The Round Stable

(?) · by **odmv7** (?) » Fri Jan 06, 2012 11:13 pm

It wasn't bad but not as good as Cute from the Hip. Other than running Sweetie-Bot into the ground the b-plot with the smooze had very weak jokes and no payoff at all. But I still liked the episode. :allears:

(?) · by **Rainbow Crash** (?) » Fri Jan 06, 2012 11:55 pm

Amazing. That's all I have to say about that episode.

I don't think they're running anything the ground, they just have their own continuity and character arcs that they're building. That's why it's a fantastic parody series.

(?) · by **Durandal** (?) » Sat Jan 07, 2012 12:00 am

I took the liberty of ripping most of the good quotes so you can use them as ringtones/error sounds/whatever

http://discogenie.dyndns.org/sfx/

(crossposting this to the phone thread too)

(?) · by **Stuntwoman** (?) » Sat Jan 07, 2012 12:20 am

Listening to Sweetiebot's song again, am I the only one who thinks the FiW team needs to release an album at some point?

(?) · by **diribigal** (?) » Sat Jan 07, 2012 12:23 am

Stuntman wrote:Listening to Sweetiebot's song again, am I the only one who thinks the FiW team needs to release an album at some point?

I agree; I thought Ceep Calm and Cupcakes was already good, and they think it needs more work.

(?) · by **Super Karoru** (?) » Sat Jan 07, 2012 12:55 am

I think this is the best episode yet. I was afraid the Sweetie Bot thing was going to get old quickly, but they still made it funny. The new song was awesome. There are so many new, great quotes. Man, I love this series. :allears:

I lost it at Spike's audition at the end. :lol:

(?) · by **Daionus The 23rd** (?) » Sat Jan 07, 2012 2:30 am

Pretty good episode. Was shocked and amused by TheArtix's contributions to the episode.

At this point I'm convinced the series will end with several freakish apocalyptic events occuring at the same time while a remix of "Can't Stop The Smooze" plays in the beckground.

(?) · by **Confounded Ponies** (?) » Sat Jan 07, 2012 4:39 am

That was fucking amazing. The part with Spike freaking out was hilarious.

(?) · by **thatbastardken** (?) » Sat Jan 07, 2012 6:01 am

So I have A Speculation to share with the thread: When Applebloom referred to Twilight's "Discord Fanfic" in Cute from the Hip, she was talking about what we, as outside observers, refer to as the opening two-part episode of season 2. By this logic reasoning, all of FiM exists in-universe for the FiW ponies, as Twilight's terrible OC fiction about herself and her cool friends who have magical adventures.

Well played, Sherclop Pones. :golfclop:

(?) · by **Pocket** (?) » Sat Jan 07, 2012 6:05 am

I've watched it twice so far. Most of it probably would have worked better if Sweetie Belle weren't a robot, really, because a lot of her lines would have worked out a lot better with natural delivery. But they made the best of it. And, dammit, I want my own Sweetie Bot now! "My primary function is failure." :fluttersmith:

This series keeps doing things I don't catch on my own even after a second viewing. Like in this episode, the fact that Sweetie Belle is singing the same song both times, or Pinkie Pie's parasprite song being a polka version of "Friday" (although they probably took some liberties with that one since it barely had a tune to begin with). It took looking at the comments to notice both of those.

(?) · by **Frosthawk** (?) » Sat Jan 07, 2012 6:48 am

Man, Sweetie Bot is adorable. I was afraid that she would get old, but man, she did not. And the song, of course, was fantastic and almost reminded me of those literal music videos at times.

Maybe not as laugh-out-loud hilarious as Cute At The Hip but still a very enjoyable watch.

(?) · by **Ragnar** (?) » Sat Jan 07, 2012 7:15 am

I love the little buzzy sounds Sweetiebot makes when she moves. :allears:

The cries of "meh" in this thread are opaque to me. I mean, fine, fair enough, but holy hell. When the FiW people chop-shopped the original show, they dumped all the excess cute into a little robot and set it loose upon the unsuspecting townsfolk. SB is a dormant machine of red-eyed destruction kept in check by love alone. I take back everything I've ever said about this series being about a bunch of evil, horrible people who literally live in Hell itself. :allears:

I also love this episode's obsession with death. :allears:

I'm watching it again and you can hear Rarity's parents' chariot crashing again in the background.

