Wake up Twilight, its WINTER WRAP UP DOMINATION time. That last poll showed how much you all love some ponies working the seasons, and since episode followups didn't exist way back in the season one days, lets do that for the winners in this little event shall we?
Expect things to be a bit different, as looking three years in the past means we have a lot more canon to build upon post-episode. Winter Wrap Up was super early on, and quite a few mysteries of Equestria hadn't yet been revealed. It did drop the first major song though, and probably sold the series to a lot of you.
Head on down below the break for some Winter Wrap Up goodness!
Know who rocked best pony back in the day? This pony right here. The adorkable levels were off the charts for Twilight in season one. Over time she kinda shedded some of that anti-social nerdyness, but she will always be a geek to me.
Twilight is literally the only pony that a saddle actually makes sense for. When Rarity rocks those things I kinda question why. Does she have a secret dragon pet that rides her around when we aren't looking?
I know I'm not the only one that had this as a wallpaper in high res form.
So much for saddles and boots.
Remember when Twilight Sparkle eats those hay burgers in as messy a way as possible? I'm pretty sure that is just how Equestrians eat things. This stuff has been around since season one.
These poor background ponies have no idea at all what we are going to do with them over the next few years. So innocent. So untouched.
DERPY. That wasn't even that big a deal back then. Where's Waldo didn't exist yet. Who would have thought she'd be one of the best selling brony merch ponies?
And then we gave her a kid, turned her into a mailmare, sent her to space, apprenticed her to Luna, turned her into a secret 200 IQ genius, shipped her with Doctor Whooves, shipped her with Rainbow Dash, shipped her with Celestia, shipped her while apprenticing with Luna... you get the idea.
They were just getting going on the facial expressions in season one, but they nailed the "feel sorry for this character" and "Daww" way early on. How could you ever be angry with Twilight? What kind of monster would resist that face?
And then this happened. The signature of the episode. Months before it actually released, someone leaked it out of DHX on Youtube. This was probably the first time the fandom really colluded on theory mongering and guessing what was to come. We loved giving Luna a fanon, but having an entire song with Twilight Sparkle seemingly losing her magic, and all these vests and teams really gave us something to talk about. Taking it out of the context of the episode was a surprisingly fun experience. I'm sure Hasbro was freaking out, but on a marketing level, Winter Wrap Up dropping early spread this thing to astronomical levels. I wonder how well the episode itself did on ratings? Everyone was excited for it.
That and it's an awesome song.
I bet this pony was just a dude hanging in ponyville fixing watches and stuff. I wonder if he freaked out when he was suddenly labeled as The Doctor and a million fanfics popped up about him. Seriously, we had to actually ban fanfics based on him just due to the insane amount we were getting. We couldn't handle them all.
No one actually knew about Cheerilee at this point. When the McDonalds toys dropped, everyone was completely confused at this random HasbroOC taking up a slot in the roster. "Where is Luna?!" they said.
Poor Cheerilee =[
Another one I bet a ton of you had as a wallpaper. Candy...pony was awesome.
Not a whole lot of gestures you can do with hooves. I've seen the vectors of this pose. It's scary.
And then Colgate was born! And immediately shipped with Berry Punch, Bonbon, whoever the one on the left is, and pretty much everyone else who wants their teeth fixed. That and an action game star.
Why are these ponies so god damn adorable? This should be illegal. Look at Sea Swirl right there. It's toomuch.
I do worry about the rest of the animals in Equestria though. What if the ponies decide to slack off for a year and not wake them up? Do they just slowly starve to death? Fluttershy seems to think they will drown when the snow melts. That's horrific.
She knows. It's over Dashy~
OOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooo
4 seasons later, and Pony Hooves are still unexplained. I'm still sticking with this theory though.
Man cards everywhere went out the window when Twilight went all sad mode during her solo.
"Right, no wings..."
Only a matter of time Twily. Shattering fandoms is going to be fun.
"She's got a great butt"
I swear I've seen that nose style before.
I miss some of these faces we had in season one. That's one that hasn't popped up in forever.
Porcupine love confirmed for life of hell in Equestria. I almost googled porcupine mating out of curiosity. That was almost a thing that would be placed in my browser history.
For someone walking around with a fire breathing lizard all the time, you would think Twilight would be a bit more open to scaley creatures.
But screw bees. I hate bees.
This episode sort of marked the point in the series where Twilight Sparkle goes from wise and nerdy to slapsticky. The poor pony gets nailed more than a Looney Tunes character.
Applejack fans had this one as a wallpaper. I totally had it in one of my early fandom wallpaper packs before fan art became a huge thing.
butts
And thus the "Twilight screws up a spell and X happens" genre of fanfiction was born.
A lot of people ask why I'm not a huge fan of Applejack. Outside of living in Arizona with desert and cowboy crap everywhere (you get really tired of it), her early characterization really bugged me. She acted like an old fashioned hyper conservative who dislikes unicorn magic even outside of Winter Wrap Up, (or technology if it was earth). Ain't none of that happening on Sweet Apple Acres! The way she reacted to Twilight's mistake here was a bit over the top. The poor pony just wanted to help. Back before we really knew much about her, it bugged me.
And then she immediately wants to drown Fluttershy's animals. Poor butterponi is freakin out about the snow melting and flooding their lairs as they sleep, and Applejack couldn't care less. Melt it now!
Regardless, she grew on me over the seasons. Applejack has been redeemed in my eyes.
Mayor Mare doesn't get nearly enough credit in this show. Who do you think coordinates rebuilding the town each week when something completely obliterates it? Can you imagine running a town like that? Talk about stress.
Rarity showing the early signs of winning the fandom over in a few episodes from now. Her freakouts and OCD beat even Twilight Sparkle sometimes.
Freakin Caramel.
This scene right here sparked the side name for Derpy. Quite a few people still use "Ditzy Doo" when explaining her. Lauren Faust must have had some sort of future premonition when she dropped that name off in the episode.
I wonder how painful it is to be forced to squeal like that.
I have no idea what to say about this. It's a good screenshot though.
I think each of the pony races keeps the other in check. Can you imagine if 30 people could get together and make a sky sized tornado with just their bare hands? Society would completely crumble. If Equestria didn't have unicorns, these guys would have taken over ages ago.
And then there were Earth ponies... they Earth pretty hard. Such aggression.
"I hate this town. "
I am so out of things to say. Have a Twilight Sparkle.
And that about covers it for Winter Wrap Up! This episode totally deserved the top slot for best 1st half of season one. Not only did we have an epic song stuck in our heads for months (and plant the seeds for us realizing this show was going to be way more than 30 second Pinkie Pie jingles), but we got a whole boatload of world building that helped fuel a storm of fan content over the coming hiatus. Equestria and its completely pony controlled seasons suddenly became that much more unique and interesting.
Depending on what wins the next few polls, we should see followups rolling until we run into the season 3/4 stuff we already did. Hope you enjoyed it!
Remember when I said Twilight Sparkle was the best? I lied. This pony. This pony right here. I can't. It's heart attack city! She's too much!
GAAHhh.
