S03 E03: "Too Many Pinkie Pies"

[Dessa]

I'm with ZephyrBurst 100%.

Here's why this episode was shallow: Pinkie sees 2 events, wants to go to them both. So she creates a clone. Here's the first problem: she still doesn't get to experience both events. Now, this could be USED to make a point about the lesson, but instead, she just hears about another even and doubles further. Suddenly, it doesn't matter anymore that Pinkie can't go to every event, and the problem becomes too many pinkies. We can relate to wanting to be two places as once, but too many pinkies is just a cartoon gag. In the end, the method applied should be no more effective at finding the real Pinkie than a fake one. Pinkie is distractable.

My rewrite:

Pinkie hears about AJ's barn raising and RD's beach funs, and laments an inability to go to them both. So our conflict here is established: You can't be two places at once, and sometimes you have to make a hard choice. Everyone faces this from time to time -- it's universally relatable.

She has an idea and goes to the pond to double herself.

She sends her clone to the barn raising and hangs out with Rainbow Dash.

While with Dash, she has a GREAT time, and forgets about her earlier dilemma, but afterward meets up with her clone who tells her how AWESOME a time she had with AJ and friends, and she questions her decision to hang out with Dash: What if other Pinkie had more fun? Conflict: still unresolved. (The original story resolves this conflict right here, which was its mistake).

So as Pinkie struggles with this, she overhears about the fun she missed at Flutterhshy's, and she changed her plan. She will deploy a NETWORK OF PINKIE PIES to monitor ALL THE FUN STUFF going on in Ponyville, and use this information to always be where the fun is.

This, too, backfires. First, Pinkie is at Twi's house, having a blast, but then she gets a resport from another Pinkie that there's a conga line at Rarity's, and she HAS TO BE THERE because "OH I LOVE CONGA LINES" Then when she gets there, she hears about how Granny Smith just finished one of her tastey Zap Apple pies and everyone KNOWS those are the BEST, so she goes there... She's starting to show wear, get tired. Once she's at GS's place, another Pinkie tells her about another totally awesome thing, and on the way to that thing, she hears about another, and another. There's so much fun stuff to do!

Meanwhile, the pinkies have been doubling, and there are too many. Parties are getting too hyper. Things are being destroyed. Pinkie hears about this and panics. She just wanted to have fun, and now everything was going sour, but there's not enough of her around to solve it.

She enlists the help of AJ to round up the Pinkie Pies, and Twilight to help sort them out. But how do we know which one is the REAL Pinkie?

The mane 6 quiz the Pinkie Pies in a big montage with lots of silly gags and dialogues, and we end up interviewing one Pinkie Pie who talks about how she thought it all sounded so fun, and oh why couldnt I have just had fun with Rainbow dash at the pond, etc. In other words: what distinguishies the real Pinkie from the others is that the real Pinkie has learned something, and the others have not yet done so.

Twilight zaps the bad Pinkies away.

In the end: Dear Princess Celestia (in Pinkie's Voice): Today I learned that you can't be two places at once. Sometimes there are just too many fun things to do, and not enough you to do them. But we shouldn't spend all our time worrying about what we can't do, and instead focus on worrying about the fun stuff we CAN do. You should never let something going on somewhere else ruin your fun.

* * *

This is a quintessential pinkie lesson that focuses on the most human element of the conflict, but presents plenty of opportunities for the same gags from this episode that we loved.

Instead, we get an episode about how funny all those Pinkies are, and the conflict is merely "what to do with all the Pinkies."

Weak episode, IMO.

[TotalEcplise]

I agree with that rewrite.

hi hi

Total Eclipse, perhaps when Pinkie Pie first stepped into the mirror, she entered a dreamworld where it was possible for multiple Pinkie Pies to exist simultaneously. And since she didn't get zapped by Twilight, she's still stuck in that dreamworld. Dun Dun Dunnn!

*GASPS* someone get pinkie a spinning top!

[NoGiantRobots1983]

hi hi

Actually, while sunlight will tan skin, due to an increase in melanin production, hair isn't made of living tissue and the pigments will gradually bleach when exposed to enough sunlight. So for ponies, sunbathing would actually lighten the colour of their coats.

It makes sense when you think about it! Rainbow Dash wants to look just like her dad!

[Tori]

All i can say is Reality, has nothing on Pinkie Pie. Nothing is impossible, simply put it was a awesome episode.

[SonicRainb00m]

Simply put, I liked this episode very much. Lots of Pinkies running around was a joy to watch, as well as physics laws being shattered.

Also, I like the episodes are still focusing on Twilight to an extent, since we get to see her abilities expand as the series progresses. I'm wondering if she's going to start experimenting with the "dark magic" soon...

What I want to see are the other legends/stories in that book that Spike found... It would be interesting to see other legends that they have...

