02):
the studio. Um. So, what was your first experience with
My Little Pony? Then? Um, I actually have to I'm
thirty two years old, A proud thirty two holler um,
you know, child of the eighties, child of the nineties.
So my sisters, though, are in their forties. So I
had all the original My Little Pony and they were
my hand me downs, and so I had like the
(02:22):
big Little Castle. I also had Sheera Togo with it.
But yeah, so it was a pony mix. I didn't
realize they weren't the same cartoon for a while until
I started watching the movies and it was super cute,
like there was there was a Careberrys movie too, but
we're not talking about that today. But I remember everything
was super trippy back then. Watching Psychedelic Yeah, if you
watch it now, it's like an adult, you're like whatever
(02:43):
they on when they made this, like it's kind of nuts.
I think that's really funny because I find that about
a lot of cartoons, Like we've talked about Nickelodeon cartoons,
and they slip in a lot of adult humor, like
in Rocco's Modern line, Oh yes, how he was a
sex operator, um and he would be like, oh baby
baby yeah, or like Mrs Bighead where she was like
(03:06):
sexually predatoring rock. Oh, she's like rack it. Yeah yeah,
and if obviously Rent and Stimpy was very much adult humor. Yeah,
Renis was actually really gross to watch as an adult.
It's it's grotesque, but I'd like that they did that
on purpose, like the boogers and the like the animation. Yeah,
the animation is really like the pimples and the words
(03:29):
and stuff. But of course as kids are like I
love it. Yeah, it's super cool, but as an adult,
you can't eat and watch it. You can watch it,
but I'm just like, oh god, no, I'm not gonna
even yeah, true, true true. Um so wait, you had
My Little Pony back when you were younger. Did it
re emerge in your life? Oh my god, yes, girl,
because it came out on Netflix with With the Power
(03:49):
of Friendship one. What is it like? The friendship is
Friendship is magic. They don't impale me, guys. I have
a real job that is not involved by Little Pony.
So I did watch the entire zero is that because
I don't have much to do with my real job.
So you watched it while you were there? Oh yeah, Now,
like like you know, it's just castings and auditions and
then sometimes you book something. Yeah, model life. But um
(04:12):
so when you're not you go home and watch Netflix.
Yeah yeah, so I watched all of it and it
was quite enjoyable. Yeah. I, um, I haven't gotten back
into my Little Pony, but I still have. I was
telling you before we started recording, I had my Little
Pony birthday party, I think when I was two or three.
So I have one of the original My Little Ponies. Um.
I believe it's pink um. I think it has rainbow
(04:33):
here and it has a jewel and it's forehead. It's
very pretty actually and still in really good condition. Works.
So you're a good kid. I was weird. I like
one my mom passed down her barbies from like the sixties. Yeah,
so I had those when I was a little and uh,
and then I had my little pot so those I
would play with. But my my little ponies, I guess
(04:55):
I kept. I think because it was from my birthday.
My mom kept it in like a safe so smart. Yeah,
just because I know a lot of kids who ruined
their toys. I was not one of them. Like I
had two little Mermaid dolls. One went in the tab
and one to not because one's hair. You can ruin
one you can not. Remember, my dad bought me like
the whole Star Trek collection of toys and and he
(05:18):
I obviously opened it up and played with it. And
I remember when the new trilogy started, all the different
news uh, I keep wanting to say news sites, but
it wasn't news. All the different like news reports that
were coming out for the new Star Wars trilogy. We're
talking about how expensive like toys from the original trilogy were.
(05:39):
Was my dad was like, see, I had so many
of those toys. If you didn't open the today with them,
it would be worth money right now. It was like, yeah,
but I'm a child, of course I'm gonna play with him. Also,
that's Star Wars. I had Star Trek toys. It's not
the same. Also, there's like history behind the Star Wars
toys of how like they really changed and read after
(06:00):
what action figures were, and I feel like that gave
more weight to why they costed money versus just it
being a Star Trek toy. It was next generation so
it wasn't even like that old by the time that
he was watching these news reports. Would you like us
to send this to your father? Yeah, I'm real big
(06:21):
at like bringing up like old stuff when I see
my day, Like every time, I'm like, dang, Dad, you're
making money off of playing video games, you know, and
you didn't want me to play. Love it well that
this is a therapy hour for you. Never mind, Dad,
you didn't have Yeah, yeah, it's not like I will
say though. I was, Oh man, I was a bratty
sister because my little brother came along and I did
(06:43):
not like him being the new center of attention. He
had a buzz light ear toy and I threw it
in the pool and it no longer talked. I was bad. Anyways,
we're talking about My Little Pony um so much so
to get into it, My Little Pony, if you don't know,
is a toy line and media franchise developed by American
(07:04):
toy company has Bro. So this is interesting because this
we have seen as a trend as Iffie and I
have done this show that the toy was developed, you know, first,
and then the show essentially to sell more toys a
long commercial essentially, and till this day, toys still run
(07:26):
the world. One of the biggest rumors out is that
the Justice League Unlimited show was canceled simply for the
fact that it wasn't selling enough toys. You know, I
haven't verified or fact checked that, but you know, I
know a few friends and animations and they, you know,
they said that rings true in a way. Wow, I'm
still waiting for them to make a Barbie of me. Yeah, yeah,
(07:49):
I agree happening. Yeah, isn't that so dystopiant? It's like
Black Mirror. Not enough people like you, no Barbie, Yeah,
you need more like if you want to bar Um. So, yeah,
My Little Pony as a toy line and media franchise
developed by Hasbro. The first toys were developed by Bonnie Sasherley,
(08:11):
Charles Mooinger and Steve de Iguano, and we're produced in
so the Pony's future, colorful bodies, mans and unique symbol
on one of their bodies like one of their sides. Um.
Such symbols are referred to in the two most recent
incarnations as CUTEI marks. I Love that. My Little Pony
has been revamped several times with new and more modern
(08:32):
looks to appeal to a new market. They kind of
all seemed to be this. I mean, just from an outsider,
I didn't realize that they had different looks to them. Um,
would you say the ones that you see now are
different than your eighties They have lost us a significant
amount of way. Really, yes, they're like Ana Pony is like,
they're they're a little they're a little thin. I'm going
(08:56):
you think it would be the opposite, because I feel
like people are embracing thicker bodies. The older ponies were
body positive. Oh my gosh, there were some thick girls
my Little Pony. I'm going to look at eighties verse now,
Oh my gosh, I was already in there. That's so fascinating. Okay,
I will take a gander at that on our break.
They got significantly thinner, but they're super kid. They just
(09:18):
look more like Powerpuff Girls version of My Little Ponies
whatever the eighties was going for, which is just an invention.
I guess, yeah, what an imaginary pony would look like.
But I love them all the same. Yeah, that makes sense.
They represent magic and fun, kind of like the Powerpuff Girls,
see exactly. So following the original My Pretty Pony toy
that was introduced in nine, My Little Pony was launched
(09:41):
in two, and the line became popular during the eighties,
and the original toy line ended up running from nine
eighty two to ten whole years in the United States
and to globally, so even after they stopped in the US,
you know, people outside of it was like, we still
want these ponies, makes sense. So then they had two
animated specials and an animated feature length film and two
(10:05):
animated television series produced during the period up until and
then The First Incarnation's popularity pretty much peaked in the nineties,
which is when you know, everyone at this table pretty
much remembers it clearly. But the following year Hasbro decided
to discontinue the toy line due to increased competition. One
hundred and fifty million ponies were sold in the eighties.
(10:26):
There's a lot of ponies. I feel like I had
about eight. That almost makes me wonder if that was
the kind of beginning of the trope of like I
want a pony for my birthday. Oh my god. But
the thing is, you could get a pony for your birthday,
but now it's a play on words, and your parents
still win. Right, Yeah, let me get this straight. So
the popularity picked and that's when it was discontinued. It
(10:47):
didn't come back until seven. I almost wonder if if
it then became like a prized kind of possession, because
for several years you couldn't buy new ponies. Um, me
and my neighbor used to trade them. Really, yeah, we
would trade my little ponies. In the early nineties, I
was like, let's call me like a seven year old boy.
(11:08):
I'm transgender kids anyway, I was like, just so, you know,
so I think I was a brownie at first, but
fun rules for trans people. But yeah, not anymore. Now
I'm just a regular my little pony, just like a
female I know that that makes me want because I
feel like the the and we'll get to this, the
(11:29):
idea of a browny. It initially started off as like
male My Pony Friends, because for some reason you have
to to to make that distinction, but it also seemed
to eventually encompa eventually encompassed like adult My Little Pony Friends,
and then it went down the dark side. I feel
like there was a period of brownism where it was
(11:50):
it was, it was wholesome, and then very quickly, like
many adult men tend to do, make it sex. Oh god,
I was serious. Well, and we'll get to we'll get
to browny con and everything. If people don't know what
we're talking about, we will get to that in a
little bit. But wrapping up here with the toys. Yeah,
So the brand saw more popular revival in two thousand
(12:12):
three with the toys that were more closely resembled the
original toy line, and that sold a hundred million ponies globally.
By interesting that it's like been able to stay relevant
this entire time. Gosh Um Hasbro launched the fourth incarnation
of the franchise, in which started with the animated series
(12:32):
My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, which you were talking
about on Netflix. Um. The brand grossed over six hundred
and fifty million in retail sales and over one billion
annually in retail sales. And What's so interesting about this is,
even though I'm sure toys were in mind while it happened,
(12:53):
this is an instance where the the animation came before
the toy and I feel like that what kind of
led to its success. I dabbled in Brownie is Um
for a hot sec because because you know, even though
I'm not an edge lord, I still have lots of
edge lord tendencies. And I loved how much people were like,
(13:14):
Brownies are dumb, and I was like, all right, well,
I'm gonna be a Brownie since you think it's dumb.
