In honor of the 10th anniversary of our glorious pony cartoon, M.A. Larson ran a quick Q&A over on 4chan's /mlp/ board. I went ahead and extracted everything he responded to, along with a few neat screencaps he posted of scripts he worked on, along with cancelled episodes.
Check it all out below!
Q: Who Was Your Favorite Charcter to Write For?
A: Rarity is my favorite to write for because of the depth you don't expect her to have. I love taking her from extremes like Sonic Rainboom to Suited for Success (which I didn't write). She's also the easiest imo for fun dialogue. I love her lines in Ponyville Confidential
Q: You really lucked out with the pony job didn't you?
A: Sure did. I was desperate for work too. Lauren took a chance and I will always be grateful
Q: How were you and Lauren and the rest planning to wrap up the show prior to forced syndication ending? Did you actually have plans that didn't involve turning Twilight into another Princesss or was that always the end goal?
A: I don't want to speak for anyone else. I know Lauren had her plans and then she left and the show kept getting picked up, so I can't really say. i was only a freelance writer on the show so I wasn't really in the place to be coming up w show endings
Q: What made you get invested in the show?
A: It was so good! I remember seeing the pilot and the song from Winter Wrap Up for the first time and realizing how good it really was
Q: What was your favorite song?
A: At the Gala. Or Apples to the Core. But really Gala
Q: Favorite moment from working on the show and fandom?
loved every minute of it. One of the more recent ones really hit me hard at this last bronycon was having a military fan come up and tell me about seeing his friend die in combat and how hard it was for him emotionally and psychologically and how MLP helped him through it. That was...... that was a once in a lifetime moment.
Court Episode:
Larson: So at this point in the script, Rainbow Dash is about to go to prison for sabotaging the grizzled old Wonderbolt (I called him Wind Shear). And the district attorney is named Due Process. What I like about this is the swing in emotion, from RD being alone and petrified to Rarity coming in and doing something totally comedic. I love stuff like this...
Twilight's Post-Coronation Flight with Rainbow Dash Song:
Mother Country episode that Larson is glad was scrapped:
First Draft of Sonic Rainboom:
Larson's First Script:
