Friendship is Witchcraft: A deep dive into the infamous MLP abridged series/parody/fandub/thing???

does this off-beat pony dub hold up? Short answer, maybe. Long answer, watch the video and find out.

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“Iceberg mountain” theme by Chuchoter Cauchemar:
Intro animation by Lightning Leaf
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[GloomyFish]

The thing i like about Fluttershy being an evil cult leader is that she still acts all nice and sweet. That's why I think it actually works

[DtaFrc]

I really understand why Jenny was so critical of the brony fandom. I was in the upper range of the target audience for fim when it first came out, and it was frustrating to be constantly pushed out of online spaces by adult men that couldn't comprehend that a kid show would have child fans. I can admire the passion a lot of creators put into their fanwork as an adult, but as a kid a lot of bronys were creepy and weird.
Edit: this wasnt about nsfw/violent content. I didn't care about that as a kid and thought it was cool. I was reffering to the general attitude of bronies towards little girls

[weeniehunt]

When I was younger I was fully convinced friendship is witch craft was canon and when I would watch mlp on Netflix I would get so mad that the fiw episodes never played 😭

[QuantumHippologist]

I absolutely ADORE FiW. The jokes were always frequent, the production value just kept improving, and there was a surprisingly astounding amount of continuity and callbacks. Almost every time I rewatch an episode, I notice something new.

I think the comedy is a lot more subtle than what most people think. Yeah, there’s an edge factor, but that was never a bad thing imo.

I love how it deviated from the basic set of abridged season 1 episodes that literally every other series has done, and I especially love the additional effort that went into its original score.

I have almost nothing bad to say about it.

[moppupaws]

i dont understand why people expected substance and character development from fiw. it was a silly parody project, its not like they were rewriting fim to be this serious story.

[darkninjafirefox]

Fun fact! The mlp trading cards referenced Sweetie Bot/ FiW, on sweetie bell's card it calls the cutie mark crusaders her "cutie mark acquisition program"

[daelen.cclark]

“And there was so much dragon blood, we just slid down the mountain like a water-slide.”
I still crack up every time I hear that!!

[BryaStar]

"But we have nothing in common. I come from a rich family and you like to eat apples" is one of my favorite quotes that makes me laugh every time

I hooked on to this series HARD back in the day. I especially love SweetieBot and often relate with her a lot, being targeted as a threat when she's just harmless. However with her being grumpy at how the world around her works and constantly criticizing it, it makes me wonder if it's an (intentional or not) reference to being Neurodivergent in a world built around being Neurotypical. If anything, the constant pressure of having to be like everyone else or be destroyed, what if that ends up overloading SweetieBot causing her to destroy the world around her due to a massive mental breakdown.

Also, I guess I like to see FiW as a snapshot of what humor was like at the time, Many of the jokes were nothing new to youtube, it's what everyone was laughing at at the time. Over time tases change and people grow as they have new experiences. For me, I didn't start to use internet until I was fresh into adulthood and over the past decade I've come to learn many of what others around me thought was funny was actually (again, intentionally or not) hurting others.

Overall, many fun memories, I still quote FiW moments while watching FiM just to confuse others or to bring back fond college memories for myself to reflect on.

[fluffyspheal]

I watched friendship is witchcraft as a kid, and then started watching Jenny Nicholson as an adult without even realizing she was the person behind it. When she did her brownie video she talked about friendship is witchcraft and stuff and it caught me off guard knowing she was the person who created something I loved as a kid, I never even put together that her voice was so close to the voices of the characters.

[kotyara]

Oh, I remember watching these as a kid. Unfortunately, I didn’t know english very well, so most of it went over my head entirely, even the simple gags. But I really liked the songs, and thought Sweetiebot was funny.
Like a different commenter, I also preferred the Mentally Advanced Series and its sister series Rainbow Dash presents. It was more understandable to me (well, it had a fandub in my language, haha), and I liked RDP specifically for parodying well-known pony fanfics. And Rainbow Dash is just a funny and cute character in there.

[syl]

One of my favorite abridged series ever is Scootertrix the Abridged. The people behind it are so nice and the actual series itself is so funny and creative. I'd definitely recommend it. And if you prefer more serialized/serious stuff, "Friendship Is for Adults" is great too.

[brasteryakintosh]

"I will destroy you and steal your fiance. Booty booty booty booty shaking everywhere" still cracks me up to no end

[moonbunny]

I remember once reading the comments on an Equestria Daily article about a new Kimmi Sparkle video and there were so many people who were RAGING because they thought she was an actual reviewer. It was hilarious looking back on it, but in the moment I was just like "do they really not realize that this is on the Sherclop Pones channel???"

[Nickelbag]

I didn't like this series when I was a teen. I liked The Mental Advanced Series. After Jenny did her Brony Community Deep Dive I went to rewatch FiW and it's not bad for what it is. I still don't prefer it over MAS but I don't hate it like I use to.

[snorlaxgender]

I quote FiW at the very least once a week to this day. "My primary function is failure, " "Well aren't you lookin' as cute as a... wheelbarrow, " and "Hey Twilight, do you think spiders can dream?" are some common ones. It's stupid, there's definitely stuff that absolutely aged like milk, but even within the more uncomfy episodes (lookin at you, Lunar Slander) there's hidden gems like "I made this myself! Out of my own trip to the store!" and the whole running joke about Dole copyrighting the word "apple, " obviously making fun of the Hasbro copyright struggle ("Clearly, there is no BRO in DOLE"). I still have Sweetie's Big Race memorized, lmao. My favorite joke in the entire series is probably Fluttershy's the-dragon-is-my-father moment. Yeah, the subversion of "make the sweet character evil" is kind of lazy, but they did a great job making her into a purposely manipulative villain. (Quick shoutout, also, to Rainbow Dash flat-out admitting that there's no depth to her character.) I also think that FiW was a lot more self-aware than most content at that time; it doesn't hold to modern standards, but we're talking 2011-2013. The other most popular thing was the .MOV series - I think that speaks for itself. Jenny Nicholson has been tongue-in-cheek criticizing the brony fandom for over a decade, it's no wonder she eventually became more outspoken about it.

[CrowLady_]

as someone who watched MLP when i was the target demographic, i wasn't involved in the fandom outside of theory/lore videos and animated videos.
and i just have to say.. THIS IS WHERE ALL THOSE SONGS CAME FROM?!?!

[sentimentalexis]

fiw is probably the single most important brony creation to me, as somebody who was both there for the peak of the brony fandom and far, far too young to be involved in it as it stood. some things for sure did not age well at ALL, but aside from the anthologies, fiw has to be the creation that has the biggest place in my heart. good job jenny, good job griffin, and buy some apples. also, sorry i fully downloaded an episode, slapped hey soul sister over it, and posted it like it was a pmv when i was like 8. dunno how i thought editing worked at that point.

[karl]

"Go into it as blind as possible"
*she says after telling us almost everything about the series*

[TerrificIvan]

I’ve been watching MLP:FIM since childhood. I’ve known very little about some things the fandom did but after watching your icebergs, I’m interested to watch what these mlp fan-mations have in store.

[AvieQuaverie]

One minute into the video and I'm already hyped. The fact that you made a "numbered list" as a reference to Jenny Nicholson's style of videos is amazing attention to detail- honestly your content got me back into learning about MLP again after a couple years so that's cool :D

(also when I was younger I FLIPPED after hearing that Griffinilla was also Fandroid jc... mainly that Fandroid's voice filter is the same as Sweetie Bot's)