As I mentioned in my main blog, I'm going to be doing something stupid here. I'm going to be watching MLP, from the beginning. And I mean the *beginning*. These are my notes I took while watching the episodes. Note, I am in no way a critic. I have no qualifications whatsoever, and my primary purpose doing this is to glean any interesting tid-bits that can be used to build up the society, culture, and history of the My Little Pony world. So a lot of these notes will be about architecture, clothing, apparent technology, and the cultural mores displayed in the episodes. Plus just some silly things I noticed during the episode.

They are presented in the order I wrote them as I was watching the episode with minimal editing.

Let's start with the first ever broadcast show for My Little Pony.

My Little Pony: Rescue at Midnight Castle (G1 Animated Feature, 1984, 22 minutes)

Originally known simply as My Little Pony, and sometimes as Firefly's Adventure. My Little Pony had existed for three years as a toy line before this. The first animated feature was made as a pilot for a continuing series. It was released as a stand-alone special and followed up by two other films before the series actually kicked off in two years later in 1986. The title Rescue at Midnight Castle was the name given to it when it was reworked into being part of the series. These notes are from the original version, not the reworked one.

Summary: The land of the Ponies are invaded by dragons, and Firefly goes searching for help. She brings back the human Megan, and a magic rainbow to try to defeat the master of Midnight Castle, Tirek, before he brings on eternal night.

Pegasi can interact with rainbows as if they are liquid, using it as a waterslide. Which may actually turn into a rainbow-like waterfall. Not sure what I'm seeing there with that transition.

Classic Late Norman-style castle with round towers. Bet you it's supposed to be a single keep rather than an enclosing curtain wall. Either that or the scale here is really weird.

Hey Firefly. Pony that eventually becomes Rainbow Dash.

Hey color-swap Twilight.

Unicorns can teleport, but it seem to take concentration and effort.

Hey Applejack. Get used to being smashed into by Rainbow Dash-like pegasi, pretty much every incarnation of you has that happen.

Theme song and action indicates a kind of paradise. "No threat in sight." Odd phrasing.

And suddenly the dark themes kick in so hard it's whiplash time. Right at the end of the utopian theme song, a Dragon attack.

Strange creature is riding one of the dragons, looks like an anthropomorphized manticore.

Villain of the episode is mentioned as Tirek (This manticore guy's pronouncing it Tee-Rak), Master of Midnight Castle, while manticore-guy is being all threatening-by-proxy.

Hey Spike.

Okay, manticore guy has a name. Scorpan. Yeah, still fitting the manticore theme.

Tirek's handling that sack like it's a pet cat.... It beats like a heart? Yikes. Not pulling any punches on this 'little girl show'.

He needs exactly four ponies for his chariot. Not sure why.

Okay, here we are at the human world. This would be Megan.

Firefly shows up, and Megan is confused by the talking, flying pony. So the human world doesn't know about My Little Pony-like creatures at this point.

Actual real pony is in the background.

Architecture and clothing of the human world is 60's-80's. Megan's speech patterns indicate America, probably northern California. Could be earlier as what she's wearing (basic overalls and blouse) was technically around since the 1900's but unlikely to be anything other than the broadcast date.

Firefly basically kidnaps Megan, for no real reason. She's got that Player Character glow, I guess.

And flies to the pony world with no magical transition at all. Just go above the clouds and back down again after a song.

Dragon attack again. And Megan is almost double kidnapped. Scorpan saves her from falling? Okay.

Hey Shining Armour? Nope just the same color scheme. Hold on. Pausing to find out which pony this is. Goes by the name of Glory, apparently.

Lizard men with halberd-like weapons. Nope, I'm wrong, they're stylized glaive-forks, using standard nomenclature.

Better look at Tirek. He's a minotaur/centaur-like thing. The sack he's always petting contains some kind of artifact that 'by the power of darkness' can transform ponies into dragons. That's what he wanted for pulling his chariot. Why doesn't he use all those dragons he was sending to kidnap the ponies in the first place?

Ponies travel to find a 'Moochick' that supposedly has magic powers.

Applejack falls off a bridge into deep river/bay and Megan jumps after her. Ponies don't seem to be able to swim very well at all, unlike real ponies. Unless it's just Applejack who can't swim.

Oh god. Sea ponies. Megan and Applejack seem just as confused as I am.

Magic Mushrooms... *sigh*.

Rabbit in trousers. Seems to be Moochicks' familiar.

This Moochick is a gnome of some kind.

Another artifact, a Rainbow of Light. Or 'a piece of one' contained in a red heart locket.

Midnight Castle. Extremely fantastic evil overlord-style, with a glory of turrets, all set on top a pillar of stone in the sea. It would take so many different historic references combined together to even come up with a vague resemblance to this one, it's not worth it.

Dark Rainbow magic seems to have some kind of time limit or count down. Everybody, even the villains, are concerned about getting stuff done before Midnight strikes.

Scorpan is only vaguely a villain.

Rainbow of Darkness is the formal name.

Applejack makes an good dragon. More fangy/tusky than the kidnapping dragons.

Megan seems to be prone to kidnapping.

Night that never ends. Where have I heard that one before? Well, technically this on came first so.... yeah.

Scorpan can actually fly on his own.

Tirek need to hold on to things better if he wants to rule the world.

More unicorn teleporting. Slight delay between disappearance and appearance.

Pony Castle is officially named Dream Castle.

Rainbow of Light beats Rainbow of Darkness, but it was up in the air for a bit. Visual effect very much like the Elements of Harmony.

Tirek is sucked into the sky beyond the clouds by the Rainbow of Light. Wonder where he went?

All the Rainbow of Darkness stuff is undone. Lizardmen were originally birds, kidnapping dragons are butterflies, and Scorpan is actually a human prince. So there are human kingdoms in this land.

And Spike is still Spike, and gets to stay with the ponies at Dream Castle.