My Little Pony: Pony Life is a Spin-Off of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. It is considered the true start of Generation 4.5 of the My Little Pony franchise, which occurred during a transitional period between the aforementioned FIM, which was the start of Generation 4, and My Little Pony: A New Generation, a 2021 Netflix movie that kickstarted Generation 5.
Produced by Allspark Animation and Boulder Media, the series focuses on the Slice of Life adventures of the Mane 6 as they wind down at the Sugarcube Corner, a local bakery hangout ran by Pinkie Pie. The bakery also houses a mysterious cache of magical potions that the group of friends break out when the need arises. The series was initially scheduled to premiere June 13, 2020 on Discovery Family, but it was postponed to November 7, 2020. The series premiered on Treehouse TV in Canada on June 21st.
Stop Motion shorts for the series started being released on the official My Little Pony YouTube channel on January 24, 2020.
See the trailer here
, and the theme song here.
It's a tropey life!
- Aborted Arc: The mysterious balloon disappears without explanation and we never find out what it is or where it came from. It kind of gets dropped after the Mane Six gets thrown across time. In "Wild Heart Beats", Pinkie Pie via the song hand waves they popped the balloon.
- Accidental Time Travel: More than once, but always with a convenient way back.
- Adaptation Name Change: Derpy, whose official name is a rather complicated issue, is specifically named "Muffins" in this show. Her "new" name was still used beforehand in the credits of the Friendship Is Magic episode, "Slice of Life", as well as some merchandise. This is still the first time the new name has been spoken by a character, though.
- Adaptational Comic Relief: Discord was quite scary at times in FIM, but here he's a plain ol' goofball, at least from his single appearance.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Discord the draconequus who was an antagonist in Friendship Is Magic is far nicer, but still a trickster nonetheless, with his Jerkass tendencies softened
- Adaptational Personality Change: Discord, in this continuity, is still a Wild Card, but less of an antagonist and more of a Friendly Enemy / Sitcom Arch-Nemesis to the group than a true villain as he was in Friendship in Magic. Here, he's closer to a slightly nicer but no less dangerous Mr. Mxyzptlk in personality.
- Adapted Out:
- Mr. and Mrs. Cake who were the original owners of the Sugarcube Corner in Friendship is Magic are absent here as Pinkie Pie runs the Sugarcube Corner by herself. However they are mentioned by Pinkie Pie in a flashback in "The Trail Less Trotten" where Pinkie says she was given ownership of the bakery by them.
- Zecora's role in providing magical potions has been replaced with Potion Nova.
- Princesses Celestia and Cadence have made major appearances in a couple episodes, but Luna, who had a huge role in Friendship is Magic's premiere episode, never did.
- Flurry Heart, the daughter of Shining Armor and Princess Cadance doesn't appear at all despite her parents showing up in two seperate episodes.
- Seemingly most of Friendship is Magic's secondary characters are gone.
- Aerith and Bob: Played With- the alternative ponies have the names Derek, Matt, and Matt, which they acknowledge are weird. Played straight by a newscaster pony named Karen.
- Again with Feeling: In the second half of "How Applejack Got Her Hat Back", much focus is given on a fad revolving around squishy cubes that nopony knows the purpose of. In the closing moments of the story, Pinkie Pie takes a bite out of one, revealing that they are edible.Applejack: "What? We can eat these? (beat) Oh, for cryin' out loud, WE COULD'VE BEEN EATIN' THESE THE WHOLE TIME!"
- All Balloons Have Helium: To the point that characters who inflate themselves with their own breath float.
- Alternate Continuity: As the series goes on it becomes pretty obvious the show isn't meant to tie in with the mainline G4 show outside of characters and is set in its own continuity.
- Animate Inanimate Object: Disturbingly, has only been seen so far with food items.
- Animesque: Definitely looks that way when compared to FIM (and it was already slightly animesque to begin with), with cutesy expressions and a chibi art style. It even uses the Visible Sigh.
- Anthropomorphic Food: In "I, Cookie", Pinkie makes cookies to keep her company in the absence of her friends, with frosting to make them look right on both sides, and it's a very magical world...
