Two Rainbow Dash episodes in a row? Thanks Santa! Now where is my delivery of chocolate coated lesbians? Come on you fat bastard don’t hold out on me.

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“Mysterious Mare” has rekindled much of my interest in drawing comparisons between this show and my love of 90’s cartoons in general. As the fandom has gained more momentum, we tend to forget that much of the success for this series is firmly rooted (tee-hee) in the groundings of techniques perfected by shows like Animaniacs.

Say what you will about Pinkie Pie directly communicating with the audience, but nobody broke the fourth wall with quite as much blunt force as Slappy Squirrel.

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The reason I bring this up is because many seems to think that the design scheme on the mysterious mare is directly referencing this:

—— http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=375ENQbru8s

To which I respond….what about this?

—— http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z22seoMxgpI

Or this?

—— http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGufyFt6zQc

Or this?

—— http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEx9r5enZsk

See, there’s a very distinct difference between “reference” and “parody/satire”.

A “reference” is slipping something into the scenery and not having the characters make any acknowledgement as to what it is. It often has plenty of room for interpretation (as was the case with this episode, I dont think a mask and fluttery cape is enough to constitute direct homage) and never directly affects the story.

A “parody” is more or less STATING what that foreign something is and putting it in a situation that makes it look absurd.

MLP has pulled off both of these very well in previous episodes, but I felt ‘Mare Do Well” was leaning much closer to the ‘satire’ side of the fence with its near constant jabbing of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUtziaZlDeE

Such ridiculous over-exaggeration of the superhero cliché is a joy, and it even felt like the episode was taking down the modern entertainment industry a notch, along with our over-glorification of celebrity figures who are famous for no other reason than being famous (I’m looking at you Kim Kardashian, you fat, talentless, dog faced Oompa Loompa). This is re-enforced when the citizens of Ponyville pretty much forget Dash ever existed when the mare shows up.

This is something I like to call “Magpie Syndrome” or “MS” for short. It’s a mental affliction I made up and diagnosed all by myself. Magpie Syndrome occurs when a person or group of peoples vocalise and fixate very loudly and very passionately on a celebrity, song, movie or event, insisting that this is the be all and end all, the most amazing possible thing that could happen (Justin Bieber, current X-Factor winners, ect…). However, as the name would suggest, as soon as this hollow, two dimensional shiny toy is replaced by a slightly shinier one, it is forgotten…lost forever to the cold recesses of yesteryear. MS is most commonly suffered by listeners of mainstream pop music and viewer’s of reality television, but can also be applied to many different facets of society.

For more information of syndromes created by the Cosmic Space Frog, such as Magpie Syndrome, Beanbag Syndrome, and Instant Einstein Syndrome, please send $35 and some chocolate to “123 Fake Street in ‘Thisisnotascamville’ QLD Australia.”

Don’t say you never learnt anything reading these articles.

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Rainbow Dash and her extravagant craving for attention were the perfect canvas for illustrating this ornithological point, and it puts into perspective just how far these characters have come since we first met them.

The general idea behind having such over the top and exaggerated personalities in a show like this is to give the characters somewhere to go with their personal development. Fluttershy, for example, could barely make eye contact with Twilight in the first episode.

Look at her now. She still retains her inherent demurity, but not three episodes ago she was beating a full grown grizzly bear harder than a red-headed step child. And the reason she can get away with doing that now is because she has been developed and characterised enough to allow it.

Slowly but surely, all the mane six have changed for the better, but without such an absurdly high jumping off point for their personalities, they would have learnt all their lessons and become boring, perfectly normal, well adjusted characters before the first season was even over.

They get taken down a few notches, but their appeal never slips away, which is a big part of what makes any show compelling to watch.

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Mysterious Mare suffered a little from not having enough of that magic little something last week’s episode did.

Namely: Having a predictable ending but making the journey there utterly compelling. It was very much focused on its lesson of the day, but it’s probably about time RD got brought down to earth a little, so it was necessary as far as her character progression goes. I just hope she gets a make-it or break-it opportunity with the Wonderbolts soon.

I bet she’ll regret not picking the falcon when THAT time comes.