Uh and and and one of the reasons that it
kind of blew up and even kind of spawned brownies
was because the source material, the animated show kind of
had that perfect formula of being made essentially for children,
but anybody can watch it and enjoy it because it's
(13:36):
It was right around that period of animation where we
had shows that were technically quote unquote for kids, but
had enough weight where no matter your age, you'd like
it like Adventure Time and The Regular Show and the
World of Gumball and you know, and all those cartoons.
It's you know, even though they're on Cartoon Network and
at prime time time for kids, a lot of adults
(13:59):
and older people really have been into the show because
they were written to the top of their intelligence instead
of just pandering to children. Yeah, I wanted to say here.
Psychologist John Rosemond described My Little Pony toys as great soothing,
quiet time toys. It's really interesting having none of the
violence or sexuality of other toy franchises. And I think
(14:21):
what they're alluding to is g I Joe, which was
also popular at the time, Transformers, he Man, some of
those other ones. I'm sorry. That also reminds me because
my sister, as you call it, a quiet time toy
she specifically requested at her first baby shower, said no
noisy toys, and My Little Pony would be perfect because
none of them make noise, squeak, they don't talk, they
don't do anything. And back to the toys too. They
(14:43):
also had like licensing with Build a Bear because I
have a big Build a Bear in mind. My little
play that a friend got me for my birthday and
now it sits in my closet, like guarding the closet,
like up in the rafters. But um, it's interesting because
it's absolutely a quiet time toy because it doesn't make
any noise, They don't do anything. It is kind of
funny the people that get I think, like you were
(15:03):
saying that, um, the people that get attached to My
Little Pony because it represents um friendship and it represents
kind of this magical fantasy land. That's a way. I mean,
I don't know if the current series does this, but
kind of you know, an escapism escapism essentially, and so
which is kind of the opposite of a lot of
its counterparts of that time that we're more violent. Um.
(15:28):
But it is fascinating to me the people that grew
up with it, that stayed with it because I feel
like My Little Pony people are like very into My
Little Pony, um, which is like me growing up, I
was super into anime and that kind of I don't know,
they have a lot of similarities. I think, I agree,
because it's about, like think with the escapism just because
(15:48):
it makes you feel safe, especially like the world is
such a scary place when I see like the rainbow
coming out of the back of a horse just flying
to like go save her friend from this lightning storm.
It's kind of nice. Um, well, we're going to get
into My Little Pony friendship is magic this show and
talk a little bit about um the origin and history
(16:11):
as well as Brony con right after this break and
we're back talking about My Little Pony and if he
before we move on, we have to talk about My
Pretty Pony. Yeah, you gotta talk about the predecessor before
you get into the actual, So you got to talk
about the source between that created the material and before
(16:34):
My Little Pony, there was a there was an unsuccessful
first launch which was called My Pretty Pony, which was
a pony figurine that has launched in one and it
was created by an illustrator by the name of Bonnie
Zacharly and a sculptor called Charles Moon Schinger. And it
was a ten inch tall hard plastic semi gro test
(16:56):
figure that was able to wiggle its your squishes tail
and ink one eye. This thing was huge and it
also kind of had like the early permanation of what
you would call a cutie mark, because there's some had
like just a whole bunch of a whole bunch of
hearts on the little, you know, rear flank of the
of the pony. But it was like big. We've all
(17:16):
we all looked at it during the break and commented
on how big it was. So it's so funny that
they that when it wasn't successful, they're like, it probably
was because it was too big. It looks like something
you throw. Yeah, you know, I'm just like, I hate you.
It's creepy and it's sad. If it looks sad, it
has a sad horse eye. I don't like. I hate
(17:38):
when horses look sad. It's like, don't ride me. But
they didn't go out without a fight, because first, you know,
they went my pretty party. Then they had my Pretty
Pony and Beautiful Baby, which came with a smaller baby
pony figure. And I think that was probably when people noticed,
when they probably did one of those like uh, what
(18:00):
was those group test with kids, and they're like, oh,
we like this, it's small. I don't pull my back
out lifting this, And that's what they went with. But
a recent I we're talking about during the break that
we both had um puppy surprise surprised puppy. Surprise was
a puppy that you opened its tummy and you could
take out puppies, and it's just it was a surprise
(18:22):
how many you got. Some people had, like my neighbor
had too, and I had four, so I was kind
of like the beacon winner. But it's so like we
were talking about this, and if I know that you
have you have a little girl, like, it's so fascinating
our fascination with baby, like to give a baby a baby,
because it's like you yourself are a baby. To give
(18:43):
them babies, well, it's one of the I feel like
the most earliest human traits that hasn't phased out where
it's like, well, yeah, you still give birth and have
to take care of it. And it is whild watching
like my daughter have a baby, like we never pushed
baby dolls on it. Like she started treating her stuffed
animals like before before we even got her a single
(19:04):
baby doll. It's just like a natural human thing. You
don't see little boys searching for spears and stabbing their
stuffed animals yet that And I think it's because it's
just still around and something that is I guess useful
to humans, but the baby toys across the border are
always weird. Like my daughter now has this Baby Alive,
(19:25):
which gets this weird Yeah, it's like I don't like
the name. Yeah, it's it gets worse. It eats. It
has like this weird like plato that you smush and
make spaghetti, and then like it's makes slurp sounds and
and and then it's supposed to poop the plato out,
but if you're familiar with the the texture of plato,
(19:47):
all it does is get stuck and then creates this
weird imagery as Dad sticks a jad stick up there
to dig out the plato. And yeah, I feel so
bad because like she's staring at me and I'm like,
I just got to get the food out for you. Baby.
It's first enema. Oh, it's so it's it's I'm like
this toy backfired big tea literally, So if Baby Alive
(20:13):
when we're not talking about it. Baby Alive first came
out in nineteen really and it had many iterations. I
had a Baby Alive when I was little. I was
in love with it. I think mine might have cried.
There was like definitely a baby that I had a
baby alive. But then I definitely had a baby. Um,
I had a water baby that was very popular and
a baby that would you would like squeeze it would
cry it with like tears would come out of its eyes.
(20:37):
Back to My Little Pony depressed, So there was there
was a short road before we got to Friendship His Magic,
So it didn't just jump there. That's kind of like
the best the biggest one right now, but you know,
it started as as as early as six with My
Little Pony television series, which you know the language to
(20:58):
talk about My Little Pony mirrors that if you remember
the Transformers episode of their being jin one Gin two,
and that's kind of that era, that early kind of
small toy era. Then after there was another My Little
Pony series that was the My Little Pony Tails that
(21:19):
ran for a short bit and then we got to
My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, But it all started
with the first one called My Little Pony in Friends. Yeah,
and um, we should also mention that was produced by
sun Bow and that's why a lot of we we've
talked about Sunbow because they're the ones that the g
I Joe UM, So there is a lot of similarities. Um,
(21:41):
and I think Transformers. Yeah, yeah, Transformers as well. So
there is a lot of similarities all the Disney, like
all the uh not Disney. It's all that like McDonald's
toys that we used to get in Happymales that came together.
The Girl Boy the Sunbow had it on lock. Yeah.
Speaking of my little pony friend Chip is Magic Aresa.
I wanted to know some of your favorite characters and
(22:05):
what they're like, Like, is there is there one that
like a lot of people gravitate towards that are people
like favorite. So everybody loves like Twilight Sparkle because she's
like the main character basically, but I never gravitate towards
the main character as much as I can like them, Like,
I still like her. I think she's cute, but like
I'm much more of a rarity. So she's like the
(22:26):
bougie one who's like a fashion designer, has like diamonds
on her butt. I'm like, that's me all day. But
um but my friends would think I was like a
rainbow Dash, which is like the rainbow colored one, and
she's like the gender neutral one just about which I
can see. I can absolutely see. But she's a little
more rough and tumble than I am. And then you've
got like apple Jack, who I would definitely coin as
a lesbian, but we cannot go there. I'm sure we cannot.
(22:49):
Do you think that they know her in that way though? Um? Yeah,
she's like she's like the tomboy one who does like
farm work and stuff and um, but she has like
a male counterpart, which is like his name is McIntosh
or name, Yeah, a big macintoge. It's like her male
counterpart that also does farm stuff. So I don't you
don't see them being romantic, Like his name is literally
big mac. Yeah, that's so that. I was a big macintog.
(23:11):
I was like, that's an apple. I didn't even think
of that until just now there's an apple on his butt.
I'm an idiot, but it's okay. But then, um, you've
got like the queen Ones, who are Princess Luna and
Princess Celestia, and they're both good in their own way,
like one just represents night, one represents a day, which
is just beautiful. I used to have a Princess Luna
key chain when I first moved here. Broke. I'm very
upset anyway, And then um, it's funny because they still
(23:33):
got Spike on here, which was he was not such
a cute dragon in the eighties because they yeah, they
brought him back and they made him super adorable, looking
like he looks a little like Dexter from Jex's Laboratory
made into like a dragon. Oh yeah, I was gonna say. Um,
So Tarace Strong is the voice of Twilight Sparkle. Um.
I know that she's like really big in the She's
(23:55):
actually gonna come on our Harley Quinn episode that we
have coming up. But she, I mean, she's voiced so
many people, but also very famously voices Twilight Sparkle in
the in the My Little Pony World. Um. And so
Twilight Sparkles, like you were saying, her baby dragon assistant
Spike and her friends in Ponyville. That's where they are
(24:17):
are referred to as the main six. So are there, um,
because I know you've seen all the episodes. Are their
themes that they have, like, um, it always comes back
to friendship, Like what you're supposed to be doing for friendship,
how you're supposed to treat people or treat others. There's
always like a sense of selflessness among them all, which
(24:39):
is it's a really like That's why it's like even
as an adult, I'm like, where did these values go,
like when they all become monster? Well, yeah, you see
people like step out other people to get to the top.
And that's not like that for any of them. That
they'll have like these little dilemmas, but they always do
the right thing, or if they don't do the right thing,
they learn their lesson and apologize and then go back in.
(25:00):
Just there's always they always hold themselves accountable for things.
And so I think it's got a lot of really
great lessons to teach kids, but also to teach adults,
like maybe be nice to one another and just you know,
be nice to your friends and treat them like your family.