[Ginger Mint]

hi hi

Dessa, you should be a writer.

Also, if you were to make the distinction be about which Pinkie Pie had learned something, you could do away with having Twilight zap them all together. They could have had a scene where the real Pinkie Pie explains to all her clones what she's learned, and after they realize that they'll never be able to be everywhere at once, they could either: disappear in a puff of logic, or one of them could say something like "Then why did you bring us out here in the first place?"in a grumpy voice, and they all go back to the mirrorcle on their own.

[NoGiantRobots1983]

Honesty I would've just had the clones wear off or something. Like maybe they disappear after a day or so.

But personally I try to keep in mind that the show is for little girls and we're a periphery audience. It's not gonna measure up to my standards if I'm too strict, so its nice to loosen up and have FUN FUN FUN FUN FUN FUN FUN *--is zapped out of existence by Twilight Sparkle*

[ZephyrBurst]

The episode was fun to watch, I won't argue that. It was entertaining as a cartoon, but season 1 quickly established that this show is not just some cartoon. It presented relatable scenarios from interesting, deep, and well developed characters. Think back to the discussions we all had in season 1 about how we've all shared a moment that the show presented and how it helped connect you to the show and its characters and even to people you know in the real. The scenarios and solutions felt well done and realistic. It used the characters as antagonists in the various episodes in ways that many of us have encountered without it feeling forced. (Mare Do Well being an example of a poor use of this.)

The show isn't just cheap laughs and jokes, it has that, and should keep it, but it should always stay at its roots of well thought out morals and meaningful solutions and methods of carrying that out.

[RarityDash]

Was Over a Barrel or Feeling Pinkie Keen really all that much deeper and more thoughtful than this one? Doesn't seem that way to me.

As far as I'm concerned, Dave Polsky's about at the same place he was as a writer in season one. Great gags written in, strong comedic focus; overall plot a little scattered, flawed or maybe not fully thought out or realized. if I recall, the morals or means in both of those were questioned to at the time as well.

I still think this ep was fun. I actually think episodes like this have a more than welcome place in the show.

[SteelEagle]

Was Over a Barrel or Feeling Pinkie Keen really all that much deeper and more thoughtful than this one? Doesn't seem that way to me.

As far as I'm concerned, Dave Polsky's about at the same place he was as a writer in season one. Great gags written in, strong comedic focus; overall plot a little scattered, flawed or maybe not fully thought out or realized. if I recall, the morals or means in both of those were questioned to at the time as well.

I still think this ep was fun. I actually think episodes like this have a more than welcome place in the show.

Look at his previous work. Not strong plot oriented. Scene/Gag focused writer who worked on likewise entertainment.

[Ginger Mint]

hi hi

Actually, I think Dave Polsky's episodes are deep, although I guess it could possibly be accidental. (I could probably write an entire book about Feeling Pinkie Keen, and if the old posts still exist, you'll see that I already have pages written on it.)

There's a lot of stuff going on in this episode that is pretty deep in nature, like Pinkie Pie's existential crisis, the question of what it means to be alive, the dilemma of opportunity cost, the necessarily imperfect state of individuality. Were those clones alive? How do you know if you are real? What if you had done something else at any point ever? If nobody had to make any choices, would we have any differences?

Most of the questions are raised briefly and left unresolved though, and perhaps that is the real ironic twist and twisted genius of Dave Polsky, is that this episode suffers from an existential crisis itself. It doesn't know the answer to all of its own questions, and for most of them, it doesn't really try. That approach may work well for zen meditation, but for a narrative -especially one so hyper-charged with humor- they really need a complete story arc.

But to be fair to the episode, there was some good characterization. Rainbow Dash wasn't a stereotypical jerk and she got a chance to show off her cool, laid back self. Pinkie Pie had some depth, and if their interactions weren't perpetually cut short by scene changes, I'm sure there'd have been some particularly memorable moments in there.

((In Feeling Pinkie Keen, no matter how much emphasis the voice actors said the word "believe," with, it didn't change the fact that Pinkie Sense is literally science, and that even science requires you to believe in your own perceptions. The brain-in-a-vat problem is something that science can never solve, because it is unfalsifiable. So I guess Dave Polsky has already displayed a penchant for existential quandaries.))

[TheInvisiblePony]

Actually, I find myself reminded of a different Faustian era, back when Foster's Home was in full swing. I'm fairly certain they had an episode similar to this where a ton of kids had all made their own version of Bloo, but because they couldn't quite get it right they sent them all to Foster's, where they pretended to be the original Bloo to tag along with Mac to see some show on ice.

