Judging by the response to TV Club’s coverage of an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, the adaptation of the Hasbro toy line has joined the ranks of Yo Gabba Gabba and Spongebob Squarepants in terms of Internet cult status. As such, fan videos are a given, and the most interesting of the bunch juxtapose the adorable rainbow color palette of My Little Pony with movie trailers for action movies and blockbusters. Said mashups have been floating around for a few months now, back to “300 Ponies” or “The Rainbow Knight,” but here are a few of the best and most recent examples of how the newest children’s television crossover turned mainstream meme.
"Spike Pilgrim Vs. The World" made the rounds just last week, putting Spike and Rarity into the roles of Scott and Ramona, with the other ponies filling out the rouge’s gallery of evil exes. Lots of starry-eyed romance ensues, and Spike fits Michael Cera’s sadsack slouch surprising well:
"Trot Fuzz" has Rainbow Dash saddling up (see what I did there?) as Simon Pegg’s Nicholas Angel and Pinkie Pie as lovable sidekick Danny Butterman. The swan recovery scene gets a pretty funny reimagination:
The trailer that best incorporates the entire main cast has to be "Ponymen," a send-up of the full trailer for Watchmen featuring Pinkie Pie as Rorschach, Twilight Sparkle as Dr. Manhattan, Applejack as Nite Owl, Rainbow Dash as The Comedian, Rarity as Silk Spectre, and Spike as Ozymandias. Somehow, the epic music in the Watchmen trailer synchs up rather nicely with the colorful assault of Friendship Is Magic.
Overall, the best trailer is probably for "Inglorious Ponies." What puts it over the top? Putting Brad Pitt’s “we’re in the killin’ Nazi business, and cousin, business is a-booming” line into the mouth of a purple pony, and pairing shots of Twilight Sparkle and the other denizens of Ponyville with the audio of the Inglourious Basterds.
It’s interesting to note that for all of these trailers to work, they need to recast most, if not all the female My Little Pony characters as men to fit with the mashup. Guess nobody wanted to cut together a trailer for Ponymaids.