Dear Baby Ribbon:

How come all the semi-new ponies (Bon Bon, Patch, Teddy, etc.) are all earth ponies?

Katie

Dear Katie,

I am guessing from your examples that you mean the ponies from the newer series, My Little Pony Tales (most of them are indeed earth ponies) and the ponies from the last years (e.g. the tenth anniversary).  I have already briefly addressed this issue in my topic on Pony Actors, but the instance of Earth Ponies in My Little Pony Tales is particulary interesting.  To fully understand it, we need to look at the history of the creation of Tales.

Galaxy, by then an accomplished actress and well known for her appearances in My Little Pony 'n Friends, took the director's chair for most of the episodes of My Little Pony Tales.  "The greatest obstacle in directing a new MLP series was overcoming the tendency to rehash premises and ideas from My Little Pony 'n Friends." she explained to me.  "I wanted to create something totally different, completely unprecedented."

What Galaxy created was a revolutionary hit show, revolutionary in that instead of revolving around Pony Magic, the episodes revolved around the ponies themselves and the real-life situations in which they found themselves.  Galaxy had created a new image.

"Creating that new image wasn't easy," she admitted.  "Pony Magic is such an intricate part of our lives--all but eliminating it on screen proved rather difficult."  She began by casting then-unknown ponies to play the lead parts rather than bringing back the mega-stars and their mega-magic-powers from MLP 'n Friends. 

Not only were the lead ponies unknowns, but they were also all Earth Ponies, as were most of the guests and extras on the series.  "I was very careful to cast a majority of Earth Ponies, again to downplay the magic element in Ponyland." says Galaxy. "Unfortunately, maintaining a cast composed entirely of Earth Ponies proved impossible, as did eliminating Pony Magic altogether."  Occasionally, it would become necessary to cast a unicorn or a pegasus in a Tales episode; Galaxy then relied on her own magic to achieve the image she wanted.

She used a pancake makeup of her own design, with a formula as yet unknown to the general public, to make horns, wings, and splashy symbols appear invisible on screen.  She even occasionally added wings to ponies that had none.  "Why?" she laughed, "Mainly to make the audience forget what they were--a unicorn, or a flutter pony, a Sweetheart Sister--and focus on who they were."

And we did!  Everyone can look to at least one of the Tales characters to represent his or her personality and outlook.  Ironically, the "earth pony trend" caught on in the real Ponyland, also, and it became the chic thing to be only an earth pony during the final years (lest you doubt--unicorns still rule!).  But as for personality . . . me?  I've always thought of myself as a second Sweetheart.  And if you believe that, there's some swampland in the Black Mountains I'd love to sell you . . .