Dark: Interesting train of thought with Clover having potential mental powers, never would have thought of that myself.
Bright Glow: Funnily enough those pictures by Jagg were what got me thinking about having a set of artifacts similar to the EOH for the Tales Seven.
So, to celebrate surviving my accounting mid term, I thought to grace everyone with another review!
Either rev up your Delorian or phone booth made from a giant crystal from the future, because we're traveling back to that magical year of 1992 where we have the return of the writing team of Kayte Kuch and Sheryl Scarborough. for the 5th episode of My Little Pony Tales, Stand By Me.
Our episode opens on the playground, with pony's playing (Ace is jump roping for whatever reason), and we get a close up of what I can only assume the guy 90's version of Rarity would be before moving over to our cast of heroines, who are all standing around looking impressed at something. It seems that Melody is showing off her cutting edge mobile music player... a cassette deck.
Ah, the years before I-tunes, and downloading stuff for free off of youtube. Melody, contrary to what you may think, four buttons are not anywhere near a 'gazillian', even if that was a real number, which is isn't. Either way she seems to hit the 'destroy cassette button' (I can only assume the pony who thought that one up is a homeless bum on the streets by now), which winds up messing her tape in the process and we hear a male boy pony laughing in amusement at this musical mishap (fear me for I am Stan Lee reborn!).
It's here that we're introduced to Teddy, one of the reoccurring male boy ponies of the show, a dark blue pony with a bright orange Mohawk and a comb for a hip symbol. Dude also rocks a nice pair of early 90s shades. Teddy, in a lot of ways, reminds me of the Bronies who hate the past Pony generations but love G4, the kind who are almost embarrassed to admit that they watch a little girls cartoon and feel like that have to assert their manliness or some such nonsense.
Much like these type of Bronies, Teddy acts like a poor pony's Fonze, but is secretly more sensitive and caring then he lets on but doesn't want to let other ponies know it (reputation and all that to uphold). Though given that Tony Sampson goes on to voice Eddy from Ed Ed n Eddy Teddy's jerk-like behavior makes a strange amount of retroactive sense.
Anyways, we get this bit of wit from Mr. Teddy: “The Dodo hit the dumb dumb button!”
…. Kid, are you even TRYING? I mean come on dude, Fluttershy could think of a better insult then that!
Either way it seems that Melody doesn't take kindly to Teddy's pathetic insults or mocking laughter, and laments that she might have just wrecked her new tape recorder. Teddy then proceeds to snatch it in a somewhat awkward looking hoof position. Melody orders him to give it back, but Teddy insists that he knows what he's doing (ah, the typical male mind at work, no matter how out of our depth we are we'll never ask for directions) and proceeds to press more buttons... and ruins the tape even further (seriously where the heck in the eject button on this thing, or the manual for that matter?) Teddy blames Melody and proceeds to shove the machine back into her hooves. Melody comments that if the tape player wasn't ruined before, then it is now.
Melody sets the player down on a nearby wood table and Sweetheart walks over, remarking that Teddy was only trying to help. That's... a very optimistic way of looking at what just happened Sweetheart. Patch remarks that she saw otherwise, and the rest of the girls grumble in agreement.
Sweetheart then trots over to Teddy, who kicks a nearby trashcan in frustration. Why am I getting a sort of GTA protag feeling from this kid? Anyways, Sweetheart suggests that it might be best to apologize to Melody, but Teddy refuses, insisting that he's not a geek and storms off. Guess that was the 92 version of egghead or something. Also get the feeling that Teddy and Gilda the Griffon would get along pretty well for some odd reason... Sweetheart decides to stay behind to pick up the trash that was knocked over by Teddy. We're then introduced to an old, middle aged dark blue pony by the name of Mr. Tidwell, who's the school's janitor. Mr. Tidwell asks if that was Teddy causing trouble like he apparently has done in the past, but Sweetheart says that it was an accident (of anger maybe). Mr. Tidwell begins to compliment Sweetheart's responsible nature, but the school bell starts ringing and Sweetheart trots off to class, but not before we see a dark blue hoof snatch away Melody's possibly broken music machine off the table.
…
What? Add in your own dun dun dun! Effect people, I can't play everything straight around here.