All in all, if you want this kind of scenario done right, I'd recommend watching this episode. None of the clones are banished, and they are actually put through a quiz and inspection to determine the real one, because who knows how one acts better than their best friend? I thought the MLP version would become this, but their solution left a lot of 'splainen to do, both morally and for the answer they came up with. After all, could one of the Pinkie clones actually have developed a love for 'her' friends and faced enough of an existential crises to truly want to remain in Ponyville?

EDIT: The episode was called 'Bloo's Brothers'.

[Lerian]

For me, this was the creepiest episode, to the point that the second I was done watching I rushed to add it to the Nightmare Fuel page, putting up the first two entrees for the episode. Flesh balloons! Real Pinkie!

Yes, returns to the 'cartoon for little girls' thing...

[Dessa]

Was Over a Barrel or Feeling Pinkie Keen really all that much deeper and more thoughtful than this one? Doesn't seem that way to me.

As far as I'm concerned, Dave Polsky's about at the same place he was as a writer in season one. Great gags written in, strong comedic focus; overall plot a little scattered, flawed or maybe not fully thought out or realized. if I recall, the morals or means in both of those were questioned to at the time as well.

I still think this ep was fun. I actually think episodes like this have a more than welcome place in the show.

Over a Barrel was a horrible episode, but I'd argue that Feeling Pinkie Keen actually DID have depth. I find it a strength that it leaves its moral open to viewer interpretation.

Also, Pinkie Pie isn't a spaz the whole time. Sometimes, she has feels without zipping all over the screen and screeching every other line at top pitch.

[SteelEagle]

It wasn't the best episode, but I had fun watching it. Polsky continues being weak at plots, strong with scenes, which leads to some fun dialogue and exchanges as well as scenes at the expense of a fantastic plot.

[Rabukurafuto]

Actually, I find myself reminded of a different Faustian era, back when Foster's Home was in full swing. I'm fairly certain they had an episode similar to this where a ton of kids had all made their own version of Bloo, but because they couldn't quite get it right they sent them all to Foster's, where they pretended to be the original Bloo to tag along with Mac to see some show on ice.

All in all, if you want this kind of scenario done right, I'd recommend watching this episode. None of the clones are banished, and they are actually put through a quiz and inspection to determine the real one, because who knows how one acts better than their best friend? I thought the MLP version would become this, but their solution left a lot of 'splainen to do, both morally and for the answer they came up with. After all, could one of the Pinkie clones actually have developed a love for 'her' friends and faced enough of an existential crises to truly want to remain in Ponyville?

EDIT: The episode was called 'Bloo's Brothers'.

I'm glad someone else here remembers that. I was really hoping for the Pinkie duplicates to become progressively more deformed like the Bloo ones did, although that was only because the kids making Bloos weren't remembering the details perfectly or trying to improve upon the original. I suppose there was no way to do that with the Pinkie duplicates.

Yes, returns to the 'cartoon for little girls' thing...

Yay! Flesh balloons! I think that would have really unsettled me as a child.

[Ginger Mint]

hi hi

I'm not sure what the problem with Over a Barrel is, I thought it was a fine episode, and I agreed with the revisions that the native american experts sent back for them. Sure the audience is going to care about the mane six more than the characters that were just introduced, and would want the mane six to solve the problem in the end, but part of the point was that the people involved had to want to change.

After thinking about it a bit, I think perhaps I know what they were trying to do in Too Many Pinkies. They were trying to make a point about choosing the quick and easy path vs the long and difficult path. The test at the end was maybe supposed to represent having to decide between either instant gratification or difficulty now and greater rewards later. The only problem with this is that many of the Pinkie Pies in the end didn't choose, they were tricked and pressured into failing.

If I'm right and that was the point they were trying to make (and Celestia help me, that is the best idea I can come up with,) it would have probably been better if they had given the Pinkie Pie's a conscious choice rather than putting their reflexes to the test. They could have said something like, "You can choose to eat this cake, which will be super fun, and get sent back to the mirror, or you can choose to not have any cake and stay," and then watch as all the fake Pinkie Pie's choose to eat cake.

[Bellosh]

It wasn't the best episode, but I had fun watching it. Polsky continues being weak at plots, strong with scenes, which leads to some fun dialogue and exchanges as well as scenes at the expense of a fantastic plot.

Sounds like a fair assessment. I didn't really think anything was off while actually watching the episode for the first time, which I suppose is a good thing. As long as an episode can do that, I'll never rank it lower than 3/5.

[weesh]

How fair is it that we harshly judge Twilight and Co for their solution to the moral problem that Pinkie created?

Ignoring for a moment that they almost certainly did not come up with the best solution, they took time to contemplate, research and plan. There was very real concern over the results, there was some debate. Then they executed it together. It is easy after the fact to poke holes in the plan, but how much more do we expect of them then what their process showed?

I'm not sure what the problem with Over a Barrel is, I thought it was a fine episode, and I agreed with the revisions that the native american experts sent back for them.

