Rock Farm (TV series)

Rock Farm is a children's animated fantasy television series created[3] by Lauren Faust for Hasbro. The series is based on Hasbro's My Little Pony line of toys and animated works and is often referred by collectors as the fourth generation ("G4") of the franchise. The series premiered on October 10, 2010, on The Hub cable channel. Hasbro selected animator Lauren Faust as the creative director and executive producer for the show. Faust sought to challenge the established nature of the existing My Little Pony line, creating more in-depth characters and adventurous settings; she left the series during season 2, to be replaced by Meghan McCarthy as showrunner. The show follows a studious anthropomorphic unicorn pony named Twilight Sparkle as her mentor Princess Celestia guides her to learn about friendship in the town of Ponyville. Twilight and her dragon assistant Spike become close friends with five other ponies: Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie. Each of the ponies represent a different facet of friendship, and Twilight discovers herself to be a key part of the magical artifacts known as the "Elements of Harmony". The ponies travel on adventures and help others around Equestria while working out problems that arise in their own friendships.

The series has become a major commercial success, becoming the most highly rated original production in the Hub Network's broadcast history and leading to new merchandising opportunities for Hasbro, including books, clothing, collectible trading cards, and comics. Despite the target demographic of young girls, Friendship Is Magic has also gained a large following of older viewers, mainly young and middle-aged men, who call themselves "bronies". Portions of the show have become part of the remix culture, and have formed the basis for a variety of internet memes.

As of March 2018, the show is in its eighth season. A spin-off feature film series, Equestria Girls, started in 2013 and has been shown in limited theatrical screenings prior to television broadcast and home media release. A feature-length film adaptation directly based on the TV series, titled My Little Pony: The Movie, was theatrically released on October 6, 2017 in the United States.

Origin
Hasbro, Inc. has produced several incarnations and lines of toys and entertainment related to the My Little Pony franchise, often labeled by collectors as "generations".[4][5] The animated series My Little Pony Tales which premiered in 1992 was the toy line's most recent television series before Friendship Is Magic, featuring the pony designs of the first toy line.[6][7] It was followed by various direct-to-video releases, which featured later designs up to the third incarnation of the franchise.[8] Just as Michael Bay's film had helped to boost the new Transformers toy line, Hasbro wanted to retool the My Little Pony franchise and update it to better suit the current demographic and taste of young girls.[9] According to Margaret Loesch, CEO of Hub Network, revisiting properties that had worked in the past was an important programming decision, influenced to an extent by the opinions of the network's programming executives, a number of whom were once fans of such shows.[10] Senior Vice President Linda Steiner also stated that they "intended to have the show appeal to a larger demographic", with the concept of "co-viewing" of parents with their children being a central theme of the Hub Network's programming.[11] Central themes that Hasbro sought for the show included friendships and working together, factors they determined from market research in how girls played with their toys.

Animator and writer Lauren Faust approached Hasbro, seeking to develop her girls' toys property "Galaxy Girls" into an animated series.[13] Faust, who had previously worked on Cartoon Network'sThe Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, had been pitching original animation aimed at girls for years, but had always been rejected by studios and networks because cartoons for girls were considered unsuccessful.[14] When she pitched to Lisa Licht of Hasbro Studios, Licht showed Faust one of their recent My Little Pony animated works, Princess Promenade, "completely on the fly". Licht considered that Faust's style was well suited to that line, and asked her to consider "some ideas where to take a new version of the franchise".[9][13]