(?) · by **samsquamsch** (?) » Sat Jan 07, 2012 7:19 am

I'm so happy there's a thread for this here! I just saw the fifth episode when it was posted on reddit, and almost didn't watch, having never heard of the series before and some of the more over-the-top and dark moments in this episode almost pushing me to stop watching it. I've watched all of the episodes multiple times and showed them to my brothers, who also loved them. The story's just not something you'd expect at all, and it works pretty well with no significant editing to the original footage of the show. I love it.

It took me quite a while to realize the familiar tune Pinkie played leading the parasprites out of town was Friday. And to catch on that AJ and Rarity are veterans/war criminals, this dub is unbelievable. I'm looking forward to the next episode almost as much as FiM.

(?) · by **Ragnar** (?) » Sat Jan 07, 2012 7:31 am

HARRUMPH

The twist is that Rarity is the real robot and Sweetie knows, so Sweetie's adopted an elaborate robot persona to draw any suspicion from the robopopo away from Rarity.
:ohboy:

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

(?) · by **brakeless** (?) » Sat Jan 07, 2012 8:21 am

FiW: Now with realistic animal noises too.

GASP

(?) · by **DarkMatter** (?) » Sat Jan 07, 2012 9:04 am

Best episode yet. Loved it, loved the jokes, loved the song.

Even as a robot Sweetie Belle is adorable. :allears:

(?) · by **Grilox** (?) » Sat Jan 07, 2012 9:23 am

Oh gosh this was the best episode yet because Sweetie Belle is the most adorable thing ever.

:ohboy:

"Set Phasers to hug!"

:gonkity:

"Now who shall hug me?"
:ohboy:

"Sweetie Belle!"

(?) · by **Pony Factory Factory** (?) » Sat Jan 07, 2012 2:27 pm

I just comprehensively love Sweetie Bot. She's all the cutest-ness of Sweetie Belle and all the robot-ness of being a robot, and all those sci-fi shout-outs while she's surrounded by really defective characters... :allears:

(?) · by **Headless Horse** (?) » Sat Jan 07, 2012 2:40 pm

Ragnar34 wrote:The twist is that Rarity is the real robot and Sweetie knows, so Sweetie's adopted an elaborate robot persona to draw any suspicion from the robopopo away from Rarity.

I was expecting that all episode, actually. I'm not sure how it would work, but I'm all but convinced there's a game-changing twist along those lines in the works.

:vogue:

"If I were a robot, could I do this?"

(?) · by **The Ghost Of Ember** (?) » Sat Jan 07, 2012 3:23 pm

Headless Horse wrote::vogue: "If I were a robot, could I do this?"

Yeah, that was uh, :starity:

I must admit I didn't really enjoy this one as much as some of the others. I felt like they were setting up things for later payoffs though, so that may be part of it. Ultimately, though, I felt this was too much Sweetiebot too soon. Perhaps they were trying to get it out of the way before the joke got old, but I think letting it settle in the background for awhile might have been better. The extended length might have been a factor as well, although the series has been growing steadily with each iteration.

That said, there were some high points:

-"Why is it funny to laugh at someone else's misery? 'Oh look! Our characters are so malevolent and heartless,' maybe next we'll hear a new cheap catch phrase!" "Moonshine Gravy!"
Not sure if I got what Applejack says transcribed correctly, that's what I hear though. Despite what I said previously, this is probably my favorite joke in the whole series. It is deliciously meta.

-Coop D'etat, only one egg per sentient lifeform
Rarity and Sweetie bot only come out with one egg.

-Spike's audition
Enough said.

(?) · by **Huitzil** (?) » Sat Jan 07, 2012 4:44 pm

Grilox wrote: "Now who shall hug me?"
"Sweetie Belle!"

That was the saddest goddamn line, I swear.

