My Little Pony

[Zixinus]

maybe they stockpiled it for a week to ferment....

No, this was American cider, ie: apple juice in any other part of the world.

[lordofchange13]

maybe they stockpiled it for a week to ferment....

During the contest they spent an hour to make their Cider, and then (on the same day) they sold it to the masses. This is why Cider is apple juice and not alcohol.

[Rabid]

Also, according to Wikipedia the word "Nonpareil" is french for "without equal"

To be exact, "without equal" would be "sans pareil" ("sans" = "without"), not "nonpareil" ("non" = "no").
If "nonpareil" is supposed to be French, then it's very likely to be a translation error : it could be best translated as "not equal", but in this case the correct 'translation' would simply be using the word "inégal(e)(s)".

"Our Cider's quality is without equal !" => "La qualité de notre cidre est sans égale !" / "La qualité de notre cidre est inégalée !"

[evilsoup]

It physically hurts me to admit this, but lots of English-speaking people used to try and use French to sound 'fancy' (some still do). So the fact that it is an incorrect translation might be deliberate, to indicate something about the flimflam brothers.

[Rabid]

That may be so. The FlimFlam Brothers, to me, seemed to be the Season 2's counterpart to Trixie, this time a challenge to Applejack's family business and not Twilight's magical abilities.

I expect to see fan-arts and fan-fictions of them being ruined / redeeming themselves / stalking Applejack / etc... on Equestria Daily by, hmmm, let's say next friday at the most.

[Zor]

The Flimflam brothers song is one of the best in the series.

Zor

[Revy]

I thought the episode was fine except for the song, which just seemed kinda bland and forgettable to me.

Is it just me, or were AJ's problems these last two episodes down to her family more than anything else? Last episode Granny Smith and Apple Bloom kept heaping huge expectations on her to win (as did the Mayor) whereas Twilight was all 'Just do you best' and Pinkie was 'Just have fun!'. So when she didn't come first she couldn't face them, not after the send off they gave her.

And now this time AJ was all 'Big whoop, you go make cider fast, Imma stick to making it well' and would have left it at that, but then Apple Bloom mouthed off and started making outlandish promises, and then Granny Smith, who initially tried to rein her boasting in, caved as soon as they started calling her names and made the whole wager that almost cost them everything.

I guess what I'm trying to say is ... Apple Bloom and Granny Smith could do with learning some lessons themselves, because lately they've just been giving Applejack a headache.

[Wing Commander MAD]

Damn, that certainly is a catchy tune, then again I am a sucker for a good musical number.

[Crossroads Inc.]

After re-watching the last several episodes, I am coming to the conclusion that the show as a whole is making a surprising change.
That being it has realized it doesn't HAVE to focus solely on Twilight and the mane 6 exclusively.

Now this may sound like a "well duh" item here, but when you think about most modern children's cartoons, especially some of the old school ones, there is a downward spiral in terms of the quality of a show largely because the producers are obsessed with following a rock hard formula for each episode.

Think back to the "oohhs" and "ahhhs" when we had the first MLP that did not contain each of the mane 6. now we have episodes that contain at most 2 of the cast.

For me this is a very very good thing, it gives the writers a lot more freedom when they don't have to force in all of the cast in every single episode.

[lordofchange13]

I agree, expanding beyond just the mane characters is a good thing. The writers would have ran out of good plots by the end of the season if they stayed like that.

[Kuja]

Another episode with a stealth moral: don't let your opponents change the rules in the middle of a game. They'll burn your ass.

There was actually very little that Unicorn magic and wings did, really. Fluttershy may have flown into the tree, but she was probably just shaking the higher branches. PinkyPie was rather tame catching apples, no reality warping. Rarity was using her horn to toss apples in the chute, but judging by eye. Dash was mostly out and out running, although after they said "HURRY" her wings were flapping. All Twilight did was seal and move barrels.

Now, if they had been in on it at the start, they'd have made a big difference. FlimFlam would still have more barrels, but cider too tainted to sell. If the Apples are smart, they'd offer the girls free cider to help them make enough all through Cider Season

Well, the gist of what I meant was that, prior to Twilight and Crew jumping in, the FlimFlams were making 3 barrels to every 1 that the Apples churned out. Afterwards the rate swung about to 5 to 3 in favor of the Apples, which was the motivation for the FlimFlams to turn their machine up to 11 and thus left them with a stock of bad cider.

If they'd said "nope, team you started with is the team you finish with!" they would have won.

[Crossroads Inc.]

That may actually be true.

if we assume the "apple juice" made prior to the sucking up of whole trees was at least passable quality, then it would have been able to be accepted by the ponies and the contest would have to have been accepted.

As it was, while they still "won" they did so in a way that cost them credibility and had the population turn on their product.

I have to say what I think I liked most about this episode was that the outrage was NOT against the machine itself, but simply the boast and rather snide nature of the brothers.
The machine itself was no hoax or scam ((As I originally thought it was going to be)) but instead a genuine workable concept.

If the world had been different, if things had not needed to be dictated by plot that the brothers "loose" so the Apples could "win, I could imagine a good business for the machine itself. Imagine it being "hired out" to famers like the apples during peek harvesting season. In the same way early Combine Harvesters were rented to farmers at the turn of the century.

