Just for Kicks (G1.5 TV episode, September 18^th 1992, 11 minutes)

Summary: Starlight has a crush on Ace, the star of the soccer team. But Ace like Melody instead. Shenanigans!

This is the episode I watched a long time ago that turned me off MLP. My memory of it is the girl's only acceptable desire is to attract boys, and boys are universally portrayed as selfish, brainless jocks. The writer seemed to need to vent their own issues with the 'popular people' from when they were in school. But that's just my memory of it, and the impression I got when I saw it the first time.

That looked like strawberries and bean sprouts in that smoothie. *shudder* 90's.

Ballooning. There is definitely a theme with MLP and hot-air balloons. They show up in every generation one way or another. Huh, I wonder how hard it would be to make an actual working hot-air balloon toy in-scale to the MLP toys. They have toy dirigibles, can you get a toy hot-air balloon? *pauses for research* Yes, but the only 'working' one I can find is from the Smithsonian Adventures line and is a bit bigger than I was thinking. And you have to have one of those hot-air popcorn poppers to inflate it apparently. All the others use helium and blimp-shaped. Oh well.

Yes, it does matter. Hackney is an awful secret advisor.

Interesting the soccer ball is orange and back, not white and black. I have vague memories of professional balls coloured like that to make it easier for the camera to pick it up for televising.

Is dribbling the actual term? I thought that was basketball.

Again with the ability to control tails as if they are tentacles.

Okay, the message is actually still bad: change yourself to attract a mate. But there is a secondary message: you don't know what you're good at unless you try different things. I still think this is a bad episode, but it's not as bad as I remembered it being.