We cut to Mrs. Hackney's class as the Coltenville Mane Six rummage around in a box of mystery. Don't bother girls, the lot of Lost, the X files, and Twins Peak might seem tempting with their mysterious mystery of vagueness, but none of the writers on those shows never seem to bother to plan out just what the answer to those big questions their shows are based on actuality are, and the answers just wind up to be disappointing in the end (just like the ending to most Stephen King novel, heyoh!).
Moving on, Mrs. Hackney asks if the class can guess what their lesson for the week will be, and Starlight (picking out a black robe and wig) joking suggests a fashion show. Patch, who is holding a small wood hammer in her hooves, instead says their going to play a game of crocay, swinging and nearly taking poor Bon Bon's head off in the process.
Mrs. Hackney then up and reveals that their going to be studying pony courtroom procedure, complete with a fake trail and everything. It's at this point that Melody realizes that her music box thing is missing, searching around the room before glancing outside a window at the table where she had set it, and seeing that it's vanished in thin air. Also feel like noting just how freaking pink this school is both on the inside and outside. I just know that if Equestria Cheerilee wound up here she'd be asking why the entire school was decorated for Hearts and Hooves day.
It's at this point that Teddy enters the room with some most heinously ominous background music. Seriously, I flipping adore the bgm in Tales. It's cheesy as all hell, but that's part of the charm and part of why I like it as much as I do.
Melody instantly walks up and confronts Teddy, who comes up with the decent if cliche reply of “Search me.” Well, it's better than the “The Dodo hit the dumb dumb button!”, keep working at it kid.
Melody replies that she doesn’t have to, pointing to the bit of cassette tap stuck to the back of one of Teddy's hooves. It's at this point that the class rumor mill starts working up, with Starlight turning to Mrs. Hackney and asking if they can't use their pony courtroom lesson to find out of Teddy did swipe the recorder or not (Teddy is horrified at this prospect).
Mrs. Hackney: A splendid idea! Learn by doing has always been my motto! Which is why I allowed both my history and science professors to follow me home to my grandfather's stolen spaceship/time machine in a nearby junkyard, so I could SHOW them the cavepony era, or the Aztecs, or- … My bad, got my headcanon/fanfic Mrs. Hackney confused with the real one there. Sorry.
Anyways, Mrs. Hackney comments that because Starlight is such an even hoofed pony (yes, even hoofed, I'm as amazed as you guys are that it isn't even handed) that she should be the judge, while Bright Eyes should be the prosecutor, at which Clover (no doubt a stand in for the audience here) asks what one of those are (a prosecutor that is). Mrs. Hackney says that it's Bright Eyes job to prove that Teddy did the crime, at which she then asks that someone will have to defend Teddy.
Most of the Coltenville six glance at one another before taking a few steps back, and looking around and seeing that no one else wants to take the Teddy burden, speaks up and says that she'll do it. Small aside I love the determined look on Sweetheart's face before she speaks up here. You can practically read her mind: Alright, if none of you jerks are going to do, then I will!
Mrs. Hackney proceeds to give everyone else the job of jury and says that if Teddy if found guilty that he'll be suspended for three days (so pretty serious for the short term but nothing major for the long term. Makes sense for a ten minute episode). And for whatever reason Teddy's expression changes from worried to annoyed/angry when Mrs. Hackney is talking, and then in the next shot we see him he's worried looking again.
Sweetheart swallows down a gulp of fear as the coo-coo bird announces the end of the day and everyone rushes out of class, nearly taking out Mr. Tidwell in the process, who proceeds to put some stuff away in one of those bin on wheel things. Sweetheart asks Teddy (both of whom are still in the classroom) that she'll need to know every itty bitty detail if she's to help him with the up coming trail. Teddy dismisses her help though, saying that if she thinks that if he needs help, than she (sweetheart) is as crazy as the rest of the jerks (hey you did start all this Teddy, just sayin).
Cue Teddy getting his front hooves stuck in a trash can not five seconds later, and needing Sweetheart's help to get unstuck.
Teddy:... Why does life have to be so ironic.
Sweetie Belle: I know, right?
Teddy: stares at her horn What ARE you!?
Either way, Sweetheart is quick to use this moment to point out that even someone like Teddy needs help sometimes, which Teddy grudgingly admits. I also love how Teddy's shades never get knocked down or move about when he has his hooves stuck in the can, kid must glue them to his Mohawk or something.