Also, I don't get how this episode was "self-referential," outside of the "oh, our characters are so malevolent" line. It was building on previously established things, which the show's done already but not as much since there aren't many episodes in which to establish things. Being self-referential would be "Hey remember that time we did a thing? That's the joke."

(?) · by **Nissl** (?) » Sat Jan 07, 2012 8:46 pm

That was pretty great. I loved the drawings... the Turing test especially, nice job Artrix. More laugh out loud moments towards the front of the episode, really liked a bunch of stuff with the war from the grapes to the flashback, too bad there wasn't much dialog to work with going into the race and the robot singing was kind of a hat on a hat scenario. My bottom line is that I laughed at this at least as much as I laugh at actual pony episodes, which is quite a feat. I hope these are college students angling for a career in writing.

By the way, is this a 9-part series? I was wondering about the 3/9 and such that kept flashing on the bottom left of the screen.

Edit: ok, nevermind, I just managed to find the explanation at the bottom of the last page. Scrolled past it originally or something. Hope we're not already more than halfway through the series is all.

(?) · by **Grilox** (?) » Sat Jan 07, 2012 8:54 pm

Nissl wrote:By the way, is this a 9-part series? I was wondering about the 3/9 and such that kept flashing on the bottom left of the screen.

"They say a kitchen time saves nine" :pinkieshrug:

(?) · by **Wylie** (?) » Sat Jan 07, 2012 9:40 pm

By the way, watching this with Youtube captions on is pretty funny- their algorithm is disturbingly accurate with Sweetie-bot, and its regular random self with everything else.

(?) · by **Ragnar** (?) » Sat Jan 07, 2012 11:53 pm

Third time through.

Sweetiebutter
Don't you worry yer ugly lil head
Fabulous batons
I've got soul but I am not a soldier

When Sweetiebot's drawing had blood on it, I assumed that the medium would turn out to have been Opalescence. The reason the raccoon thing didn't faze me is because I was relieved it all turned out to be relatively tame.

(?) · by **SlateSlabrock** (?) » Sun Jan 08, 2012 3:12 am

Grue wrote:I really like how the overall story is becoming quite captivating in its own way.

I feel like I've missed something here, since I didn't realize there was a "story" going on until the counter showed up in this episode and everyone pointed it out.

(?) · by **Adelor Lyon** (?) » Sun Jan 08, 2012 4:21 am

I enjoy watching random weird stuff like this series a lot. Sometimes my "weird" meter gets reset to a level where I just go "Eh" to what I'm watching, and what's weird isn't entertaining me anymore. This series is consistently pushing that meter higher and higher with every episode until I'm used to the weirdest stuff, but it keeps me entertained because it's genuinely well written and takes itself seriously enough while maintaining a disconnect from its own reality. Occasionally though, I'm treated to something like this:

...and then I find I need a new shirt because I just laughed so hard I spit out everything I was drinking into my hand. That's the funniest, most random, unexpected, awesome thing I've seen all year. It's too bad I can't post the sound effect, too. That's half the fun!

:golfclop:

(?) · by **Grue** (?) » Sun Jan 08, 2012 9:24 am

SlateSlabrock wrote:I feel like I've missed something here, since I didn't realize there was a "story" going on until the counter showed up in this episode and everyone pointed it out.

Also all the war references and the Smooze stuff. I love continuity and world-building that's going on.

(?) · by **CorpusCavernosum** (?) » Sun Jan 08, 2012 11:08 am

I enjoyed it... several times. Can't pick up on everything the first time, like the callback to sliding from ep 1, the compass line, etc.

Sweetie Bot is the most likable and sympathetic character in the series to this point ("now who shall hug me?"). The new song is not as good as Pinkie's Brew, and I don't think it will generate the number of covers/tributes that one did... but I do love the instrumentation (especially the bridge) and the reuse of the song's main theme in the BGM throughout the episode. Most TV shows are too lazy to do their BGM coherently, but Griffin has perfected it.

They seem to go two months between episodes, so the wait has begun.

