Traditionally,
one hundred episodes of any series is considered the threshold for said series to be viable for syndication. Some say the minimum is sixty five, which explains Magical Mystery Cure. It has something to do with maximizing returns on re-runs or something, because capitalism makes the world go 'round. Regardless, a hundred episodes is a significant achievement for any show.
Rarely, though, is it a love letter.
Quite a few years ago now, on a cartoons and comics board of an imageboard site that has no different of a reputation today than it did then, the first frames of this new show by a very well-known cartoonist appeared and sparked something unique, if not unprecedented. As always with such things, after a certain point they begin to take on a life beyond what their creators envisioned. An animation error was spotted for a brief moment in a crowded scene. The commenters named this horse, wrote stories about her, and grew attached to her- some ironically, some genuinely. They found certain pairs of horses seemingly always paired together in the background, and made stories about them, too. A pony with a particularly unique style always drew attention, even though the show was never about them.
Their brief moments in the spotlight sometimes carried over into their being an integral part of the undercurrent of community that spawned around these personal small horses. Though the captains of the good ship My Little Pony certainly knew about them, they kept their acknowledgement of them to a minimum, almost always for the best.
Once in a while, though, you can jump the shark and it's okay. The boat will keep sailing.
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