You may be surprised to learn that My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic—the cultural phenomenon whose adoption by the Internet has spawned conventions, hundreds of albums worth of music, angry e-mails regarding pony porn, documentaries, one of this season’s best episodes of Bob’s Burgers, and tens of thousands of jokes about the lives or lack thereof of its surprisingly devoted legion of adult male fans—is also a TV show. To the delight of those fans, and all of the show’s other admirers from across the demographic spectrum (including the actual children the show is targeted to), Hub Network has announced the pick-up of Friendship Is Magic for a fifth season, as reported in Variety.
The 26-episode order will push the series over the milestone 100-episode mark, a remarkable achievement for a show primarily aimed at teaching young girls self-confidence, the importance of friendship, and the fact that anything that’s special for them will eventually be co-opted and stolen by dudes.