42 replies to this topic

[Booey]

I think we need to involve Doctor Whooves a little more in the MLP series.

Do you think, Dr Whooves, first seen in the "Call of the Cutie"
should have an episode of his own?

Sure it would make for a very.... complicated.... letter to Princess Celestia, and sidetrack from Ponyville and Equestria a little, but hey, I believe it would create the excitement which we all felt when TS' & Friends defeated Discord and Nightmare Moon.

I wanna hear your input.

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[Doctor XFizzle]

I like where your head's at.

Sadly, I think Dr. Whooves will never have any episode dedicated just to him and his story. At most we can hope for a secondary role with at least 5 lines of dialogue. Like when Mr. and Mrs. Cake are shown. They usually aren't a focal point of the episode, yet they still appear and have a couple lines.

Edited by Doctor XFizzella, 08 March 2012 - 07:27 PM.

[Alkryn]

Whenever I think of Doctor Whooves, this comes to mind:

[Fire_Fly]

The Doctor totally needs his own episode! I know it's probably never happening, but they've already given him at least one line of dialogue; who's to say he won't have any more speaking roles to come?

[Skystars Jigglypuff]

You know what? The next episode has TIME TRAVEL in it! If it doesn't have even a reference to doctor who I'd be surprised!

[windy_prance]

It won't happen. Too many copyright crap to deal with.

[Kirlia]

If it doesn't have even a reference to doctor who I'd be surprised!

I'll be filled with joy if Twilight says "I hate temporal mechanics" (that's a quote from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine from one of the funniest episodes I've ever seen)!

[Derpy Whooves]

Like windy said copyright, but a small reference would be awesome like "people think friendship is a element of harmony but actually from a non-linear veiw point its more like a big ball of magicy wagicky friendy shippy... stuff

Edited by Jeff The Killer LXI, 08 March 2012 - 09:05 PM.

[Booey]

Ahh man. I was getting ready for some Dalek (Donk-lek) < Horrible re-naming.
Yeah I agree with you guys about the copyright. That was going on in the back of my head.
But it'd be great to see him. For sure.

[BronyPony]

My Little Pony has a lot of referencing, especially to Star Wars and Indiana Jones. I wouldn't be suprised if they put Doctor Whooves into a big part.

[Eenohay]

It won't happen. Too many copyright crap to deal with.

Little references deal with no copyright issues

[Daring Do]

There have been some winks from Hasbro to the fanbase about how Doctor Hooves MAY have traveled through time. I'd like to point out several examples... but I can't remember them all.

I don't think he will receive his own episode though... He is, after all, only a background character to Hasbro. Well, at least not yet, Hasbro will have to do something when they start running out of ideas.

[Thereisnospoon303]

I think the charm of Doctor Whooves would be lost if he received a prominent role in an episode. It's better if his presence simply teases the fandom and allows creative bronies to let their imaginations fill in the gaps.

Otherwise, a lot of bronies are going to be disappointed when he isn't depicted as a time traveling pony.

[Kyronea]

There is absolutely no chance of Doctor Whooves ever taking a major role, or even being referred to as the Doctor on the show. He's going to stick to the background with the occasional nod--such as the example from SSCS6K--at most.

To say that there would be copyright issues is understating things just a tad...try massive copyright warfare. I don't know who owns the copyrights to Doctor Who--I'm guessing the BBC--but there's no way they'd allow a pony version of him to be used officially. Fan works are one thing. Official use would run into such a field of landmines that it'd make the Derpy Debacle look like a case of bedhead by comparison.

[Thereisnospoon303]

To say that there would be copyright issues is understating things just a tad...try massive copyright warfare. I don't know who owns the copyrights to Doctor Who--I'm guessing the BBC--but there's no way they'd allow a pony version of him to be used officially. Fan works are one thing. Official use would run into such a field of landmines that it'd make the Derpy Debacle look like a case of bedhead by comparison.

Wouldn't it be protected under usage as a parody? Unless they directly claimed characters and concepts from Dr. Who and imported them all into MLP, a passing reference wouldn't result in legal recourse---unless the copyright holders of Dr. Who really had it out for MLP: FiM.

We had "The Return of Harmony" ending which was a frame-by-frame reenactment of the ending of Star Wars. Of coruse, tomorrow we will see at least one other blatant parody of a famous science fiction film. I don't know if they would be held accountable for the direct references.

Edited by Thereisnospoon303, 09 March 2012 - 07:05 PM.

[Kyronea]

Wouldn't it be protected under usage as a parody? Unless they directly claimed characters and concepts from Dr. Who and imported them all into MLP, a passing reference wouldn't result in legal recourse---unless the copyright holders of Dr. Who really had it out for MLP: FiM.

We had "The Return of Harmony" ending which was a frame-by-frame reenactment of the ending of Star Wars. Of coruse, tomorrow we will see at least one other blatant parody of a famous science fiction film. I don't know if they would be held accountable for the direct references.

It really depends upon what exactly they choose to do. If they go the route of parody, such as having the Doctor make a joke about being just the Doctor, or having him quote the wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff bit...that might be okay. I'm not sure how often Doctor Who is parodied by other shows or how the BBC reacts to such parodies.