And oh and they're all so different, which I like,
each of them has their own personality, like their own
cut personality, like this one's a little fashion designer, this
(25:21):
one does farm work. But they can both be friends,
you know, and there's something beautiful in that because we all,
like we live in l A, we all hang in
our own little cliques are we all do the same
exact thing. And so but when you meet someone outside
your click, you find out you have a lot more
in common than you don't have in common. So I
just think it's interesting how they can bring up together
all these characters and they all have their own episodes
(25:44):
or their own focuses, and they all can still be
friends at the end of the day. It's really ef
thing cute. It's cute. I love that. I um, I
wanted to say that we have a top five episodes
of My Little Pony. This is according to the rap
here we go. Yeah, so so they started off with
My Little Pony of the movie in four, so we're
(26:07):
not even in Friendship's Magic Terror. Yeah, and they say
rescue at Midnight Castle. My Little Ponies TV debut was
the only entry in this list not from the newer one,
but it makes the cut thanks to its influential Rainbows
and Darkness storyline. So they so it was so good
that they're like, you know, we're gonna throw this on
the list. I've I have not seen that episode because
(26:30):
that's an older one. I haven't I'm sure I've seen it,
but I'm sure I haven't seen it in about I
know right, Like it's probably been a long time because
we used to tape everything off TV, which is in
my mother's house, and I had a technique with mine.
You know, you started off. I think it started off
with like adult Swim which Hunter Robin? It said, which
Hunter Robin? And it had a few episodes then like
(26:53):
one quick skin of Max Flick, and then it continued
with the rest of of the series after that. I'm
smart and see. But that was the thing. That's like
when you forgot which VHS you put it on and
you accidentally record over it. That was that was a
wild time for technology. We record over some good stuff. Right.
Luckily I didn't have any bad channels, so I'm almost
(27:14):
unlock about that. It was just my little pony me,
not this little pervert, right, Rainbow Bright Gosh, I was
also a pervert. Moving on to number four, the cutie
mark Chronicles. This was season one, episode twenty three of
The Newest Uh Friendship and Magic Um. This is this
episode connects the radix of the ponies cutie marks with
(27:37):
an efficacy. It's a really cute episode. Oh yeah, can
you tell us about Okay, it's a really cute episode. Okay,
So one of like the younger ponies don't have their
cutie marks yet because their personalities aren't really that distinct,
yet you have to grow into what your cutie mark
is going to be. So yeah, it's isn't it cute? Yeah,
Like it's really cute, just because it's just like trying
to gender your child anyway, just kidding, just kidding. I
(27:59):
was like, I'm gonna get off my little gay soap box.
We lgbt Q agenda on here. No um. But yeah,
just like trying to tell your kid like they should
be a lawyer or they should do this. It's kind
of neat to let they let them find themselves, and
they like one of the babies gets super frustrated. I
can't remember her name right now, forgive me, but she
gets frustrated because her every all the other kids are
(28:20):
getting their cutie marks, and she's like, mine's not developing yet.
And they're like, look at will, like you'll just give
it some time, try some new things, and they have
her try all these different things that she might like
to do and see if that might be the thing
that like awakens her cutie mark. It's so cute. You
would give an example of some different cutie marks, like
I see one is like carrots. Apples like want to
be like apples want to be like carrots. Wanna be
(28:41):
like diamonds, want to be like a rainbow, want to
be like a stormy cloud or like a thundercloud. Uh,
it's it's something you'd get as like a cute stamp
tattoo as an adult. It is kind of funny that
they all have tattoos on them right on their ass.
Given a great example for kids. Um So. Then moving
on to number three on this list, Sonic rain Boom.
(29:03):
This is season one, episode sixteen. Um So. This kind
of plunges into social anxiety, which is interesting for them
to tackle. Um Speedster Pegasus Rainbow Dash starts off nervous
about a flying competition by episodes and she's trembling in
the fetal position. We also get inside into the aerial
(29:24):
Pegasus city clouds Dale, and the story finishes with an
explosive rescue that earned Rainbow Dash respect from cartoon nerds
across the spectrum of the internet. Do you remember this episode?
It was a fun episode just because it showed you
like a different hierarchy of ponies too, because the other
ponies couldn't get to this Cloudsdale. It's only Pegasus ponies
(29:44):
I can get there. So if you've got wings, you
can get there. So I was like, oh, is this
the up class class? Only rich people can get up?
Exact this is clouds Dale. You can only get here
if you here exact exactly. Cloudsdale helps those who help themselves.
(30:07):
So then they had a Friend Indeed, which had the
Cranky Doodle donkey moving to pony Vial and Peaky Pie
is desperate to cheer him up, and Pinky pretty much
ends up bringing Cranky's loneliness into the spotlight and basically
shows the world that he's a depressed Why are all
(30:27):
donkeys animated donkeys depressed? Depressed? I'm like, they seem like
they're happy on farms and they're very pretty. My friend
had my friend when I was living in Texas, they
had donkeys, this most Texas story I've ever told. But
they're very actually pretty in real life, Like they're gorgeous.
Donkeys are actually look a lot more like my little ponies. Like,
(30:51):
if we're gonna go with anatomy of a horse, like
we have number one being Twilight Kingdom's Part one and
two where the ponies take the centaur Lord Tairek in
a blaze of camaraderie, Grace and resplendent multicolored mats, basically
wrapping up the interwoven plot lines from season four and beyond.
Towighlight Kingdom draws on lore from the earliest days of
(31:12):
My Little Pony, and it sounds like the end all
be All be like it sounds like I'm trying to
think of another cartoon, but it sounds like the Crease
saga for My Little Pony, which was the Creas saga.
Next men is when you had Phoenix pop up or
I guess the Phoenix saga is what it's known as.
But the Crease shows up and it's like it slaps
(31:34):
if you remember. It looks like there's a closing song here,
Let the Rainbow Remind You, UM, which delivers the most
concise explanation of pony philosophy. Together, we will Always Shine.
I didn't realize that they had songs in this. That's
pretty impressive. Yeah, it's it's it's not every episode, but
like songs just sneak up on you, but they're always cute,
(31:56):
Like it's always like a good song, but its friendship
is all was the theme that, like they never shy
away from that. UM. So we are going to get
into Bronie Con and so of the controversy of it.
Right after these messages and we're back. Actually, I'm going
(32:20):
to ask both of you because I feel like we
all have different definitions of this. How would you describe
Broni Con? Well, I think, like I know that bronies
are like male My Little Pony fans, Like they can
be fans of the male ponies, or they could be
males fans of the female ponies. It's not like discriminatory.
(32:41):
They're just like grown men that love My Little Pony.
Nothing wrong with that. I absolutely love it. Um if
you what about you? What was your first introduction to
Brownie Con? Oh? Man? I So I was Brownie Con
kind of came on my way out because I was
like a Brownie probably just the early Price season one time,
(33:03):
and just kind of thought the aesthetic and everything. I
really like that it kind of was bringing this new
era of like kind of like they were touching on
stuff that basically had people treating others what respect and
all this stuff. It was before all the quote unquote
naughty stuff started getting involved. But so like Briniana kind
(33:25):
of popped up around the time that it already had
reached it started reaching its peak for me, and I've
already I've already jumped off that ship. Yeah, it says
the appreciation of the show by an older audience came
as a surprise to Hasbro. I think there were two
different sets. I think it was kind of this initial
like humorous slash ironic concept of like people, these older
(33:48):
people enjoying a show for young girls in quotes, um.
But then I think that they it actually did develop
into know, these are people that that really love the
show and and embraced and so has Bro embraced the
older fans while still staying focused on the show's intended audience.
(34:09):
So Brownie Con is an annual fan convention held on
the East coast of the United States for fans of
My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. So that was really specific.
It was for the new show, although I'm sure it
spans all the shows now. Um, among them a Dalton
teenage fans of the show who called themselves Brownies again
it's a play on Bro and Pony. Um. Ten events
(34:30):
have occurred to date, with the most recent one in
July drawing five thousand, four hundred sixty five attendees. Though
originally planned to run through. It was announced at the
closing ceremonies of the convention that twenty nineteen would be
the final year. Yeah, I mean that's kind of expected,
only because the fervor and hype and everything surrounded My
(34:53):
Little Pony friendship is Magic has kind of died down
since then. Like, you know, I feel like towards the
later seasons, people were already kind of jumping off, and
then they did the one where they're like real humans
and people were not no one like that at all.
It also seemed like a weird move, just on the
back end, knowing that people were already oddly sexualizing some
(35:17):
of the ponies, like to then make them teenagers. I
don't know if they thought like, oh, if we do this,
this will stop you. I don't. I think no one,
whether it was fans and from any facet was a
fan of this. But it just kind of put off everyone,
and it just kind of like fizzled out night. You know,
I don't hear too much My Little Pony talk anymore,
(35:38):
like it used to be like the way people are
talking about Spider sonas like everyone was talking about creating
the My Little Pony versions of their selves. It was
just really at the height. And I think it's the
the fandom itself, and even the show is kind of
like simmered down. So it makes sense. It's interesting because
I relate all of it to advertising, like what happened,
(36:02):
you know? And then if you don't like where it's going,
like get new writers in the writer's room, Like see
what has fresh ideas. You don't have to work with
the same people all the time. Get some fresh ideas
in there. I'm not saying clean house. I'm saying clean
house guys. Learn how to run a business. Yeah, Like
this thing has been alivee for like thirty years. Get
rid of them, get rid of the weak lane. But
I mean, even like looking at the past, it seems
(36:22):
like that's just the wave of my little ponies. It's
like a flash in the pan. It's popping for a bit,
and then as soon as the interest kind of slows down,
it just we pull out and we'll come back later,
you know. And I think that's because if you think
of like a company like Hasbro itself, it has its
rotation of toys. So like even though for my little
(36:43):
pony fans and everyone involved in that, it's like, oh,
it's over Hasbro has already probably been pushing a new
product marketed towards little girls that kind of fills that
hole that was left by My Little Pony, but it
just doesn't have that mass appeal that friendship is magic.
