My Little Pony Friendship is Magic General

[Twister980]

OHOHOHOH. I loved that Episode.

Flim and Flam belong with Cave Johnson at Aperture Science. XD

[FllMtl Novelist]

Guys, guys, GUYS. Caramel talked! I haven't seen every episode yet, but this is the first time I ever heard him talk so I pretty much had the same reaction from when Derpy talked. xD

I know! XD I was like, "BIO_PLUS IS IN THIS EPISODE."

I love this show and its crazy songs and dances.

Applejack wrote my favorite letter to Celestia. It was nice to spice things up a bit.

[Felix]

@TopazRaven: Yeah, I'm there too. I guess the pairings don't straight up bother me so much, but I'm just not a huge fan of the homosexual ones. And yay! You're right! Caramel did talk. That was awesome

@Bio I watched the Mystery Solvers PMV and I loved it! I haven't watched the rescue rangers one yet though. You should definitely upload the scary one.

And that new episode was so great Mildly predictable, but I still thought it was a lot of fun.

[spoiler]Did anyone else catch the Back to the Future reference? At least I think it was...
Also, I loved AJ's letter to the princess at the end. It was totally AJ, and quite funny.[/spoiler]

[Twister980]

[spoiler]Did anyone else catch the Back to the Future reference? At least I think it was...
Also, I loved AJ's letter to the princess at the end. It was totally AJ, and quite funny.[/spoiler]

Wait, what? O_e

I don't remember any... *Checks on Youtube.*

Ohohoho...

"Chicken, Mcfly?"

[Felix]

Wait, what? O_e

I don't remember any... *Checks on Youtube.*

Ohohoho...

"Chicken, Mcfly?"

Hee, yes. If it was indeed a reference to that, it was extremely subtle. I kinda wish Granny Smith had responded with "Nobody calls me chicken!" XD

Edit: Bio_Plus, I have a request :3 After watchiing and adoring your rescue rangers video, I think you should ponify the goof troop intro song, and possibly the tale spin intro too, but the goof troop one needs to happen first. I'll take a crack at it myself if you're not interested.

Edit again: You made this happen, Bio. You and your Rescue Rangers! I blame you for my whole evening getting swallowed up making this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sH8VyUpwgmA

[Bio_Plus]

My avatar!
It's now 20% cooler!:cool:

That was a fun episode and the weirdest song yet, I like how it played out and bopping ponies took me by surprise. And I always new Applebloom would one day talk herself into a lot of trouble.
Poor RD though. “No Rainbow, the ground is not food.â€

[TheMewster]

I haven't watched MLP:FIM, but I found a cool MLP:FIM character creator, if anyone is interested.

http://www.dolldivine.com/mlp-fim-pony-creator.php

[Bio_Plus]

Thanks for the contribution Mewster.

Thinking about the episode I was wondering if this was an Apple family episode or a Flim & Flam episode, or a Main6 episode in disguise. And I think that this episode can only be a Ponyville episode. The Ponyville ponies all played such a large role and even though Applejack's letter to Celestia rocked it was the Ponyville ponies that learned a lesson from this adventure. (Flim and Flam got away without learning anything, just like Trixie). And am I fooling myself or does this episode have the most variation of cutie marks than any other episode and also the least amount of clones considering the number of background ponies in this episode. And so many appearances from some of the fan favourites (I even saw that nod towards [SIZE="1"]Berry Punch[/SIZE]. Grrr!:shady:). I mean Derpy last week and now this, it's simply amazing how the creators of the show are treating the fans.

What do you guys think? Am I rambling or simply stating the obvious?:dizzy:

[Nate]

I didn't hate this episode or anything but boy was it weird.

First the Apple family literally knows nothing about supply and demand. If the cider was really selling THAT well, then you increase the price. Especially since they said it was all they had to sustain them through the winter.

The price isn't increased out of greed, but because if you don't, you have the problem that was in this episode: too much demand and not enough supply. They needed to find the "sweet spot" between price and demand, so that the demand roughly equaled the supply...and increasing the price is how you do that. Again, not out of greed, but because that's basic economics (plus it means less disappointed ponies).

Second, there was really no reason why the Apple family and the Flim Flam Brothers couldn't have both sold cider. The Apple family made a comment about how "This is what keeps us going during winter" but there's still no reason they couldn't both have set up shop, especially if they had forced Flim and Flam to get their own apples.

Third, considering that the Cider Squeezy could make three barrels of cider to their one, AND they would have sold more cider, it's entirely possible that if all demand was met, the 25% cut of the profits would equal, even exceed the money they made off regular cider sales (since they'd be selling much more product). They could have at least negotiated the profit split, probably wouldn't have gotten an even 50/50 but they could have maybe gotten 60/40 which almost certainly would have given them more money (since they'd be selling three times as much).

