My Little Pony is an overrated cartoon.

[Smokescape 58]

Ah, but you see, MLP is the only relatively good cartoon on modern television. While the shows you listed were fantastic, they've all met their end; they've come and gone from television, as I'm sure MLP will too one day. Will the community stick around after it's over? We have yet to see that. So for now, I think I'll enjoy it for what it is: A good cartoon.

[Akemi Homura 7,680]

I basically said what you said, just with a lot more words.

 

I know. I'm glad to see someone expanding upon my posts, nevertheless

[PaganPony 92]

While I agree to the notion that MLP gets most of its popularity from being a meme, I completely disagree to the fact that it's overrated.

 

I saw how FiM was growing in popularity on the internet in 2011, so I thought I'd check it out. That instance, my knowledge of the show's existence and my decision to check it out are the ONLY things that connects my love for the show to the internet.

I came, I saw, and I stayed.

 

I didn't stay for the memes, the internet jokes, or even the brony community.

If I hadn't like the show for what it was, I wouldn't be watching it.

 

I stayed because the animation was and is gorgeous. I stayed because the characters are charming and extremely memorable.

I stayed because it's adorable!

 

The internet memes could die, the brony community could fall apart (unlikely) and the forums could be taken down...

But since MLP is a genuinely wonderful cartoon, I would still be there, every Saturday, eager to see the new episode.

Just as I was with my old favourite cartoons... coming home from school so excited to see Code Lyoko or Robot Jones on the T.V. because those shows enraptured me, and I was attached to the characters as if they were good friends.

There are cartoons that lit up our childhood, and put magic and creativity out there to inspire us... to be artists, singers, voice actors, animators, writers...

 

This amazingly well-done cartoon is no different. It may be loved for the wrong reasons in some cases, but that doesn't make the show overrated as a whole.

Edited April 13, 2012 by PaganPony

[Prince Lightning Da Cute 619]

I disagree.

[Shagbark 15]

I've studied writing, and worked in animation (not as an animator - it's a little complicated to explain), and I made a list of some of the artistic choices made by the MLP crew that I think make it stand out, with no real competition in my mind except The Simpsons and Avatar. Briefly:

• Very few villain-driven plots. Stories featuring villains waste your time developing a throw-away character, and all develop the same aspects of your protagonists over and over, so that we know exactly how Batman throws an uppercut but have no idea what kind of movies he likes. More importantly, the villain sets things in motion and the heroes react to restore things to the way they were. This produces "heroes" with no ambitions and no vision.
• Characters are built around their positive qualities rather than around their flaws. If you're not a writer, you may not realize how rare this is. Writers constantly give beginning writers the advice to "round out your characters by giving them flaws". This is bad advice and produces characters who are stereotypes.
• The characters all have their own goals, careers, and/or hobbies. You know what they want to be doing in 10 years. They don't just meet in the Gang Clubhouse for show-themed activities. They don't have endless free time; they have to work for a living.
• The show invests time in exploring characters, rather than always taking the quick payoff of exploiting something already known about that character. This is rare because the incentives to the scriptwriter are to make their episode - not the series - as entertaining as possible; and this is most-easily done by making use of everything the previous episodes have built, without investing any time in building things for future episodes.
• Everything that happens on-screen advances story and all on-screen characters at the same time. This is a rule made by Walt Disney, and it's very hard to follow. The G1 My Little Pony breaks this rule continually. If a monster comes to town, and everypony runs away in the same way, Walt would have made the animators do it over until each pony reacted in a way that told you something about them.
• More than one central character. Stories that depend on one central character often over-build that character until he/she is annoyingly perfect.
• Not every character is in every episode. Like life.
• Characters act differently in different contexts. As opposed to pretty much all cartoon characters, excepting the Simpsons.
• Rejection of Aristotle's theory of story, which holds the rest of the industry in a death grip. Not every story has to be about someone facing a problem because of an inner flaw and then changing so as to overcome that flaw and solve that problem. But that's the dogma in the rest of the industry. Look for it next time you watch Sponge Bob. MLP has a fundamentally different theory of virtue than Western literature - it's about the group, rather than about a collection of individuals.
• Rejection of Disney's law of one emotion, which says that a character must always be experiencing exactly one emotion - not zero, not two, but one - because viewers are too stupid to understand conflicting emotions.
• Does not rely on making you alternate between feeling bad/afraid and feeling relieved as its only way of reaching the viewer.

Full post is at http://shagbark.live....com/60866.html .

 

Comparing MLP to Adventure Time or South Park, is like comparing apple pie to LSD or amphetamines. They're not remotely the same kind of thing. Comparing cartoons to cartoons is not very productive unless you're an animator; better to compare things that are alike under the surface (e.g., Scooby Doo vs. Buffy, not vs. South Park).

