Saturday, July 30, 2011

How Certain Episodes Might Have Played Out



Here, have some videos I made instead of walls of text that I made!

I was bored this afternoon, and got to thinking just exactly how certain episodes of the show would have played out had a character in them either used some common sense or not been a troll. All meant to be taken lightly, of course. Let's call them an experiment- or, if you prefer, a commercial break between the fanfics.

They're all after the break, if you're interested.










94 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love you Cereal

Anonymous said...

So true.

Autumn Wind said...

That's hilarious! I really enjoyed it all.

Sgt. Grub said...

Ok, that was Lolzy. Good work, Cerial. :P

Anonymous said...

Yes.

Kill me, I'm a PONY said...

This is why I subscribed to Cereal; I get stuff before it shows up on the Daily

PanManDan said...

That got a good laugh outta me, more please!

Danfish77 said...

Or how about any time they encounter something that could be solved by flying? Pretty sure Rainbow Dash didn't need to fix the bridge in episode 2. She and Fluttershy could just ferry the others across.

*sigh* said...

Hey Cereal, isn't it about time for another Equestrian Innovations "episode"? You've spaced them about a month between each other before, so I was just curious.

Otherunicorn said...

Then third one is just so perfect!

Anonymous said...

Bahahahahaha, so true. Great work, Cereal, hope to see more.

-Joe

Anonymous said...

bahahahahaha

Anonymous said...

funny, though I think the purpose for, in at least the first two is to drive the point that they should have used the easy common sense method rather then go through all the trouble they did.

Like fluttershy should have asked the princess about the bird supposed health problem or applejack should have just gotten her friends to help out.

Anonymous said...

I like them.

blakestar15 said...

worth it, but then if that happened who knows how many bronies we would have lost..?

Athen said...

One word, teleport

Etoile said...

@Danfish: Actually if you had paid attention to the first time they flew anypony anywhere, Fluttershy almost dropped Twilight, she's not used to carrying ponies. If she were as physically fit as RD, then that would have worked, but tying a rope is a hell of lot easier than carrying four ponies across a near bottomless chasm where one slip up could kill your friend.

With Fluttershy's strength, they might have managed one pony, but again, simply tying the rope is a much simpler solution, and involves less risk.

ROBCakeran53 said...

The third one made made me lul my pants off. Amazing job Cereal.

Eddie Perkins said...

Those are awesome. Third one is best.

Octavia said...

Yeah, I think we've gone over this. lol There's many times where a character could have just owned up to something or said something and that would have been that.

But of course, if that had happened, why, we woudn't have all these fun episodes to watch. :P

Anonymous said...

"You do magic. What's the difference?"
"...Well, fuck."

Anonymous said...

Cereal, you're my favourite.

Anonymous said...

Happy Friendship Day!
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=207827665923167&view=wall&notif_t=event_wall

Fickle said...

That's what we need. The episodes should all be only about twenty seconds long. Great job!

Anonymous said...

They were all good, but I thought the first one was hilarious!

Anonymous said...

Much better than anticipated. Cereal just got 20 % cooler.

Star Winged Brit said...

... INGENIOUS!

Raven said...

Ha! Brilliant! I would say by the comments, that these are a hit!

ElectricZoNe said...

Haha I think about this all the time when I see a plot that can be derailed with a simple thought or idea but then they wouldn't have a story. Like in the episode Swarm of the century. If Pinkie Pie just told them what the parasprites were or if they just ask Pinkie Pie why she needed all those instruments, that whole problem could of been avoided lol.

Star Whistle said...

First two make perfect sense. The last one is amusing for Twilight's expression, but rather misunderstands the setting.

'Magic' in FiM is thoroughly understood and documented. One-third of the population can actively manipulate it as part of their own bodies.

Compare that to one goofy pony who claims she can predict the future.

Anonymous said...

Surprised this hasn't been done yet. CEREAL IS WISE

3 was my favorite, Pinkie is also wise

helldiver450 said...

*quotes the gay dragon* "it's so true"

Anonymous said...

@Star Whistle
>claims
so did you watch the episode or

Chetoos said...

Art of the dress:
Everypony sees their dresses, and accepts them

S.Aura Knight said...

On an unrelated name: For some reason I can't get my brain to not think of this title in any other way than a parody of "How the States Got Their Shapes". I don't know, I blame sleep deprivation.

On a related note, these made me laugh out loud. I loved them all, but props for the third one. The second one was the weakest, but that's because I didn't hear "Don't use your fancy mathematics to muddy the issue!", which is one of my favorite lines from the show.

Anonymous said...

I know there's a stigma for doing this outside of certain places but, it's just simply too true.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ld8j0pXEYd1qfvcfzo1_400.jpg

>MFW

BronyMike said...

Hah. Pretty great. You should do more, I'm sure there are lapses in judgement in a bunch more episodes. Swarm of the Century, Bridle Gossip, and possibly Boast Busters could all have had their conflicts avoided had the ponies said a single sentence or acted more rationally.

GabuEx said...

Hahaha, these are positively brilliant! :D

I can't believe I've never seen this done before; it's so obvious when I watch it.