We cut to later that afternoon at the Rainbow Salon, where Bright Eyes and Teddy are sitting near one another, and Bright Eyes is writing down on a piece of paper. Sweetheart comes in and asks what she's doing, and BE says it's a list of reasons of why she thinks Teddy is guilty, and we see that it's a pretty long list. Personally, I ain't impressed. Bethca it's a lot like those 50 reason why x thing sucks lists that you see all the time on nerdy websites, with reasons so superficial and subjective that their basically useless in any real academic sense. Seriously BE, I know Ted's a jerk and all but you can't really have THAT many reasons why he'd want to steal a pretty childish looking music playing box thing, can you?
But to Bright Eye's credit, she does bring up some good points: Teddy had the means, the motivation, and the opportunity, and he's very rude. BE, not sure what that last one has to do with anything dear, you may want to take that one out before the case. Teddy, having just been insulted to his face (seriously, kid is just a stool away from Bright Eyes), looks pretty grumpy/annoyed and after glancing at him with concern, Sweetheart says that Teddy isn't that bad a pony before letting out a forlorn sigh.
It's at this point that Melody walks in and greet Bright Eyes and Starlight, completely glossing over Sweetheart in the process. Sweetheart gets up and walks over to (yes, on her back hooves like a human) Melody, saying that she needs to talk to Melody about Teddy.
Melody: Did you hear something Starlight?
Starlight: It's Sweeheart.
Melody: You mean my ex-friend?
Damn, when Melody decides to get cold girl becomes a freaking iceberg. Poor Sweetheart's going to need some bandages for that burn.
At this point Sweetheart moves to Melody's left side in an attempt to get Melody to look her in the face, saying that she's still her friend. Melody moves to the right and crosses her front hooves, saying that traitors can't be friends. (the two keep this switching left and right thing for a little while, which is a nice little touch I like animation wise).
Sweetheart says that she's Teddy friend as well, which just annoys Melody further as she says that Sweetheart can't be both Teddy's friend as well as the Coltenville Mane six's and asks Starlight to back her up. Starlight, being the pony with the most common sense as a rule of hoof, says that she's suppose to be impartial to this nonsense, but Bright Eyes is more than happy to join sides with Melody, seeing as how she IS the one who's suppose to find him guilty after all, and gets up to sit at the table where the rest of the Coltenville six are at.
And once again the bgm strikes once more, with a good bit of dramatic flutes and drums this time around.
Patch then asks Sweetheart which one of them she'll choose: Her friends or Teddy. And poor Sweetheart can only look on in confusion and worry as she imagines all five of her friends weighing down a justice theme scale (complete with a blindfolded justice pony I might add) with poor Teddy dangling on the higher placed scale. After giving her head a good shake, Sweetheart remarks that she wants to help Teddy, as the poor kid needs her at this point, at which Melody angry remarks that they'll see them in court (interestingly enough Patch, Bon Bon, and Starlight seem pretty neutral in this scene, only Bright Eyes and Melody are (understandably) angry ones. Not sure why I like this shot but I do).
Sweetheart, being the mature boss that she is, simply hops down from her stool and does her best 11th Doctor impression, “Alright, if that's what you want. Come on Teddy.” and just walks out without batting an eye. Like I said, Like. A. Boss.
We then skip to the next day, or the day of the trail, whichever it is and Starlight (now decked out in robe, wig, and wielding a judge's hammer thingy) brings their fake pony court into session. She then asks if Bright Eyes is ready to present her case against Teddy, Bright Eyes (looking as pisses as a bat out of hell) says that she is and calls both Bon Bon and Clover to the stand. Both promise to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and yet no mention of Pony-God is made. I can only surmise that this means that Coltenville Ponyland ponies are atheists by nature. That or the writers didn't want to bring up a mention of God in a kids cartoon, but my idea is more amusing, so that's what I'm stickin with.
Starlight then asks them directly about the music player. Now in real life in a real court case (as pointed out by the MLP wiki), this sort of thing wouldn't fly. But given that this is 'Pony Courtroom' chances are good that our rules simply don't apply law wise in the Tales verse, in spite of the many similarities they have with one another. So basically I'm more than willing to let it slide.
