Pinkie Pride

Plot

As he oversees an extravagant party he has thrown in Appleloosa, party planner Cheese Sandwich senses a "doozy" of a party being thrown in Ponyville, where Pinkie Pie is gathering supplies to organize her friend Rainbow Dash's "birth-iversary" party celebrating both Rainbow's birthday and anniversary of her move to Ponyville. Pinkie promises to throw Rainbow the best party ever when Cheese Sandwich appears and introduces himself as the premier party planner in Equestria. Though initially delighted to meet a party planner like herself, Pinkie is quickly upset as Cheese enraptures the townsfolk with an impromptu display of party-throwing skills, causing Rainbow and the rest of Pinkie's friends to desert her in their excitement for Cheese's party.

Cheese begins building a massive set for Rainbow's party, while all except Pinkie help him build it. Doubting her own partying skills in comparison, Pinkie attempts several odd jobs around Ponyville that end in failure. She returns home and begins to put her party supplies away before looking through an assortment of framed pictures showing various parties she has thrown for her friends and family in the past. With renewed confidence, Pinkie challenges Cheese to a "goof-off", declaring that the winner will be dubbed the single best party planner and headline Rainbow's party. Cheese accepts, and Rainbow is called upon to judge the competition. The two try to outdo each other with increasingly silly and elaborate performances until Pinkie accidentally drops a giant piñata on top of Rainbow. Pinkie realizes that she has let her pride get in the way of Rainbow's party and, ashamed of herself, forfeits the goof-off to Cheese.

Pinkie packs up her belongings and prepares to leave Ponyville, deciding to let Cheese take her place. She is stopped by Rainbow and her other friends, who apologize for neglecting her and affirm that, while both are talented party planners, Cheese could never replace her as their friend. Cheese also apologizes to Pinkie and assures that he never meant any harm, but rather wanted to impress her with his own partying skills. He then confesses that, contrary to his previous claims of being a partier all his life, he was extremely shy as a colt until he stumbled upon a party thrown by Pinkie, which inspired him to become a party planner. Pinkie and Cheese make amends and work together to throw Rainbow a spectacular party before Cheese departs, leaving Pinkie his valued rubber chicken "Boneless" as a gift.

Production

The episode was first teased by Hasbro Vice President of Development Mike Vogel during a panel at San Diego Comic Con International in July 2013, where he hinted about a musical season 4 episode where "somebody will give [Pinkie Pie] a run for her partying money." The involvement of "Weird Al" Yankovic in the episode stemmed from a Twitter post by the parody musician, where he had linked to a user-created music video with scenes from Friendship Is Magic episodes set to "Polkarama!", one of his polka medleys. The tweet was discovered by co-executive producer Jayson Thiessen, who posted a reply asking the musician if he would be interested in the idea of guest voicing a character on the show since "Weird Al and My Little Pony seem to go together really well." After being met with a positive response from fans of the series, Thiessen received a private message from Weird Al about a year later, expressing his interest in participating. In the episode, Weird Al voiced a character named Cheese Sandwich, who is portrayed as being a rival to Pinkie Pie in the realm of party service.

The episode was written by Amy Keating Rogers based off a story idea by Jayson Thiessen. In an interview with USA Today, Thiessen went on to say that they had gone "all out" with the episode's animation, that it contained "a couple special things that we've never done before", and that the episode had "a lot of great songs" as well. A short live-action cutaway with a dancing, live-action balloon animal version of Cheese Sandwich's rubber chicken Boneless (made using balloons and rice) was filmed in Thiessen's basement.

Featured songs

The episode is a musical featuring six songs with music provided by Daniel Ingram. Lyrics for the songs were originally penned by Amy Keating Rogers and reworked by Ingram. Rogers wrote the lyrics for the various songs with other melodies in mind: "Pinkie the Party Planner" was based on "Belle" from Beauty and the Beast, "The Super Duper Party Pony" on "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" from Mary Poppins, "Pinkie's Lament" on "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" from Evita, "The Goof Off" on "Together (Wherever We Go)" as performed on The Brady Bunch, and "Make a Wish" on Pink's "Raise Your Glass". "The Goof Off" itself is similar to one of Yankovic's "polka medleys", made up of short snippets of songs set to polka music, and includes lyrics from Pinkie's "Smile Song" from the episode "A Friend in Deed" (also written by Rogers), as well as a portion of Yankovic's "W.A.Y. Moby Polka", which is the filler he uses in his polka medleys. While Shannon Chan-Kent sang as Pinkie for most of the songs, Pinkie's regular voice actress, Andrea Libman, performed the character during "The Goof Off". Ingram recorded the character Cheese Sandwich's songs with Yankovic in Los Angeles. A full version of the song "Make a Wish" is included on the album "Songs of Ponyville".

1. "Pinkie the Party Planner" – Pinkie Pie, Mr. and Mrs. Cake, Diamond Tiara, and chorus
2. "The Super Duper Party Pony" – Cheese Sandwich and Pinkie Pie
3. "Pinkie's Lament" – Pinkie Pie
4. "The Goof Off" – Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich
5. "Cheese Confesses" – Cheese Sandwich and Pinkie Pie
6. "Make a Wish" – Pinkie Pie

Steffan Andrews and David Corman helped with the orchestration and arrangements of every song except "Make a Wish".

Broadcast and reception

"Pinkie Pride" aired on February 1, 2014 on the Hub Network. The special was viewed by 459,000 viewers and was watched by approximately 0.3 percent of households in the United States according to the Nielsen household ratings.

The episode received positive reviews from critics. Daniel Alvarez of Unleash the Fanboy gave the episode a rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars, calling it a "really good episode and a very nice look at Pinkie Pie as a character", and praising the characterization of Cheese Sandwich and his rivalry with Pinkie, while noting the "mean" portrayal of Pinkie's friends as a minor setback. Raymond Gallant from Freakin' Awesome Network awarded the episode a rating of 10 out of 10, considering it "one of the season's best". Noting Pinkie's "moronic" portrayal in other episodes, Gallant wrote, "Not just being relegated to comic relief, we finally get a Pinkie that's funny, wacky, fourth wall breaking, and actually has a good heart to her." He also praised the episode's humor, "Weird Al" Yankovic's role as "a male version of Pinkie Pie", and the episode's use of musical sequences compared to the earlier musical episode "Magical Mystery Cure", writing, "the story had a chance to breathe, and be built up far better with all the songs added." Ingram and Andrews were nominated for a 2014 Leo Award for their work on this episode for "Best Musical Score in an Animation Program or Series".

In a Reddit "Ask me Anything" on the release of his subsequent album, Mandatory Fun, Yankovic stated that he "had a blast" performing as Cheese Sandwich and was "extremely happy" with the episode, and would be glad to reprise the role if the showrunners asked.

Home media release

The episode was part of the Season 4 DVD set, by Shout Factory, on December 2, 2014, as well as the "Adventures of the Cutie Mark Crusaders" DVD, which was released on February 24, 2015.