- Anthropomorphic Shift: Although ponies in FiM did sometimes stand bipedally and inexplicably grasp things with their hooves, it's much more common for them to do so here. Even Twilight and Rarity, who can still use their magic for levitation, more often use their hooves to handle objects in this series.
- Art Evolution: Pony Life has a different art style than the show it was based on, FIM. Here it has a chibi animesque style. Their noses are a lot smaller, and they also gain realistic-looking hooves.
- Art Shift: In the title card for part 2 of "How Applejack Got Her Hat Back", Applejack is suddenly a real life horse.
- The title card for "Close Encounters of the Balloon Kind" features Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Rarity as real life horses.
- The title card for "What Goes Updo" features Pinkie Pie and the hooves of her friends in a painting style.
- Ascended Meme: Rarity uses the term "Mane Six" in "Ponies of the Moment", a term used by the fans and some official materials, but never spoken onscreen during Friendship is Magic.
- Ass Shove: The particular form of hammerspace that ponies use tends to involve reaching to near the base of their tails. While this could be said to be a somewhat logical place to reach with their body shapes and posing, the first time it happens, in The Fluttershy Effect, makes it rather clear with visible noise lines that Rainbow Dash's tablet is inside her rear before she then pulls it out.
- Back for the Finale: Just about every single character that made an appearance throughout season 1 appears in the final episode of season 1.
- Bad Future: The timeline created by Rainbow Dash accidentally copying butterflies a lot in "The Fluttershy Effect". The butterflies blotted out the sun and instituted an authoritarian government forbidding all fun.
- Balloon Belly: This happens to Twilight alot.
- In "Princess Probz", all the girls except for Pinkie Pie end up like this when they try to eat their way out of a giant flan.
- Twilight near the end of "Badge of Shame" seems to enjoy Pinkie's newest batch of cupcakes a little too much.
- In "Pie vs Pie", Twilight enjoys eating Pinkie's Dough-Cup-Pops a lot. Unlike other examples, this stays throughout the whole episode.
- In "Planet of the Apps", this happens to Twilight again after gorging on the cookies at the cybernetic Sugarcube Corner.
- Batman Can Breathe in Space: An almost very literal case, as it's Echo the horned bat that launches up there from eating a good cupcake in "The Rarest of Occasions". Made extra weird because the low pressure is seemingly acknowledged with him farting spontaneously.
- Big "NO!": Pinkie after imagining her friends saying she won't win the Royal Jelly Juggernaut.
- Echo when he falls back to earth, despite the constant Cartoon Physics.
- Twilight, Echo, Applejack and Pinkie at the end of "Portal Combat" when Rainbow Dash offers to do the Dash Master again.
- Bowdlerize: Discovery Family airings of the episode "Zound Off" remove every line with the word "onomatopoeia" in it.
- Broad Strokes: Twilight is an alicorn, but there's no sign of her crystal tree-castle, Starlight Glimmer, the School of Friendship or the Student Six. In a flashback gag, Twilight is shown to have blown up Golden Oak Library during a potion experiment instead of Tirek destroying it.
- Calvinball: While the game of buckball had clear rules and defined roles for player positions in Friendship is Magic, the buckball games in Pony Life seem to be an anything-goes free-for-all.
- The Cameo: Nightmare Moon appears in an stained glass window in "Magical Mare-Story Tour".
- Canon Foreigner: Octavio Pie, brother of Pinkie Pie, who only had sisters in Friendship is Magic. Pinkie also implies she had another brother who was eaten by a witch.
- Chekhov's Volcano: Mt. Volcanope. Fluttershy forces it to erupt to get Discord to come save her and her friends.
- Cliffhanger: Surprising, given the format, played straight at the end of "The Great Divide" when the six friends are split into opposing teams.
- "Mad Props" ends with the girls wondering how their props came to life as a giant monster and it cuts to Discord in the background giving an ominous look.
- Continuity Nod: "Magical Mare-Story Tour" has the girls visit every relevant place as seen in season one.
- Covered in Kisses: Fluttershy's body pillow of Finn Tastic.
- Demoted to Extra: A majority of the characters who played an important role in Friendship is Magic have a reduced role here.