Faust was initially hired by Hasbro to create a pitch bible for the show, allowing her to get additional help with conceptualization.[9] Faust said she was "extremely skeptical" about taking the job at first because she had always found shows based on girls' toys to be boring and unrelatable.[14] My Little Pony was one of her favorite childhood toys,[13] but she was disappointed that her imagination at the time was nothing like the animated shows, in which the characters, according to Faust, "just had endless tea parties, giggled over nothing and defeated villains by either sharing with them or crying". With the chance to work on My Little Pony, she hoped to prove that "cartoons for girls don't have to be a puddle of smooshy, cutesy-wootsy, goody-two-shoeness".[14] To do this, she incorporated into the design of the characters and the show many elements that contradicted idealized stereotypes of girls, such as diverse personalities, the message that friends can be different and can get into arguments but still be friends, and the idea that girls should not be limited by what others say they can or cannot do.[14] Elements of the characters' personalities and the show's settings were based on her own childhood imagination of the ponies' adventures, in part inspired by the animated shows that her brothers would watch while growing up, such as Transformers and G.I. Joe;[15] she considered that she was making Friendship Is Magic "for me as an eight-year-old".[16] Faust still aimed for the characters to be "relatable" characters, using stereotypical "icons of girliness" (such as the waif or the bookworm) in order to broaden the appeal of the characters for the young female audience.[17]

Faust stated that as she provided Hasbro with more of her ideas for the show, she was inspired by their positive response to the non-traditional elements. Faust had initially pitched the show to include "adventure stories" in a similar proportion to "relationship stories", but recognizing the younger target audience, as well as the difficulty of basing complex plots on the adventure elements, she trimmed back this content, focusing more on exchanges between the characters. The show still incorporates episodic creatures intended to be frightening to children, such as dragons and hydras, but it places more emphasis on the friendships among the characters, displayed with a comedic tone. By the time the show was approved, Faust had developed three full scripts for the series.[9]

Faust began to work out concept sketches, several of which appeared on her DeviantArt page, including ponies from the original series (Twilight, Applejack, Firefly, Surprise, Posey and Sparkler), which later provided the core for the main cast of the show.[18][19]Hasbro approved the show with Faust as Executive Producer[20] and asked her to complete the pitch bible. In order to do so, Faust brought in Martin Ansolabehere and Paul Rudish, who had worked on other animated shows with her. Faust credits Rudish for the inspiration of the pegasus ponies controlling the weather in Equestria, as well as the character of Nightmare Moon during this period. Faust also consulted Craig McCracken, her husband and also an animator and creator of The Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. After seeing the initial version of the pitch bible, Hasbro requested more character designs from Faust's team; subsequently, Faust brought aboard Dave Dunnet and Lynne Naylor to further refine the background and character styles.[9]

On completion of the pitch bible, Hasbro and Faust began looking at studios for the animation. Studio B Productions (renamed to DHX Media on September 8, 2010, after its parent company, along with DHX's other subsidiaries[21]) had previously worked on Macromedia Flash-based animations and on shows that featured a large number of animals, and Faust felt they would be a good selection. Studio B requested that Jayson Thiessen be the director, a choice Faust agreed with. She, Thiessen, and James Wootton led the completion of a two-minute short to pitch the final product to Hasbro, resulting in the company's sanctioning the full production. Faust estimates that from being initially asked to develop the show until this point took roughly one year.[

Production
The show is developed at Hasbro Studios in Los Angeles, where most of the writing staff is located, and at DHX Media Vancouver in Vancouver, British Columbia, for the animation work.

Faust's initial writing staff at Hasbro Studios included several writers who had worked with her on her previous shows and were approved by Hasbro. These included Amy Keating Rogers, Cindy Morrow, Meghan McCarthy, Chris Savino, Charlotte Fullerton, M.A. Larson, and Dave Polsky. The writing process began with Faust and Renzetti coming up with broad plots for each show. The two would then hold a brainstorming session with each episode's writer, allowing the writer to script out scenes and dialogue. Faust and Renzetti then worked with the writer to finalize the scripts and assign some basic storyboard instructions. Hasbro was involved throughout this process and laid down some of the concepts to be incorporated into the show. Examples of Hasbro's influence include having Celestia be a princess rather than a queen, making one of the ponies focused on fashion, and portraying toy sets in relevant places within the story, such as Rarity's boutique.[9][14] In some cases, Hasbro requested that the show include a setting, but allowed Faust and her team to create its visual style, and Hasbro then based the toy set on it; an example is the Ponyville schoolhouse. Faust also had to write to the E/I ("educational and informational")standards that Hasbro required of the show, making the crafting of some of the situations she would have normally done on other animated shows more difficult; for example, Faust cited having one character call another an "egghead" as "treading a very delicate line", and having one character cheat in a competition as "worrisome to some".[9]Each episode also generally includes a moral or life lesson, but these were chosen to "cross a broad spectrum of personal experiences", and not just to suit children.[11] Because intellectual property issues had caused Hasbro to lose some of the rights on the original pony names, the show includes a mix of original characters from the toy line and new characters developed for the show.[13]

