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| Mr Cake rehearses for his Ponyville Lockdown Exercises show |
Written by Charlotte Fullerton
14 Jan 2012
My original rating: N/A
IMDB score: 7.1
The one with the flour sacks.
Thoughts: This isn't IMDb's least favourite episode of S2, but it is mine – unless another ep in the second half takes that dubious crown as I go along. Why? Because, for the most part, it's boring – and that takes some doing for a Pinkie episode. There's the occasional flicker, such as Mr Cake's wild-eyed "That makes sense, right?" in the hospital or the brief horror-movie section in the nursery, but they're slim pickings indeed. Pinkie's little songs are dull, reminiscent of lower-tier efforts from early S1, and having two nappy-changing scenes suggests a bit of padding. (Pun not intended!) Pound and Pumpkin are only intermittently either amusing or endearing, and while the brief scene with Twilight is fun I'm not entirely convinced she'd choose her words quite so thoughtlessly to Pinkie by now. The humour is hit-and-miss almost throughout. The plot and moral are both fine, but neither is remotely original. This is about as close to a by-the-numbers episode as early Pony ever gets, and I'm afraid it shows. We'll reach eps later in the series that I dislike more, but "Baby Cakes" is one I virtually never rewatch by choice. For me it's not merely in the two-star band but in its lower reaches. It's not bad as such, but it is most definitely meh, and that's just not good enough for this show.
Choice quote: Pinkie: "Yeah. I think I can see where this is goin'."
New rating: ★★
Next up is "The Last Roundup", an episode that will be forever more remembered (by the fandom at large, anyway) for a single brief scene than for its actual main storyline. I like this ep, but I don't adore it. Let's see how that goes.
Agreed. You say that it takes some doing for a Pinkie episode to be boring, but I'd argue that's more an artifact of something that's been bothering me for a while now but was finally crystallises in the last 2 seasons: Pinkie episodes which focus on how she brings laughter need to be funny. If the writing isn't funny, Andrea and the animators can't make Pinkie funny to make up the shortfall, and if she's not funny, suddenly everything drags. And, wow, does this drag.
ReplyDeleteOne things I do kind of like (though it's ironic given the rest of the episode): the complete unamused disdain on the babies' part at Pinkie doing the pig dance. I took that straight away as a meta comment on some existing children's shows and the 'will this do? They're just kids, they'll watch any old tripe' attitude Lauren Faust once explicitly called out.
True -- there are late-series Pinkie episodes which, barring a miracle change of heart on my part, are also going to score poorly. But yeah, this episode felt a lot longer than 22 minutes to sit through.
DeleteI really like that idea about the pig dance scene. Whether it's been officially acknowledged or not, I'm going to accept it as real-world headcanon as of now!
It's okay, you can say it.
DeleteThe One Where Pinkie Pie Knows. c.c
Actually, I haven't even watched that for about three years. I can't remember much about it, really. I'm thinking rather later in the series than S5.
DeleteThere's assuredly a couple there, too. :B
DeleteThe one with the Trainspotting reference.
ReplyDeleteOh yes... I'm one of the (few?) people who's never watched that film, but I should have got the reference!
DeleteIt does drag a bit (perhaps my rating needs to be dropped by 0.5), I cannot deny. Enough is funny for me that I'm not bored, though, and I massively appreciate how Pinkie is written properly and in-depth, given how often (and in just a few episodes) the opposite would often be true, though to varying levels, of course.
ReplyDeleteThis episode falls in the category for me of those I like a decent bit more then you (and some others on this page). Just not enough to feel the need to convince others to agree with me. And it's not one I'd ever really grab for a casual rewatch much, all things considered.
But I still like it, and find it does the rightly-deplored genre of baby episodes like this in cartoons justice much better then the norm (just thinking about Dil from Rugrats right now... shudder).
"and I massively appreciate how Pinkie is written properly and in-depth"
DeleteAgreed. That's why this is actually one of my favourite Pinkie episodes in the earlier seasons. It's one of the few where Pinkie explicitly wants to be taken seriously as a mature individual ("Why, responsibility is my middle name. Pinkie Responsibility Pie.").
In addition, despite being offered a reprieve when it becomes too much for her, Pinkie also has enough pride to bristle when someone (innocently) points out she's not handling it well. I found that quite an endearing side of her to see.
Another reason is that it involves tormenting Pinkie, hitherto a good candidate for most annoying pony on my list. Given how obnoxious she can be as a Creator's Pet (coughswarmofthecenturycough), watching her be the recipient of a slow mental breakdown was - while sympathetic - also darkly, wickedly satisfying. Like a balance had been ever so slightly corrected.
