MLP:FIM Returns the Franchise Where It Belongs: Back to Its Roots

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My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is in the middle of its third season, and the passionate brony community is out there displaying their dedication to the show, characters, worldbuilding, and so on. Artwork, music, customs, and plushies are being published a lot over the past several weeks since The Crystal Empire, and it bloomed further with several dedications to the Babs Seed song. The creativity and dedication are easily what makes the brony community thrive so much and why news outlets take notice.

Ironically, this community almost never happened…because the franchise was struggling mightily prior to FIM.

Long ago, MLP began production in 1982 with help from Hasbro and founder Bonnie Zacherle. The first TV series ran from 1982 to 1987, but G1 ran until 1995. When G1 was being developed, it was targeted to girls and boys, both the toys and animation. Despite using ponies, it never discriminated its audience and actually did quite a bit right, mainly the plot and animation. Although the animation and characterization haven't aged that well (back then, episodic animation had a rather limited budget, and that's evident in its production and graphics), it's still nostalgic enough to nonetheless carry weight.

But it's this little tidbit: the original purpose — the roots — of My Little Pony. The background, origin, original concept, and first execution (and a successful one at that). G2, G3, and G3.5 targeted towards girls only (and for G3.5, female toddlers). However, G1 targeted girls AND boys. It wasn't supposed to be an anthropomorphic competitor of Barbie, where the characters used the stereotypical female tropes, had personalities flatter than a board, and contained overall lazy writing. In contrast of G2/3/3.5, My Little Pony was supposed to be both gender-friendly and family-friendly. Not toddler-girl-friendly. Combined with its extremely poor effort, My Little Pony suffered as a product on the whole, eventually becoming a gigantic laughingstock in the media.

Then Friendship Is Magic, led by Lauren Faust, debuted. It started off slow, with only 4chan watching it in response to a relatively negative article. But as the weeks progressed, people got hooked, specifically teenage and adult males. Promotion spread via word of mouth, and the fanbase began to erupt into the passionate, crazy, controversial, and creative fandom it is today. When it gained popularity, the male fandom dubbed themselves as "bronies." But as the fandom widened, bronies applied to females, too. (Previously, most female fans would use the term "pegasister," but that's since changed.)

And for one whole reason: the show never disrespects its audience, which is family-friendly and gender-friendly. It teaches the morals so kids can understand, but adds depth of character, worldbuilding, older references, and overall clever writing so adults can enjoy it, too.

Is it a coincidence? I wouldn't say so. Lauren Faust worked with her eventual husband, Craig McCracken, on The Powerpuff Girls, a 1990s superhero parody cartoon that utilizes nearly the same bright, zany, simplistic art style and great characterization. Despite being "girly" in impression, it doesn't alienate one specific gender and/or age group, resulting in pop culture success.

But the big similarity is how they're family-friendly. Great for both kids and adults of all ages, and they each follow the same schtick. They weren't "kids shows."

But one difference between The Powerpuff Girls and My Little Pony is TPPG was a completely new franchise started by Craig McCracken. MLP:FIM is the fourth generation of a once proud franchise, "fourth generation" and "once proud franchise" being key phrases.

This is where MLP:FIM gets the respect it so deserves.

If it weren't for MLP:FIM and its eventual success, this franchise would have been DEAD! Not dying. DEAD! Discontinued. Ceased to exist. Officially jumped the shark and devoured by it!

Prior to My Little Pony, I always occasionally visited several toy stores just because, both the mom-and-pop shops and the big commercial chains, like Toys R Us, FAO Schwartz, etc. These kids' shelves would be packed with toys. Barely anything had My Little Pony on them, sometimes none at all. That was how obscure these products were back then. Despite a dedicated collector base at that point, you can't successfully run a franchise by having collectors buy them alone. You need an even bigger range of people buying them so the product has a chance to thrive. My Little Pony had absolutely no leverage because they didn't make any money.

But now it isn't dead — nor close to it — because Friendship Is Magic returns the product back to where it belongs: its roots. Its origins. And it does a great job showing it in its overall executiontion. Unless there's an extremely great reason, one should never ditch the origins of the franchise. For a great example, Thomas & Friends had that family-friendly origin surrounding realistic laws of the railway. The Railway Series (which is still running by Christopher Audry) and the first seven season of Thomas & Friends (the TV series) were family-friendly, intelligently written, and didn't insult the audience's intelligence, be they young or old. When HiT Entertainment bought the TV series prior to the eighth season (Christopher Audry still writes The Railway series and has no influence from HiT), they changed the storytelling, laws of the railway, audience, and overall premise (from a character/adventure hybrid to a character moral format) to target very young kids. Combined with its lazy writing, the series spiraled downhill, with the fifteenth season being considered the worst in writing, characterization/development, potential, realism, creativity, and storytelling. The horrible writing and plot-development of the episodes are why the older fans hate the newer seasons so much. And even if they wrote better, the roots of the show (the realism of the railway) tied everything together and gave the show developers the background and motivation. Without the respect of the railway laws, it shows a complete lack of respect for Reverend W. Audry (the founder and original writer of the whole series) and his family, who were responsible for The Railway Series in the first place.

This applies to My Little Pony. Zacherle intended it to be its own gender-neutral creation and have it suited for families. The G1 show, movie, and toyline showed heart, care, and passion from themselves and the audience it seeks. But with G2, G3, and G3.5, its quality suffered, and the roots of the franchise were alienated so Hasbro can cash with the very young girls, female toddlers, and their parents. G2 flopped, but G3/3.5 barely succeeded enough for the product to stay afloat. But it still disrespected the founder, and older fans noticed this. This is the reason why G3 and G3.5 gets no respect from me: It takes Zacherle's product and ransacks it far more than any other generation. G2 I'm neutral with despite its narrow audience and poor financial success. G1, however, gave Zacherle that respect, and I give G1 that respect in return.

This is what FIM is doing. It's giving Zacherle the respect she deserves. FIM treats its audience with respect, so the audience treats FIM respect in return. And it isn't merely noticed by bronies who became fans merely from FIM alone. There are plenty of bronies who were fans of G1 initially. And there's one big reason why: FIM shows G1 that identical respect. Lauren Faust herself adored G1 and used it as motivation to develop FIM, which is basically take the qualities of G1 and make it better in the form G4/FIM. The fans notice this respect in the writing and overall development, and this is one of the biggest why FIM is raved by the fandom so much. Bronies (male and female, young and old) catch this respect and are now attached to Friendship Is Magic as a result. Although Faust no longer works on the show, we still see this exact respect in the writers, voice actors, rise in social media, and the close relationship the bronies have with the professional staff (current and former). With FIM, Zacherle's vision finally comes in full circle.

MLP:FIM returns the franchise where it belongs: back to its roots. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

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It's a good thing that Lauren was such a fan of My Little Pony, and also of Bonnie. Add that to the fact she had participated and even created creat family-friendly shows, she got all the experience and personality needed to make another popular franchise...or in this case, revive one. She probablywanted to do the same thing she thought Ms. Zacherle wanted to do. It's true that Lauren had as a main thought breaking the "girly stereotype", which is awesome in itself, but she also wanted to make something that the franchise could look back and be completely proud. And she completely did that. I'm more than thinking that Bonnie is looking to the show and smiling, and I can totally see this happening. Hell, I'm surprised said creator hasn't been invited as a guest in any ponycon. I would really like to see an encounter between those too. Lauren made it an effort to make it a good show WHILE accomplishing what she had in mind. And she did it with more than she even thought she would.