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| Yes, yes, Derpy – but how many noticed Rainbow playing with Tank in the background? |
Written by Amy Keating Rogers
1 Feb 2014
My original rating: 9/10 (=★★★★★)
IMDb score: 9.1
Thoughts: This one is sheer pleasure. In a season where Pinkie is written pretty unevenly, "Pinkie Pride" shows her at her very best, giving her a depth of character some other eps don't allow her to display. "Weird Al" Yankovic is the show's first guest star since John de Lancie, and he gives as good as he gets. Cheese and Pinkie spark off each other very well, but there's also plenty of emotion here. The scene where Pinkie pretends to be fine when Twilight visits is heartbreaking, especially that watering can. Meanwhile, the songs range from decent ("Cheese Confesses") to really good ("Pinkie the Party Planner", "Pinkie's Lament") though it's a fair point to say the visuals – which are superb throughout – often complement them greatly. And though not a real song, Cheese Sandwich nicking "Smile" is truly hilarious. It's also clever that Cheese's party stuff is generally bigger and flashier than Pinkie's, which ties in nicely to the others being starstruck by him. Oh, and there's filly Derpy in a flashback as well. All in all, one of Amy Keating Rogers' triumphs – and she had a few of those over the years. All rounded off with custom closing credits music. Easily the best "key" episode, and one of the best of the whole series.
Choice quote: Cheese Sandwich: "I was ready before I was born!"
New rating: ★★★★★
Next up is "Simple Ways", an episode I remember for Tabitha St. Germain's voice work and not a lot else. I'm open-minded going into this one.
This really is a stellar episode! From the concept on down, through the writing, the songs, and the guest star performance, it's a silly, goofy riot - and that, amazingly, manages to make Pinkie feel both real and emotionally distraught (I too had forgotten about that watering can bit).
ReplyDelete"Weird Al" Yankovic truly owns the role - whether he'd actually watched episodes or not, he just gets Cheese right from the start and knows where to take him and where to not. And he is capable of being sincere - the dialogue around his confession song is quite moving too (incidentally, this is one thing of note in "The Last Laugh", that even though it was beyond idiotic to bring him back for an episode where he has to be glum until the end song, he at least acts the part, even if the results are nowhere near entertaining).
The funny thing is, though I never doubted this episode's excellence, it's not one I've revisited all that much. I think I view this kind of non-stop goofy musical humour a bit like "Slice of Life" -disastrous if used more then very rarely, but fine as a once off (I do vastly prefer this to "Slice of Life"). It's not exactly my preferred type of comedy, is perhaps another way of putting it. I guess I laugh out loud at very few of the jokes, though I always have a big grin on my spectral features. That's enough.
Honestly, the only actual fault I have is that the Key aspect of the episode lands much less successfully then the rest, and feels decidedly undercooked (to be fair, it was only added in the script's 2nd draft, meaning they lucked into Pinkie's moment of abandoning the Goof Off because Dash wasn't having fun any more outing her crisis of her Element). Still, I think because it's just an afterthought - the other four Key episodes all feel built up around their tests of virtue - and because Laughter isn't really a straightforward emotional virtue the way Generosity, Loyalty, Kindness and Honesty are, it's just kind of there. Possibly why I still tend to jump to "Rarity Takes Manehattan" as my favourite Key episode, even though this is better - it barely feels like one.
On more positive grounds! It's refreshing to see Amy Keating Rogers nail Pinkie after giving us the more wobbly "A Friend In Deed" (indeed, her scripts are generally far more consistent in Season 4 & 5 then the first two), and the episode is just immaculately plotted and constructed (Jayson Theissan deserves some of the credit too). Subtle aspects like Cheese's gimmicks being flashier help to excuse otherwise questionable moments like Pinkie's friends forgetting her to fawn over him, among other things. Truly a great episode. Keep on rocking on, Season 4!
Semi-related, but I realised the other day that the show has only had 8 guest stars across its whole run - yet every one of them performed their character to the same high standard as the Vancouver cast, and often up there with the highs. After John de Lancie and "Weird Al" Yankovic, we have Lena Hall as Coloratura, Patton Oswalt as Quibble Pants, the one-two punch of William Shatner as Grand Pear (playing against type, amazingly) and Felice Day as Pear Butter. Finally we wrap up with Maurice LaMarche as Chancellor "Pinkie and the Brain" Neighsay (whatever you want to say about the character, LaMarche plays him very well), and Rachel Bloom as Autumn Blaze. There's not a performance in there that doesn't enhance the writing (not always a given, even with this show's VA pool).
