Rating:
You know what we need?
A sequel to that one terrible episode.
No, not The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well.
That other one, with the griffon.
Brush off something-or-other. We
already did one? Fuck, I mean, I know we
already did one, but that was to the griffon part. Do one on the prank part instead. You know what, go ahead and throw in
Mare-Do-Well too, what the hell. Oh, and
zombies. The kids love zombies. That Walking
Dead show? Huge ratings for
AMC. Every other movie that tops the box
office these days has zombies, or it’s some other sort of horror movie. I don’t know, just put some zombies in because
our ratings have been sagging recently.
Yes, I know it’s a kids’
show! They won’t notice, trust me. I’ve had sex right next to my
three-year-old’s bedroom and he slept through the whole thing. What does that have to do…oh never mind. Just don’t make the episode too gory and
it’ll be fine. We probably shouldn’t
have anyone die either; the parents might not like that. And don’t put “dead” in the title, I don’t
want to have another conversation with Standards and Practices about that. Come on, there must be at least one zombie
movie without “dead” in the title. Night Of The Living Dead, Dawn Of The Dead, um, Shaun Of The Dead, Day Of The Dead, Land Of The
Dead, Evil Dead, Dead Alive, fuck. Wait, wasn’t there that one movie that came
out a while ago from that piece of shit director who somehow won for that Who Wants To Be A Millionaire
movie? What was it called again? Yeah, that’s it, 28 Days Later. Bam, there’s
your title and premise right there.
Script’s practically already half written, I can feel this is going to
be a good one.
What was it Dash said she didn’t want to do last time? Scare Fluttershy? We have
to do that now. I mean, she’s scared of
everything. I bet if you even just
quickly said “boo” to her she’d jump right up and cling to the nearest tree for
dear life with a dumb scared look on her face.
Comedic. Fucking. Gold.
What a pussy. I can’t
believe she actually complained to Twilight about some harmless prank. That whoopee cushion serves the princess
right though. Now come on, that was hilarious. Figures the old stick-in-the-mud wouldn’t get
it. What the hell are they all talking
about with “make sure everyone finds a prank funny” and “you need to try
harder, Rainbow Dash”? Do they even know
how jokes work?
“You asked for it,” alright.
Dash amps up the pranks because I’m sure there’s a lesson here
somewhere. Rarity thinks Sweetie Belle’s
outfit is booby trapped, but it turns out Rarity’s sewing machine doubles as a
cake. Applejack Dash-proofs her room
before bedtime, but she wakes up outside anyways and falls face first into the
mud. Splat!
Is Cranky part of the mane six now? Fuck it, let’s replace his toupee with a
skunk anyways. Hey, remember that one
prank from Griffon The Brush-Off where Spike ended up sending all those scrolls
to Celestia at once? Let’s use it again,
because Spike’s an idiot and nobody ever made any money from being original.
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| Now with artifacts |
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| "This is why I'm never usually in any episodes" |
Big Mac, meet Tom (don’t
ask how he got there). RIP your teeth,
Mr. Cake. See, it’s because teachers are
smelly! Oh, and she hid in a closet and
said “boo” quietly when Pinkie opened it.
That’s totally just as bad as the other ones. Whatever, once again Dash shows that she’s
the epitome of hilarity.
Can you believe the
whole town feels pissed about this? They
ask Pinkie Pie to make Dash stop her bullshit, but neither of them really want
to. Pinkie fumbles through her mission
while Dash explains the next setup. Her
“joke” Girl Scout cookies will give everyone who eats them a rainbow-colored
mouth. Who actually agreed to produce
such cookies? What did I say about
asking these questions? Besides, like
Dash herself says, “it’s gonna be hi-larious.”
Pinkie’s on her death
bed after eating some, but Dash doesn’t suspect anything unusual. The Girl Scouts sorry, “CMCs” happily
continue with their plan of selling these death traps to “every house in
Ponyville” while Rarity and Applejack ignore Dash’s constant snickering. After a long day of selling, Dash likewise
sees little problem with Rarity’s comment that Ponyville must be in a “cookie
coma”. It’s quiet too quiet out there.
