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The Cutie Pox (November 12th 2011, 22 minutes)

Summary: Apple Bloom finds a way to force her cutie-mark, and suffers the consequences.

There is a bowling alley in Ponyville. Dedicated bowling alleys have been around since the 1900's, but that specific design with the swooping roof is very atomic-era 1950's.

I like the way the CMC always assume they'll all have the same cutie-marks.

No specialty bowling shoes? Huh.

Heh. Cute Big Lebowski reference.

Poor Pinkie, poor Rarity. They really are trying there. Though that hat...

And the other two let Apple Bloom wander into the Everfree Forest without trying to stop her? The risk level of the forest seems to have been downgraded a lot.

Zecora to the rescue. Repairing a chipped tooth with a potion is a fascinating application of magic.

I was kinda hoping for an explanation or story around Zecora's cutie-mark-like symbol at this point, but oh well.

The artificial cutie-mark is a lot more on-the-nose than cutie-marks seem to be normally, and is giving Apple Bloom the actual skills to go along with it.

Apple Bloom uses her tail to support the weight of the hoop. We're back to the prehensile tail again. Thinking back, have we seen any non-Earth Pony use their tail that way? I can't remember.

These artificial cutie-marks are also *forcing* the pony to perform them, rather than being standard talents, and are presented as a disease. I wonder if there are other related diseases.

Apple Bloom is now speaking French, speaking in 'Fancy' as AJ says. Just out of curiosity, I pulled up the French version of this episode on YouTube, and Apple Bloom switches to an somewhat antique and formal form of French when she goes 'Fancy', much like Luna's dialect in the French version. Not what I expected, but interesting.

Okay, if Apple Bloom gave herself Cutie Pox by drinking an incorrectly mixed potion, then technically she doesn't have a 'disease', but something more akin to an allergic reaction or poisoning. Therefore, either the reason why there is no cure for 'Cutie Pox' is because the physicians were treating the wrong thing, or Apple Bloom doesn't have the Cutie Pox as such but is duplicating the symptoms out of coincidence.

Zecora is really, really good at carrying the solution to the day's problem whenever she goes to Ponyville.