- Denser and Wackier: The show goes for a more wackier tone than FIM. The characters apply Toon Physics a lot more, the pacing of each scene is much faster, and the artstyle is less realistic and more stylized.
- Deus ex Machina: Very common at the end of an episode, due to time limits and a focus on providing a lesson to kids without caring about how the lesson solves the plot. Rainbow Dash trapped in the future after a stupid mistake? Time for her to just suddenly be in the past when she learns her lesson. Rarity's friends vanished into another dimension because of her mistake? Time to have everyone teleport back when she apologizes.
- Door Stopper: Any time a book is brought out that contains information, it's about the size of a car for comedic reasons. This is especially egregious with Pinkie's instructions for if she's away, where the book itself...is a holographic projector for a short message to tell them what to do, despite appearing to contain bookmarks.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: The Mane 6 over texts in "Communication Shakedown", making them all sad over nothing.
- Earth Drift: While the world of Friendship is Magic had technology roughly equivalent to the turn of the century, the world of Pony Life includes smartphones, tablets, and reality TV. The ponies also frequently take bipedal, human-like poses.
- Rarity speaks of her "Vaudeville days", rather than some ponified equivalent.
- Embarrassing Slide: In "Zound Off", during her presentation as Twilight flicks through slides, pictures of Gummy in a bikini and holding a beach ball can be seen.
- Episode Title Card: Every episode has one.
- "Everybody Laughs" Ending: In "Princess Probz", "Disappearing Act", "Campfire Stories", "One Click Wonder", "Don't Look a .GIF Horse in the Mouth" and "The Root of It".
- Evil Laugh: Dishwater Slog in "Cotton Candy-Colored Glasses". Discord gives one off at the end of "Magic is Ahoof".
- Explosive Decompression: Joked with Applejack opening her helmet in her imagine spot in "How Applejack Got Her Hat Back". Somewhat realistic in that both AJ there and Bubbles in another episode seem fine with just a helmet. When a character finally does go up without a helmet (Echo in "The Rarest of Occasions"), his only problem is oddly the low pressure making all his flatulence rush out in one large fart.
- Expy: Discord appears to take some influences from Mr. Mxyzptlk in terms of behavior, although without the malicious side of his behavior.
- Eyepatch After Timeskip: On a hologram no less.
- Film Noir: This style is implemented in a scene from "Princess Probz" where Rarity (with red lipstick on) talks to Pinkie Pie about how she gave up her life of stardom for a suntan.
- "Whoof Dunnit" uses this for most of the episode when Rarity becomes a detective.
- Floating Continent: A fair number of these appear as background scenery, floating over the body of water next to Ponyville and with a number of giant, colorful crystals embedded in their undersides.
- Food Coma: A quite-possible outcome of trying one of Pinkie's sweeter cupcakes.
- Food Fight: The girls have one with cupcakes in "Director Spike's Mockumentary".
- Force Feeding: Happens in "How Applejack Got Her Hat Back" at the end of one of Applejack's Imagine Spots.
- Fourth-Wall Observer: Applejack occasionally breaks the fourth wall to talk to the audience or to address something that's happening.
- Giant Woman: Fluttershy can grow to over 10 stories tall when angry or determined to win.
- Great Gazoo: Discord, a draconequus, functions as this to the series; he's half-dragon, half-horse and an eccentric character with great powers.
- Green Is Gross: Sloppy antagonist Dishwater Slog is green with a brown mane and tail.
- Grossup Closeup:
- In "Sick Day", we get a detailed look of Pinkie Pie's hairy hoof when she holds up a book of instructions.
- In "Whoof-Dunnit", Twilight gets one when Rarity interrogates her about a missing visor.
- Guys are Slobs: Dishwater Slog is the epitome of this. Echo the bat meanwhile, as the only common male protagonist of Season 2, is the only character to fart, even though anyone would when up in the stratosphere like he was.
- Hammerspace: More common than in FiM, due to the lack of saddlebags on top of ponies not often having pockets.
- Harmless Freezing: Due to the nature of the show, both Rainbow and AJ get visibly blue and covered in icicles instantly from the blizzard in Game Knight, but are just mildly inconvenienced.
