You ought to be watching this show.
Sure, the target demographic is young girls and it's about ponies with "cutie marks" and they break into song and it's called "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" (of course if that puts you off, you're probably also missing out on Buffy, but that's a rant for another time), blah blah blah--who cares? This show is awesome. Watch it. Watch it now.
First, this show was developed by Lauren Faust, a self-described feminist who set out to tell a story "for about about girls." Furthermore, in this awesome piece she wrote for Ms. Magazine's blog, Faust describes how she wanted the show to let people know "there are lots of different ways to be a girl." So right off, you should know that if you're looking for lots of pink ponies and tea parties, you need to reconsider (I mean, there are pink ponies and tea parties, but they're awesome, and balanced by blue ponies and sports and purple ponies and science and yellow ponies and--you really should just watch the show).
Not only are the characters not your childhood's pony, they are downright fantastic. If the show has a protagonist, it's Twilight Sparkle, a young antisocial unicorn interested in magic and learning. She's pretty much forced to go make friends, and discovers that friendship is, well, magic. She makes five good friends: Rarity, a fashion designer; Pinkie Pie, who loves parties; Rainbow Dash, a tomboy pegasus; Applejack, a hardworking earth pony; and Shutterfly, a shy pony who loves animals. They've all got very distinct personalities, but ultimately they're all incredibly likable, and even better, they're all completely insane.
Because there is a God, we have Pinkie Pie. This is her singing about a zebra. Sometimes, she pops out of random bowls of sponges to warn her friends about trust. Pinkie Pie literally bounces everywhere. She grew up on a rock farm. She has a mental breakdown and has a party with a bucket of turnips, a sack of flour, a pile of rocks, and what appears to be a dust bunny.Pinkie Pie is flat out crazy, and the show acknowledges this frequently. And she's not the only crazy pony.
And finally, this show is an unprecedented ray of sunshine in a cynical world. This being a children's show, it features a different sort of lesson every week. Young ponies try to figure out what they're supposed to do with their lives, finally realized that they don't need to know everything right now. It tells you how to act if you are taken. Most importantly, it teaches you to just be your awesome self. Simple lessons? Perhaps. And yet I found that each day I watched an episode, I found its lesson applicable to my life that day. In fact, as I face new challenges each day, I ask myself, "What would Pinkie Pie do?"
(the answer is almost always party, sing, and dance)
Basically, my life is about 20% cooler since watching this show. I'd recommend it for children and parents alike. Soon you too can have unadulterated enthusiasm--for life, and for ponies!
The first season has just ended, and it's available on iTunes, or you can find it all on YouTube.
