Author's Note: This essay has been revised April 10, 2013.

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The third season of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is over, and the passionate brony community is out there displaying their dedication to the show, characters, worldbuilding, and so on. Artwork, music, customs, and plushies are being published a lot over the past several months since The Crystal Empire, and it bloomed further with several dedications to the Babs Seed song; A True, True Friend; and What My Cutie Mark Is Telling Me. In late March, two highly popular fan-animations, Double Rainboom and Snowdrop, were published. The creativity and dedication help thrive the brony community, and so many news outlets take notice consequentially.

Ironically, this community almost never happened…because the franchise was struggling mightily between MLP Tales and FIM.

Long ago, MLP began production in 1982 with help from Hasbro and founder Bonnie Zacherle. The first TV series ran from 1982 to 1987. A standalone series of G1, MLP Tales, was produced in the early 1990s. Altogether, G1 ran until 1995. When the original G1 was developed, it targeted girls and boys, both the toys and animation. Despite using ponies, it never discriminated its audience and actually did quite a bit right, mainly the plot and animation. Although the animation and characterization haven't aged that well (back then, episodic animation had a rather limited budget, and that's currently evident in its production and graphics), it's still nostalgic enough to nonetheless carry weight.

But it's this little tidbit: the original purpose — the roots — of My Little Pony. The background, origin, original concept, and initial execution (and a successful one at that). G1's My Little Pony Tales, G2 (exclusively a toyline series that ran for three short years because it flopped), G3, and G3.5 targeted towards girls only (and for G3.5, female toddlers). However, G1's original series targeted girls AND boys. It wasn't supposed to be an anthropomorphic competitor of Barbie, where the characters used the stereotypical female tropes, had personalities flatter than matzah, and contained overall lazy writing. In contrast of Tales/G2/3/3.5, My Little Pony was supposed to be both gender-friendly and family-friendly. Not toddler-girl-friendly. Combined with its extremely poor effort, My Little Pony suffered as a product on the whole, eventually becoming a gigantic laughingstock in the media.

Then Friendship Is Magic, led by Lauren Faust, debuted. It started off slow, with only 4chan watching it in response to a relatively negative article. But as the weeks progressed, people got hooked, specifically teenage and adult males. Promotion spread via word of mouth, and the fanbase began to erupt into the passionate, crazy, controversial, and creative fandom it is today. When it gained popularity, the fandom dubbed themselves as "bronies," which encompasses the fanbase regardless of gender, age, and passion.

And for one good reason: the show never disrespects its audience, which is family-friendly and gender-friendly. It teaches the morals so kids can understand, but adds depth of character, worldbuilding, older references, and overall clever writing so adults can enjoy it, too.

Is it a coincidence? No, it isn't. Lauren Faust worked as a storyboard artist with her eventual husband, Craig McCracken, on The Powerpuff Girls, a 1990s superhero parody cartoon that utilizes nearly the same bright, zany, simplistic art style and great characterization. Despite being "girly" in impression, it doesn't alienate one specific gender and/or age group, resulting in pop culture success.

But the big similarity is how they're family-friendly. Great for both kids and adults of all ages, and they each follow the same schtick. They weren't "kids shows."

But one difference between The Powerpuff Girls and My Little Pony is TPPG was a completely new franchise started by Craig McCracken. MLP:FIM is the fourth generation of a once proud franchise, "fourth generation" and "once proud franchise" being key phrases.

This is where MLP:FIM gets the respect it so deserves.

If it weren't for MLP:FIM and its eventual success, this franchise would have been DEAD! Not dying. DEAD! Discontinued. Ceased to exist. Officially jumped the shark and devoured by it!

Prior to Friendship Is Magic, I always occasionally visited several toy stores just because, both the mom-and-pop shops and the big commercial chains, like Toys R Us, FAO Schwartz, etc. These kids' shelves would be packed with toys. Barely anything had My Little Pony on them, sometimes none at all. That was how obscure these products were back then. Despite a dedicated collector base at that point, you can't successfully run a franchise by having collectors (and parents of little girls) buy them alone. You need an even bigger range of people buying them so the product has a chance to thrive. My Little Pony had absolutely no leverage because the finance wasn't there, especially when several other franchises like many of the board games (i.e., Life, Monopoly), G.I. Joe, and Transformers being so popular.

But now it isn't dead — nor close to it — because Friendship Is Magic returns the product back to where it belongs: its roots. Its origins. And it does a great job showing it in its overall execution. Unless there's an extremely great reason, one should never ditch the origins of the franchise. For a great example, Thomas & Friends had that family-friendly origin surrounding realistic laws of the railway. The Railway Series (initially written by Reverend W. Audry and later his son, Christopher Audry) and the first seven season of Thomas & Friends (the TV series) were family-friendly, intelligently written, and didn't insult the audience's intelligence, be they young or old. When HiT Entertainment bought the TV series prior to the eighth season (The Railway series has no influence from HiT), they changed the storytelling, laws of the railway, audience, and overall premise (from a character/adventure hybrid to a three-strikes-style character moral format) to target very young kids. Combined with its lazy writing, the series spiraled downhill, with the fifteenth season being considered the worst in writing, characterization/development, potential, realism, creativity, and storytelling. The horrible writing and plot-development of the episodes are why the older fans hate the newer seasons so much. And even if they wrote better, the roots of the show (the realism of the railway) tied everything together and gave the show developers the background and motivation. Without the respect of the railway laws, it shows a complete lack of respect for Reverend W. Audry and his family, who were responsible for The Railway Series in the first place.

This applies to My Little Pony. Zacherle intended it to be its own gender-neutral creation and have it suited for families. The original G1 show, movie, and toyline showed heart, care, and passion from themselves and the audience it seeks. But under MLP Tales, G2's toyline, G3, and G3.5, its quality suffered, and the roots of the franchise were alienated so Hasbro can cash with the very young girls, female toddlers, and their parents. G2 flopped, but G3/3.5 barely succeeded enough for the product to stay afloat. Yet, it still disrespected the founder, and older fans noticed this. This is the reason why Tales, G3, and G3.5 get no respect from me and don't deserve it whatsoever: They take Zacherle's bold vision and ransack it.

MLP Tales shows little respect for her and the original G1 tales because its sexist, stereotypical characterization is intellectually insulting.

G2 I'm neutral with despite its narrow audience and poor financial success, because it was advertised poorly and never fully got off the ground.

G3 and G3.5 gets none because of its lazy production regardless of budget flexibility.

The original G1 series, however, gave Zacherle that respect, and I give it that respect in return.

This is what FIM is doing. It's giving Zacherle the respect she deserves. FIM treats its audience with respect, so the audience treats FIM respect in return. And it isn't merely noticed by bronies who became fans merely from FIM alone. There are plenty of bronies who were fans of G1 initially. And there's one big reason why: FIM shows G1 that identical respect. Lauren Faust herself adored G1 and used it as motivation to develop FIM, which basically takes the qualities of G1 and improves it in the form G4/FIM. The fans notice this respect in the writing and overall development, and this is one of the biggest why FIM is raved by the fandom so much. Bronies (male and female, young and old) catch this respect and are now attached to Friendship Is Magic as a result. Although Faust no longer works on the show, we still see this exact respect from the writers, voice actors, rise in social media, and the close relationship the bronies have with the professional staff (current and former). With FIM, Zacherle's vision finally comes in full circle.

MLP:FIM returns the franchise where it belongs: back to its roots. And I wouldn't have it any other way.