- Hey, Let's Put on a Show: Mostly Rarity's doing, especially once Sugar Snap shows up wanting to help with it in season 2.
- Hologram: Pinkie has informational holograms to tell people basic information when she's sick or dead in the future.
- Hologram Projection Imperfection: Strangely in a world full of magic and modern devices, Pinkie's maybe-tech-maybe-magic information holograms of herself appear rather shoddy.
- Hover Board: Future Tank has one looking similar to what Marty used in Back to the Future Part II.
- How Many Fingers?: When Rarity notices Applejack acting weird, she asks her how many hooves she's holding up when she's not holding up any, and then shortly tells her to nevermind what she said.
- Imagine Spot:
- Pinkie and Twilight have their own of these in "Princess Probz" when they're explaining the Royal Jelly Juggernaut to Rainbow Dash.
- This happens in "How Applejack Got Her Hat Back" when Applejack drinks some potions that give her different hats. She imagines herself in situations that would fit having those hats, such as being a firefighter or flying an airplane.
- This happens again in "Close Encounters of the Balloon Kind" where the girls speculate what the mysterious balloon is.
- Inflating Body Gag: A Running Gag is for Pinkie to blow up like a balloon and explode into confetti whenever experiencing extreme emotion. Fluttershy tries to imitate this once, but it simply results in awkward deflation and hitting the floor rather hard. This happens to Twilight Sparkle when she tries to blow up a balloon, all of the helium goes into her.
- Inherently Funny Words: Pinkie only wanted to try out her flan recipe because it's a fun word to say.Pinkie: FLAAAAAAN!
- Jaw Drop: Combined with Overly-Long Tongue. Rarity does this when Fluttershy asks Discord to come along with them to Mt. Volcanope. All the girls except for Twilight do this when Potion Nova shows up at Sugarcube Corner.
- Lighter and Softer: The show is less adventure oriented than its predecessor and has no real villains.
- Literal Metaphor: In "Game Knight", Twilight sets her weather machine to lightning so she can storm out of the room.
- Local Hangout: The Mane 6 treat the Sugarcube Corner as this. It's their "home away from home".
- Loss of Identity: Spoofed in "How Applejack Got Her Hat Back" when everypony else is wearing Applejack's signature hat. She starts to question who she is and uses potions to try on different hats that give her a new personality.
- Love Imbues Life: Seemingly how the cookies come alive in "I, Cookie", and seen again when AJ tells an apple it's doing great in "The 5 Habits of Highly Effective Ponies".
- Made of Explodium: Pinkie makes "firework cupcakes", which to even her bafflement, start acting like actual fireworks.
- Merchandise-Driven: Obviously, being a My Little Pony cartoon and all. But the overall story arc about the Mane 6 drinking potions and getting acquainted with Potion Nova is specifically intended to promote the "Potion Ponies" toyline.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: The Wild Siders are a tiger, bat, and peacock respectively but they have unicorn horns and the cutie marks of ponies.
- Never Say "Die": Played with. While dialog is mostly like Friendship is Magic, using things like "destruction/destroy" as stand-ins for "death/kill", an episode fairly early in is called "Death of a Sales-Pony", and Rarity even references the famous line from Game of Thrones ("When you play the Mane of Thrones, you win, or you dye ...your mane.")
- No Antagonist: Unlike its predecessor there are no villains in Pony Life. The closest thing there is to bad guys are Bubbles and Dishwater Slog but they are jerks rather than actually being evil.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: In "Cotton Candy-Colored Glasses", Rainbow Dash wears a banana printed bandana and calls herself Fancy Banana Moonbeam in order to investigate Dishwater Slog's stand. He doesn't recognize her until she removes the bandana.
- Parental Bonus: Rarity uses a cocktail shaker to mix potions in "Disappearing Act".
- In "One Click Wonder", Pinkie Pie says making a viral video is simple "like syrup". Simple syrup is a sweetener used in making cocktails.
- Many references to things kids in the target demographic certainly wouldn't be allowed to watch or that are a bit old for them to have seen, like The Matrix, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and Game of Thrones.
- The Pelvic Thrust dancing that Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash show to Snips and Snails as good example dancing leads to Snips, who unlike them is male, responding "I don't know if we can do that."
