My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is an animated television series based on Hasbro's My Little Pony franchise. The series follows a studious pony named Twilight Sparkle (Tara Strong), her dragon assistant Spike (Cathy Weseluck) and her friends, Applejack (Ashleigh Ball), Rarity (Tabitha St. Germain), Fluttershy (Andrea Libman), Rainbow Dash (Ball) and Pinkie Pie (Libman). They go on adventures and help others around Equestria, solving problems with their friendships.

First aired on The Hub (later renamed Discovery Family), each season comprises 26 episodes, with the exception of season 3, which has 13 episodes. During the course of the series, 222 episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic aired, including two specials over nine seasons, between October 10, 2010, and October 12, 2019. Other media released during and after its run included a feature-length film and 6 clip shows.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is a co-production of DHX Media/Vancouver in Canada and Allspark in the United States. Internationally, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic aired on Treehouse TV in Canada, Boomerang in the United Kingdom until 2012 and on Tiny Pop and Pop, two British free-to-air children's television channels owned and operated by Sony Pictures Television, from September 2013, Okto in Singapore, Cartoon Network and later Boomerang with Eleven airing repeats in Australia and TV2 in New Zealand, ntv7 and Astro Ceria in Malaysia, e-Junior in the United Arab Emirates, Tooniverse in South Korea, and TV Tokyo (seasons 1–2) in Japan. The series garnered positive reviews from critics and received a Hugo Award nomination for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form for the episode "The Cutie Map".

Series overview

Episodes

Season 1 (2010–11)

Each episode is directed by Jayson Thiessen with James Wootton as co-director.

Season 2 (2011–12)

Each episode is directed by James Wootton.

Season 3 (2012–13)

Like the last season, James Wootton directed each episode.

Season 4 (2013–14)

Each episode is directed by Jayson Thiessen with Jim Miller as co-director.

Season 5 (2015)

Season 6 (2016)

The directors for each episode are Denny Lu and Tim Stuby.

Season 7 (2017)

Denny Lu directs each episode, although there are different co-directors.

My Little Pony: The Movie (2017)

Season 8 (2018)

Directors for each episode are Denny Lu and Mike Myhre

Holiday Special (2018)

My Little Pony Best Gift Ever is a double-length Christmas-themed special that aired in between the eighth and ninth seasons of the series. It was followed by a series of three supplementary animated shorts that were uploaded to YouTube on December 11, 2018 (December 11, 2018).

Season 9 (2019)

On February 17, 2018, at the American International Toy Fair, a ninth season was announced by Hasbro. In a TV Kids Guide by Gaumont, it was confirmed that season nine will have 26 episodes. At the following year's Toy Fair in New York, it was confirmed that this will be the final season of the series. It premiered on April 6, 2019. Among highlights include the series' 200th episode as well as the return of "Weird Al" Yankovic and Patton Oswalt as Cheese Sandwich and Quibble Pants, respectively.

As with the previous season, Denny Lu and Mike Myhre direct each episode.

Rainbow Roadtrip (2019)

My Little Pony: Rainbow Roadtrip is a 60-minute special that aired on Discovery Family during the season nine mid-season hiatus between episodes 13 and 14. It was produced by the Irish animation studio Boulder Media rather than DHX and features the same animation style used in the 2017 movie.

Animated shorts (2019)

A series of five animated shorts were published weekly to the My Little Pony YouTube channel in early 2019 in the months prior to the season nine premiere.

Clip Shows (2020)

Clip show episodes of the series are being released exclusively through the 9Now video-on-demand service in Australia. These episodes replace the words "Friendship is Magic" in the series logo with "Friendship is Forever" in the opening sequence, and they feature various clips of episodes from seasons one through nine alongside brand new animation. These episodes were written by Josh Haber and directed by Denny Lu and Mike Myhre.

Notes

References