He Um. I did want to say, this is from
geek reply that, um, Brownie's have an image problem. Um,
(37:07):
why did you laugh? Well, because it's did you know
that it kind of originated from four chan, So that
already in itself not not the safest environment for women
and people of color, I feel like, but this is
from a Wired article in defense of Brownie's. Brownie's watched
the show because it's not a typical kids show. It
(37:27):
has humor at different levels, clever writing, and the action
is good. There's a community of Brownie's that watched the
show together, at least chat online, share art. I do
see a lot of that on Tumbler and deviant art.
There's a lot of My Little Pony art, um, fan
fiction games and meet up at conventions. So like everything,
like anything that we have talked about this year, there
(37:48):
are dark sides too, you know, and bad fans that
give the rest of us a bad name. Well, here's
the thing. It's not even that. I think it's just
a general Internet nerd um thing. As someone who's been
on the Internet since uh, you know probably if I
had to put a number one, i'd say probably when
I was eight. You know. It's the what happens on
(38:09):
the Internet is if there's a weird fringe thing that
not everyone on the Internet understands, and they find one
off thing about it, then that becomes the laughing stock.
Like it's funny to see people now real chill on
furries because you have someone like Sonic Fox, who was
like this huge advocate and this well rounded, cool individual
(38:29):
who you want to champion. But before Furies were the
punching bag of the Internet, because it's like you are
the You are these weird group of people who like
to pretend to be animals, and you have sex and
mascot suits and and and that's just the kind of
cycle of the Internet is if there's a weird outlier
in some type of nerddom that and and like it
(38:49):
doesn't matter if it was one brownie who did uh
who made like rule thirty four version of it, then
that's that's the the whole communities image now, because that's
the thing that's gonna go viral that people are sharing. Yeah,
and so that's and that's kind of the thing. And
there will be a new version of brownies or furries
(39:12):
as we get you know, deeper into new nerd ums
and new fandoms and some and people find a way
to I mean, the rule thirty four, out of all
the things to have come out of fortune, has been
the truest and real rule of the Internet, which, if
you don't know, rule thirty four is so the four
Chane used to come up with all these weird rules. Um,
(39:34):
and I believe it might have originated from b which
is just the worst part of fortune. But we all
sifted through it for memes and lulls. But you know,
they had a list of rules and rule thirty four
and I broke I broke rules one and two right
now by talking about b U. But rule thirty four
was if it exists on the Internet, there is porn
(39:56):
of it. And but but so, like that's what's so
curious and interesting about Brownie's is they kind of got
that tough shake of like, you know, because like the
existence of Brownie was interesting because it took this it
flipped the gender norm by them existing in general, was
it was these group of males who this show that
(40:18):
was marketed towards little girls, found something in it that
they enjoyed and appreciated it, and that's actually something pretty cool.
And then you have people who just were like, I
can't enjoy a thing without turning it into a porn thing,
and then that became attached to that same group, and
now that's what people thought of the group. But but
(40:41):
but you know, that's, like I said, it's just the
cycle of of the internet. I think it's an interesting
thinking about Brownie is the way you just said it, Uh, Like,
why it was so taboo for like a group of
like grown men to latch onto the show. And I
think a lot of it has to do with what
we're taught about color as children, because it is a
pastel world that they're all living in, and so to
(41:02):
think of grown men in a pastel world, it doesn't compute.
And so if the if the show was darker, like
a little like you know, just darker period, like, if
everything was more saturated, maybe it'd be a little more
believable that they liked it. But it's like, no, these
are pastels, you know, So I think it's really weird
to even like where why you're saying it like that.
I was like, oh my god, yeah, grown men in
a pastel universe. I can't see it. Weird, so weird,
(41:26):
And it's just colors. Colors in universal they're everywhere. At
least everything we're fed in media and in life is
just kind of the foundation of it. Are these like
gender norms that were unaware of? Yeah, I did want
to say to their credit because they were saying that
it has, you know, some adult themes, that it's not
just for kids necessarily. The lead animator and writer Lauren FoST,
(41:48):
who was responsible for this reemergence of My Little Pony,
the latest show the Friendship and Magic, She when she
was first approached about doing it, said she was extremely
skeptical about taking the job at first because she had
always found shows based on girls toys to be boring
and unrelatable. She said My Little Pony was one of
(42:08):
her favorite childhood toys, but she was disappointed that her
imagination at the time was nothing like the animated shows
in which the characters, according to Fast just had endless
tea parties, giggled over nothing, and defeated villains by either
sharing with them or crying. So it's come a long way.
So it has that that was a full read. She
likes snatched my little pony's wig. She's like, by the way,
(42:32):
but I mean, but she's and so that was what
it was, and it was kind of this, um so
she said, with the chance to work on my Little ponies,
she hoped to prove that quote, cartoons for girls don't
have to be a puddle of smushy, cutesy wootsy goody
two shoes. And I think that is why we have
some of the like you said, gender neutral or tomboy
characters are like even some like that are working in
(42:55):
the farms and like it's not just these pretty princesses
a sense, yes, some have like real last jobs. Yeah
so um yeah. So I think that that with this
new iteration, they wanted to tackle some of the stereotypes
for girls, and that's why I think it also appealed
probably to a larger audience and became what it did. Um.
(43:17):
I feel like they could take it a step further,
like let's have like a parole officer pony, you know,
let's let's go there are police. But I'm just like
where it's like a judicial phony. Yeah, because like you're
wondering why it's falling off, it's because it's probably getting repetitive,
so repetitive that you had to turn them into people
and so stretch it like you wanted to stretch it
(43:40):
before stretch it again, you know, because we're not going
to let this die out. We're just gonna see it
again in six years space again. Space hit them up.
I can write on my Latin pending my little Pony,
Intergalactic Pony, Honey stars are magic. We leave anything out
(44:01):
or anything that we needed to mention. I'm trying to
any final thoughts on my little Pony. My absolutely, I'll
always love my little pony. They held hold a special
place in my heart. Um and one protects your closet.
Oh no, it's like nine. It's like nine. That's just
the biggest one. No, people give them to me as
gifts all the time. I've never bought him my little
(44:22):
pony myself. Like a friend friend Chris got me like
a Christmas ornament of rainbow dsh and I was like,
thank you, wonderful and then um so it was on
my tree and then I have a rarity with my
little beanie baby Princess Diana Bear sitting on top of it,
and so they're purple together. But um, and then I
have a wait, did you see your Princess Diana from
like you have a tag protector for it? I do?
(44:46):
And what I have another one that's in the case.
It's like in the case it's probably worth like ten
whole dollars on either and if it's not, everyone DM me,
I will sell it to you anyway. I'm not attached
to those. Um a reason. If you could as sign
IFFI and I am my little pony, Oh my god,
how fine? Okay, Um, you'd have to be like a
chill a pony if he because like a chill stylish pony,
(45:09):
because you're up on the brands. I'm watching you. I
was like, that's theme is that champion? They just came back?
How did you get that? How he cop that? Like
it's out has let. Yeah, and then you would have
to be I'm like a worker. No, you'd have to
be some sort of like balance pony, like that's like
(45:29):
a Sally Jesse Rafael pony, because like, no, because you're good.
Bit I love that. I love that. The adjective like
me was balanced peacemaker, peacemaker pony. I feel like you'd
be a good peacemakers like a peacemaker pony. Like. Look, guys,
let's talk this out. See everybody so quick. Question the
Princess Diana beanie baby? You said, is it the purple
(45:51):
one with the rose on a chill? Yes? I have
two of them. It's going for one dollars on even
that's not enough to cover my phone bell. I know,
but I'll think about it. Thank you times, get really tough.
I'll do it. Yeah. You know you got a Honda one.
You just happen to get one of the only expensive ones, right, Yeah,
I would say that's Um, we talked about my little pony.
(46:14):
My God friendship is magic. Yeah. So I hope you
really enjoyed it. It was fun to talk about. Uh,
do you have anything to plug for our listeners? Oh?
My god? Follow me on Instagram and Twitter if you
want to. I'm not really on Twitter like that, but
follow me on Instagram at Aristocrat. I'm the only one
with the blue check mark collar. And then um, you
can watch my new show called What the Flip on
(46:36):
in two More's YouTube channel, and it's a an LGBT
show tackling issues within the community, which has nothing to
do with My Little Ponies, but friendship is still magic there.
You know, we'll probably tweet out some my Little Pony
fan art I work I love. We'll probably tweet some
out someone turned me into a pony. Please do it.
(46:58):
Um I am at ms Annie Fernandez. And you know
we didn't get to cover we didn't get to dive
into all of the like I know, there was a
director video like animated um My Little Pony the Princess
promenade which I remember, but um, yeah, I guess if
you're my Little Pony fan, hit us up, send me
pictures of your ponies. I'll try and find mine. I'm
(47:20):
gonna find mine in my baby box. I think I
have it, so yeah, send it to us, send it
and you know me, I'm if you I F Y
n W A D I W E on Twitter and
Instagram as you know, uh, definitely always doing some stuff,
(47:41):
so please look out for that and just go on
my Twitter to see my future show. So I was
gonna try and look them up and name them for you,
but you know the cat so I'll see it And
until next time, remember always stay narrat
Hey, what's up. It's Nerdificent. How you doing nerd fam
As always, I am sitting acus from me Danny Fernandez. Yeah,
today we're talking about a little something, my little something.
I was going to say our little something. Now that
sounds like we're having a baby together. Sometimes whenever I'm
(00:31):
holding naomie or child, everyone's like, that's and that's if
he's wife. People say that all the time, like on
the twitch stream or something back when we're on hyper
and that is if he's wife. People talk or and
I kind of I could see that. Maybe that's close.
You knows Latin, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Um, we are
(00:55):
talking about my Little Pony and Browny Con. I'm excited
about is because I don't know if you grew up
with it, Iffy, but I grew up with my Little Pony. Yeah.
It was in the background, but it was when they
were really trying to like really shove gendered brands to kids.