- Fluttershy owns a body pillow of Finn Tastic that's covered with lipstick marks.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title:
- The episode "Cute-pocalypse Meow" gets its name from the 1979 film Apocalypse Now.
- "Death of a Salespony" refers to Arthur Miller's 1949 play Death of a Salesman.
- "Discord's Peak" refers to the 1997 volcano movie Dante's Peak.
- "Close Encounters of the Balloon Kind" refers to the 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
- "Planet of the Apps" and "Back to the Present" are obvious ones to Planet of the Apes and Back to the Future respectively.
- "Life of Pie" is another obvious one to the movie with the same name.
- Power-Up Food: The veggie shake AJ feeds Pinkie in "Keynote Pie".
- Puppy-Dog Eyes: Used pretty heavily. Even Bubbles and Fluttershy have a puppy dog eye faceoff towards the end of "Cute-pocalypse Meow".
- Real After All: Big Hoof at the end of "Big Hoof Walking" and "A Camping We Will Go".
- Reality Show: In-Universe example. The Royal Jelly Juggernaut is a reality show that Pinkie Pie auditions for, and is present throughout the first six episodes.
- Recurring Riff: A portion of the theme adjusted to be more techno and repeat the title a lot is regularly used for any music.
- The Reveal: Potion Nova reveals herself to the Mane 6 as the maker of the potions they've been drinking without knowing where they come from.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: The "mecha ponies" of "Planet of the Apps".
- Robots Are Just Better: Heavily implied in "Planet of the Apps", as the entire world has become artificial, with robot ponies who seem to be a lot stronger than normal ponies but have normal emotions and everything.
- Running Gag: Each of the Mane 6 have their own quirk (officially called "adorabilities") that is often repeated:
- Twilight Sparkle literally breaks like glass whenever she's overwhelmed. She also overeats a lot.
- When Pinkie is excited, she'll blow up like a pufferfish and explode into confetti dust.
- Fluttershy has the power to grow or shrink; the former is usually when she's mad.
- Rarity will often exaggeratedly faint while summoning a fainting couch whenever she sees something shocking. She also vomits gems.
- Applejack Breaking the Fourth Wall and making side comments to the audience when nopony else can.
- Rainbow Dash has a mix of powers like ball spin attacks or moving so fast that everything else is in slow motion.
- Schizo Tech: The Mane 6 ostensibly live in a magical fairytale kingdom, but they have smartphones, tablets and notebook computers. In one episode, Twilight also has, for some reason, a bunch of film and projectors.
- Sequel Episode: "The Great Divide" continues where "The Great Collide" ended.
- Shout-Out:
- A flashback features Pinkie visiting a legged house in the woods. Said house is also made of gingerbread and Pinkie was led there with a trail of crumbs. She also remarked that she misses her brother.
- Twilight checks Scary Ravioli for information on Bighoof.
- Rainbow Dash drinks a potion that gives her Sonic the Hedgehog's quills.
- The beginning of Rarity's story in "Campfire Stories" parodies The Great Gatsby, with the name Daffodil replacing Daisy.Jazz was all the rage. I had to be at Jay's mansion on East Egg in two hours. Little Did I Know his old flame Daffodil lived across the way.
- "The Root of It" is thick with Friends references. The ponies all get the Rachel haircut, and reenact the show's opening.
- A new zebra character is named "Herd Happily", a reference to the character Perd Hapley from Parks and Recreation.
- This line from Discord: Aren't I a stinker?
- "Zound Off" has a shout out to Ted Talks where Twilight showcases a slideshow. There are huge red letters that spell out TWI in the background.
- "Planet of the Apps" has Twilight say "I don't think we're in Ponyville anymore!"
- Slice of Life: Talking multicolored horses and wacky Toon Physics notwithstanding, the plots of the episodes are fairly down-to-earth, especially when compared to the more action-filled episodes of the later seasons of Friendship Is Magic.
- Spin-Off: Of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, announced a month after it ended. This show uses the same characters and world with a few twists.
- Spit Take: Twilight does this in "Princess Probz" with one of the magical potions she was drinking when she finds out that Pinkie is auditioning for the Royal Jelly Juggernaut contest.