Edited April 17, 2012 by Shagbark

[Lightningchaser 13]

I like to personally thank all the haters by making the show so known and bronies who which the show to all bro hoof /)*

 

Also I know people who which other shows like powerpuff girls and stuff like that

[killersave60 22]

Are you kidding me MLP is not overated at all !!!

[Simcity11100 772]

I don't care if they get over rated, because Lil' Wayne is over rated and he's crap, but Ponies are 2000 times better, so why would it matter.

[RainbowAwesome 26]

I remember my brother telling me about the meme. I really disliked MLP right when I saw the meme. It looked really stupid. I remember saying that I will never be a brony because it looked stereotypically gay and being an out and proud bisexual I always did everything against stereotypes. Then I saw it of The Fine Bros and I saw how mean all the teens were to bronies and I decided I had to check it out. I saw the first episode and automatically feel in love with it. That kind of shows how just because it became a meme it doesn't mean we have to call it overrated. If your a brony don't let the publicity hit you. Be proud!

[Comet Tail 808]

@Lightningchaser

/)*(

Even though I didn't really understand the second half of that post, I saw a broohoof, so I returned it! Hooah!

 

Alright, this seems troll-y in nature but I shall make one observation on this.

 

Any individual who claims to understand the minds of a huge and growing collective of people and makes declarative statements as to why they are devoted to a thing is either some manner of narcissistic egotist or simply joking around and hoping for attention.

 

Beginning my reply to that with:

 

MLP has... I don't know, a certain something to it that I certainly can't resist. I believe it's part of a repressed desire to rebel against the gender stereotypes of society. Men have a repressed desire to like pastel (primarily pink) things considered girly, although the show can be quite gender-neutral at times. But inside, we men wish to embrace these things, due to the "Forbidden Fruit" concept (Essentially, people will be more drawn to the forbidden, usually out of a desire to rebel).

 

Essentially, it's a big wad of things that bring us to our mental knees and just make us want to love and tolerate the crap out of everything around us. To me, it's made me a better person. Never in a million years would I guess a cartoon about ponies would make me better as a human being.

 

Do I know why I find it so enthralling? Nope. Do I like it nonetheless? Eyup. Do I wish I knew what was so appealing about it? Eyup.

 

People can describe what they feel. But ultimately, the group is made of way more than just them.

 

What Kraznor said was right, we can't understand every person, because different people like it for different reasons, and different combinations of different reasons.

 

I like it, about 95% because of itself, not community or anything else.

 

To say it's overrated may describe your feelings on the matter, but for many of us, it doesn't.

 

Your points have already been refuted on page 1 of this thread, so I'll leave it at that

 

 

*Ahem,* I was writing a reply, but it turned into 4 pages on Open Office. This deserves a thread. And maybe an EQD post, if I revise it a few times...

 

Here's my reply: http://mlpforums.com/topic/13374-why-i-think-my-little-pony-is-an-underrated-cartoon/

[Mare in the Moon 173]

My little Pony? Overrated?

 

 

(Nobody did this yet, right?)

[Arashi Takamine 123]

I don't think it's overrated....I think it's a really good show with values a lot of people need to learn...MLP has great characters, good plotlines...

 

Frankly it reminds me in animation wise of it's anime-esque look and the fun light hearted but deep meaning to each episode of another show I like. Albiet the other one was basically parodying a lot...But this one whilst has some parodies is it's own league of just flawless animations and characters.

 

Frankly look at these two side by side:

 

MLP made in 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RowccSD-lw

 

Robot monkeys made in 2004.

 

Which looks like it has more solid animation?

 

 

And frankly our fanbase is young...New....By the time I found out about fans of the other show linked it's fanbase was a dying one and frankly not many of us even watch the show anymore...Hell none of us do because we realized it was good but not as good as newer shows.

Edited April 16, 2012 by Arashi Takamine

[Snow Shadow 41]

My troll sense is tingling.

[Guest]

I only learned about the show because I saw the meme being posted ad nauseum everywhere I went. I decided to give a show a watch, and liked it on its own merits. But there are people who are drawn to the show because of the fan community around it.

 

Is it bad that people want to be a part of a community, do we all have to extra edgy hipsters who don't want to be in a group? I love being a part of this fandom, I've never fit in quite so well as I do here. A lot of other fandoms turn me off due to one thing or another, I was with the Guardian's of Ga'Hoole fandom for a while, the Furry fandom, and a couple of others and they just never felt as welcoming as this one.

 

I get your point, and yes some of the fanbase stuff is a bit overhyped, but the show itself is quite good without any sort of hype at all. I actually joined the fandom only having seen a couple of avatars and images on know your meme, that was about all I knew about bronies before I became one.