Finally we’re
getting to the good part. Dash can’t
find anyone awake, and eventually stumbles into wherever it is Pinkie Pie
works. Upon discovering Mrs. Cake
rummaging for something, Pinkie’s employer turns around with rainbow coloring
on her mouth and chants “cookies”. I
guess this is scary. Pinkie Pie and the
twins (holy shit, how did they get involved in this?) are also affected and
start slowly marching toward Rainbow Dash, trying to eat her brains, I mean
cookies.
Dash escapes fairly
easily, but she’s trapped since everyone in Ponyville bought these stupid
cookies. Thankfully Rarity, Applejack,
and the Crusaders haven’t eaten any yet, although the whole town soon marches
on them. Holing themselves up in a barn
doesn’t work either when the aforementioned ponies also eat those cookies. Dash clearly looks done for, but the attack is
averted when she admits her latest prank isn’t funny. Everyone wipes that rainbow crap off their
faces, revealing this stunt was “surprisingly” only a prank. They drag this fact out until Dash declares
she’ll never prank anyone again. At
least not until we run out of ideas for new episodes.
28 Pranks Later
depicts Rainbow Dash’s strange regression, as she hasn’t really acted this way
since Luna Eclipsed early in season two.
Dash suddenly lives only for pulling pranks, which makes less sense now
than it did then. But again, they’re not
funny and occur for little reason.
Indeed, the first act was hatefully awful like many second season
episodes, and it only embarrassed our main characters. Lasting almost ten minutes must count as a “bonus”.
Mare Do Well’s
inspiration can be seen when Ponyville unifies against Dash in an extremely
overcomplicated way. Because it’s
tonally different from the first half (and frankly any other My Little Pony episode), 28 Pranks
Later’s quality noticeably improves through being humorously ironic. Obviously those cookies aren’t making zombies
of anyone, but Dash not realizing this makes her stupidity frustrating. The zombie trope feels overused, while
Applejack and Rarity have poor acting moments (somewhat supported by another
Merriwether Williams episode: Spike At Your Service). The “attack” was overall somewhat more fun
though, and a decent payback prank.
Despite being
mercifully banished from My Little Pony,
Meghan McCarthy caused damage from afar.
For once, determining her influence was difficult because the story
doesn’t contain any “easy” solutions. McCarthy’s
non-adventure scripts were plagued by stupidity, such as Three’s A Crowd,
Inspiration Manifestation, and Flutter Brutter.
These leftover story ideas should have been burnt, and why they were
made at all defies comprehension.
M.A. Larson might
have enough talent to save one of McCarthy’s stories (The Cutie Map), but F.M.
De Marco’s sole offering did very little.
Like earlier season six episodes, he involves the mane six while making
them seem absent. Fluttershy acts too
scared, Rainbow Dash over-loves pranks, and Twilight shows extremely poor
leadership skills (she escalates the situation instead of disciplining Dash,
and won’t shut up about finding ponies who enjoy pranks). Applejack and Rarity only exist as plot
tools, while Pinkie Pie’s diminished intelligence likewise shows a
regression. As also happens too often,
De Marco’s script is burdened by too many obvious clichés (“you took the words
right out of my mouth”, “what are you saying?”, and the unnecessary meme “…I
see what you did there”). Considering
his poor dialogue and characterization, and that the best parts were atmosphere
(like Tabitha St. Germain’s delightful tone for zombie Granny Smith), saying De
Marco made any positive contributions proves difficult.
Like many other
season six episodes, 28 Pranks Later just shouldn’t have been made. At best, it could have aired in place of
Griffon The Brush-Off, and the throwback feel makes one wonder how old
McCarthy’s story idea actually is. De
Marco’s first half embarrasses every character except Dash, who then gets her
dose for the second. This kind of
approach sank season two, and My Little
Pony should be beyond it. I must be feeling
generous to award such a poorly thought out episode two-and-a-half stars,
although the animators did their best to save poor writing. The zombie parts are somewhat fun if far from
scary, but 28 Pranks Later’s script just mashes up Griffon The Brush-Off, The
Mysterious Mare Do Well (two one-star episodes), clichés, and tropes. While even turning out this well was a
miracle, 28 Pranks ends up being another one for the bin.
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