Lastly, as much as I can see how it'd be boring and overlong to some, I personally found it a comfortable, easygoing lower deck slice-of-life episode with a more maturity-oriented focus than usual.
Nothing groundbreaking, natch, but simple, comfortable, and amusing enough. And after ten or so minutes of watching Pinkie's slow mental breakdown, even ending on a sound enough moral and a more family-friendly cute moment for that sweet aftertaste.
Then again, I do have a high tolerance for slow-burn episodes. I'm the one sod who likes "Applejack's 'Day' Off", for starters. So that might explain the discrepancy.
I do have a friend who likes "Applejack's 'Day' Off", so you're not alone!
DeleteWait, really? I thought everyone else disliked it.
DeleteYes, really! I was rather hoping they'd have left a comment on my review from the time, saying something like "Well, I really liked this one" -- but sadly no. But I assure you it's true!
DeleteIt's true. :P
DeleteI like 'Applejack's 'Day' Off' as a relaxing, slower pace episode that also showcases practical problem-solving, a fun dynamic between Rarity and Applejack (similar to 'Look Before You Sleep') and cute Twi moments. And I like the moral about valuing an outsiders perspective and avoiding bad habbits.
Don't have much to say, as I agree this was a single predictable premise stretched out for loo long. At least there was a little escalation in how the twins became gradually more difficult to deal with, and that's the right way to do repeated jokes, but there wasn't that much escalation. Just the nice horror movie reference and a bunch of passable but uninspired stuff.
ReplyDelete"Passable but uninspired" seems to me to be a pretty good summing-up of how I feel about this one.
DeleteI have no great love for the episode, but the little Twilight scene does hold the odd distinction of being the first footage of MLP:FiM I ever saw. It was enough to make me want to go and check out the series as a whole from the beginning, mostly because the characters (the 'pink one' and the 'purple one') seemed engaging.
ReplyDelete"The pink on" and "the purple one" -- how very Ember. ;)
DeleteThis critic is not going to sugar coat it: Any episode that involves a main character biting off more than they can chew, trying to properly care for some infants when the parents go away, involves shenanigans we have been introduced to so many times that we wonder… Does this feel more like a Season One episode? In a way, I do get what they were trying to do with this episode. Often times, Pinkie Pie has always been the ‘comic relief’, we do not expect her to have a moment where she is willing to take responsibility and often times the show labels her as nothing more than a joke on four legs. It does not even help that Pinkie Pie certainly was not the ‘first’ pony the Cakes turned to for a babysitter.
ReplyDeleteFirst they ask Fluttershy, who makes a living taking care of critters and ‘has’ babysat for foals before (Though it almost ended in disaster). But of course she could not go because she already made a picnic date… With ‘Angel Bunny’. So, they turn to Twilight being the level-headed member, she says no; Applejack, the ‘family’ pony, she says she cannot; Rainbow Dash… Eh, we will see eventually that she would not be good at babysitting; and Rarity… Do I even have to say it?
The moment Pinkie Pie is finally given that chance to spend time with the foals, turns out the idea of playing with the foals is no substitute for actually trying to care for these kids. And it gets a bit formulaic from here: Pinkie tries to put some fun in their lives, they end up crying, she throws a bag of flour over her, and that makes them laugh. This joke would just repeat itself as if the writers do not know what else to do. It does not even help that when Twilight initially comes in to lend a helping hoof, either it was her poor choice of words or maybe something that came off as insensitive, that Pinkie Pie immediately assumes that Twilight is just like all the other ponies who do not think she can be an adult. Yet just when it seems as if she is finally ready to kick the bucket, that these children are too impossible to manage, eventually the children themselves do decide to give their babysitter some slack and the rest plays itself out.
I would not say this was one of Season Two’s best episodes, though we do get a rather ‘interesting’ lore at how the ponies born ‘can’ be a Pegasus and/or Unicorn depending on the family tree (Though even that gets confusing). Some jokes get repetitive really fast, the ‘songs’ put in the episode are pretty standard ‘Pinkie melodies’, and it is almost cringe-worthy at best. But, at the same time, the episode has cute moments especially the overall bonding between Pinkie Pie and the twins, several scenes end up becoming meme worthy, and it ‘can’ be funny during the first few minutes. Some fans may call this episode a step-down, believing it should have been a Season 1 episode and I get where they are coming from. All I can say is while I do not think this episode is rewatchable by any means, the parts of this episode do carry on for the remainder of the series and henceforth there are actually ‘worse’ episodes than this. This episode to me… It is nothing special, it is okay… ‘Just’ okay.