Firstly, I'd live to see this list of changes, as it seems incredibly interesting.

Secondly, the issues with that episode were not cultural, but of hubris. There were multiple occasions there the settlers and natives were on the verge of peaceful talks when the mane 6 exacerbated the issues into confrontation and anger. Not only did they destabilize the region into a battle, they also ignored all culpability at the end of the episode by writing a lame letter to Celestia. This is unfortunate because a solid letter acknowledging their errors would have been redeeming.

[starswirlthebearded]

Firstly, I'd live to see this list of changes, as it seems incredibly interesting.

Secondly, the issues with that episode were not cultural, but of hubris. There were multiple occasions there the settlers and natives were on the verge of peaceful talks when the mane 6 exacerbated the issues into confrontation and anger. Not only did they destabilize the region into a battle, they also ignored all culpability at the end of the episode by writing a lame letter to Celestia. This is unfortunate because a solid letter acknowledging their errors would have been redeeming.

This! This entirely! "I brought little strong heart here to explain to the settler ponies why they should move their trees"---"That information would be might-"..."That's funny 'cause braeburn here wants to explain to the buffalo why they should stay" (and so on...)

Outsiders whom are not mediators getting involved in the internal affairs of two disagreeing factions, adding fuel to the fire instead of offering council to the two sides to diffuse the issue. Yeah, there were severe problems with that episode.

[Dessa]

This! This entirely! "I brought little strong heart here to explain to the settler ponies why they should move their trees"---"That information would be might-"..."That's funny 'cause braeburn here wants to explain to the buffalo why they should stay" (and so on...)

Outsiders whom are not mediators getting involved in the internal affairs of two disagreeing factions, adding fuel to the fire instead of offering council to the two sides to diffuse the issue. Yeah, there were severe problems with that episode.

Not to mention the hoary old racial tropes I thought cartoons had long since buried.

[Bellosh]

Not to mention the hoary old racial tropes I thought cartoons had long since buried.

I would have cared more about the plight of the buffalo tribe if they were actually going to lose... well you know, land and resources. The buffalo whining about one simple town getting in the way of their migration didn't cut it for me.

Fortunately, Too Many Pikie Pies had less fundamental issues with the plot that Over A Barrel, which is why I rank S3E3 higher.

[Ginger Mint]

hi hi

How fair is it to judge Twilight and Co for their solution? I'd say it is entirely fair. I would expect that, when a plan involves harming someone, that one would at least perform their due diligence enough to take the test themselves and see if they are able to pass. Spike didn't pass the test.

Neither is it entirely fair to put all the blame on Pinkie Pie. I find this problem strikingly similar to The Cold Equations, in that there are some very important things that should be considered, but never are. Where did that legend come from? Who goes around telling ponies about something dangerous, and how to get to it, without giving them any kind of proper warning? Ponies obviously knew about it, and even had spells specifically designed for dealing with it. If it was dangerous, why was it not dealt with before?

Any one event typically has more than one cause, and more than one person who is responsible for those causes. (See history of unsafe working environments, the responsibility of workers who make a mistake, and the owners who set up the conditions.) If Twilight wanted to avoid responsibility for the solution, why didn't she enlist the aid of Pinkie Pie et al. to help clean up her own mess?

---

I fail to see how the mane six's actions are a problem with Over a Barrel. They were a problem, yes, but that is an important lesson for people to learn, that you cannot simply step into other people's problems and solve for them, especially when you have a limited understanding of the whole situation. Especially interpersonal problems. I don't know how many times I saw the same old routine when I was growing up, where two people would be having relationship issues, one of their friends would try to tell them what to do as though they were the undisputed authority on everything, and the whole mess would blow up in everyone's face.

I also fail to see how having buffalo in the episode was a bad thing. The writers were very careful about not being offensive to minority groups, and got input from native american groups during the production of the episode to ensure that they didn't mess that up. (If I am to believe my Native American Lit instructor, good representation in media is a positive thing that Native American authors are pushing for.)

Bellosh101, how would you feel if someone pitched a tent in your driveway and refused to move?

---

There's a lot of similarities in Over a Barrel and Too Many Pinkies, in that the mane six are acting badly at times, but in Too Many Pinkies, there isn't a resolution to it. (At least in my opinion, there wasn't a satisfactory resolution to it.)

[Bellosh]

Bellosh101, how would you feel if someone pitched a tent in your driveway and refused to move?

Totally incomparable situation. Cars need driveways in order to make it onto the street; the buffalo tribe on the other hand have an entire desert to stampede through. What prevented the buffalo from simply going around the town?

[Ginger Mint]

hi hi

Fair enough, but how about a similar analogy. What if someone pitched a tent in your walkway? You could walk around the tent every time you go out your front door.