I had said in the spoiler thread that I really really hoped they didn't bring Flutterguy back because doing so would dilute the effect of the original joke. But the corollary that I
didn't say (or maybe said, I can't remember) was that
if they really go all-in with it and sell the hell out of it, it can work great. If the benefits of revisiting the idea lend themselves enough to a new story concept that the benefits outweigh the knock it deals to the out-of-the-weeds surprise factor of the original, then the results can be even more rewarding than it was the first time.
Futurama (pre-resurrection) was really good at this. Small jokes in early episodes became the basis for whole episodes later. I really didn't expect (or want) to see the Robot Devil come back after four whole years. And yet he did, in the (original) finale... which turned out to be one of the best episodes the show ever did. Because they sold it. They made something new out of it. They acknowledged its ridiculousness in-universe, and turned it into something even better.
That's what they did here with Flutterguy. It's really really hard to just let a great joke lie, much as it's
usually the right thing to do. And if you don't take the bull by the horns and really make it worth it, it's usually far more to the show's detriment to lazily dip back into the old bag of tricks just for the sake of a "hey remember that time when" joke that doesn't expand upon it, or expands upon it in a stupid, "midichlorians" kind of way that ruins the magic of the original. But here, it starts with Zecora giggling to herself as she forms the plan before even telling the rest of us about it, and the episode takes its time spinning its way into making for a nice, organic,
obvious setup for making Flutterguy an actual useful thing for a story. Once the setup is in place, it feels
right that that's the way it should go... and indeed, if the episode had set up a "Fluttershy likes to sing, the Ponytones want her on stage, and Big Mac has lost his voice" premise, and they had solved it some way
other than Flutterguy, how many of us would have been all like "Hey I know what they could have done, c'mon writers it was so obvious

"
It all felt
right to me. It felt like AKR was just reveling in the world she'd helped create, with as much of the frenetic joy of creation and "holy shit this is My Little Pony" as must have been present in the chaotic days of the show's inception. It felt like the callback was
earned... and if for no larger reason than that Flutterguy itself wasn't even the focus of the episode or its lesson, it was just a catalyst for putting Fluttershy in a new place and letting us see her in a new set of (really frickin' adorable) circumstances.
And "baby steps" is chapter-and-verse Pony, just the way we like it. Really, the whole thing is a rich mixture of "everything we've always loved about the show" and "holy shit new things".
Anyway, I totally thought Zipporwhill was supposed to be a Breezie.

Last edited by Headless Horse on Sat Feb 15, 2014 9:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.