Completed scripts were sent to Studio B for pre-production and animation using Macromedia Flash Professional 8. Thiessen's production team was also allowed to select key personnel subject to Hasbro's approval; one of those selected was art director Ridd Sorensen. The Studio B team would storyboard the provided scripts, incorporating any direction and sometimes managing to create scenes that the writers had believed impossible to show in animation. The animators would then prepare the key character poses, layout, background art, and other main elements, and send these versions back to the production team in Los Angeles for review by Hasbro and suggestions from the writers. Thiessen credited much of the technical expertise in the show to Wooton, who created Flash programs to optimize the placement and posing of the pony characters and other elements, simplifying and economizing on the amount of work needed from the other animators.[22] For example, the ponies' manes and tails are generally fixed shapes, animated by bending and stretching them in curves in three dimensions and giving them a sense of movement without the high cost of individual animated hairs.[13] The storyboard artists and animators also need to fill in background characters for otherwise scripted scenes as to populate the world. According to writer Meghan McCarthy, many of the small nods to the fandom, pop culture references, or other easter eggs would be added at this point by the studio.[23]Once the pre-production work was approved and completed, the episode would then be animated. Though Studio B performed the initial animation work, the final steps were passed to Top Draw Animation in the Philippines, an animation studio that Studio B had worked with in the later part of season one and beyond.[24][25]

The voice casting and production is handled by Voicebox Productions,[26]with Terry Klassen as the series' voice director. Faust, Thiessen, and others participated in selecting voice actors, and Hasbro gave final approval.[9] The voice work is performed prior to the animation, with the animators in the room to help provide direction; according to Libman, this allows herself and the other actors to play the character without certain limitations. Libman noted that for recording her lines as the hyperactive Pinkie Pie, "I learned that I can go as over the top as I want and they [the animators] rarely pull me back."[27]

The series' background music is composed by William Kevin Anderson, and Daniel Ingram composes the songs,[28][29] which are only included if they would make sense in the episode's script. The production team identifies specific parts of the episode where they want music cues, allowing Anderson to create appropriate music for each.[9]Ingram works alongside Anderson's compositions to create vocal songs that mesh with the background music while filling out the show's fantasy setting.[30]The composition of the music and songs far precedes the broadcast of the episode; for example, songs for the show's third season that began airing in November 2012 were composed in 2011.[30] Ingram considered that songs from previous shows of My Little Pony were "a little bit dated" and decided to bring more interesting work to the Friendship Is Magic series.[31] Such changes include making songs with more emotional depth than typical for children's animation, and tending to write songs that can be enjoyed musically outside of the context of the episode.[31] Ingram's songs have "became bigger and more epic, more Broadway and more cinematic over time"[29] with Hasbro blessing the effort to try "something groundbreaking for daytime television", according to Ingram.[30] Lyrics and overall musical themes may be suggested by the writers; two examples include songs written by Amy Keating Rogers, who is a self-professed Stephen Sondheimfan.[32] The song "The Art of the Dress" in the first-season episode "Suited for Success" is inspired by "Putting it Together" from the musical Sunday in the Park with George, while the season one finale's song, "At The Gala", is based on Sondheim's Into the Woods.[29][33][34]A large musical number in the episode "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000" paid homage to the song "Ya Got Trouble" from Meredith Willson's musical, The Music Man.[29][35]