Clover then admits that they didn't actually SEE Teddy take Melody's music thing (yes I am tired of calling it a cassette deck or player or whatever, how did you guess?) but Bon Bon points out that given how mean Teddy is, it would be out of character for him to take it when they weren't looking.
Sweetheart: points her front hoof in a dramatic fashion OBJECTION! That's speculation... or something.
….
Son of a- and here I was hoping I could make it through the review without making the most obvious freaking joke on the planet.
Anyways, Sweetheart goes on to say that Teddy isn't really like that and that everyone just doesn't know him like she does. And it's at this point we get into the song of the episode, You Don't Know the Boy, and into the 'semi' controversial part of the episode. I was going to have a big rant about morals in fiction and the like, but I've decided to save that one for shop talk, at which I'll be doing my best Twilight impression and getting on my own soap box of sorts, well, more than I already have that is.
So, what is it about this song that's as 'controversial' as it is? Well, according to the MLP wiki (I've seen a similar thing to this on the TV Tropes Tales article): From other episodes, the audience knows Teddy has a kinder side he likes to share with Sweetheart and generally doesn't behave too badly. But during Sweetheart's song about Teddy's true self, we see him physically and emotionally assaulting her and thén making up for it*a little bit. It makes Sweetheart look more like a beaten housewife than Teddy's savior.
Now having watching the song a few times, I have to say that I really truly don't see this. I'll break down the imagery for you:
First we have lunch in the cafeteria (which amazingly enough is colored blue, with some paint fluffy clouds and a rainbow but given that it's suppose to be the sky, it makes sense and actually looks like something you'd see in an elementary school) where we have Teddy tripping Sweetheart, which causes her to fall and spill her lunch.
Teddy only laughs for a short bit here before we visually see that he regrets his action and even offers to share his lunch with Sweetheart. Now maybe he could have helped Sweetheart clean up the mess, but these episodes are only about ten minutes long, so I can see why the animators would cut a scene like that in theory. Besides, dude was willing to share his own lunch with her to make up for it, short of buying Sweetheart a new lunch I don't really see what else he could have done (outside of saying sorry, but that's out seeing as how this is a song that Sweetheart is singing and that would break it's flow).
Second scene: Teddy and Sweetheart accidentally bump into one another outside the school while Sweetheart is carrying a stack of fliers that go flying about in the air as a result. Teddy doesn’t laugh this time or mock Sweetheart and instead instantly starts picking up the fliers without a second thought. So unless you're willing to count bumping into someone by accident 'physical assault' that's two for two that criticism doesn't seem to fly for me (though the first one could be argued some I suppose).
Then, we come to the last bit of song imagery where it's Halloween and Sweetheart (dressed as either a duchess of some sort or a fancy actress) is leaving a house, where she's soon scared from surprise by Teddy wearing a spooky mask, drops her bag of goodies, and gallops off a few blocks away before stopping and breaking down in tears before turning around and seeing Teddy, who proceeds to pull out a fresh trick or treat bag, possibly even the one that Sweetheart herself dropped earlier. Now this is another one where I'm just not seeing this so-called “physically and emotionally assault” let alone a “a beaten housewife“ image.
Now I'll grant you that scaring Sweetheart to tears was a douche move, but it's freaking Halloween for crying out loud. TRICK or treat remember? Pranks and scares come with the territory. Besides, it could be that Teddy either didn't recognize Sweetheart in the darkness or didn't think that he'd scare her that hard, and then proceeded to pick up her spilled bag like he did with the filers.
Now sequences 1 and 3 will honestly depend on how much you can tolerate Teddy this episode. Personally, I can tolerate him for two reasons: He's a ten year old boy, and if media has taught me anything, it's that kids in general can be quite the little pricks when they want to be, and he's one of those types of ponies/people that tries to hid their more embarrassing parts of their nature under a vile of toughness and overcompensation (make your own Buster Sword joke people).
I like to think that had Tales continued Teddy would have eventually gotten over his whole tough guy, sturdy stallion shtick and eventually learned (with Sweetheart's help) to be more open about his sensitive side, granted he would have still kept the shades and the Mohawk (Teddy: Mohawks never die, their cool!) because I just can't imagine Teddy without either of them.
So!
