BARGAIN BIN REVIEW
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Reviewing the movies
no one else will touch.
no one else will touch.
MY LITTLE PONY: THE MOVIE
* (1986, 89 minutes, Unrated)
READER APPRECIATION POLL WINNER: I don't know what I did to piss you off this time.
Let Ol' Nolahn be the one to break it to you: Being a parent is chock-full of small horrors no one
ever warns you about. Sure, you know all about the stinky diapers, but how 'bout the excrement
bombs that go shooting up your little darling's back? Or the look of sheer terror on your child's
face the first time he or she vomits. Or, speaking of vomit, the array of terrible children's
programming you find yourself subjected to.
So you always try to hedge your bets. I thought I was safe with My Little Pony: The Movie. The film
featured the vocal talents of Danny DeVito, Cloris Leachman, Madeline Kahn, Tony Randall, Rhea
Perlman, Nancy Cartwright and Peter Cullen, as well as a solid dose of '80s nostalgia.
Unfortunately, it appears all of the production's resources went into getting those big-name voices,
cuz everything else -- and I mean EVERYTHING else: the animation, the songs, the plot, the
dialog -- suuuuuuuucks. By the end, I was fantasising about taking a nail gun to my forehead.
Naturally, my girls love it.
Anyway: In a far away land, or an alternate universe, or just some corner of Wyoming everyone's
forgotten about, there live a whole bunch of horses -- excuse me, ponies -- that can talk and live in
a castle. As ponies do. Living among the talking ponies are talking unicorns and talking
pegasuses (pegaseese?) and talking "baby ponies," which I thought was redundant until
Wikipedia told me otherwise. They all have ridiculous names like Lickety-Split and Magic Star
and Morning Glory. It's spring and they're all planning a big Spring Festival, though how they
* (1986, 89 minutes, Unrated)
READER APPRECIATION POLL WINNER: I don't know what I did to piss you off this time.
Let Ol' Nolahn be the one to break it to you: Being a parent is chock-full of small horrors no one
ever warns you about. Sure, you know all about the stinky diapers, but how 'bout the excrement
bombs that go shooting up your little darling's back? Or the look of sheer terror on your child's
face the first time he or she vomits. Or, speaking of vomit, the array of terrible children's
programming you find yourself subjected to.
So you always try to hedge your bets. I thought I was safe with My Little Pony: The Movie. The film
featured the vocal talents of Danny DeVito, Cloris Leachman, Madeline Kahn, Tony Randall, Rhea
Perlman, Nancy Cartwright and Peter Cullen, as well as a solid dose of '80s nostalgia.
Unfortunately, it appears all of the production's resources went into getting those big-name voices,
cuz everything else -- and I mean EVERYTHING else: the animation, the songs, the plot, the
dialog -- suuuuuuuucks. By the end, I was fantasising about taking a nail gun to my forehead.
Naturally, my girls love it.
Anyway: In a far away land, or an alternate universe, or just some corner of Wyoming everyone's
forgotten about, there live a whole bunch of horses -- excuse me, ponies -- that can talk and live in
a castle. As ponies do. Living among the talking ponies are talking unicorns and talking
pegasuses (pegaseese?) and talking "baby ponies," which I thought was redundant until
Wikipedia told me otherwise. They all have ridiculous names like Lickety-Split and Magic Star
and Morning Glory. It's spring and they're all planning a big Spring Festival, though how they
managed to make the signs or bake the pies for the
pie-eating contest is a mystery to me cuz none of them
have hands. Then again, there are talking unicorns, so I
should just move on.
The antagonists are a family of poorly-drawn witches --
seriously, one has a torso that's at least three times the
length of her legs -- who live in a nearby volcano. They
want to ruin the big Spring Festival because they're
eeeeeeevil, though they're not so much evil as kinda
rude. The witches' scenes are filled with the kind of
non-stop "wacky" "slap-stick" that's aims to be manic fun
and ends up exhausting and oddly inappropriate.
Speaking of oddly inappropriate, the witches' big plan to
run the Spring Festival is to flood the entirety of
PonyLand with "Smooze," a quasi-sentient purple slime
akin to The Blob. Just a bit of overkill, though it's worth
saying that in the Smooze, the film makers have come
up with something for the kiddies that's menacing
pie-eating contest is a mystery to me cuz none of them
have hands. Then again, there are talking unicorns, so I
should just move on.
The antagonists are a family of poorly-drawn witches --
seriously, one has a torso that's at least three times the
length of her legs -- who live in a nearby volcano. They
want to ruin the big Spring Festival because they're
eeeeeeevil, though they're not so much evil as kinda
rude. The witches' scenes are filled with the kind of
non-stop "wacky" "slap-stick" that's aims to be manic fun
and ends up exhausting and oddly inappropriate.
Speaking of oddly inappropriate, the witches' big plan to
run the Spring Festival is to flood the entirety of
PonyLand with "Smooze," a quasi-sentient purple slime
akin to The Blob. Just a bit of overkill, though it's worth
saying that in the Smooze, the film makers have come
up with something for the kiddies that's menacing
without being overtly violent.
After a bunch of tedious running around and songs and dialog-enforced character development
("[The Smooze is] all my fault, I know it," one pony inexplicably says. Even more inexplicable is the
response: "Yeah, you're right! You're bad luck!"), two pegasuses fly off to get some actual
humans. They are Megan, who apparently is a Friend of the Ponies, and her kid brother and
sister. Megan is something of a mystery: She talks and sings like she's in her 20s, looks like
puberty should have kicked in a few years ago, and dresses like my toddler. Megan possesses
the Rainbow of Light, a giant shimmering rainbow-colored ribbon that flies around and... I don't
know what it's supposed to do, but it does "do battle" with the Smooze.
Then there's more running around and some other kind of pegaguses called "Flutter Ponies" and
a giant drooling ticklish spider and WHERE IS MY NAIL GUN?!? Somehow, the moral of the story
has something to do with stepping up to help others fight the good fight. Maybe we should have
shipped all the copies of this movie to Switzerland...
Think Nolahn is way off base? Looking to defend the honor of the My Little Pony franchise, cheap
'80s animation or Switzerland? Simply have a better Pony name than the ones in our poll? Give
us an earful.
After a bunch of tedious running around and songs and dialog-enforced character development
("[The Smooze is] all my fault, I know it," one pony inexplicably says. Even more inexplicable is the
response: "Yeah, you're right! You're bad luck!"), two pegasuses fly off to get some actual
humans. They are Megan, who apparently is a Friend of the Ponies, and her kid brother and
sister. Megan is something of a mystery: She talks and sings like she's in her 20s, looks like
puberty should have kicked in a few years ago, and dresses like my toddler. Megan possesses
the Rainbow of Light, a giant shimmering rainbow-colored ribbon that flies around and... I don't
know what it's supposed to do, but it does "do battle" with the Smooze.
Then there's more running around and some other kind of pegaguses called "Flutter Ponies" and
a giant drooling ticklish spider and WHERE IS MY NAIL GUN?!? Somehow, the moral of the story
has something to do with stepping up to help others fight the good fight. Maybe we should have
shipped all the copies of this movie to Switzerland...
Think Nolahn is way off base? Looking to defend the honor of the My Little Pony franchise, cheap
'80s animation or Switzerland? Simply have a better Pony name than the ones in our poll? Give
us an earful.
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