Before the show was approved, Hasbro and Faust had planned for episodes to be 11 minutes long, to which Faust conformed in her first full-length script, "The Ticket Master", which was part of the pitch bible. However, Faust preferred more traditional 22-minute episodes, and Hasbro eventually agreed to this. The initial production stages were very tight, requiring a schedule twice as fast as Faust had previously experienced, and frequent remote communication between the Los Angeles writing offices and the animation studio in Vancouver. At times, the two teams would hold "writer's summits" to propose new ideas for characters and situations, at which the animation team would provide suggestions on visuals, body language, and characterization. Faust estimates that the time to complete one episode was one year; at one point, the team was simultaneously working on various stages of all 26 episodes of the first season, and when the second season was approved, that number rose temporarily to 32. Episodes then aired about a month after completion.[9]Thiessen explained that they had pushed to start work on the second season as soon as the first was completed, to prevent staff turnover.[22]

After the airing of the first season's finale, Faust announced that she had left the show, and would be credited in the future as Consulting Producer. Her involvement in the second season consists mainly of story conception and scripts, and the involvement ceased after the second season. Despite leaving, she still has high hopes for the staff members, stating that "the gaps I have left are being filled by the same amazing artists, writers, and directors who brought you Season 1. I'm certain the show will be as entertaining as ever".[36] In an interview with New York Magazine, Faust stated her reasons for leaving were a combination of a hectic production schedules and a lack of creative control she had with the series.[37] According to her husband McCracken, Faust's departure was due to the fact that as a toy company-driven show, "there were things she wanted to do with that series that she just wasn't able to do", and that there is "still some frustration with" not being able to bring some of her ideas to screen.

Premise
Friendship Is Magic takes place in the land of Equestria, populated by varieties of ponies including variants of Pegasusand unicorn, along with other sentient and non-sentient creatures. The central character is Twilight Sparkle, a unicorn mare sent by her mentor Princess Celestia, ruler of Equestria, to the town of Ponyville to study the magic of friendship. In the show's opening episode "Friendship Is Magic", Twilight resents this assignment, as she is more concerned about the foretold appearance of Nightmare Moon, the evil sister of Celestia. When Nightmare Moon does appear, vowing everlasting night and causing Celestia to disappear, Twilight sets off with five other ponies – Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity – to obtain the Elements of Harmony and defeat Nightmare Moon. Before Twilight can activate the Elements, Nightmare Moon appears and shatters them. In a flash of inspiration, Twilight realizes that each of her new friends represents one of the Elements of Harmony (Honesty, Loyalty, Laughter, Generosity, and Kindness), and that she herself is the final piece, Magic. The magical power of the ponies' friendship reverts Nightmare Moon to a repentant Princess Luna. Celestia reappears, reunites with her sister Princess Luna, and decrees that Twilight shall stay in Ponyville to continue studying the magic of friendship, much to the happiness of Twilight and her new friends.[39]

Later episodes follow Twilight and her friends dealing with various problems around Ponyville, including interpersonal problems between friends and family, as well as more adventurous stories involving creatures like dragons and hydras, and having to save Equestria from villainous characters. At the end of each episode, Twilight sends a report back to Celestia explaining what she learned about friendship from these adventures. This part of the formula is abandoned in "Lesson Zero", the second-season episode in which Twilight is convinced to be less rigid in her perceived duties; after this, all the principals contribute reports, although the formality is disregarded when appropriate. In the fourth season, with the request for reports no longer applicable, the six resolve to keep a collective personal journal in which they record their thoughts about life for posterity.

Another focus of the show is the Cutie Mark Crusaders, a trio of much younger mares consisting of Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo, who are obsessed with finding their "cutie marks", an iconic symbol that magically appear on a pony's flank once they have discovered their special talent in life.[40]The show regularly features episodes centered on the Crusaders, who have yet to receive their cutie marks and are teased by other young ponies as "blank flanks". In response, they desperately hurry to try to discover their talents and receive their own cutie marks, often doing so in comical fashions.[40]