- Springtime for Hitler: In "Best of the Worst", Rainbow Dash points that Dishwater Slog is succeeding at failing, thus he failed at failing.
- Stalker Shrine: Fluttershy has one for Finn Tastic.
- Story Arc: The episodes are usually standalone but feature a plot as a background element every six episodes. The second season features four part story arcs instead of six.
- The first six episodes show Pinkie preparing for the Royal Jelly Juggernaut.
- The next six episodes revolve around Fluttershy trying to join the Trail Trotters.
- The next six episodes focus on Twilight Sparkle and meeting the maker of the potions, Potion Nova.
- The last six of season 1 are about competing in the Sportacular Spectacular.
- The first four episodes of season 2 deal with the coming of the Cotton Candy Comet.
- The next four episodes feature a mysterious balloon floating in the sky sending out smaller balloons that cause mysterious things to happen.
- The next four episodes feature the Mane Six traveling through different dimensions and timelines.
- The next four episodes feature the Wild Siders visiting Ponyville.
- The next four episodes have the girls visit the Crystal Empire carnival.
- The next four episodes has the Mane Six host a play to celebrate the Ponyville Play Day.
- The final four episodes are about Discord spreading chaos magic around Ponyville.
- Story-Breaker Power: Discord's powers are normally often a game-breaker, but it's defied in that he's now there for comedy, not conflict.
- Super-Deformed: All the characters are featured in a chibi art style.
- Super Not-Drowning Skills: In Pony Surfin' Safari, the ponies can breathe and talk underwater with no explanation.
- Super Serum: The Mane 6 have access to magical, mysterious potions that temporarily give them a variety of powers when they drink them.
- Swallowed a Fly: Dishwater Slog in "Cotton Candy-Colored Glasses" when laughing maniacally.
- Swallow the Key: Fluttershy's rejection letter is swallowed by Applejack to hide it from her.
- Sweet Tooth: Everyone, to the point they react in shock when in the "Wild Side" they find its version of Sugarcube Corner serves healthy foods.
- Tarnishing Their Own Beauty: The others after their amazing "updo"s make Rarity ashamed of her own failed "updo" in "What Goes Updo".
- Telepathy: In "Princess Probz", Pinkie and Twilight use a telepathy potion to show their respective Imagine Spots to Rainbow Dash.
- Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Unlike Friendship is Magic, where male and female ponies had very different body-types, in Pony Life, the same template is used across all ponies, so the one thing that distinguishes stallions from mares are their voices. The only exceptions are when males have facial hair (like Dishwater Slog and Fancy Pants) or lots of muscles, like Bulk Biceps.
- Theme Tune Roll Call: Subverted, as similarly to Friendship Is Magic where the characters are described by their elements, here they are described by their personality and attributes (excluding Twilight, who is described as being "magic" like her Element of Harmony) rather than their names.
- Thick-Line Animation: The show uses the common black outline variant to be exact, contrasting with the colored outlines used in Friendship Is Magic.
- Title Theme Tune: "It's a sweet, magic, fast, posh, fun, cute Pony Life!"
- Too Hungry to Be Polite: Implied with how even AJ, Pinkie, and Gummy look at Twilight funny when she burps and eats messily in "Pie vs. Pie". There's a lot of messy eating and burping in the show, but it seems just to come from how commonly characters are overeaters and get very hungry.
- Trapped in the Past: Applejack and Rarity as the premise of "The Great Cowgirl Hat Robbery".
- Two Shorts: The format of the show. Each episode is 11 minutes and consists of two 5-minute segments.
- Uncertain Doom: The cookie ponies that are brought to life in "I, Cookie" leave to go explore the world, and then it immediately starts raining, leaving their survival dubious.
- Vocal Evolution: Applejack's voice in this series is even deeper than it was in Friendship Is Magic and Equestria Girls.
- Vomit Discretion Shot: The way "The Trail Less Trotten" and "Sick Day" ends.
- What the Hell Is That Accent?: Applejack speaks in a Southern accent, but it's unclear whether it's Appalachian, Georgian, from Tennessee, or a Texan accent, making it ambiguous where in the U.S. she's meant to be from.