(?) · by **PhoolCat** (?) » Sun Jan 08, 2012 3:01 pm

Adelor Lyon wrote:

Might that be a nod to apple.mov? :tinfoil:

(?) · by **stonecutter** (?) » Sun Jan 08, 2012 5:02 pm

Daionus The 23rd wrote:Pretty good episode. Was shocked and amused by TheArtix's contributions to the episode.

At this point I'm convinced the series will end with several freakish apocalyptic events occuring at the same time while a remix of "Can't Stop The Smooze" plays in the beckground.

'Secret of My Excess' would be a great episode to use for the ending of the series, I think. :iamapony:

I love the use of music from John Carpenter's 'The Thing' during Sweetie and Rarity's argument.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxOlYf19 ... K8mBnWA6ag

Hearing music cues like that and hearing lines from Philip K. Dick books feels to me like watching the Joel era of MST3k when obscure stuff was all over the place and you felt like you achieve something when you notice it. :ohboy:

(?) · by **Colton, M.D.** (?) » Mon Jan 09, 2012 4:49 am

While I liked Cute from the Hip more, this is clearly the superior episode. Jenny and Griffin are in a zone, and I'm definitely interested in seeing how the rest of the episodes play out. Will Rarity catch onto the fact that Smooze is apparently a fraud for Fluttershy to raise money? Who are the final four people Pinky's portal saves? Why am I so interested in a parody series.

(?) · by **Durandal** (?) » Mon Jan 09, 2012 6:08 am

Holy crap, I just realized a second ago that it's "Sherclop PONES" and that there's no 'i' in the second word. My mind just always naturally read it as "ponies" but I never actually checked until now.

:psygum:

Mind is blown.

(?) · by **Colton, M.D.** (?) » Mon Jan 09, 2012 7:41 am

Just rewatched it. And there's two parts I missed:

- In the cold open, Sweetie Belle malfunctions and catches fire. When Daddity gives Sweetie Bot a playful noogie, he turns off the alarm system.
- The name of the sheep that speaks up during the episode is Jean Valsheep, which I think is a reference to this guy. Feel free to correct me.

(?) · by **Wylie** (?) » Tue Jan 10, 2012 5:04 am

Rarity and Sweetie Belle's parents died in a chariot crash 6 years ago.

As soon as they drove offscreen, their chariot crashed again. RIP x2 Rarity's Parents.

(?) · by **Pocket** (?) » Tue Jan 10, 2012 6:28 am

One thing that probably wasn't intentional but was a nice touch anyway was that when Rarity asks "Now who shall hug me?" and Sweetie Belle replies "Sweetie Belle!" she's not smiling. Almost as if she's thinking "Um, hi, I'm right here" instead of "Oh, hey, I know!" (Which also makes the long pause between the lines funnier too.)

(?) · by **Rainbow Crash** (?) » Tue Jan 10, 2012 8:04 am

I also love the absolute joy on Sweetie Belle's face when Rarity absently replies "oh.. uh, of course. I love you too"

(?) · by **Ragnar** (?) » Tue Jan 10, 2012 9:35 pm

Post-traumatic dress disorder. I just caught that. :v:

(?) · by **blasmeister** (?) » Tue Jan 10, 2012 11:26 pm

'Sweetie Belle, you really need to be more Self-aware of your surroundings' :v:

(?) · by **Davyinatoga** (?) » Wed Jan 11, 2012 2:20 am

So, am I the only one who thinks this one was produced a bit early? Or may at least be writing themselves into a corner? I sincerely liked ep 5, but it feels too soon to be developing Sweetie Bot as much as she got. They were able to successfully work around some of their jokes possibly becoming contrary to official canon with the Pinkie Portals (ex: Granny Smith being dead, then saved by the portal), and left themselves some wiggle room (4 more deaths, to be exact), but I think it would have been better to have done a few more episodes before really stretching their source material as much as they did.

And while Sweetie Bot has some of the funniest lines ("My primary function is failure" :allears:

), there's a lot of useless, non-clever robot stuff thrown in (i.e. every time she says "Error") that would have been better cut.

Otherwise, it was a pretty enjoyable episode, especially for the double length!

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