My Little Pony: Once Upon a My Little Pony Time

My Little Pony: Once Upon a My Little Pony Time (Also known as My Little Pony: Newborn Cuties) is a 2009 American animated DVD series created by James Farr and distributed by Hasbro. It stars Gigi Abraham, Rachel Chrystie, Dana Flitman, Margo Herreid, and Brooke Fennel.

My Little Pony: Once Upon a My Little Pony Time
The animation ain't no cutie.
Genre: Comedy Slice-of-life Running Time: 9-10 minutes Country: United States Release Date: 2009 Created by: James Farr Distributed by: Hasbro Starring: Gigi Abraham Rachel Chrystie Dana Flitman Margo Herreid Brooke Fennel Seasons: 1 Episodes: 2 Previous show: My Little Pony (2003, 2008 and 2009) Next show: My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (2010-2019)

Plot

Pinkie Pie reminisces of the times she and her friends were baby ponies.

Why It's Not Cute at All

1. Similar to Sesame Beginnings from Sesame Street, It's basically a "baby-fied" spin-off version of My Little Pony (2003) considering it's based on girls' toys.
   • The series is way too predictable because of the story they go for. Why? It is a baby-fied version of the series it's spun off from.
2. The Flash animation is really cheap, choppy, robotic and stiff, even for late 2009 standards, to the point where it looks like it was made by Vídeo Brinquedo or Dingo Pictures instead of Hasbro, it's arguably even the worst animation in the My Little Pony franchise.
   • The animation also feels really rushed in the second episode as a result of it being incomplete.
3. The lip-syncing, while not bad, is poor.
   • In the second episode "Over Two Rainbows," the characters' mouths don't even sync with the dialogue. Instead, the mouths stay closed and went frozen stiff for the entire episode.
4. The character designs are uncanny, look really ugly, and sometimes horrifying.
5. The voices can sound bland and annoying at times.
   • Most of the time, Cheerilee and Rainbow Dash sound too old for their ages while Pinkie Pie and Scootaloo sound sickeningly cute.
   • Sweetie Belle doesn't even talk yet because she just babbles, coos, giggles, burps, sneezes, and blows bubbles for attention.
6. The plots of the episodes are really bland and generic with some filler thrown into them, just like most of the episodes and films during the G3 and G3.5 era.
   • The plot of the second episode, "Over Two Rainbows", makes no sense. According to this episode, Sweetie Belle is born after two rainbows intersect.
7. Almost all of the characters have poor characterization.
   • Pinkie Pie is more of a Mary Sue than she was in the direct-to-video series, who is perfect and have no flaws.
   • Cheerilee became much blander who has little-to-no depth whatsoever.
   • Scootaloo is sometimes annoying. In "So Many Different Ways to Play", she ends up doing stupid things to distract Pinkie and Cheerilee by turning the lights on and off, jumping up and down on the couch, and saying the word "party" over and over.
   • Rainbow Dash has been flanderized. She is now an unlikable whiny jerk. After her scarf becomes dirty and Sweetie Belle first came to Ponyville, she ends up complaining about her scarf being dirty as mentioned earlier and being a bit rude. Her most infamous line was “She's a unicorn, and everybody in Ponyville knows that unicorns belong in Unicornia, not in our backyard, and not on my most specialicious dress up party ever!”, which comes out as racist. She also never gets punished for her actions at all, and her mother doesn't appear in the show either, like Cheerilee and Scootaloo's mom, unlike Pinkie's mom.
8. False advertising for two reasons:
   • Toola-Roola and StarSong are seen on the DVD cover, but they barely appear or even mentioned in the show at all, despite the show being meant to focus on the Core 7.
   • Rainbow Dash is seen wearing a yellow bow, Scootaloo is seen wearing a pink bow, and Sweetie Belle is seen wearing the same bow color as Scootaloo in the DVD cover; in the show, the colors of each of their bows is purple, yellow, and green respectively.
9. The intro animation and backgrounds are mediocre at best.
10. Some of the sound effects don’t even match well, such as where butterflies chirp instead of the birds in “So Many Different Ways to Play”.
    • The second episode had no sound effects into it whatsoever.
    • To rub salt into the wound, the "thunderclaps" in "Over Two Rainbows" are drum cymbals clanging. Not only is it unfitting, but it's also lazy, jarring, and distracting.
11. It reuses the same old My Little Pony G3 logo at the beginning, the credits scene from Pinkie Pie's Special Day and the same old Hasbro Entertainment logo at the end, especially in "Over Two Rainbows".
12. Overall, it was a terrible way to end the G3 franchise.

Redeeming Qualities

1. The music is at least nice.
2. The lip-syncing isn't too bad, albeit being poor. "Over Two Rainbows" was uploaded to YouTube WITH the lip-syncing, and it's way better.
3. Despite sounding bland and annoying, the voice acting is very pleasant to listen to, especially with Gigi Abraham, who would later provide the voice of Halley on Astroblast!.
4. The character designs can be cute to look at.

Reception

My Little Pony: Once Upon a My Little Pony Time was panned by audiences, critics, and fans alike, mainly for its cheap and rushed animation, especially in the second episode, bland plot and poor characters. The show currently holds a 2.4/10 on IMDb, making it not only the lowest rated show in the G3 franchise, but the lowest rated My Little Pony show on the site.

Trivia

• This show marked the last era of the third generation of My Little Pony until Friendship Is Magic came a year later.
• This show was the shortest in the entire My Little Pony franchise.
• The second episode, "Over Two Rainbows", was remade at an unknown year or date with mouth movement and sound effects.

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