My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S2/E15 The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000: Difference between revisions

that there's really no need for this teary despair?

'''Flam:''' That the key that they need

 

 

Cue the Flim Flam brothers rolling into Ponyville. They charm and schmooze their way into the town's good graces and introduce [[Title Drop|The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000]], which they claim can make enough cider to satisfy all of Ponyville in a fraction of the time the Apples can even make their daily batch! The Apples maintain their position that quality is more important than speed, but the brothers quickly prove that their machine can make ''very'' good cider, thanks to its built-in quality check system that only uses the best apples and automatically discards the rotten or bruised ones. The brothers offer a "partnership," but when the Apples refuse their blatantly lopsided deal, the two groups make a bet: Whoever can make the most barrels of cider in one hour gets exclusive selling rights in Ponyville! This means if the Apples lose, they'll lose the right to sell cider in Ponyville, and without that money to tide them over in the winter, they won't be able to afford to run Sweet Apple Acres!

 

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* [[AcCENT Upon the Wrong SylLABle]]: "In this ve-RY community."

** The Twins plan to rename "Sweet Apple Acres" to "Flim Flam Fields".

* [[Adult Fear]]: No scary monsters in this episode, just a couple of shady businessponies almost making the Apple family lose their jobs and home.

* [[An Aesop]]: Subverted in that Applejack already knew the Aesop all along.

* [[Annoying Laugh]]: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4AUpn-vhYc Flim and Flam]

* [[Artistic License Physics]]: At the beginning of the episode, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy fly ''sideways'', with their bodies ''vertical to the ground'' at high speed towards the Cider Stand, in order to have a conversation on the way.

** Although this could simply be momentum. Rainbow Dash was pushing Fluttershy through the air until that point (fast enough to make her scream) which means that both have the same velocity. When Rainbow lets go, they should still be travelling at the same speed for a while until air resistance slows them down. They're not so much flying as staying airborne.

** Not to mention that Flim and Flam dance on their hind legs during part of their [[Villain Song]].

* [[As You Know]]: Rainbow Dash explaining Cider Season and how Pinkie always takes the first spot in line to Fluttershy.

* {{spoiler|[[The Bad Guy Wins]]: The Flim Flam brothers do win the contest, but the crappy cider needed to win is what drove them out of town and allowed the Apple family to keep their land.}}

* [[The Bet]]: The Flim Flam brothers and the Apple family bet over the exclusive right to sell cider in Ponyville.

** Applejack grabbing Rainbow Dash by the tail to hold her back. Seriously, [[Running Gag|it is about the sixth or seventh time she did it since episode 1]].

* [[The Cameo]]: Doctor Whooves is seen a couple times, but specifically one shot with a tie, running the hourglass for the competition. Sibsy, one of the storyboard artists, affirms that this was an intentional nod to the fan-named character.

** He is also seen earlier standing next to Derpy Hooves, fandom-recognized to be his friend/lover/adventuring companion. Coincidence?

* [[Cheaters Never Prosper]]: Once the Mane Six and the rest of the Apple family start to outpace the cider machine during the cider contest, Flim and Flam skip the quality control process to get back in the lead. Though this wins them the contest, the resulting product is so terrible that they get run out of town, which would have happened anyway if they lost. At least if they had lost on even terms, it wouldn't have completely ruined their business.

{{quote|'''Twilight:''' Isn't it exciting? The first day of cider season!

'''Spike:''' Yeah! That means it's only 30 days until sapphire season! [licks chops] }}

** Also, Pinkie Pie, going on a rave about how good this year's cider was to Rainbow Dash, who's already frustrated and upset at not getting any… despite Fluttershy trying to warn Pinkie.

* [[Cool Train]]: The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000 is this.

* [[Cross Cultural Kerfluffle]]: Cider is considered non-alcoholic by default in the United States, and the alcoholic variety is specifically referred to as "hard cider." In other places, however, "cider" is alcoholic. So, to the amusement and/or [[Moral Guardians|horror]] of viewers outside the US, this episode appears to be about ponies getting drunk.

* [[Evil Plan]]: The Flim Flam brothers run one of these on the Apples throughout the episode. First they offer them a blatantly lopsided deal for the family providing them apples, then they show up the next day right after the family used their supply to capitalize on all the dissatisfied customers, and finally they goad the Apples into betting the farm on a contest they had no chance of winning as well as providing them a large amount of apples for free. [[Xanatos Gambit|No matter what happened, the Flim Flam brothers would profit off of the Apple family]]. The [[Spanner in the Works]] is that they steadily drive off a widening proportion of their customer base in the process, until they have nobody left to buy from them.

* [[Expy]]: The Flim Flam Brothers, of... every snake oil salesman in television history, [[The Music Man|Harold Hill]] in particular.

* [[Fandom Nod]]: One of the most interested ponies in watching the cider-making, and the one that Flam points out as having a "dry throat, thirsty tongue"? [[The Alcoholic|Berry Punch]]. Cider is frequently alcoholic (though there are no apparent alcoholic beverages in Equestria). This one is most likely intentional, since [[Word of God|the artist explicitly states that]] [http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/09/sibsy-stops-by-eqd-irc.html she loves Drunk!Berry Punch].

** Doctor Whooves manning an hourglass, in addition to wearing a tie like the [[Doctor Who|Doctor incarnation]] the fandom associates him with. [http://www.equestriadaily.com/2012/01/doctor-hooves-actually-was-reference.html Confirmed] as an intentional reference.

* [[Hey, It's That Voice!]]: [[Sam Vincent]] plays Flim and [[Scott McNeil]] voices Flam.