So like the boys got you Jos and the little girls,
you have Barbie and my Little Pony, and and you
had Polly Pocket and I forgot what was the other one?
(01:19):
Was the other one Max power or something? Um? I
played with everybody's toys. I think I have said on
here that I notoriously I would. I would, I would
switch out Ken and M My Barbie would bang M
G I Joe and Batman Bruce Wayne. Um. We are
(01:40):
joined today by transgender supermodel and television host a Reice Wanser.
Thank you Hello. I know you wanted to talk throughout that,
so I was like, I don't want to. I don't
want to stifle you anymore. I'm glad I can laugh
at your guys loudly now because everyone's like, where is
that third voice coming from? It's just always here in
(02:02):
the studio. Um. So, what was your first experience with
My Little Pony? Then? Um, I actually have to I'm
thirty two years old, A proud thirty two holler um,
you know, child of the eighties, child of the nineties.
So my sisters, though, are in their forties. So I
had all the original My Little Pony and they were
my hand me downs, and so I had like the
(02:22):
big Little Castle. I also had Sheera Togo with it.
But yeah, so it was a pony mix. I didn't
realize they weren't the same cartoon for a while until
I started watching the movies and it was super cute,
like there was there was a Careberrys movie too, but
we're not talking about that today. But I remember everything
was super trippy back then. Watching Psychedelic Yeah, if you
watch it now, it's like an adult, you're like whatever
(02:43):
they on when they made this, like it's kind of nuts.
I think that's really funny because I find that about
a lot of cartoons, Like we've talked about Nickelodeon cartoons,
and they slip in a lot of adult humor, like
in Rocco's Modern line, Oh yes, how he was a
sex operator, um and he would be like, oh baby
baby yeah, or like Mrs Bighead where she was like
(03:06):
sexually predatoring rock. Oh, she's like rack it. Yeah yeah,
and if obviously Rent and Stimpy was very much adult humor. Yeah,
Renis was actually really gross to watch as an adult.
It's it's grotesque, but I'd like that they did that
on purpose, like the boogers and the like the animation. Yeah,
the animation is really like the pimples and the words
(03:29):
and stuff. But of course as kids are like I
love it. Yeah, it's super cool, but as an adult,
you can't eat and watch it. You can watch it,
but I'm just like, oh god, no, I'm not gonna
even yeah, true, true true. Um so wait, you had
My Little Pony back when you were younger. Did it
re emerge in your life? Oh my god, yes, girl,
because it came out on Netflix with With the Power
(03:49):
of Friendship one. What is it like? The friendship is
Friendship is magic. They don't impale me, guys. I have
a real job that is not involved by Little Pony.
So I did watch the entire zero is that because
I don't have much to do with my real job.
So you watched it while you were there? Oh yeah, Now,
like like you know, it's just castings and auditions and
then sometimes you book something. Yeah, model life. But um
(04:12):
so when you're not you go home and watch Netflix.
Yeah yeah, so I watched all of it and it
was quite enjoyable. Yeah. I, um, I haven't gotten back
into my Little Pony, but I still have. I was
telling you before we started recording, I had my Little
Pony birthday party, I think when I was two or three.
So I have one of the original My Little Ponies. Um.
I believe it's pink um. I think it has rainbow
(04:33):
here and it has a jewel and it's forehead. It's
very pretty actually and still in really good condition. Works.
So you're a good kid. I was weird. I like
one my mom passed down her barbies from like the sixties. Yeah,
so I had those when I was a little and uh,
and then I had my little pot so those I
would play with. But my my little ponies, I guess
(04:55):
I kept. I think because it was from my birthday.
My mom kept it in like a safe so smart. Yeah,
just because I know a lot of kids who ruined
their toys. I was not one of them. Like I
had two little Mermaid dolls. One went in the tab
and one to not because one's hair. You can ruin
one you can not. Remember, my dad bought me like
the whole Star Trek collection of toys and and he
(05:18):
I obviously opened it up and played with it. And
I remember when the new trilogy started, all the different
news uh, I keep wanting to say news sites, but
it wasn't news. All the different like news reports that
were coming out for the new Star Wars trilogy. We're
talking about how expensive like toys from the original trilogy were.
(05:39):
Was my dad was like, see, I had so many
of those toys. If you didn't open the today with them,
it would be worth money right now. It was like, yeah,
but I'm a child, of course I'm gonna play with him. Also,
that's Star Wars. I had Star Trek toys. It's not
the same. Also, there's like history behind the Star Wars
toys of how like they really changed and read after
(06:00):
what action figures were, and I feel like that gave
more weight to why they costed money versus just it
being a Star Trek toy. It was next generation so
it wasn't even like that old by the time that
he was watching these news reports. Would you like us
to send this to your father? Yeah, I'm real big
(06:21):
at like bringing up like old stuff when I see
my day, Like every time, I'm like, dang, Dad, you're
making money off of playing video games, you know, and
you didn't want me to play. Love it well that
this is a therapy hour for you. Never mind, Dad,
you didn't have Yeah, yeah, it's not like I will
say though. I was, Oh man, I was a bratty
sister because my little brother came along and I did
(06:43):
not like him being the new center of attention. He
had a buzz light ear toy and I threw it
in the pool and it no longer talked. I was bad. Anyways,
we're talking about My Little Pony um so much so
to get into it, My Little Pony, if you don't know,
is a toy line and media franchise developed by American
(07:04):
toy company has Bro. So this is interesting because this
we have seen as a trend as Iffie and I
have done this show that the toy was developed, you know, first,
and then the show essentially to sell more toys a
long commercial essentially, and till this day, toys still run
(07:26):
the world. One of the biggest rumors out is that
the Justice League Unlimited show was canceled simply for the
fact that it wasn't selling enough toys. You know, I
haven't verified or fact checked that, but you know, I
know a few friends and animations and they, you know,
they said that rings true in a way. Wow, I'm
still waiting for them to make a Barbie of me. Yeah, yeah,
(07:49):
I agree happening. Yeah, isn't that so dystopiant? It's like
Black Mirror. Not enough people like you, no Barbie, Yeah,
you need more like if you want to bar Um. So, yeah,
My Little Pony as a toy line and media franchise
developed by Hasbro. The first toys were developed by Bonnie Sasherley,
(08:11):
Charles Mooinger and Steve de Iguano, and we're produced in
so the Pony's future, colorful bodies, mans and unique symbol
on one of their bodies like one of their sides. Um.
Such symbols are referred to in the two most recent
incarnations as CUTEI marks. I Love that. My Little Pony
has been revamped several times with new and more modern
(08:32):
looks to appeal to a new market. They kind of
all seemed to be this. I mean, just from an outsider,
I didn't realize that they had different looks to them. Um,
would you say the ones that you see now are
different than your eighties They have lost us a significant
amount of way. Really, yes, they're like Ana Pony is like,
they're they're a little they're a little thin. I'm going
(08:56):
you think it would be the opposite, because I feel
like people are embracing thicker bodies. The older ponies were
body positive. Oh my gosh, there were some thick girls
my Little Pony. I'm going to look at eighties verse now,
Oh my gosh, I was already in there. That's so fascinating. Okay,
I will take a gander at that on our break.
They got significantly thinner, but they're super kid. They just
(09:18):
look more like Powerpuff Girls version of My Little Ponies
whatever the eighties was going for, which is just an invention.
I guess, yeah, what an imaginary pony would look like.
But I love them all the same. Yeah, that makes sense.
They represent magic and fun, kind of like the Powerpuff Girls,
see exactly. So following the original My Pretty Pony toy
that was introduced in nine, My Little Pony was launched
(09:41):
in two, and the line became popular during the eighties,
and the original toy line ended up running from nine
eighty two to ten whole years in the United States
and to globally, so even after they stopped in the US,
you know, people outside of it was like, we still
want these ponies, makes sense. So then they had two
animated specials and an animated feature length film and two
(10:05):
animated television series produced during the period up until and
then The First Incarnation's popularity pretty much peaked in the nineties,
which is when you know, everyone at this table pretty
much remembers it clearly. But the following year Hasbro decided
to discontinue the toy line due to increased competition. One
hundred and fifty million ponies were sold in the eighties.
(10:26):
There's a lot of ponies. I feel like I had
about eight. That almost makes me wonder if that was
the kind of beginning of the trope of like I
want a pony for my birthday. Oh my god. But
the thing is, you could get a pony for your birthday,
but now it's a play on words, and your parents
still win. Right, Yeah, let me get this straight. So
the popularity picked and that's when it was discontinued. It
(10:47):
didn't come back until seven. I almost wonder if if
it then became like a prized kind of possession, because
for several years you couldn't buy new ponies. Um, me
and my neighbor used to trade them. Really, yeah, we
would trade my little ponies. In the early nineties, I
was like, let's call me like a seven year old boy.
(11:08):
I'm transgender kids anyway, I was like, just so, you know,
so I think I was a brownie at first, but
fun rules for trans people. But yeah, not anymore. Now
I'm just a regular my little pony, just like a
female I know that that makes me want because I
feel like the the and we'll get to this, the
(11:29):
idea of a browny. It initially started off as like
male My Pony Friends, because for some reason you have
to to to make that distinction, but it also seemed
to eventually encompa eventually encompassed like adult My Little Pony Friends,
and then it went down the dark side. I feel
like there was a period of brownism where it was
(11:50):
it was, it was wholesome, and then very quickly, like
many adult men tend to do, make it sex. Oh god,
I was serious. Well, and we'll get to we'll get
to browny con and everything. If people don't know what
we're talking about, we will get to that in a
little bit. But wrapping up here with the toys. Yeah,
So the brand saw more popular revival in two thousand
(12:12):
three with the toys that were more closely resembled the
original toy line, and that sold a hundred million ponies globally.