What it really shows is that, under different circumstances, Equestrial would welcome such an industrial advancement, which makes me feel good that this wasn't a 'ludite' moment.

[Narkis]

Yeah, if the brothers had offered something sane to the Apples, things would've been completely different, and RD would have enough cider to swim in. But they were doomed when they went all-or-nothing. Really, what were they going to do without the Apples' apples if Granny Smith hadn't bitten the bait? Their machine may have been great, but their business sense was terrible.

Couple other thoughts:

Poor, poor Rainbow Dash. Fate can be so cruel sometimes.

Applejack's letter to Celestia was the best letter ever.

All in all, I loved the episode. And the Flimflam song. The series needs more songs. 20% more, at least!

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

My personal headcanon is that the FlimFlam Brothers' last name is "Dickens," and their family actually is famous for its cider. Fluttershy will tell you, that on a cold winter's day, there is nothing she likes more than a hot Dickens' Cider. Even Rainbow Dash loves a hard Dickens' Cider.


Ok, now that that's out of my system.

That may actually be true.

if we assume the "apple juice" made prior to the sucking up of whole trees was at least passable quality, then it would have been able to be accepted by the ponies and the contest would have to have been accepted.

The machine cider/juice was good, look at Granny's face when she tastes it, she's surprised at how good it is, then she hides it quickly.


I really could do without the music, I watch this show because its funny, and the songs for the most part aren't funny, this one felt like it took up half the episode

[Rabid]

My personal headcanon is that the FlimFlam Brothers' last name is "Dickens," and their family actually is famous for its cider. Fluttershy will tell you, that on a cold winter's day, there is nothing she likes more than a hot Dickens' Cider. Even Rainbow Dash loves a hard Dickens' Cider.

You're a bad person and you should feel bad.


( )

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

My personal headcanon is that the FlimFlam Brothers' last name is "Dickens," and their family actually is famous for its cider. Fluttershy will tell you, that on a cold winter's day, there is nothing she likes more than a hot Dickens' Cider. Even Rainbow Dash loves a hard Dickens' Cider.

You're a bad person and you should feel bad.


( )

Through the whole episode that's what kept running in my head.

[Rabid]

I guess that's enough as a punishment.

(though now I fear to see this pun integrated into a comics from TG_Weaver...)

[Rossum]

I wouldn't be surprised if the machine itself had been created by some odd pony inventor somewhere and the Flim Flam brothers were just hired to sell its services or something. Like the inventor had good mechanical aptitude and a knowledge of cider making but had poor business sense and got the Flim Flam brothers to go around getting the profits from it.

Their conversation probably went something like this:

Inventor: At last, I've created a fully automated cider making machine that can do the work of five ponies and work nonstop with just a little unicorn magic to power it! Now I just have to make money with this thing.

Flim: Why, we'd certainly be willing to help. We'll take this baby all across Equestria from Hoofington to Applosa!

Flam: Don't forget Dodge Junction! Cherry Jubilee is always looking for work there.

Inventor: No no... its only designed for apple harvesting right now... though with the profits from this I'm sure I can make a cherry harvester easily. I don't know exactly how the economics on these things work. Though I'd guess asking a 50/50 split of the profits should be a good starting point. I'll leave the salesmanship to you two.

Flim and Flam: Certainly my good man. Let us be off and show Equestria what this machine can do!

Then the Flim Flam brothers start getting greedy and asking 75/25 splits and wanting to run the farmers out of business and stuff. It's possible that there are other salesponies out there with similar machines who are getting chased away because the Flim Flam brothers are causing such a mess for them. Kind of like what was happening in Music Man. In retrospect, their outragious deals could have been them attempting to make a profit in Ponyville after getting chased out of other towns for other reasons.

I liked the song, though I didn't really think of it as a song so much as "speaking in rhyme with musical accompaniment." The Flim Flam brothers were making a sale and instead of having a long speech there was a crowd song like thing. It reminded me of the "Find a Pet" song in that it has music and rhymes but is more of a long list or conversation than a real song. It's like when Zecora talks, it's cool that she's talking in rhyme and it makes her words stand out but I wouldn't call her a poet or a singer as it stands.

Actually, it would be cool to have Zecora break out into song in one episode just to have the other characters wonder if she's singing or talking. Or maybe Zecora singing would result her words not rhyming?

[Narkis]

I guess that's enough as a punishment.

(though now I fear to see this pun integrated into a comics from TG_Weaver...)

I don't get it...

[Rabid]

@ Narkis :

Read this quote aloud :

My personal headcanon is that the FlimFlam Brothers' last name is "Dickens," and their family actually is famous for its cider. Fluttershy will tell you, that on a cold winter's day, there is nothing she likes more than a hot Dickens' Cider. Even Rainbow Dash loves a hard Dickens' Cider.

[lordofchange13]

@Rabib:
You are a terrible person!

That is all

[LadyTevar]

I wondered how long it would take for someone to make the Dicken's Cider jokes... *sigh*

[Narkis]

Ah, yeah. Google revealed some youtube videos with that joke, and I finally got it. You really are a terrible person.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

Just to be clear, Rabid isn't the terrible person, I am.

Though I wonder, am I a terrible person because of the sex joke or the terrible pun?

[tim31]

Well I just saw the word 'princest', so if you haven't come across that previously you're welcome.