- Story by Barbara Kesel, art by Brenda Hickey
The annual street vendor fair has come to Ponyville, and just as Twilight and Spike are about to go enjoy the wares, Pinkie barges into the castle, asking Twilight to help her with her insatiable appetite for the one particular snack that her hypermetabolism cannot absorb, PheNOMNOMenons. (They look sort of like cupcakes topped with icing, sprinkles, an orange slice and a cherry.) Willing to help, Twilight starts with some basic aversion therapy but Pinkie is too easily drawn by the snack to stay put. Twilight tries locking up the castle to keep Pinkie in, but her hyperactivity easily busts the chains Twilight had used. After restraining an increasingly angry Pinkie, Twilight creates a device that runs off Pinkie's own hyperactivity to keep her occupied, but once Twilight tells Pinkie that if she can break out from it she can get her PheNOMNOMenons, Pinkie quickly defeats the device.
Twilight catches up to Pinkie as she starts downing a snack, but Pinkie tells her she has to try one. After one bite, Twilight is overwhelmed by the flavor and both binge on PheNOMNOMenons, Twilight quickly realizing that there's little she could do on her own to stop Pinkie from having the delightful treat, but gets inspiration that she could make Pinkie choose to quit on her own. Feigning failure, Pinkie suddenly rushes to Twilight's aid, forgoing the snacks. When Twilight points this out, Pinkie realizes she has the willpower herself, and successfully wills herself to not eat one of the offered treats. Pinkie gives Twilight a great amount of gratitude for her help before she goes off to find something else to eat.
This issue provides examples of:
- All There in the Manual: The two mares selling PheNOMNOMenons had no names given, but artist Brenda Hickey drew them separately and gave them the Punny Names of "Fawn Doo" (the maroon one with the bonnet) and "Marcie Pan".
- Art Shift: As Pinkie (and later Twilight) get caught up on the PheNOMNOMenons, the art starts to get a bit on the wacky side, but shifts back to (mostly) normal once Pinkie finds her self-control.
- Audience? What Audience?: A transition panel from one of Twilight's plans to another has the caption "Later...". Pinkie comments on the caption that she's thanking Twilight "later", and Spike is bewildered at what Pinkie is looking at.
- Balloon Belly: Twilight and Pinkie Pie each get one after they gorge on the PheNOMNOMenons. Spike also gets one when he binges on jeweled pretzels at the end.
- Brick Joke: Spike anticipates a cart selling jeweled pretzels in the beginning. Guess what he pigs out on at the end?
- The Cameo: Wheat Grass shows up as one of the stall vendors.
- One of the pirate ponies from the main series Pirate arc is selling pineapples.
- Continuity Nod: Pinkie gets in some very odd moods, and as such, Pinkamenia Diane Pie returns a few times.
- Department of Redundancy Department: When Twilight dramatically tells Pinkie that she has given up trying to help her, she decides to throw a party called "Twilight Sparkle's Sparkly Twilight Party", full of twilight, sparkles, and an accordion-playing monkey.
- Eleventy Zillion: "And I can't stop at one! Or fifty! Or a thousand! Or a million jillion! Or a kazoomazillionzillion!"
- Everyone Has Standards: While Pinkie is thankful for Twilight's help in breaking her PheNOMNOMenon addiction, she calls her out on using the locks and chains.
- Going Cold Turkey: Ultimately, the way Pinkie breaks her addiction amounts to this.
- Gosh Dang It to Heck!: One panel, after Pinkie has foiled another of her plans, has Twilight going "Oh, ..." with the last phrase covered up by another panel with the word "CHEEZBURGER". (Her mouth is in a state where one would say an "f"-sounding word, making this even more amazing it got past the censor.)
- G-Rated Drug: The new snack that Pinkie can't stop chowing down on, especially since Twilight instantly gets just as hooked on them after one bite. The jeweled pretzels Spike gorges on also qualify.
- Hourglass Plot: After Twilight and Pinkie wean themselves from the PheNOMNOMenons, Spike chows down on jeweled pretzels in the end.
- Noodle Incident: According to Pinkie Pie, the last time she ate a PheNOMNOMenon, there was an incident involving another pony, a top hat and a curtain that she doesn't completely remember.
- Rube Goldberg Device: Twilight builds one to try to confine Pinkie Pie. It fails.
- Self-Restraint: What Pinkie learns to do.
- Very Special Episode: Even from the covers and synopsis, one can see this being a parallel to someone helping another to break some type of addiction.
- The Voiceless: The two Elegant Gothic Lolita-style salesponies working at the PheNOMNOMenon stand never speak.
