Original air date: December 18th, 1992
Bright Eyes enters the ice cream shop to gleefully announce that she's been selected to be a foreign exchange student and live on Tropical Island for a week with a new family. The girls find the idea scary as they believe that sea monsters exist around the area and that the natives eat each other and sacrifice ponies to volcanoes, which Bright Eyes finds ridiculous.
When she arrives on the island, she's frightened at the sight of an active volcano and initially wants to go home. She then meets Moki, who introduces her to two other members of the Sunbright family; her mother Mami and brother Ikki. They invite Bright Eyes into a canoe, but fearing sea monsters, she tries to get out of it by claiming to be allergic to boats, though she gets on board in the end.
While on the canoe, Bright Eyes sees what she thinks is one of the sea monsters Patch mentioned, and hits it with an oar, only to find it's Papi, Moki's father, who gives Bright Eyes an oyster containing a pearl. When it's time for lunch, Ikki's wording of, "We're happy we're having you, Bright Eyes" scares her into thinking they might eat her, but fortunately, they're just having peas and carrots.
Moki shows Bright Eyes around the house, containing many of the same amenities as a house back in Ponyland, and gives Bright Eyes a seashell necklace. Bright Eyes later writes a letter to her friends, saying there's nothing strange about the Sunbrights at all. She then learns they're going on a hike to the volcano, and that the previous pony who came to visit the volcano is "gone". Bright Eyes runs outside in fear, only to be greeted by two more natives with spears. Bright Eyes accompanies the group, doing her best to reassure herself nothing bad will happen, but when they reach the top, Moki insists that Bright Eyes get a closer look over the edge. Bright Eyes refuses and wants out, but Moki insists and pushes her further up. Just as the volcano is preparing to erupt, the ground beneath Bright Eyes crumbles and she falls over the edge of the volcano, but lands on a ledge not far below. The natives give her a spear to grab onto so they can pull her up, and everyone escapes the area before they can be harmed by the eruption.
The Sunbrights tell Bright Eyes the volcano is named Sleeping Rock since it has not erupted in several years, and that they would not have escorted her up if they had known it was dangerous. Bright Eyes is glad they didn't throw her in, and explains the silly ideas she picked up from her friends that she now knows to be wrong.
The rest of Bright Eyes' visit goes well, and near the end of the trip, Bright Eyes suggests Moki visit Ponyland, something Moki cannot wait to do.
"Ponies in Paradise" provides examples of:
- Abnormal Allergy: Bright Eyes claims to have one to boats to avoid getting into a canoe.
- Alliterative Title: "Ponies in Paradise".
- Appease the Volcano God: Bright Eyes' friends imagine this being done to a pony on Tropical Island. Later, she imagines it being done to her when the other ponies speak of a former exchange student who is "not there anymore."
- Aside Comment: When Bright Eyes decides to walk around the volcano's crater, Ikki tells the audience "Sometimes these mainland ponies sure act strange!"
- Cannibal Tribe: Bon Bon imagines the natives as this, and Bright Eyes later mistakenly thinks it might be true.
- Easily Forgiven: The Sunbright family is surprisingly chill about the fact that Bright Eyes pretty much imagined their culture as cannibals and murderers, or that in her fit of panic she bashed Mr. Sunbright on the head with an oar several times.
- Fantastic Racism: The main cast (who are kids and likely wouldn't know better) believe that tropical ponies practice cannibalism and make pony sacrifices to the volcano.
- Hollywood Natives: Played straight in Bon Bon's fantasy, complete with grass skirts, war paint, chanting in pseudo-native gibberish and cooking other ponies in a giant pot. Completely averted when Bright Eyes actually meets tropical ponies in person and her first reaction is remarking to herself on how normal they look.
- Innocent Bigot: Given their beliefs about the island natives, the other six members of the Seven Pony Friends, but especially Sweetheart.
- Kill It with Fire: In Sweetheart's fantasy, tropical ponies throw an unnamed female pony into an active volcano, which then bursts with flames.
- Limited Animation: The shot of an erupting volcano from Sweetheart's fantasy sequence is later used in the opening shot of the island, even though later in the episode it was mentioned that the volcano hadn't erupted in many years.
- Mistaken for Murderer: Bright Eyes thinks that the tropical ponies killed the last exchange student and are going to do the same to her.
- Native Guide: The Sunbright family act as this to Bright Eyes during her stay.
- No Longer with Us: Ikki's use of this is why Bright Eyes thinks the natives really did chuck a pony into the volcano.
- No Party Like a Donner Party: One Imagine Spot involves rumors that tropical ponies, in the middle of a famine, turn into horses of Diomedes, complete with Captured by Cannibals imagery.
- Object-Shaped Landmass: Tropical Island is in the shape of a pony.
- Poor Communication Kills: What makes Bright Eyes even more paranoid about getting thrown into a volcano:Ikki: The last time we went to the volcano was when we had another pony visiting us from the mainland.Bright Eyes: What happened to that pony?Ikki: Oh, she's gone now...
- Prejudice Aesop: Bright Eyes learns that her friends' ideas about the natives were complete bunk, and that their similarities to mainland ponies outweigh their differences.
- Punny Name: Moki's parents are literally called Mami and Papi.
- Sea Monster: One shows up in Patch's Imagine Spot and confronts some ponies in a boat. Bright Eyes mistakes Mr. Sunbright for one later on.
- Stewed Alive: How Bon Bon and later Bright Eyes think native ponies eat each other.
- Vacation Episode: The episode revolves around Bright Eyes visiting Tropical Island.
- Violation of Common Sense: Bright Eyes thinks she sees a sea monster, so she whacks it repeatedly with an oar. It turns out to be Mr. Sunbright, and he gifts Bright Eyes with an oyster containing a pearl.