Fourth, why would Granny Smith make a bet about who could make more cider considering that it was extremely obvious that the Cider Squeezy could make it faster?

Fifth, why would the Flim Flam Brothers have gotten Sweet Apple Acres? The bet was only for exclusive rights to sell cider in Ponyville, not the deed to the farm. The Apple family could have stayed and still sold other apple products the rest of the year.

Sixth, when the contest was over, why didn't the Flim Flam Brothers serve the cider that they made first (before they used the override) which tasted equally as good as the Apple family's? Or at least close to it considering how Granny Smith reacted to it. It was really dumb of them to sell the bad cider first, they could have sold the good stuff (they still had quite a bit of it) and tossed out the bad stuff, which wouldn't have mattered since they won the bet either way.

Seventh, AJ says she didn't learn anything, but...this isn't a good thing. The only reason there was enough cider at the end for everybody was because of the contest. Put simply, they saw that modernization could actually help them meet increased demand, but were stubborn and refused a method that could create more product and thus greater profits. Again, if cider sales are the only thing that keeps them going in winter, shouldn't they want a faster method of making it, thus giving them even more profit? It's like the Apple family is saying "We need this money to get through winter, but we don't actually want more money, because we're going to refuse to do anything that would actually give us more money." It's bizarre and nonsensical.

Again I don't think the episode is bad but...it's just weird.

[Bio_Plus]

@Nate You bring up a lot of good points. And it's really true, the story in this episode was very confusing, I can't think of anything to get around that.

Fifth, why would the Flim Flam Brothers have gotten Sweet Apple Acres? The bet was only for exclusive rights to sell cider in Ponyville, not the deed to the farm. The Apple family could have stayed and still sold other apple products the rest of the year.

This part bothered me the most, it just doesn't make sense. Maybe Flim & Flam was just boasting after the competition. They didn't really win the farm, they just said they'd tear it all down for when the Apples eventually lost the farm. And renaming the farm was more of their boasting. That's as close as I can come to explain it and that's a lot of maybes.

Sixth, when the contest was over, why didn't the Flim Flam Brothers serve the cider that they made first (before they used the override) which tasted equally as good as the Apple family's? Or at least close to it considering how Granny Smith reacted to it. It was really dumb of them to sell the bad cider first, they could have sold the good stuff (they still had quite a bit of it) and tossed out the bad stuff, which wouldn't have mattered since they won the bet either way.

See Twister's post.

Flim and Flam belong with Cave Johnson at Aperture Science. XD

It would be like them to do something that dumb.

This is possibly the episode with the most broken story so far. But at least the ponies stayed true to their characters and Applejack did make reference to the previous lessons she learned. Could we say the story suffered because of the fan service? I wouldn't want them to make a habit of it, but maybe once in a wile.

[Felix]

To "answer" the majority of your questions, Nate, I'd like to quote a good friend of mine:

Because we wouldn't have an episode otherwise.

Joking aside, however, I agree that some of the plot points were rather convoluted. Perhaps economics function differently in Equestria... and I'm not sure that the Apple Family are exactly financial experts anyway, or they'd probably be living a lot more like Filthy Rich. If they were financial geniuses, Granny Smith would have gotten rich off her zapapple jam long ago. It seems to me like they're more interested in keeping their business "homestyle" than they are in making more money.

There's also the stubborn pride of the Apple Family to contend with. I imagine that's part of why Granny made the bet, foolish as it was. And the Flim Flam brothers made a mistake by selling the bad cider first, but that didn't really bother me. They seem like the type that would do something like that and not really care all that much. They're "quick and easy" businessmen, and would have moved on as soon as they realized it wouldn't be as easy as they thought it'd be.

On a positive note about the episode, I'm glad that AJ learned her lesson from Applebuck Season and wasn't too stubborn to accept help from her friends.

Edit: An alternate explanation for the shaky plot: http://www.equestriadaily.com/2012/01/equestrian-inquirer-23.html#more

[mechana2015]

The bad cider first thing can be explained pretty easily... they tapped the last barrel made, AKA, the barrel on the top of the giant stack of cider barrels. If they had tried to get to their 'good barrels' they would have been playing jenga with the cider, possibly knocking their entire stash over. Pretty much their crazed overproduction buried their good product, and the term 'hoisted on their own petard' comes to mind.

[Felix]

The bad cider first thing can be explained pretty easily... they tapped the last barrel made, AKA, the barrel on the top of the giant stack of cider barrels. If they had tried to get to their 'good barrels' they would have been playing jenga with the cider, possibly knocking their entire stash over. Pretty much their crazed overproduction buried their good product, and the term 'hoisted on their own petard' comes to mind.