[Excepting Sia's 5 spoken lines, the same holds true for the Movie, even though most of the roles are so underwritten that it's hard to appreciate them.]
PRODUCTION CHANGES
ReplyDeletePREMISE
You probably know this, but the reason why Jayson Thiessen is credited for the Story of "Pinkie Pride" - when this has never before happened with DHX staff, who contractually cannot write for the show - is because he's to credit for the episode existing at all. Following “Weird Al” Yancovic positively reacting on Twitter to a remix/cover/music video of one of his songs set to FiM clips, Jayson asked if he'd be interested in being on the show, and presumably, it progressed thereafter behind closed doors. Whether he pitched this idea to get Weird Al onboard, or he suggested it at the writer's retreat once they had him, I don't know - but the Premise is quite detailed and accurate to the final episode, so the Story By credit is deserved. The main difference is the lack of Dash's birthiversary as a plot device - instead Cheese just shows up and consistently does better parties than Pinkie, until she challenges him to a Goof Off and wins with a special move. Not an insignificant plot detail, but a small one, as things go. The heart of the episode was there from the start.
OUTLINE
As far as changes during the writing process, "Pinkie Pride" is, hands-down, the most uneventful Season 4 episode thus far. Amy Keating Rogers knows how to write musicals and songs - the Outline has virtually no different details outside of some of the songs's visuals (five instead of three attempted jobs during "Pinkie's Lament", for instance). The lyric samples barely resemble the final songs - but the narrative point of each one is there already. There's a small scene of Dash suggesting the party would be better with Cheese, to which Pinkie wonders who he is. Yes, she pulled an AJ "Who's Countess Coloratura?" before it was cool. Dash flashbacks to flying all over Equestria and seeing his work - Pinkie is game for plussing the party, but doesn't know where to find him. Then he appears as he does in the episode.
Perhaps the most interesting detail is that, as Rogers has disclosed in interviews, she suggests pre-existing songs she has in mind, which really helps Daniel Ingram go to town (and helps Hasbro executives picture it before they have demos). The suggested songs are:
"Pinkie the Party Planner" - "Little Town" from Beauty and the Beast
"Super Duper Party Pony" - the tune of "Supercalifragilisticeexpialidocious"
"Pinkie's Lament" - "Don't Cry for Me Argentina"
"The Goof Off" - an "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better" type-song
"Cheese Confesses" - reprise of his earlier song
"Make A Wish" - "Pump It" by The Black Eyes Peas
SCRIPT
The tricky thing with discussing script changes for a musical episode is that Daniel Ingram reworks the lyrics - and even the associated visuals on occasion - a lot himself, so even the locked draft is still different than the final episode. Once we account for that, the non-song portions of the 1st draft are eerily similar to the final episode. A few small snippets are missing, like AJ & Rarity remarking how great it is Cheese arrived, Cheese's early doozy, and so on (they all get added by the 2nd draft), and there's a few differing lines. But other then the expected "main character only receives their Key in the 2nd draft onwards" bit, very little here!
Not to say the songs AREN'T changed throughout the drafts - Rogers actually cuts chunks out of "Pinkie the Party Planner" and "The Super Duper Party Pony" along expected lyrical do-overs. Throughout all of the remaining drafts, all I found of note was Dash's anniversary once being specified as her 10th year in Ponyville, before that was removed (Hasbro avoiding timeline locking, me thinks).
Amazingly, the script is only 28 pages, a few shorter than usual. Perhaps Rogers timed it, or could sense the needed screen time?
[continued below]
[continued from above]
DeleteOne other notable script thing - both the Outline and the 1st draft were peppered with "20% cooler" quotes from Rainbow Dash. Let's be grateful they realised this was too on-the-nose!
SONG REVISIONS
Perhaps because Daniel Ingram made so many song changes (to be fair, he did the same for "Magical Mystery Cure"), an updated script was issues later with his lyrics subbed in (and poorly - whoever did this forgot to copy out the old version of "Pinkie's Lament", so two versions are present twice in succession!) Perhaps also because he added, removed or changed spoken dialogue in the middle of songs (much of "Pinkie the Party Planner", for instance), this was done too.