Although the episodes are designed to stand alone, the series features continuity and overall story arcs, with several key elements of the series changing; one such change is the evolution of Twilight herself, who spends the first three seasons learning about friendship and is subsequently granted wings by Celestia to become an alicorn and a princess in the season 3finale "Magical Mystery Cure".[41] In the season 4 finale "Twilight's Kingdom", she discovers that she is the Princess of Friendship and starts living in a magic castle after the destruction of her library home from previous seasons. Other crucial events impacting the series are the Cutie Mark Crusaders finally obtaining their cutie marks in the season 5 episode "Crusaders of the Lost Mark"; the same season's introduction of Starlight Glimmer, a villainous character who redeems herself and becomes Twilight's pupil in the season finale "The Cutie Re-Mark"; and Rainbow Dash fulfilling her lifelong dream of joining the elite Wonderbolts flight team in the season 6 episode "Newbie Dash".

Each season typically has a theme and overall story arc: a theme throughout the first season, for example, is ponies' preparation for the Grand Galloping Gala that occurs in the final episode of that season. In season 4, the Mane Six must find six keys to a mysterious box revealed after they relinquish the Elements of Harmony to their original source, the Tree of Harmony, to save Equestria; in the season finale, it is revealed that they had already obtained the keys, in the form of gifts they received during the season from people they helped.[42]

Cast and characters
The show revolves around the adventures and daily life of the unicorn pony Twilight Sparkle (voiced by Tara Strong), her baby dragon assistant Spike (Cathy Weseluck), and her friends in Ponyville, colloquially referred to as the "Mane Six":[43] Other main characters are the Cutie Mark Crusaders, consisting of Applejack's younger sister Apple Bloom (Michelle Creber), Rarity's younger sister Sweetie Belle (Claire Corlett), and Scootaloo (Madeleine Peters). The two alicorns ruling over Equestria, Twilight's mentor Princess Celestia (Nicole Oliver), and the younger Princess Luna (St. Germain), also appear regularly; another alicorn, Princess Cadance (Britt McKillip), is introduced in the season two finale "A Canterlot Wedding" and oversees the northern Crystal Empire alongside her husband Shining Armor (Andrew Francis), a unicorn who is also Twilight's older brother. The season five premiere "The Cutie Map" introduces Starlight Glimmer (Kelly Sheridan), an antagonist who subsequently becomes Twilight's pupil in the season finale, "The Cutie Re-Mark".
 * Rainbow Dash (Ashleigh Ball), a tomboyish pegasus pony who helps control the weather, and aspires to be a part of Equestria's famous flying team, the Wonderbolts;
 * Rarity (Tabitha St. Germain), a glamorous unicorn pony with a flair for fashion design;
 * Fluttershy (Andrea Libman), a shy and timid pegasus pony who is fond of nature and takes care of animals;
 * Pinkie Pie (Libman), a hyperactive pony who loves throwing parties;
 * Applejack (Ball), a hard-working pony who works on her family's apple farm.

Many friends, family members, and other residents of Ponyville appear frequently, including Applejack's older brother Big McIntosh (Peter New) and grandmother Granny Smith (St. Germain); the Crusaders' teacher Cheerilee (Oliver) and nemeses Diamond Tiara (Chantal Strand) and Silver Spoon (Shannon Chan-Kent); the town's mayor, Mayor Mare (Weseluck); and the muscular pegasus Bulk Biceps (Michael Dobson). Notable secondary characters outside of Ponyville include the self-proclaimed "great and powerful" traveling magician Trixie (Kathleen Barr); the eccentric zebra Zecora (Brenda Crichlow), who lives in the nearby Everfree Forest and dabbles in herbal medicine; the Wonderbolts Spitfire (Kelly Metzger) and Soarin (Matt Hill); and Pinkie Pie's older sister Maud (Ingrid Nilson), who rarely expresses emotion and is obsessed with rocks.[44] The Mane Six also face several antagonists; one of them, the chimera-like tricksterDiscord (John de Lancie), is introduced in season 2 and subsequently becomes a recurring character of the show.[45][46]

The show also features an extensive cast of over 200 minor background characters. Several of these background ponies became fan favorites, leading to them having their roles expanded; the show's one-hundredth episode "Slice of Life" focuses almost entirely on some the most popular of them.[

Episodes
In total, 193 episodes have been produced and broadcast.