* [[Hoist By Their Own Petard]]: The Flim Flam Brothers, first by accepting the Mane Cast's choice to help the Apples, then turning off quality control, ultimately leading to their downfall. They also made the contest explicitly about quantity over quality -- claiming they could make cider ''faster'', not better. They won on quantity but ended up with a product that wouldn't sell.

** Actually, she never bets the farm, only the right to sell cider, hardly the Apple Family's only business. Once they win, the Flim Flam brothers just ACT like they've won the farm, and nobody calls them on it. They're just that slick.

* [[Huddle Shot]]: The Apple family gets into one when deciding whether to work with Flim and Flam. {{spoiler|They sneak in on them.}}

* [[Meaningful Name]]: "Flim Flam" being another term for a confidence scheme.

** Lampshaded by the Flim Flam Brothers threatening the Apple family, saying that they'll need to get jobs that aren't so perfectly suited to their names.

* [[My God, What Have I Done?|My God What Have We Done?]]: Nothing is said, but {{spoiler|the town's reaction to seeing the Apple Family lose their livelihood (and the Flim Flam Brothers' [[Kick the Dog]] moment), something that only happened because they were too impatient to wait for more cider, is pretty much this.}}

* [[Mythology Gag]]: This isn't the first time ''My Little Pony'' has had two competing juice stands. An episode of [[My Little Pony Tales]], "The Great Lemonade Stand Wars", did it first, including contrasting the main characters' charming little wooden stand with their competitor's sleeker, shinier, mobile one. This time, however, Bon Bon is on the ''other'' side of the counter.

* [[Nice Job Fixing It, Villain]]: By goading the Apple Family into a contest, the Flim Flam Brothers end up causing them to make enough cider for the entire town.

* [[Nobody Calls Me Chicken|Nopony Calls Me Chicken]]: Granny Smith doesn't take kindly to being called this and ends up betting Sweet Apple Acres in a cider-making contest.

* [[No Good Deed Goes Unpunished]]: The competition is over and Twilight and Applejack collapse in exhaustion. Having chosen not to cheat even in the face of temptation, Twilight compliments Applejack on how proud she is of her and how such integrity would not go unrewarded. Cue victory being handed to the Flim Flam brothers.

** Of course, Twilight was perfectly correct. It just took a little longer than expected for the Apples' honest labor to pay off.

* [[Open Mouth, Insert Foot|Open Mouth, Insert Hoof]]: Apple Bloom just doesn't know when to shut her mouth. Granny Smith certainly doesn't help any by betting the farm.

* [[Pyrrhic Villainy]]: The Flim Flam Brothers win the contest, but they've thoroughly alienated everyone in town, and they used not just so many bad apples, but chunks of apple ''trees'' that no one will buy from them.

* [[Rant-Inducing Slight]]: Granny Smith weathers the brothers' provocations with relative grace (''unlike'' Apple Bloom), until one of them calls her "chicken."

* [[Real Estate Scam]]: Near the end, the Flim Flam Brothers reveal their intention to bankrupt the Apple family, force them off their land, and construct "Flim Flam Fields".

* [[Second Place Is for Winners]]: Although the Apple family loses the contest, the quality of their cider is realized, and the Flim Flam Brothers' true nature is exposed, which (combined with them stupidly serving the bad batches of Cider they made instead of the first, better batches) forces them to skip town.

* [[Serious Business]]: Sweet Apple Cider is so important that ponies line up for miles to get it and are even willing to camp out in front of the farm to make sure they get some before everypony else.

** In the scene where Flam calls Granny Smith [[Nobody Calls Me Chicken|chicken]], the perspective is placed ''just so'' as to [[Back to The Future|take us back]]...

** [[Word of God]] has verified that the scene with [[Fandom Nod|a certain extremely popular background pony]] was a reference to ''[[Doctor Who]]''.

** Maybe next time, the Flim Flam Brothers [[The Music Man|should try selling band instruments.]] Ya got trouble! Right here in Ponyville! With a capital T and that rhymes with C and that stands for Cider!

* [[Shown Their Work]]: All through the episode. Cider season? A real thing in apple country, and a very short thing, a matter of a few weeks in late fall. Only selling one day's production at a time? Absolutely; cider has an extremely short shelf life before it starts to carbonate and ferment. The big stone wheel Big Mac turns? A real, and very old-fashioned, machine for cider pressing. Truthfully, the Brothers' machine could probably make three to four times as much cider from a given weight of apples compared to the Apples' methods, making that 75/25 split look a lot more reasonable, although it would also cost the Apple family three-quarters of the apples involved.

* [[Single Tear]]: Shed by Applejack as they abandon the field to the Flim Flams.

* [[Trope 2000]]: The eponymous cider maker.

* [[Throw the Dog a Bone]]: {{spoiler|Rainbow ''finally'' gets a mug of apple cider in the end}}.

* [[Villain Exit Stage Left]]: The Flim Flam Brothers make a run for it after they realize that no one likes their cider anymore.

* [[Villain Song]]: The Flim Flam Bros. song counts, although it's rather upbeat and causes everyone else to join in singing. Also notable as the first [[Villain Song]] of the series thus far.

* [[Visual Pun]]: The Apple family's device for making cider uses actual horsepower.

* [[A Wizard Did It]]: [[Word of God|Lauren Faust stated]], in defining the technology for the show, that if there was a necessary device that needed to work automatically, instead of relying on electricity, she'd claim that one could just assume that some mechanic unicorn infused it with magic. That's exactly how Flim and Flam start up their machine.

* [[Working Title]]: [http://www.equestriadaily.com/2012/02/operation-fim-musicians-are-awesome.html Apparently was supposed to be called "Cider Horse Rules".]

 

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[[Category:Recap]]

[[Category:My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap]]