Sadly, there's no easy way to summarise how the songs were altered. All I can do is say the plot structure was always there for each one. Cheese's two solos probably required the least lyrical changes, while "Pinkie's Lament" required the most - the original version was overlong, giving a verse to each "failed job" snapshot, though it lacked Pinkie's spoken bridge where she gathers herself . Oddly, even in this script, "Make a Wish!" still doesn't have the right, finished lyrics, though given the slapdash nature of pasting in the final song lyrics, that was probably an oversight. Similarly, Dash's "cut the warm fuzzy stuff, get to the party" line was adjusted to before the reprise at this stage, though the script doesn't note this.
ANIMATIC & OTHER CHANGES
Cheese's moment where he whips out a 2nd Boneless after giving Pinkie the first isn't in any script - an ad-lib by “Weird Al”, perhaps?
Because the script was kept down in size (only 27.5 pages), the usual 2 minutes of trimming wasn't required (there might be the odd line or visual I missed that was cut). Thus, the animatic had virtually no time cuts! Obviously the DHX staff went to town on the visuals during the song sequences (the visuals for "The Goof Off" were basically done over during storyboarding). As such, there is only one animatic change I want to note:
From the outline onwards, one of the 'failed job' scenes during "Pinkie's Lament" was of her selling apple pies alongside Apple Bloom and Granny Smith. Pinkie tried to do it well, but simply couldn't resist slamming the pie in her own face, instead of selling it to the eager customer (clarified in the script to be Soarin - Amy Keating Rogers clearly headcanons him having a thing for Apple Pie, between this and "The Best Night Ever"). Afterwards, the two Apples kick her out much like everypony else.
This remained through to the final draft, even after Daniel's revisions, AND into the animatic's first pass (though here she shoved the pie into the customer's face. It was only when Hasbro commented on the Apples being still throughout that Jayson Thiessen voiced his own worry - that it would seem awfully mean for the Apples to kick Pinkie off the farm after they accepted her unconditionally into the family only 2 episodes ago (in production order, this is before "Three's A Crowd"). So he said he intended to replace it with something else. And from there, we can infer the construction site bit took its place, moving the rude "kicking off the property" bit to an unnamed construction foremare.
Isn't that touching? That the show staff actually caught something like that, and rectified it despite being rather late in the process? No question, Jim Miller would have let it slide, given his stated "it's just fun antics" approach to the show. Regardless, we fans WOULD have called them out on this, and we definitely do so for fanfics. So bravo, Jayson. Bravo.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
Really, all the song changes are a natural part of the process, and everything else was solidified very early. Nice to see an episode develop smoothly and with true passion - especially with that continuity catch at the end!
I can't say I grew up with him, but I discovered Weird Al's music during a formative period, and his approach to humor and parody has been a foundation of my own for my entire life.
ReplyDeleteThus, injecting him whole-hog into my 2014 ongoing obsession was basically the pinnacle of my life's experience. (It is perhaps no coincidence that everything since then has been downhill!)
That said, I want to take a moment to turn a critical eye to this otherwise excellent episode. If I'm being honest, I really don't remember much about it when I think about it, other than, "oh yeah, Weird Al pony". But I got into a weird state, that more or less persists to this day, because of course everyone immediately started shipping Pinkie and Cheese, and though they would ultimately be vindicated, I thought it was gross. I mean, Cheese Sandwich is just Weird Al Yankovic, in the flesh, viewed through a pony-shaped lens! Shipping real people with ponies is super weird!
Of course, then he went and did it himself after season 9, so what do I know. :B
I don't remember where I was going with this.
One of the rare episodes where the only relevant critical question is *exactly* where in my all time top ten I want to place it.
ReplyDeleteSince I have nothing but praise for this episode I'll just share two facts about it:
1) My UK of Equestria profile picture is a still from this episode.
2) A pigasus appears in this episode. (See if you can spot where.)
This is definitely among the top-tier episodes for me, but for everyone having the "Smile" theft among their favorite parts, I never notice it, even when I'm listening for it. That said, I'm not very enamored of the song in the first place, so I'm probably prone to not picking up on it.
ReplyDeleteFilly Derpy was awesome, but it was just as fun seeing the other fillies, including Bon Bon and Cheerilee, if I'm remembering right. The only thing that put me off about it was the attitude that if Pinkie wasn't the best party pony, then she couldn't stay. Eventually, that got formed into the wager, but even before that, Pinkie started having the sentiment. Also one of the best jobs a writer did with Pinkie. She's the right blend of wacky and insightful, and with her own obvious cares and worries.
This is also the one where people obsessed with counting the candles on Dash's cake, including surmising how many must be invisible around the back side, to determine her age.
Fun and heartfelt all around, and I'd rate it 5 stars.