By interesting that it's like been able to stay relevant
this entire time. Gosh Um Hasbro launched the fourth incarnation
of the franchise, in which started with the animated series
(12:32):
My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, which you were talking
about on Netflix. Um. The brand grossed over six hundred
and fifty million in retail sales and over one billion
annually in retail sales. And What's so interesting about this is,
even though I'm sure toys were in mind while it happened,
(12:53):
this is an instance where the the animation came before
the toy and I feel like that what kind of
led to its success. I dabbled in Brownie is Um
for a hot sec because because you know, even though
I'm not an edge lord, I still have lots of
edge lord tendencies. And I loved how much people were like,
(13:14):
Brownies are dumb, and I was like, all right, well,
I'm gonna be a Brownie since you think it's dumb.
Uh and and and one of the reasons that it
kind of blew up and even kind of spawned brownies
was because the source material, the animated show kind of
had that perfect formula of being made essentially for children,
but anybody can watch it and enjoy it because it's
(13:36):
It was right around that period of animation where we
had shows that were technically quote unquote for kids, but
had enough weight where no matter your age, you'd like
it like Adventure Time and The Regular Show and the
World of Gumball and you know, and all those cartoons.
It's you know, even though they're on Cartoon Network and
at prime time time for kids, a lot of adults
(13:59):
and older people really have been into the show because
they were written to the top of their intelligence instead
of just pandering to children. Yeah, I wanted to say here.
Psychologist John Rosemond described My Little Pony toys as great soothing,
quiet time toys. It's really interesting having none of the
violence or sexuality of other toy franchises. And I think
(14:21):
what they're alluding to is g I Joe, which was
also popular at the time, Transformers, he Man, some of
those other ones. I'm sorry. That also reminds me because
my sister, as you call it, a quiet time toy
she specifically requested at her first baby shower, said no
noisy toys, and My Little Pony would be perfect because
none of them make noise, squeak, they don't talk, they
don't do anything. And back to the toys too. They
(14:43):
also had like licensing with Build a Bear because I
have a big Build a Bear in mind. My little
play that a friend got me for my birthday and
now it sits in my closet, like guarding the closet,
like up in the rafters. But um, it's interesting because
it's absolutely a quiet time toy because it doesn't make
any noise, They don't do anything. It is kind of
funny the people that get I think, like you were
(15:03):
saying that, um, the people that get attached to My
Little Pony because it represents um friendship and it represents
kind of this magical fantasy land. That's a way. I mean,
I don't know if the current series does this, but
kind of you know, an escapism escapism essentially, and so
which is kind of the opposite of a lot of
its counterparts of that time that we're more violent. Um.
(15:28):
But it is fascinating to me the people that grew
up with it, that stayed with it because I feel
like My Little Pony people are like very into My
Little Pony, um, which is like me growing up, I
was super into anime and that kind of I don't know,
they have a lot of similarities. I think, I agree,
because it's about, like think with the escapism just because
(15:48):
it makes you feel safe, especially like the world is
such a scary place when I see like the rainbow
coming out of the back of a horse just flying
to like go save her friend from this lightning storm.
It's kind of nice. Um, well, we're going to get
into My Little Pony friendship is magic this show and
talk a little bit about um the origin and history
(16:11):
as well as Brony con right after this break and
we're back talking about My Little Pony and if he
before we move on, we have to talk about My
Pretty Pony. Yeah, you gotta talk about the predecessor before
you get into the actual, So you got to talk
about the source between that created the material and before
(16:34):
My Little Pony, there was a there was an unsuccessful
first launch which was called My Pretty Pony, which was
a pony figurine that has launched in one and it
was created by an illustrator by the name of Bonnie
Zacharly and a sculptor called Charles Moon Schinger. And it
was a ten inch tall hard plastic semi gro test
(16:56):
figure that was able to wiggle its your squishes tail
and ink one eye. This thing was huge and it
also kind of had like the early permanation of what
you would call a cutie mark, because there's some had
like just a whole bunch of a whole bunch of
hearts on the little, you know, rear flank of the
of the pony. But it was like big. We've all
(17:16):
we all looked at it during the break and commented
on how big it was. So it's so funny that
they that when it wasn't successful, they're like, it probably
was because it was too big. It looks like something
you throw. Yeah, you know, I'm just like, I hate you.
It's creepy and it's sad. If it looks sad, it
has a sad horse eye. I don't like. I hate
(17:38):
when horses look sad. It's like, don't ride me. But
they didn't go out without a fight, because first, you know,
they went my pretty party. Then they had my Pretty
Pony and Beautiful Baby, which came with a smaller baby
pony figure. And I think that was probably when people noticed,
when they probably did one of those like uh, what
(18:00):
was those group test with kids, and they're like, oh,
we like this, it's small. I don't pull my back
out lifting this, And that's what they went with. But
a recent I we're talking about during the break that
we both had um puppy surprise surprised puppy. Surprise was
a puppy that you opened its tummy and you could
take out puppies, and it's just it was a surprise
(18:22):
how many you got. Some people had, like my neighbor
had too, and I had four, so I was kind
of like the beacon winner. But it's so like we
were talking about this, and if I know that you
have you have a little girl, like, it's so fascinating
our fascination with baby, like to give a baby a baby,
because it's like you yourself are a baby. To give
(18:43):
them babies, well, it's one of the I feel like
the most earliest human traits that hasn't phased out where
it's like, well, yeah, you still give birth and have
to take care of it. And it is whild watching
like my daughter have a baby, like we never pushed
baby dolls on it. Like she started treating her stuffed
animals like before before we even got her a single
(19:04):
baby doll. It's just like a natural human thing. You
don't see little boys searching for spears and stabbing their
stuffed animals yet that And I think it's because it's
just still around and something that is I guess useful
to humans, but the baby toys across the border are
always weird. Like my daughter now has this Baby Alive,
(19:25):
which gets this weird Yeah, it's like I don't like
the name. Yeah, it's it gets worse. It eats. It
has like this weird like plato that you smush and
make spaghetti, and then like it's makes slurp sounds and
and and then it's supposed to poop the plato out,
but if you're familiar with the the texture of plato,
(19:47):
all it does is get stuck and then creates this
weird imagery as Dad sticks a jad stick up there
to dig out the plato. And yeah, I feel so
bad because like she's staring at me and I'm like,
I just got to get the food out for you. Baby.
It's first enema. Oh, it's so it's it's I'm like
this toy backfired big tea literally, So if Baby Alive
(20:13):
when we're not talking about it. Baby Alive first came
out in nineteen really and it had many iterations. I
had a Baby Alive when I was little. I was
in love with it. I think mine might have cried.
There was like definitely a baby that I had a
baby alive. But then I definitely had a baby. Um,
I had a water baby that was very popular and
a baby that would you would like squeeze it would
cry it with like tears would come out of its eyes.
(20:37):
Back to My Little Pony depressed, So there was there
was a short road before we got to Friendship His Magic,
So it didn't just jump there. That's kind of like
the best the biggest one right now, but you know,
it started as as as early as six with My
Little Pony television series, which you know the language to
(20:58):
talk about My Little Pony mirrors that if you remember
the Transformers episode of their being jin one Gin two,
and that's kind of that era, that early kind of
small toy era. Then after there was another My Little
Pony series that was the My Little Pony Tails that
(21:19):
ran for a short bit and then we got to
My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, But it all started
with the first one called My Little Pony in Friends. Yeah,
and um, we should also mention that was produced by
sun Bow and that's why a lot of we we've
talked about Sunbow because they're the ones that the g
I Joe UM, So there is a lot of similarities. Um,
(21:41):
and I think Transformers. Yeah, yeah, Transformers as well. So
there is a lot of similarities all the Disney, like
all the uh not Disney. It's all that like McDonald's
toys that we used to get in Happymales that came together.
The Girl Boy the Sunbow had it on lock. Yeah.
Speaking of my little pony friend Chip is Magic Aresa.
I wanted to know some of your favorite characters and
(22:05):
what they're like, Like, is there is there one that
like a lot of people gravitate towards that are people
like favorite. So everybody loves like Twilight Sparkle because she's
like the main character basically, but I never gravitate towards
the main character as much as I can like them, Like,
I still like her. I think she's cute, but like
I'm much more of a rarity. So she's like the
(22:26):
bougie one who's like a fashion designer, has like diamonds
on her butt. I'm like, that's me all day. But
um but my friends would think I was like a
rainbow Dash, which is like the rainbow colored one, and
she's like the gender neutral one just about which I
can see. I can absolutely see. But she's a little
more rough and tumble than I am. And then you've
got like apple Jack, who I would definitely coin as
a lesbian, but we cannot go there. I'm sure we cannot.
(22:49):
Do you think that they know her in that way though? Um? Yeah,
she's like she's like the tomboy one who does like
farm work and stuff and um, but she has like
a male counterpart, which is like his name is McIntosh
or name, Yeah, a big macintoge. It's like her male
counterpart that also does farm stuff. So I don't you
don't see them being romantic, Like his name is literally
big mac. Yeah, that's so that. I was a big macintog.
(23:11):
I was like, that's an apple. I didn't even think
of that until just now there's an apple on his butt.
I'm an idiot, but it's okay. But then, um, you've
got like the queen Ones, who are Princess Luna and
Princess Celestia, and they're both good in their own way,
like one just represents night, one represents a day, which
is just beautiful. I used to have a Princess Luna
key chain when I first moved here. Broke. I'm very
upset anyway, And then um, it's funny because they still
(23:33):
got Spike on here, which was he was not such
a cute dragon in the eighties because they yeah, they
brought him back and they made him super adorable, looking
like he looks a little like Dexter from Jex's Laboratory
made into like a dragon. Oh yeah, I was gonna say. Um,
So Tarace Strong is the voice of Twilight Sparkle. Um.
I know that she's like really big in the She's
(23:55):
actually gonna come on our Harley Quinn episode that we
have coming up. But she, I mean, she's voiced so
many people, but also very famously voices Twilight Sparkle in
the in the My Little Pony World. Um. And so
Twilight Sparkles, like you were saying, her baby dragon assistant
Spike and her friends in Ponyville. That's where they are
(24:17):
are referred to as the main six. So are there, um,
because I know you've seen all the episodes. Are their
themes that they have, like, um, it always comes back
to friendship, Like what you're supposed to be doing for friendship,
how you're supposed to treat people or treat others. There's
always like a sense of selflessness among them all, which
(24:39):
is it's a really like That's why it's like even
as an adult, I'm like, where did these values go,
like when they all become monster? Well, yeah, you see
people like step out other people to get to the top.