[Squeaker 89]

I liked the shows you mentioned (the ones of them I saw, anyway) but I think you are missing some things. There is a certain (geez, somepony is going to take this word the wrong way) exploitability in the show that many other shows lack, something about the expressiveness and True to Life expressions of the characters maybe. And another thing. This show has FAR fewer disturbing elements than some of those other ones. I LOVED Courage as kid and I don't mind watching it if it ever comes on TV (don't get Boomerang) but CREEPY SAUCE. XD Just knowing my personality, if I had happened to find the show without knowing this fanbase existed, I would have watched it anyway. Having other bronies to hang and chat with certainly makes being a brony more fun than it would be alone though. Also, though we're all sick of hearing this line, the art is very... soothing? The smoothness of the animation lowers my blood pressure or something. Or maybe it's all the colors. SO. MANY. COLORS.

Obviously, it lacks some things, because nothing has everything, but I think that would fall more under difference of opinion in what one enjoys in a show, rather than it simply is lacking because it doesn't have them. It has a large following because many people like many of the same things about the show. Unlike some things, it is SO varied, that many different types of people can "mix'n'match" things they like from it, and we all come together as fans.

And perhaps just because ponies could be a reason. Agreeing with you on that point in a way, though any talking animal probably would have suited me fine. If they were humans I probably would have been bored, and it would have not been able to have some of the things it has now.

Also, part of what makes it big is that it is a created Universe, not just characters, not just lessons, it has Equestria and we can let our imaginations gallop over the entire country or continent or whatever the flip it is. And we are given things within Equestria that pique our curiosity and leave space for us to speculate, Everfree and Canterlot and a six-second DJ. In a way, the lack of ultra-structured planning is conducive to the uniqueness of the show.

Anyway.

I don't think I could ever call it "just a great cartoon." It's definitely the only thing I find worth putting forth large amounts of effort to find in American television right now. And I watch it online. XD

So. That's my two bits.

EDIT: Not that there are not people who join just be be one with the herd. I completely understand how that would float some's boat.

Edited April 16, 2012 by Squeaker

[SBaby 660]

In the past few weeks, I've come to question my fascination with My Little Pony more and more. To this end, I have come to a few conclusions:

 

1. My Little Pony became popular only because people were enthralled with the idea of being a part of a fan community that surrounded a media franchise that shouldn't have had such a big fandom (outside of little girls and women in their 30s and 40s) to begin with.

Saying a show has a bigger fandom than it should, isn't a conclusion. It's an opinion. Especially when you don't say why this is.

 

As it is, if the show became popular because of people that wanted to become part of a fan community, then it's like alot of other cartoons nowadays. Most cartoons have fan communities today. So yes, that is probably one of the reasons it became popular. But what's your point? I mean, this kind of thing happens all the time. How does this turn into a reason that the show is overrated? That's like saying every cartoon with a fan community or a fandom is overrated.

 

2. My Little Pony is a good cartoon, but not a great one. I can easily name a few other cartoons which exceed it in terms of writing and characters: The Angry Beavers, Rugrats, Invader Zim, Hey Arnold!, Courage: The Cowardly Dog, and even Lauren Faust's own Powerpuff Girls.

First of all, Lauren Faust didn't create Powerpuff Girls. That was her husband, Craig McCracken.

 

Second, the whole basis of this argument seems to stem from the comparison with cartoons that are largely not being produced anymore (yes, I know Courage the Cowardly Dog is getting a reboot; I'm talking about the others). And perhaps we may have pinpointed it here. It looks as if you might be taking the fact that those shows (which were good shows, don't get me wrong) are no longer being produced, out on the FiM franchise.

 

Again though, this looks more like your own opinion, and not an actual conclusion.

 

3. The way the Internet blew up My Little Pony is one reason why so many people view it through rose-tinted glasses. The show is good, but not that good. Perhaps the vibrant fan community makes people think differently, but from an objective standpoint, My Little Pony is an above-average cartoon at best.

Again, this sounds more like an opinion than an actual conclusion or theory. And that's fine, if that's what you're going for here. But you said these were conclusions, and I'm just not seeing them.

 

To this end, My Little Pony is overrated. Why don't other similar fan communities erupt for old cartoons? Oh right, because they have failed to become memes like MLP!

 

To what end? You haven't really presented any kind of theories or conclusions other than your own personal opinions. As it is, there have been hundreds of fan communities for hundreds of cartoons. SatAM, Samurai Pizza Cats, Tokusatsu, Pokemon, Digimon, the list goes on.

[Feather Spiral 1,892]

I love this thread because of all the posts explaining in detail why MLP:FiM is NOT an overrated cartoon. :3

 

Which looks like it has more solid animation?