Having temporarily turned into a poor man' Digibrony/TommyOliver/insertnameofponyreviewerhere for a moment there and gotten all that out of the way, what do I think of You Don't Know the Boy? Well, again, I really truly like it. Partly because Maggie Blue O'Hara has quite the lovely singing voice (really, all the Tales's voice actresses have good songs and voices to go with them) in the song, partly because I like how the rest of the girls list off of all of Teddy's bad traits in rebuttle at certain parts, partly because of this one scene in the song where Teddy does his best Rarity impression when Sweetheart brings up his kindness and sensativity (dramtic hoof guester thing). So for what it's worth, I enjoy the song, imagry and all, though people are of course more than free to disagree.
Right, so, song's done with and the jurry now looks more unsure than it did before and Starlight suggests calling Teddy himself to the stand to help hammer the point home.
This winds up backfiring horrible. Teddy says that the reason he wasn't in the classroom was because he was signing up for the soccer team (and yet he doesn't appear to be on the team come Just for Kicks, hurm. Must remember to investigate further) and Sweetheart figures that someone must have seen him, which could help prove his innocence. Teddy then admits that no one saw him because he wasn't there.
Well so much for that idea. The tape that was stuck on Teddy's hoof must have come from when Teddy was trying to fix the matchine, but if the smug expressions of Bright Eyes and Melody are anything to go by no one seems to be buying that theory of Ted's.
Sweetheart then brings up the idea of a motivate, if Teddy has a music player of his own, then why in the wide wide world of Ponyland would he want with Melody's?
But Teddy then admits that he doesn't have one, and then lets it slip that he'd do anything to have one- I mean, ALMOST anything.
So in short it seems as if Teddy has shot himself in the hoof. Kid should have checked to see if Birdman was still a superhero at that point or a lawyer and see if he couldn't have gotten his help, though in fairness Sweetheart seems to be doing a decent job in TRYING to get Teddy off the hook, so A for effort if nothing else.
So it's at this point that Teddy finally up and asks for Sweetheart's help, but this whole mess seems hopeless even to her as she glances out and see Mr. Tidwell picking up random toys and such outside the school.
To make a long story short, it turns out that Mr. Tidwell (being a dark blue coated pony like Teddy) was the one who took Melody's music thingy and put it in the lost and found bin in the room. Melody finds it and is overjoyed, Teddy is relived that he isn't suspended for three days, and Starlight happily dismisses the case.
It's at this point that I start to get flashbacks to season one of Fim as Mrs. Hackney asks her class what they've learned. Sweetheart learned to stand up for her beliefs even when none of her friends (or at least Bright Eyes and Melody) don't agree with her. Melody admits with a sigh to herself that it's important to know the whole situation before assuming the worse in someone (something Twilight herself could have remembered when her older's brother wedding came around). Teddy then says that he's learned that friends can be pretty important, not that he needs them. But the irony train has decided to pull in and once more Teddy finds himself stuck in something (this time the lost and found bin) crying out for Sweetheart to help him).
She does, and the two hold hooves together.
So that's Stand By Me and how does it rank up? Well much like the song, I do honestly quite enjoy it. Granted, some people aren't going to like Teddy's jerkass behavior, or Melody's cold shoulder (or whatever the pony version of that would be) of Sweetheart, or possibly even Bright Eye's sudden meanness. Personally, I'm not bothered by these things, I've already talked a good bit about Teddy but Melody goes on to be one of the more... whatever a nice way of saying occasionally petty is, she's a bit like a musical, less mature version of Rarity I suppose.
Plus I can't really blame here, not only does she think Teddy might have wrecked her music player, but she also understandably thinks that he's stolen it. I mean if I thought someone had stolen something from me and one of my friends was trying to defend them, I can't say that I'd be all chummy with them either. As for Bright Eyes, it WAS her job to prove that Teddy was guilty, and besides, she did have a decent point when she brought up his rudeness. Teddy quite honestly IS a jerk, granted one with standards who could have eventually grown out of it had Tales been allowed to continue and grow up with it's audience ala Harry Potter.
But anyone wants a second opinion, check out this guy and then compare/contrast:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEnNCVsgekI&index=21&list=PLLjqVRPj7x_2e9ymY6uJSHkJEqHjVt1oHNext time I continue to analyze the soco-gender relations in Tales as I do my best to not make a topical political joke that will inevitability become dated in just a few years, that's right boys and ghouls, next time you're good friend the Pony-Keeper will be covering the episode The Tea Party!