And that's not like that for any of them. That
they'll have like these little dilemmas, but they always do
the right thing, or if they don't do the right thing,
they learn their lesson and apologize and then go back in.
(25:00):
Just there's always they always hold themselves accountable for things.
And so I think it's got a lot of really
great lessons to teach kids, but also to teach adults,
like maybe be nice to one another and just you know,
be nice to your friends and treat them like your family.
And oh and they're all so different, which I like,
each of them has their own personality, like their own
cut personality, like this one's a little fashion designer, this
(25:21):
one does farm work. But they can both be friends,
you know, and there's something beautiful in that because we all,
like we live in l A, we all hang in
our own little cliques are we all do the same
exact thing. And so but when you meet someone outside
your click, you find out you have a lot more
in common than you don't have in common. So I
just think it's interesting how they can bring up together
all these characters and they all have their own episodes
(25:44):
or their own focuses, and they all can still be
friends at the end of the day. It's really ef
thing cute. It's cute. I love that. I um, I
wanted to say that we have a top five episodes
of My Little Pony. This is according to the rap
here we go. Yeah, so so they started off with
My Little Pony of the movie in four, so we're
(26:07):
not even in Friendship's Magic Terror. Yeah, and they say
rescue at Midnight Castle. My Little Ponies TV debut was
the only entry in this list not from the newer one,
but it makes the cut thanks to its influential Rainbows
and Darkness storyline. So they so it was so good
that they're like, you know, we're gonna throw this on
the list. I've I have not seen that episode because
(26:30):
that's an older one. I haven't I'm sure I've seen it,
but I'm sure I haven't seen it in about I
know right, Like it's probably been a long time because
we used to tape everything off TV, which is in
my mother's house, and I had a technique with mine.
You know, you started off. I think it started off
with like adult Swim which Hunter Robin? It said, which
Hunter Robin? And it had a few episodes then like
(26:53):
one quick skin of Max Flick, and then it continued
with the rest of of the series after that. I'm
smart and see. But that was the thing. That's like
when you forgot which VHS you put it on and
you accidentally record over it. That was that was a
wild time for technology. We record over some good stuff. Right.
Luckily I didn't have any bad channels, so I'm almost
(27:14):
unlock about that. It was just my little pony me,
not this little pervert, right, Rainbow Bright Gosh, I was
also a pervert. Moving on to number four, the cutie
mark Chronicles. This was season one, episode twenty three of
The Newest Uh Friendship and Magic Um. This is this
episode connects the radix of the ponies cutie marks with
(27:37):
an efficacy. It's a really cute episode. Oh yeah, can
you tell us about Okay, it's a really cute episode. Okay,
So one of like the younger ponies don't have their
cutie marks yet because their personalities aren't really that distinct,
yet you have to grow into what your cutie mark
is going to be. So yeah, it's isn't it cute? Yeah,
Like it's really cute, just because it's just like trying
to gender your child anyway, just kidding, just kidding. I
(27:59):
was like, I'm gonna get off my little gay soap box.
We lgbt Q agenda on here. No um. But yeah,
just like trying to tell your kid like they should
be a lawyer or they should do this. It's kind
of neat to let they let them find themselves, and
they like one of the babies gets super frustrated. I
can't remember her name right now, forgive me, but she
gets frustrated because her every all the other kids are
(28:20):
getting their cutie marks, and she's like, mine's not developing yet.
And they're like, look at will, like you'll just give
it some time, try some new things, and they have
her try all these different things that she might like
to do and see if that might be the thing
that like awakens her cutie mark. It's so cute. You
would give an example of some different cutie marks, like
I see one is like carrots. Apples like want to
be like apples want to be like carrots. Wanna be
(28:41):
like diamonds, want to be like a rainbow, want to
be like a stormy cloud or like a thundercloud. Uh,
it's it's something you'd get as like a cute stamp
tattoo as an adult. It is kind of funny that
they all have tattoos on them right on their ass.
Given a great example for kids. Um So. Then moving
on to number three on this list, Sonic rain Boom.
(29:03):
This is season one, episode sixteen. Um So. This kind
of plunges into social anxiety, which is interesting for them
to tackle. Um Speedster Pegasus Rainbow Dash starts off nervous
about a flying competition by episodes and she's trembling in
the fetal position. We also get inside into the aerial
(29:24):
Pegasus city clouds Dale, and the story finishes with an
explosive rescue that earned Rainbow Dash respect from cartoon nerds
across the spectrum of the internet. Do you remember this episode?
It was a fun episode just because it showed you
like a different hierarchy of ponies too, because the other
ponies couldn't get to this Cloudsdale. It's only Pegasus ponies
(29:44):
I can get there. So if you've got wings, you
can get there. So I was like, oh, is this
the up class class? Only rich people can get up?
Exact this is clouds Dale. You can only get here
if you here exact exactly. Cloudsdale helps those who help themselves.
(30:07):
So then they had a Friend Indeed, which had the
Cranky Doodle donkey moving to pony Vial and Peaky Pie
is desperate to cheer him up, and Pinky pretty much
ends up bringing Cranky's loneliness into the spotlight and basically
shows the world that he's a depressed Why are all
(30:27):
donkeys animated donkeys depressed? Depressed? I'm like, they seem like
they're happy on farms and they're very pretty. My friend
had my friend when I was living in Texas, they
had donkeys, this most Texas story I've ever told. But
they're very actually pretty in real life, Like they're gorgeous.
Donkeys are actually look a lot more like my little ponies. Like,
(30:51):
if we're gonna go with anatomy of a horse, like
we have number one being Twilight Kingdom's Part one and
two where the ponies take the centaur Lord Tairek in
a blaze of camaraderie, Grace and resplendent multicolored mats, basically
wrapping up the interwoven plot lines from season four and beyond.
Towighlight Kingdom draws on lore from the earliest days of
(31:12):
My Little Pony, and it sounds like the end all
be All be like it sounds like I'm trying to
think of another cartoon, but it sounds like the Crease
saga for My Little Pony, which was the Creas saga.
Next men is when you had Phoenix pop up or
I guess the Phoenix saga is what it's known as.
But the Crease shows up and it's like it slaps
(31:34):
if you remember. It looks like there's a closing song here,
Let the Rainbow Remind You, UM, which delivers the most
concise explanation of pony philosophy. Together, we will Always Shine.
I didn't realize that they had songs in this. That's
pretty impressive. Yeah, it's it's it's not every episode, but
like songs just sneak up on you, but they're always cute,
(31:56):
Like it's always like a good song, but its friendship
is all was the theme that, like they never shy
away from that. UM. So we are going to get
into Bronie Con and so of the controversy of it.
Right after these messages and we're back. Actually, I'm going
(32:20):
to ask both of you because I feel like we
all have different definitions of this. How would you describe
Broni Con? Well, I think, like I know that bronies
are like male My Little Pony fans, Like they can
be fans of the male ponies, or they could be
males fans of the female ponies. It's not like discriminatory.
(32:41):
They're just like grown men that love My Little Pony.
Nothing wrong with that. I absolutely love it. Um if
you what about you? What was your first introduction to
Brownie Con? Oh? Man? I So I was Brownie Con
kind of came on my way out because I was
like a Brownie probably just the early Price season one time,
(33:03):
and just kind of thought the aesthetic and everything. I
really like that it kind of was bringing this new
era of like kind of like they were touching on
stuff that basically had people treating others what respect and
all this stuff. It was before all the quote unquote
naughty stuff started getting involved. But so like Briniana kind
(33:25):
of popped up around the time that it already had
reached it started reaching its peak for me, and I've
already I've already jumped off that ship. Yeah, it says
the appreciation of the show by an older audience came
as a surprise to Hasbro. I think there were two
different sets. I think it was kind of this initial
like humorous slash ironic concept of like people, these older
(33:48):
people enjoying a show for young girls in quotes, um.
But then I think that they it actually did develop
into know, these are people that that really love the
show and and embraced and so has Bro embraced the
older fans while still staying focused on the show's intended audience.
(34:09):
So Brownie Con is an annual fan convention held on
the East coast of the United States for fans of
My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. So that was really specific.
It was for the new show, although I'm sure it
spans all the shows now. Um, among them a Dalton
teenage fans of the show who called themselves Brownies again
it's a play on Bro and Pony. Um. Ten events
(34:30):
have occurred to date, with the most recent one in
July drawing five thousand, four hundred sixty five attendees. Though
originally planned to run through. It was announced at the
closing ceremonies of the convention that twenty nineteen would be
the final year. Yeah, I mean that's kind of expected,
only because the fervor and hype and everything surrounded My
(34:53):
Little Pony friendship is Magic has kind of died down
since then. Like, you know, I feel like towards the
later seasons, people were already kind of jumping off, and
then they did the one where they're like real humans
and people were not no one like that at all.
It also seemed like a weird move, just on the
back end, knowing that people were already oddly sexualizing some
(35:17):
of the ponies, like to then make them teenagers. I
don't know if they thought like, oh, if we do this,
this will stop you. I don't. I think no one,
whether it was fans and from any facet was a
fan of this. But it just kind of put off everyone,
and it just kind of like fizzled out night. You know,
I don't hear too much My Little Pony talk anymore,
(35:38):
like it used to be like the way people are
talking about Spider sonas like everyone was talking about creating
the My Little Pony versions of their selves. It was
just really at the height. And I think it's the
the fandom itself, and even the show is kind of
like simmered down. So it makes sense. It's interesting because
I relate all of it to advertising, like what happened,
(36:02):
you know? And then if you don't like where it's going,
like get new writers in the writer's room, Like see
what has fresh ideas. You don't have to work with
the same people all the time. Get some fresh ideas
in there. I'm not saying clean house. I'm saying clean
house guys. Learn how to run a business. Yeah, Like
this thing has been alivee for like thirty years. Get
rid of them, get rid of the weak lane. But
I mean, even like looking at the past, it seems
(36:22):
like that's just the wave of my little ponies. It's
like a flash in the pan. It's popping for a bit,
and then as soon as the interest kind of slows down,
it just we pull out and we'll come back later,
you know. And I think that's because if you think
of like a company like Hasbro itself, it has its
rotation of toys. So like even though for my little
(36:43):
pony fans and everyone involved in that, it's like, oh,
it's over Hasbro has already probably been pushing a new
product marketed towards little girls that kind of fills that
hole that was left by My Little Pony, but it
just doesn't have that mass appeal that friendship is magic.