7heSama said...

I lol'd, three times.

Ponyj0 said...

I'm also doing vids like these with the phrase in 10 seconds flat in each episode. I'm up to 6 right now but it's great to see other people doing these too =)

The J.A.M. said...

And now, a video on how the show should have begun:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si0m7aP7VP8

Ihaveanamebecause? said...

yyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssss

Theses are awesome.

MOAR

Anonymous said...

Pinkie Keen: better ending

Twilight Sparkle: "I still don't believe all this twitchy tail stuff."
Pinkie Pie: "Oh! okee dokee lokie!"

D. Shadows said...

Common sense is not as common as we think it is.

ActionScripter9109 said...

Hah. Saw these this afternoon on your channel, and was wondering when you'd post them. Very nice work! I enjoyed them.

Anonymous said...

Eh twilight still had reason to be skeptical during that point in the episode.

It wasn't until she was hiding in the bush taking notes did she completely abandon all rational reasoning for the sake of her pride.

Captain_Waffle said...

These are ridiculously funny, I don't even know why, they just are.

Sometimes you just have to believe something is funny instead of asking why.

Venddorfish said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Poco said...

These are hilarious. I'll have to watch your channel.

Venddorfish said...

Cereal's subs, I approve (for the most part). For the videos, I'm pretty sure comments above and below have answered for me.

Billy Neighs said...

These remind me of a YouTube Poop fad from a few years ago. Or rather, they remind me of the video that started the fad, because most of the responses failed to capture the genius of the original. Those pony ones, however, are spot-on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubfRoUhw7ms

ZarPaulus said...

Twilight was pretty much acting like a scientist in "Pinkie Keen", despite being a magical unicorn working for a physical goddess.

She tried to figure out how Pinkie sense works and failed.

Jett Midknight said...

You are now required to do this for every episode. HIYA MULE!

Star Whistle said...

@ZarPaulus

Magic and goddesses are understood scientific fact in the FiM setting, so that's hardly a surprise.

Unfortunately for Twilight, Pinkie Sense is a one-episode phenomenon following the rule of funny, so it's pretty impossible to study properly.

Gantz said...

Dat Colgate...

DreadedCandiru2 said...

One could do the same thing for 'Winter Wrap-up' by assigning Twilight to logistics from the get-go. Were someone with sense to assign ponies to their teams, we wouldn't have a pegasus with depth perception issues assigned to gather the birds, would we?

ElectricZoNe said...

@ZarPaulus


She tried for like five seconds lol.

SkyrimOrBust said...

2 and 3 were beyond the threshold of epicness.

1 was :/

Star Whistle said...

@DreadedCandiru2

That was Ditzy, who may or may not be Derpy. And I don't think depth perception is how you tell which way is South.

Although sending the pegasus who's bad with directions to go somewhere and bring back the birds, after she messed it up last year, is probably not a wise decision.

flashfox466 said...

I totally agree with 1.

However I have to disagree with 2 and 3. For Applebuck Season, we often forget that Applejack is running a respected business. Is it really honest to employ free labor out of her friends if she has a reputation to uphold? I mean, I'm pretty she's not paying her friends, otherwise she would hire help.

As for Feeling Pinkie Keen, you have to remember that Twilight's magic is an academic subject. You have to remember that it's not like a faith based earth religion where our gods only give vague signs of it's existence, their gods lives amongst them and teaches them the ways of magic and how it works. It's all she knows and understands, and to learn about a form of magic outside the teachings of her god, well, in some ways is a form of heresy in it's own.

Anonymous said...

These were great. The 3rd one especially gave me a good chuckle.

Anonymous said...

@flashfox466

Applejack's problem was that her work partner was injured and all of her family was busy with their own work. At that point her options were:

1). Do as much work as she normally would by herself, but this would mean that a large portion of her harvest wouldn't get done in time, and produce is a time-sensitive product. For a farmer, this is a pretty big problem.

2). Try to do ALL the work by herself. We saw how well this worked out.

3). Ask for help from others.

Given those three options...imperil your finances and your livelihood, work yourself into delirium, or ask your friends to help on this one unlucky occasion, it seems pretty obvious what the sensible option here is.

nemryn said...

@Anonymous There's one episode where the Pinkie Sense predicts things accurately, and 25 where it doesn't.

Icehawk said...

@ZarPaulus

Poor writing of her character. She took a lazy attempt at studying it and gave up far too quickly.

As others mentioned, magic in FIM is something properly quantifiable and testable and has it's known behaviors and limits. The Pinkie sense was not something that had been documented before and its perceived results were outside the norm of what magic is known to cover.

Sure, in the end it could likely turn out to be some sort of magic related phenomenon, but Twilight gave up on studying it way too soon and what little she did was fairly half-assed.

Anonymous said...

Awesome, I'd love more. Especially seriously Cereal? No Swarm of the Century?
"They're parasprites and they can only leave with polka music"
"oh thanks Pinkie. here's a tuba."
"thanks"
*credits*

La Barata said...