United States
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is one of several animated shows used to premiere The Hub, a retooling of the Discovery Kids channel of Discovery Communications in United States markets. The block of programming is a joint development of Hasbro and Discovery, designed to compete with similar family-friendly programming blocks on other networks such as the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon.[49] The first episode of Friendship Is Magicpremiered on the first Hub broadcast, on October 10, 2010.[49] In March 2011, the show was renewed for a second season to air in 2011–12.[50][51] The season two premiere on September 17, 2011,[52] had 339,000 viewers,[53] and Hasbro reported that the second-season finale, "A Canterlot Wedding", produced the best ratings of the history of the network in its core and other demographics, with an estimated 1,032,400 viewers.[54] The show also airs on AFN Family.

The series is rated TV-Y and targeted at girls 4–7 years old.[55] The first season was produced and broadcast to "E/I" ("educational and informational") standards, but Hasbro allowed the standard to be dropped in the second season.

International
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has been distributed to international markets, including Treehouse TV for the English-speaking audience in Canada, Boomerang in the United Kingdom until 2012 and on Tiny Pop and Pop (UK and Ireland), two British free-to-air children's television channels owned and operated by CSC Media Group, from September 2013,[56] Okto in Singapore,[57] Cartoon Network and later Boomerang with Eleven airing repeats in Australia and TV2 in New Zealand,[58] ntv7 in Malaysia, e-Junior in the United Arab Emirates,[59]Tooniverse in South Korea, and TV Tokyo (seasons 1–2) in Japan. Some of these international broadcasts, including language translations, were arranged with Turner Broadcasting System, which had broadcast Friendship Is Magic and other Hasbro shows on many of their European and Middle Eastern channels.[60] The Japanese broadcast of the show has two audio tracks: the original English-language audio track (available via SAP) and a Japanese-language audio track. According to Hasbro Studio's CEO Stephen Davis, they have marketed the show to over 180 territories around the world.[61]

Home media
In the United States, episodes of Friendship Is Magic are available for digital download through the iTunes Store.[62] Along with several other Hasbro properties, the show's episodes were added to the Netflix video streaming service on April 1, 2012.[63] A two-episode DVD, "Celebration at Canterlot", was offered to Target Corporation stores as an exclusive, packaged with certain toys from the franchise.[64]

Shout! Factory has the DVD publishing rights for the series within Region 1. Fifteen five-episode DVDs and three six-episode DVDs have been released to date.

The first six seasons of the series have been released in complete DVD box sets.[65][66][67] United Kingdom-based Clear Vision has the publishing rights for the first two seasons throughout Region 2, including most of Western Europe and the Middle East;[68] however, the company abruptly entered administration in December 2013,[69]and has managed to only release three My Little Pony DVD volume sets as of April 2014 by August 2014. Another Region 2 distributor known as Primal Screen had since taken over the license from Clear Vision. Madman Entertainment has the license for publishing the series via DVDs and digital downloads in Region 4 [70] but since Season 4, Beyond Home Entertainment took over the license.

Merchandise and other media
Friendship Is Magic is associated with the 2010 relaunch of My Little Pony toy line, having figurines and playsets based on it.[99] A section of the Hasbro website gives information about Friendship Is Magic for children and their parents, including character backgrounds, videos, and interactive games and media. Due in part to the older fans, Hasbro has come to see My Little Pony as a "lifestyle" brand, with over 200 licenses in 15 categories of products, including clothing, houseware, and digital media. The brand grossed over 650 million USD in retail sales in 2013,[100] and one billion USD annually in retail sales in 2014[101][102] and 2015.[103]

My Little Pony: The Movie, a theatrical animated film adaptation of the television series, was released on October 6, 2017 in the United States, distributed by Lionsgate. The film is directed by series supervising director Jayson Thiessen and written by showrunner Meghan McCarthy, and is financed by Hasbro Studios' film subdivision, Allspark Pictures.