Yep, I had also thought of that. That's probably the best explanation. Granted, they're unicorns and probably wouldn't have had too much trouble getting the good barrels out, but going by their personalities, that would have just been too much work, so it does make sense that they just sold the most readily-available cider first.

[mechana2015]

I suspect when you're looking at a whole town thats been chanting 'cider cider cider cider' at you for a day or so they were too excited from winning to reorganize the barrels.

Storytelling wise it made the ending faster rather than having a bunch of the town drink through the good cider before they bad cider came into play. Too time consuming a process for a 22 minute show so they just cut to the end to show the inevitable results.

[Wolf-man]

Great episode! I really hope they stay like this for the rest of the season. I loved the song! What a great ode to the Music Man.

[raider~joseph]

BEST.LETTER.EVER

(I died laughing)

[Bio_Plus]

@Felix I accept your request, ponies will invade Goof Troop...eventually.
It's got a lot of background fx so it's a bit tricky, but it will be done. Do you want me to credit your Youtube identity?

And here's that scary pmv. I thought if I put ponies to Ruby Gloom it'll come out all cutsie and wootsie, but nope it went all eerie and stuff, so I'm not sure about this one.

Twilight Gloom

[Twister980]

Found this on My Little Brony this morning.

[Felix]

@Bio: Nah! You don't hafta credit me or anything. I just think the theme would fit well with MLP. I'm sure it will be awesome when you're done I'll watch your scary video soon.

@Twister: That picture is just full of all kinds of win! I love crossovers like this.

[Bio_Plus]

@Twister You know, sooner or later the Flim Flam bothers is going to knock over one of those turrets. (I stole that joke from EqD:sweat:)

Woohoo! Just-Plain-Cat drew another Caramel, my avatar gets another 20% cooler in 10 seconds flat. The image can be found here.
http://just-plain-cat.deviantart.com/#/d4o6zso

[Twister980]

Trying to write these two will be fun. I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

[raider~joseph]

Next thing we know they will make an episode with Stephen Cobert...thats actually not a bad idea.

[Wolf-man]

You know Vic Mignogna just met Tara Strong at Sacanime and they became fast friends. So maybe he will guest star in MLP. Long shot I know but it would be cool.

[Felix]

@Bio: Digging the new avatar! Both of your new PMVs are awesome, too

Here's my newest PMV. I had some fun with this one...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpU_b1FITWI

A Stephen Colbert cameo would be... interesting, to say the least. Could be lots of fun!

[Nate]

Another Rainbow Dash episode? Seriously Hub, there's already been way too much of her this season. How about giving, say, Fluttershy an episode? Y'know, the one character who hasn't had an episode this season? Or hey, how about giving Scootaloo an episode? You know, the one character who has never had an episode!

At least we get more Cheerilee after this next episode. And all the Fluttermac shippers will become angry! As well they should because Flutterpie is best ship. And Cheerimac is good ship too so might as well make it pseudo-canon.

[TopazRaven]

FlutterMac is alright, but I actually like TwiMac because I'm weird like that. I dunno, I guess I just think they'd go good together. CheeriMac does sound cute though and I look forward to the episode!

[Twister980]

All right, next little bit of my story is up. (Link's above.)

As to the Rainbow Dash Episode, it's not a bad idea. It's just they need to flesh her out better, then begin fleshing the others out some more.

[Felix]

While I agree that there have been too many Rainbow Dash episodes this season, I'm still extremely excited about Saturday's episode. Reading Rainbow? It's going to be great.

[spoiler]A clip from the new episode leaked out if anyone is interested in seeing it. This is why I'm excited about the new ep: http://www.equestriadaily.com/2012/02/new-read-it-and-weep-clip.html[/spoiler]

[Bio_Plus]

@Felix Thanks for the request, I had a lot of fun doing it. Made it apple pie with Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo thrown in because they fit so well. The background fx was a bit tricky, I hope I did enough to cover them up.

Sistertroops

I'm also excited about the upcoming episode, sounds like this one could be fun, still I hope there's a few Fluttershy and Twilight episodes to the end of the season to balance it out and of coarse the much sought-after Scootaloo episode.

I like the Fluttermac ship, if only for the cute pictures the artists draw of them. I can't wait for the Big Mac episode though, I hope they flesh him out a bit.
Hey Nate, are you starting a shipping war?:evil: Not pony, but relevant:

[Felix]

Bio, that video was fantastic! I don't think a better job could have been done with the material. Bravo! My favorite part was when goofy says "Gawrsh!" and you put that clip of Rarity looking fabulous (as always). That was too perfect. Mad props bro *hoof*

And that comic is hilarious XD Why do comments about shipping often seem to forgo all rules of grammar? Hmm.