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Family Appreciation Day (January 7th 2011, 22 minutes)

Summary: Apple Bloom learns a lot about her family history.

The timberwolves are howling. The zap apples are coming. I believe this is the first reference to timberwolves.

Looking forward to making zap apple jam for years. Either this is the first year she's old enough to do all the tasks, or the zap apples don't occur every year.

Five petals, so they're at least similar to regular apples in that respect. Otherwise, we're dealing with a very interesting magical plant.

Interesting, there was a last odd step there after the apples changed color. They changed shape slightly, into a longer, heavier apple like a red delicious.

Uncle Apple Strudel. I like his Bavarian outfit.

Seed collectors. This was, and still is, a real thing. If anyone is familiar with the story about Johnny Appleseed, that was a real person by the name of John Chapman. He traveled all over the mid-west planting nurseries from seeds. Interestingly, the orchards he planted were not for eating apples, but for sour apples specifically used to make hard cider and apple jack.

The outfits of the Apple family during the flashback aren't from the first wave of American settlers in the mid-to-late 1700's, but the second wave of the Wagon Trains of the 1830's to 1850's. It's the hats that give it away. The 'ten gallon hat' design was fixed in 1860's by Stetson, but the basic shape had existed for centuries. Bowler hats were far more common among early settlers however. The fact that all of the Apple stallions are wearing Stetson style mean it's a later period. This also lines up with the Johnny Appleseed reference, as he was active from 1792-1845.

Okay, the Timberwolves. Not what I was originally expecting when I first saw this episode, but fine. I can work with this. Another unique monster for MLP, these creatures are far larger than ponies and appear to be magically animated plant creatures, somehow connected to the zap apple lifecycle. Honestly, these seem like Discord's sense of humor: "You ponies like to eat plants? How about some plants that like to eat *you*?"

They don't like loud noises. That's useful to know.

The various odd tasks feel very similar to many home 'receipts' that are commonly thought of as witchcraft. The end result worked at least once, possibly just out of coincidence, and the practitioner didn't know which steps they preformed were actually necessary or even relevant, but they became part of the receipt just in case.