He Um. I did want to say, this is from
geek reply that, um, Brownie's have an image problem. Um,
(37:07):
why did you laugh? Well, because it's did you know
that it kind of originated from four chan, So that
already in itself not not the safest environment for women
and people of color, I feel like, but this is
from a Wired article in defense of Brownie's. Brownie's watched
the show because it's not a typical kids show. It
(37:27):
has humor at different levels, clever writing, and the action
is good. There's a community of Brownie's that watched the
show together, at least chat online, share art. I do
see a lot of that on Tumbler and deviant art.
There's a lot of My Little Pony art, um, fan
fiction games and meet up at conventions. So like everything,
like anything that we have talked about this year, there
(37:48):
are dark sides too, you know, and bad fans that
give the rest of us a bad name. Well, here's
the thing. It's not even that. I think it's just
a general Internet nerd um thing. As someone who's been
on the Internet since uh, you know probably if I
had to put a number one, i'd say probably when
I was eight. You know. It's the what happens on
(38:09):
the Internet is if there's a weird fringe thing that
not everyone on the Internet understands, and they find one
off thing about it, then that becomes the laughing stock.
Like it's funny to see people now real chill on
furries because you have someone like Sonic Fox, who was
like this huge advocate and this well rounded, cool individual
(38:29):
who you want to champion. But before Furies were the
punching bag of the Internet, because it's like you are
the You are these weird group of people who like
to pretend to be animals, and you have sex and
mascot suits and and and that's just the kind of
cycle of the Internet is if there's a weird outlier
in some type of nerddom that and and like it
(38:49):
doesn't matter if it was one brownie who did uh
who made like rule thirty four version of it, then
that's that's the the whole communities image now, because that's
the thing that's gonna go viral that people are sharing. Yeah,
and so that's and that's kind of the thing. And
there will be a new version of brownies or furries
(39:12):
as we get you know, deeper into new nerd ums
and new fandoms and some and people find a way
to I mean, the rule thirty four, out of all
the things to have come out of fortune, has been
the truest and real rule of the Internet, which, if
you don't know, rule thirty four is so the four
Chane used to come up with all these weird rules. Um,
(39:34):
and I believe it might have originated from b which
is just the worst part of fortune. But we all
sifted through it for memes and lulls. But you know,
they had a list of rules and rule thirty four
and I broke I broke rules one and two right
now by talking about b U. But rule thirty four
was if it exists on the Internet, there is porn
(39:56):
of it. And but but so, like that's what's so
curious and interesting about Brownie's is they kind of got
that tough shake of like, you know, because like the
existence of Brownie was interesting because it took this it
flipped the gender norm by them existing in general, was
it was these group of males who this show that
(40:18):
was marketed towards little girls, found something in it that
they enjoyed and appreciated it, and that's actually something pretty cool.
And then you have people who just were like, I
can't enjoy a thing without turning it into a porn thing,
and then that became attached to that same group, and
now that's what people thought of the group. But but
(40:41):
but you know, that's, like I said, it's just the
cycle of of the internet. I think it's an interesting
thinking about Brownie is the way you just said it, Uh, Like,
why it was so taboo for like a group of
like grown men to latch onto the show. And I
think a lot of it has to do with what
we're taught about color as children, because it is a
pastel world that they're all living in, and so to
(41:02):
think of grown men in a pastel world, it doesn't compute.
And so if the if the show was darker, like
a little like you know, just darker period, like, if
everything was more saturated, maybe it'd be a little more
believable that they liked it. But it's like, no, these
are pastels, you know, So I think it's really weird
to even like where why you're saying it like that.
I was like, oh my god, yeah, grown men in
a pastel universe. I can't see it. Weird, so weird,
(41:26):
And it's just colors. Colors in universal they're everywhere. At
least everything we're fed in media and in life is
just kind of the foundation of it. Are these like
gender norms that were unaware of? Yeah, I did want
to say to their credit because they were saying that
it has, you know, some adult themes, that it's not
just for kids necessarily. The lead animator and writer Lauren FoST,
(41:48):
who was responsible for this reemergence of My Little Pony,
the latest show the Friendship and Magic, She when she
was first approached about doing it, said she was extremely
skeptical about taking the job at first because she had
always found shows based on girls toys to be boring
and unrelatable. She said My Little Pony was one of
(42:08):
her favorite childhood toys, but she was disappointed that her
imagination at the time was nothing like the animated shows
in which the characters, according to Fast just had endless
tea parties, giggled over nothing, and defeated villains by either
sharing with them or crying. So it's come a long way.
So it has that that was a full read. She
likes snatched my little pony's wig. She's like, by the way,
(42:32):
but I mean, but she's and so that was what
it was, and it was kind of this, um so
she said, with the chance to work on my Little ponies,
she hoped to prove that quote, cartoons for girls don't
have to be a puddle of smushy, cutesy wootsy goody
two shoes. And I think that is why we have
some of the like you said, gender neutral or tomboy
characters are like even some like that are working in
(42:55):
the farms and like it's not just these pretty princesses
a sense, yes, some have like real last jobs. Yeah
so um yeah. So I think that that with this
new iteration, they wanted to tackle some of the stereotypes
for girls, and that's why I think it also appealed
probably to a larger audience and became what it did. Um.
(43:17):
I feel like they could take it a step further,
like let's have like a parole officer pony, you know,
let's let's go there are police. But I'm just like
where it's like a judicial phony. Yeah, because like you're
wondering why it's falling off, it's because it's probably getting repetitive,
so repetitive that you had to turn them into people
and so stretch it like you wanted to stretch it
(43:40):
before stretch it again, you know, because we're not going
to let this die out. We're just gonna see it
again in six years space again. Space hit them up.
I can write on my Latin pending my little Pony,
Intergalactic Pony, Honey stars are magic. We leave anything out
(44:01):
or anything that we needed to mention. I'm trying to
any final thoughts on my little Pony. My absolutely, I'll
always love my little pony. They held hold a special
place in my heart. Um and one protects your closet.
Oh no, it's like nine. It's like nine. That's just
the biggest one. No, people give them to me as
gifts all the time. I've never bought him my little
(44:22):
pony myself. Like a friend friend Chris got me like
a Christmas ornament of rainbow dsh and I was like,
thank you, wonderful and then um so it was on
my tree and then I have a rarity with my
little beanie baby Princess Diana Bear sitting on top of it,
and so they're purple together. But um, and then I
have a wait, did you see your Princess Diana from
like you have a tag protector for it? I do?
(44:46):
And what I have another one that's in the case.
It's like in the case it's probably worth like ten
whole dollars on either and if it's not, everyone DM me,
I will sell it to you anyway. I'm not attached
to those. Um a reason. If you could as sign
IFFI and I am my little pony, Oh my god,
how fine? Okay, Um, you'd have to be like a
chill a pony if he because like a chill stylish pony,
(45:09):
because you're up on the brands. I'm watching you. I
was like, that's theme is that champion? They just came back?
How did you get that? How he cop that? Like
it's out has let. Yeah, and then you would have
to be I'm like a worker. No, you'd have to
be some sort of like balance pony, like that's like
(45:29):
a Sally Jesse Rafael pony, because like, no, because you're good.
Bit I love that. I love that. The adjective like
me was balanced peacemaker, peacemaker pony. I feel like you'd
be a good peacemakers like a peacemaker pony. Like. Look, guys,
let's talk this out. See everybody so quick. Question the
Princess Diana beanie baby? You said, is it the purple
(45:51):
one with the rose on a chill? Yes? I have
two of them. It's going for one dollars on even
that's not enough to cover my phone bell. I know,
but I'll think about it. Thank you times, get really tough.
I'll do it. Yeah. You know you got a Honda one.
You just happen to get one of the only expensive ones, right, Yeah,
I would say that's Um, we talked about my little pony.
(46:14):
My God friendship is magic. Yeah. So I hope you
really enjoyed it. It was fun to talk about. Uh,
do you have anything to plug for our listeners? Oh?
My god? Follow me on Instagram and Twitter if you
want to. I'm not really on Twitter like that, but
follow me on Instagram at Aristocrat. I'm the only one
with the blue check mark collar. And then um, you
can watch my new show called What the Flip on
(46:36):
in two More's YouTube channel, and it's a an LGBT
show tackling issues within the community, which has nothing to
do with My Little Ponies, but friendship is still magic there.
You know, we'll probably tweet out some my Little Pony
fan art I work I love. We'll probably tweet some
out someone turned me into a pony. Please do it.
(46:58):
Um I am at ms Annie Fernandez. And you know
we didn't get to cover we didn't get to dive
into all of the like I know, there was a
director video like animated um My Little Pony the Princess
promenade which I remember, but um, yeah, I guess if
you're my Little Pony fan, hit us up, send me
pictures of your ponies. I'll try and find mine. I'm
(47:20):
gonna find mine in my baby box. I think I
have it, so yeah, send it to us, send it
and you know me, I'm if you I F Y
n W A D I W E on Twitter and
Instagram as you know, uh, definitely always doing some stuff,
(47:41):
so please look out for that and just go on
my Twitter to see my future show. So I was
gonna try and look them up and name them for you,
but you know the cat so I'll see it And
until next time, remember always stay narrat
Nerdificent News
Hosts And Creators
Dani Fernandez
Ify Nwadiwe
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