Like, seriously. What if Applejack had just said "Can I just SEE the recipe? Because I'm TOTALLY tripping balls right now"

Vermillion Twilight said...

This post reminds me of how much I've missed good ol' talk about an actual show and not which pony is humping which other pony in socks while Hasbro keeps using ugly vectors again in their MLP:FiM colostomy bags.

I can't wait for Season 2 and some fresh pony canon :)

Vest said...

Boast Busters:
"There's no need to be struttin' around and showing off like that!"
"Oh?"
"That's...MY job!"

*Sonic Rainboom*

(Dumbfounded Trixie face-THE END)

Furbyz said...

For Feeling Pinkie Keen I was expecting Twilight to remember she can teleport :/

Still great stuff though.

Wierdplatformer said...

But logic isn't as much fun!

Laurence Brown said...

I greatly approve of these humorous clips in the manner in which they intended to be viewed (as silly little pokes at cartoon plot logic, instead of trying to replace 22 minutes of pony awesomeness with just a 20 second blurb), and I seem to be against the consensus in that I think #2 was the best one. Maybe because I love the idea that there now exists an 'episode' of MLP:FiM where the character with the majority of the lines is Big MacIntosh, but still =)

Well done Cereal! Thanks for sharing.

DreadedCandiru2 said...

In my mind, "Boast Busters" would have made a lot more sense had the locals accurately pigeon-holed Trixie as a street performer with a minor attitude problem trying to make a living making exaggerated claims that she doesn't really believe either; granted, this wouldn't have stopped Nit and Wit from doing what they did but it would have meant that the grandstanding blowhard wouldn't have been treated like a radioactive leper with Tourette's.

Ewyndall said...

Very true indeed but...

it's booooooooooooooriiiiiing.

I would hate to live in a world where everything and everyone makes sense. Would take away the fun :P

Ewyndall said...

Oh and forgot to add one of my favourite quote:

"Isn't sanity really just a one-trick pony anyway? I mean all you get is one trick, rational thinking, but when you're good and crazy, oooh, oooh, oooh, the sky is the limit." - The Tick

Anonymous said...

In Applebuck Season alternate, Applejack becomes suddenly more orange. Wat?

James Corck said...

Yeah! I liked these ones a lot :3

Hopefully this will shut those who keep nitpicking the episodes for their lack of common sense. Without that, there's no episode. Say bye bye to the Baked Bads, Derpy's cameo and The Jackety Jax chase.

Present Perfect said...

That was hilarious.

Anonymous said...

Hehe awesome Cereal :)

Firleycat said...

Even if Celestia did tell them about phoenix life cycles at the start, I can still see the events of "Bird In a Hoof" happening regardless. Fluttershy can't stand to see any animals in pain so she would have tried to help Philomena feel better, even though this was natural for her. Its just the way Fluttershy is.

nemryn said...

@James Corck Ticket Master had Jackety Jax too!

Boomerang503 said...

For some reason, this reminds me of Gazorra's edits of Star Trek TNG.

Anonymous said...

@Icehawk That's because she was more concerned with being right than actually trying to study it properly.

Anonymous said...

Party of One

Have Rainbow Dash show up and cut to clip of Pinkie Pie saying cupcakes

Anonymous said...

@DreadedCandiru2 I took the reaction to Trixie as being because "magic shows" aren't a generally accepted form of entertainment in pony society, the term would have a different meaning for them than the way we'd think of it.

Rakshata said...

I honestly think Twilight should've been informed of some diseases and disorders...
People are able to predict things based upon how their body reacts to certain environmental changes. For instance, Rheumatism makes your bones hurt when the weather gets bad. If pinkie's twitch for bad weather involved her bones hurting, that'd be a disease/disorder enabling her to predict it.
While everything else seems a bit... far fetched, like being able to predict when doors are gonna open, it could just be she senses atmospheric changes of objects moving through space and her mind attempts to cope with it through twitches...
But then again I'm not a scientist, so it's possible none of what I just said would actually work as an explanation. ^^'

Alfador said...

Twilight understands unicorn magic. She studied it all her life in Canterlot.

Earth ponies and pegasi also have magic. It's just that since they don't have a horn, they can't consciously focus it. Pinkie Pie's muscle-twitch premonitions. Applejack being able to funnel an entire tree's worth of apples into baskets instead of having them scatter randomly across the ground.

Heck, Twilight should KNOW by the following episode that the various magical abilities of non-unicorns are documented in her books--she found a spell to duplicate the pegasus ability to walk on clouds! I would not be surprised if, buried somewhere in the library, is a book with a passage something like this:

"Involuntary muscle-spasm premonitions. This innate ability, peculiar to earth ponies, allows the fortunate (or sometimes unfortunate) pony to predict the future by means of muscle twitches that happen in response to near-future events. Unfortunately, the response is unique to each pony, so only one with a great attention to detail will be able to deduce the patterns and use this ability to make accurate predictions. For those who take great care to document each occurrence along with significant events immediately following, the predictive ability can be a great boon. For others, it can be little more than a nuisance, especially if a particularly common event causes a precognitive twitch that interferes with day-to-day activity."

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