But the thing is, I can't see them even doing that much, because Hasbro operates under a general standard of being as careful as possible, even if they do allow the show writers and makers a lot of leeway. After the Derpy Debacle, I don't expect the show writers are going to be able to get away with nearly as much as they were able to prior to that. It's the same reason we'll never see a canonical acknowledgement of same-sex couples, of background ponies or other characters.

It's a little different, parodying a sequence of events such as the Return of Harmony ending parodying Star Wars, and having a character parody show up. Character parodies are always much more tricky to pull off without stepping on toes.

I mean, if they did do it, I'd be delighted. While I don't watch Doctor Who yet, I plan on getting into it eventually, and so seeing a parody of it on the show would amuse me, much like it would plenty of Doctor Who fans. I'm just not seeing it actually happening.

But, as always, I could be wrong.

[Thereisnospoon303]

Fair points. My guess is that, as you said, Hasbro would prefer to play it safe with any obvious references. The writers would have to sneak something in if they wanted to desperately make a Dr. Who related joke. But I don't think they'll necessarily do so as it may be "overfeeding" the fandom, so to speak. Derpy received a speaking role, yet they did not go so far as to establish her as the mailmare of Equestria or follow a number of other prominent pieces of Derpy fanon. It's best to leave the characterization of background ponies rather opaque unless they are instrumental to the plot (e.g., Cheerilee).

[Kirlia]

It really depends upon what exactly they choose to do. If they go the route of parody, such as having the Doctor make a joke about being just the Doctor, or having him quote the wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff bit...that might be okay. I'm not sure how often Doctor Who is parodied by other shows or how the BBC reacts to such parodies.

But the thing is, I can't see them even doing that much, because Hasbro operates under a general standard of being as careful as possible, even if they do allow the show writers and makers a lot of leeway. After the Derpy Debacle, I don't expect the show writers are going to be able to get away with nearly as much as they were able to prior to that. It's the same reason we'll never see a canonical acknowledgement of same-sex couples, of background ponies or other characters.

It's a little different, parodying a sequence of events such as the Return of Harmony ending parodying Star Wars, and having a character parody show up. Character parodies are always much more tricky to pull off without stepping on toes.

I mean, if they did do it, I'd be delighted. While I don't watch Doctor Who yet, I plan on getting into it eventually, and so seeing a parody of it on the show would amuse me, much like it would plenty of Doctor Who fans. I'm just not seeing it actually happening.

But, as always, I could be wrong.

Discord reminded me of Q from Star Trek. For this reason, I thought the Return of Harmony would end like this.

[Kyronea]

Fair points. My guess is that, as you said, Hasbro would prefer to play it safe with any obvious references. The writers would have to sneak something in if they wanted to desperately make a Dr. Who related joke. But I don't think they'll necessarily do so as it may be "overfeeding" the fandom, so to speak. Derpy received a speaking role, yet they did not go so far as to establish her as the mailmare of Equestria or follow a number of other prominent pieces of Derpy fanon. It's best to leave the characterization of background ponies rather opaque unless they are instrumental to the plot (e.g., Cheerilee).

Exactly. There's only so much they can do after all, and they are still making little nods to the fandom as they can. For instance, in the background of some parts of Putting Your Hoof Down, we can see Bon-Bon meeting Lyra for what appears to be a date, while Lyra struggles to get a hay shake with her hoof rather than floating it over with her magic.

Discord reminded me of Q from Star Trek. For this reason, I thought the Return of Harmony would end like this.

*snip video*

There's actually a comic parodying that very thing...I can't remember where it is at the moment, but I do know it exists. I'll edit this post with the link when I find it.

And while Discord was definitely...rather Q-like, a great deal of that, I suspect, has to do with who voiced him. I'm not sure if the show creators intentionally sought out John de Lancie to voice Discord because Discord was like Q, but it might've just been a lucky coincidence.

So in the case of Discord, he wasn't Q so much as he resembled Q in many ways, including the voice. But he never spoke about the Enterprise or made any specific reference jokes to Q's manner of address Captain Picard, or anything else of that nature. He was just a lot like Q, that's all.

[Thereisnospoon303]

There's actually a comic parodying that very thing...I can't remember where it is at the moment, but I do know it exists. I'll edit this post with the link when I find it.

And while Discord was definitely...rather Q-like, a great deal of that, I suspect, has to do with who voiced him. I'm not sure if the show creators intentionally sought out John de Lancie to voice Discord because Discord was like Q, but it might've just been a lucky coincidence.

So in the case of Discord, he wasn't Q so much as he resembled Q in many ways, including the voice. But he never spoke about the Enterprise or made any specific reference jokes to Q's manner of address Captain Picard, or anything else of that nature. He was just a lot like Q, that's all.

If I recall correctly, Lauren Faust designed Discord with the concept of Q in mind, given that she is a big TNG fan. They had it planned to get a voice actor to impersonate John de Lancie, but eventually asked if de Lancie himself was available. He was indeed open for taking the part, Faust was beside herself with glee, and Discord effectively became Q trolling the MLP: FiM universe.