That, and I've observed a lot of cartoons that overuse robots. Which are sentient and very anthropomorphic, of course, otherwise they're simply computerized machines and not robots.

[KakeiTheWolf 652]

So... much... text...

[Ezynell 2,037]

To this end, My Little Pony is overrated. Why don't other similar fan communities erupt for old cartoons? Oh right, because they have failed to become memes like MLP!

 

[prettycool 65]

Alright you just completly owned the OP of this thread. I have nothing else to see in this world.

[Storm Spark 115]

In the past few weeks, I've come to question my fascination with My Little Pony more and more. To this end, I have come to a few conclusions:

 

1. My Little Pony became popular only because people were enthralled with the idea of being a part of a fan community that surrounded a media franchise that shouldn't have had such a big fandom (outside of little girls and women in their 30s and 40s) to begin with.

2. My Little Pony is a good cartoon, but not a great one. I can easily name a few other cartoons which exceed it in terms of writing and characters: The Angry Beavers, Rugrats, Invader Zim, Hey Arnold!, Courage: The Cowardly Dog, and even Lauren Faust's own Powerpuff Girls.

3. The way the Internet blew up My Little Pony is one reason why so many people view it through rose-tinted glasses. The show is good, but not that good. Perhaps the vibrant fan community makes people think differently, but from an objective standpoint, My Little Pony is an above-average cartoon at best.

 

To this end, My Little Pony is overrated. Why don't other similar fan communities erupt for old cartoons? Oh right, because they have failed to become memes like MLP!

 

Well put.

[Zenoctilles 102]

I apologize for not responding to everyone's posts concerning my thoughts on the matter. For some reason, this site scrolls slowly on Google Chrome.

 

I am not denying that MLP: FiM is a good cartoon. It is an excellent cartoon, and I appreciate it very heavily. However, the rabid fanbase gives most people the impression that MLP: FiM is a much better show than it actually is. For example, it is rare to see the fanbase criticizing general aspects of the cartoon or even bothering to give MLP: FiM the critical eye it deserves in addition to the praise it also deserves. You see people prancing around the Internet declaring this show as if it were the Book of Revelation come true.

 

At the end of the day, it's a bit of children's entertainment. Bronies overrate the cartoon to the point where MLP: FiM is not simply a children's show - it's a lifestyle to them. For example, how many fangames do you see for Avatar: The Last Airbender? How many fan conventions are there for Downton Abbey? These things barely exist for other franchises, but they exist for MLP, because of highly dedicated fans who believe that the show transcends its original purpose, i.e., a piece of entertainment.

[HomuraBL 851]

I apologize for not responding to everyone's posts concerning my thoughts on the matter. For some reason, this site scrolls slowly on Google Chrome.

 

I am not denying that MLP: FiM is a good cartoon. It is an excellent cartoon, and I appreciate it very heavily. However, the rabid fanbase gives most people the impression that MLP: FiM is a much better show than it actually is. For example, it is rare to see the fanbase criticizing general aspects of the cartoon or even bothering to give MLP: FiM the critical eye it deserves in addition to the praise it also deserves. You see people prancing around the Internet declaring this show as if it were the Book of Revelation come true.

 

At the end of the day, it's a bit of children's entertainment. Bronies overrate the cartoon to the point where MLP: FiM is not simply a children's show - it's a lifestyle to them. For example, how many fangames do you see for Avatar: The Last Airbender? How many fan conventions are there for Downton Abbey? These things barely exist for other franchises, but they exist for MLP, because of highly dedicated fans who believe that the show transcends its original purpose, i.e., a piece of entertainment.

 

Do you know what a fan base is? We have discussed the flaws already. But people want to think good about things they love, not negatively. Theres even a whole series of videos pointing out animation errors. Negative stuff is for reviews. Besides...what are the negatives huh?

[prettycool 65]

rabid fanbase

 

Ok. This forum is not a "rabid fanbase"

It's actually pretty tame. We don't go bouncing around saying "OMFOSNFIUSNBGUISB MLP: FIM IS TEH BEST CARTON EVAAAAAR AND AL OTHR CARTONS SUUUUX!!!!!!!!!!!"

 

And if you really wanna see something "rabid" then check out this discusting excuses for bronies in this video:

[1Fluttershy 411]

For example, how many fangames do you see for Avatar: The Last Airbender? How many fan conventions are there for Downton Abbey?

 

It's not like fans of other franchises can't make any fangames or have any fan conventions...

 

These things barely exist for other franchises, but they exist for MLP, because of highly dedicated fans who believe that the show transcends its original purpose, i.e., a piece of entertainment.

The show means more to a lot of us than just being entertaining, so I think it's safe to say the show has transcended its original purpose.