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Filli Vanilli (February 15th 2014, 22 minutes)

Summary: Fluttershy shakes it like she just don't care! ... What?

Milli Vanilli was an R&B pop act back in the late 80's, early 90's. Famous for a lip-syncing fiasco. It wasn't that they lip-synced though, because every pop act does that. It's that it wasn't even them on the original recordings that they were lip-syncing to. The pair on stage were not actually involved with the production of the music at any point. The 'real' Milli Vanilli were a five-member group of singers that were presented as the backing singers for a pair of models that were hired purely for their appearance and presentation. Not entirely sure why this ended up being a problem, as most boy (and girl) bands for that matter work exactly the same way.

Jackalope, with a regular bunny. Though perhaps the bunny is just a jackalope without antlers. There are several antlered species that are gender-differentiated, or may have other reasons for non-antlered individuals. As I've mentioned before, the name Jackalope is American, but the idea of an antlered rabbit exists all over the world, and possibly originated from a real virus that causes horny growths on the poor things.

If anyone's curious why so many animated shows turn out musical episodes, it's because singing is usually a standard part of voice acting training. If you're a professional voice actor, you have likely had singing training as part of the regime. As such, it's a shame to waste that training and never sing in-character.

She has sung before in front of everyone though... unless she didn't? The singing as part of the ensemble Mane 6 can be excused as artistic license of presentation. And the one time she was on stage singing was in the Hearth's Warming Eve... could she have been simply mouthing along with the song then?

Ah, wait. Twilight said "I have never heard you sing *like that* before." Like that. Something about that performance was significantly different from her prior singing. As a soloist, perhaps?

The Ponytones. Pure Tone is a common name for various bands, and comes from the concept of musical note with a single, simple frequency with no 'over tones'.

Pinkie, Pinkie, Pinkie. I believe she honestly thinks she's helping by overblowing the issue, not to ridicule Fluttershy, but trying to make Fluttershy see her fear as being ridiculous. That never works, but I can see how Pinkie would think it would.

Stage fright is a real issue. I have it. Every time I go up on stage (or enter the field in the case of my time with the Seattle Knights), it's a struggle. Once I'm up there, it's fine, but taking that first step on the stage is a real terror.

That's quite good, actually. Yay Big Mac! I'm curious about the other two members as they have interesting 'looks' to them. The skinny one is even more lanky than we've seen before, I think. The outfits are very classic barbershop quartet outfits. They just need the boater hats to finish the look. But given that boater hats are still current fashion in Equestria, I can understand not needing them for this context.

I love a cappella music, and while they are dressed Barbershop, that's not technically what they are doing. The main thing that differentiates Barbershop from other a cappella music is the very specific chords that cause a fifth tone to 'magically' appear thanks to overtone harmonics. Also, they're using the bass to lead, which is not in any way Barbershop.

Normally it's hog calling contests, but I know at least one person who does compete in turkey calls. It's a lot rarer of a contest, but they do exist because turkey calling involves five or six different 'calls', making it a bit more difficult.

Finally, Zecora being treated like a valued member of the community with relevant skills.

For a brief moment I was thinking Zecora was going to sing 'bass', although technically that would be called Contralto in the same way that male sopranos are called Countertenors.

Oh my lord, they actually used the fanon term 'Flutterguy'. So many props.

And here is where the title comes into play. Well done writers.

Is this stallion and his little filly supposed to reference someone specific? It's a very distinctive look for ponies, but I'm not catching the reference.

You little minx, Cheerilee. Can you possibly flirt harder?

Not just a distinctive look, the stallion has a very distinctive accent. Some sort of eastern Slavic, but he's not talking enough for me to pin it down.

I would have preferred a couple of different songs, rather than the same one over and over again.

The return of Flutterbat, sorta.

Big Mac seems to be feeling the strain a bit. Either that or he's having difficulty concentrating on lip-syncing while Fluttershy is waving her butt against the window.

You mean, none of her friends noticed that she hasn't been talking this last week or so? Okay, this is Fluttershy, maybe that works.

Okay, what did you do with the real Pinkie? This one is only a half-step away from being demonic, crawling up the wall like that.

Ah, five-part harmony. Love it.