Friendship is Witchcraft: A deep dive into the infamous MLP abridged series/parody/fandub/thing??? 

The thing i like about Fluttershy being an evil cult leader is that she still acts all nice and sweet. That's why I think it actually works

I really understand why Jenny was so critical of the brony fandom. I was in the upper range of the target audience for fim when it first came out, and it was frustrating to be constantly pushed out of online spaces by adult men that couldn't comprehend that a kid show would have child fans. I can admire the passion a lot of creators put into their fanwork as an adult, but as a kid a lot of bronys were creepy and weird. Edit: this wasnt about nsfw/violent content. I didn't care about that as a kid and thought it was cool. I was reffering to the general attitude of bronies towards little girls

When I was younger I was fully convinced friendship is witch craft was canon and when I would watch mlp on Netflix I would get so mad that the fiw episodes never played 😭

I absolutely ADORE FiW. The jokes were always frequent, the production value just kept improving, and there was a surprisingly astounding amount of continuity and callbacks. Almost every time I rewatch an episode, I notice something new. I think the comedy is a lot more subtle than what most people think. Yeah, there’s an edge factor, but that was never a bad thing imo. I love how it deviated from the basic set of abridged season 1 episodes that literally every other series has done, and I especially love the additional effort that went into its original score. I have almost nothing bad to say about it.

i dont understand why people expected substance and character development from fiw. it was a silly parody project, its not like they were rewriting fim to be this serious story.

Fun fact! The mlp trading cards referenced Sweetie Bot/ FiW, on sweetie bell's card it calls the cutie mark crusaders her "cutie mark acquisition program"

Oh, I remember watching these as a kid. Unfortunately, I didn’t know english very well, so most of it went over my head entirely, even the simple gags. But I really liked the songs, and thought Sweetiebot was funny. Like a different commenter, I also preferred the Mentally Advanced Series and its sister series Rainbow Dash presents. It was more understandable to me (well, it had a fandub in my language, haha), and I liked RDP specifically for parodying well-known pony fanfics. And Rainbow Dash is just a funny and cute character in there.

I watched friendship is witchcraft as a kid, and then started watching Jenny Nicholson as an adult without even realizing she was the person behind it. When she did her brownie video she talked about friendship is witchcraft and stuff and it caught me off guard knowing she was the person who created something I loved as a kid, I never even put together that her voice was so close to the voices of the characters.

"But we have nothing in common. I come from a rich family and you like to eat apples" is one of my favorite quotes that makes me laugh every time I hooked on to this series HARD back in the day. I especially love SweetieBot and often relate with her a lot, being targeted as a threat when she's just harmless. However with her being grumpy at how the world around her works and constantly criticizing it, it makes me wonder if it's an (intentional or not) reference to being Neurodivergent in a world built around being Neurotypical. If anything, the constant pressure of having to be like everyone else or be destroyed, what if that ends up overloading SweetieBot causing her to destroy the world around her due to a massive mental breakdown. Also, I guess I like to see FiW as a snapshot of what humor was like at the time, Many of the jokes were nothing new to youtube, it's what everyone was laughing at at the time. Over time tases change and people grow as they have new experiences. For me, I didn't start to use internet until I was fresh into adulthood and over the past decade I've come to learn many of what others around me thought was funny was actually (again, intentionally or not) hurting others. Overall, many fun memories, I still quote FiW moments while watching FiM just to confuse others or to bring back fond college memories for myself to reflect on.

“And there was so much dragon blood, we just slid down the mountain like a water-slide.” I still crack up every time I hear that!!

One of my favorite abridged series ever is Scootertrix the Abridged. The people behind it are so nice and the actual series itself is so funny and creative. I'd definitely recommend it. And if you prefer more serialized/serious stuff, "Friendship Is for Adults" is great too.

I didn't like this series when I was a teen. I liked The Mental Advanced Series. After Jenny did her Brony Community Deep Dive I went to rewatch FiW and it's not bad for what it is. I still don't prefer it over MAS but I don't hate it like I use to.

I quote FiW at the very least once a week to this day. "My primary function is failure," "Well aren't you lookin' as cute as a... wheelbarrow," and "Hey Twilight, do you think spiders can dream?" are some common ones. It's stupid, there's definitely stuff that absolutely aged like milk, but even within the more uncomfy episodes (lookin at you, Lunar Slander) there's hidden gems like "I made this myself! Out of my own trip to the store!" and the whole running joke about Dole copyrighting the word "apple," obviously making fun of the Hasbro copyright struggle ("Clearly, there is no BRO in DOLE"). I still have Sweetie's Big Race memorized, lmao. My favorite joke in the entire series is probably Fluttershy's the-dragon-is-my-father moment. Yeah, the subversion of "make the sweet character evil" is kind of lazy, but they did a great job making her into a purposely manipulative villain. (Quick shoutout, also, to Rainbow Dash flat-out admitting that there's no depth to her character.) I also think that FiW was a lot more self-aware than most content at that time; it doesn't hold to modern standards, but we're talking 2011-2013. The other most popular thing was the .MOV series - I think that speaks for itself. Jenny Nicholson has been tongue-in-cheek criticizing the brony fandom for over a decade, it's no wonder she eventually became more outspoken about it.

I remember once reading the comments on an Equestria Daily article about a new Kimmi Sparkle video and there were so many people who were RAGING because they thought she was an actual reviewer. It was hilarious looking back on it, but in the moment I was just like "do they really not realize that this is on the Sherclop Pones channel???"

"I will destroy you and steal your fiance. Booty booty booty booty shaking everywhere" still cracks me up to no end

as someone who watched MLP when i was the target demographic, i wasn't involved in the fandom outside of theory/lore videos and animated videos. and i just have to say.. THIS IS WHERE ALL THOSE SONGS CAME FROM?!?!

"Go into it as blind as possible" *she says after telling us almost everything about the series*

fiw is probably the single most important brony creation to me, as somebody who was both there for the peak of the brony fandom and far, far too young to be involved in it as it stood. some things for sure did not age well at ALL, but aside from the anthologies, fiw has to be the creation that has the biggest place in my heart. good job jenny, good job griffin, and buy some apples. also, sorry i fully downloaded an episode, slapped hey soul sister over it, and posted it like it was a pmv when i was like 8. dunno how i thought editing worked at that point.

One minute into the video and I'm already hyped. The fact that you made a "numbered list" as a reference to Jenny Nicholson's style of videos is amazing attention to detail- honestly your content got me back into learning about MLP again after a couple years so that's cool :D (also when I was younger I FLIPPED after hearing that Griffinilla was also Fandroid jc... mainly that Fandroid's voice filter is the same as Sweetie Bot's)

I’ve been watching MLP:FIM since childhood. I’ve known very little about some things the fandom did but after watching your icebergs, I’m interested to watch what these mlp fan-mations have in store.

Of all the mlp fanworks, Friendship is Witchcraft was my favorite.

I remember loving Friendship is witchcraft a lot, specifically all of songs my favorite song being Sweetie's big race. I thought Sweetie belle was cool and I also liked robots back then so obviously I would like the song. I have nothing but fond memories of FiW and let's be honest, all of our problems are Spike's fault.

Time stamp things WIP: 0:00 beginning 1:07 A Bridge to the Series 3:57 The Humor 6:16 oh look at us... 9:02 Let's sing a catchy song 11:12 I ran out of FiW Finished! Love the video and here are my thoughts on FiW: FiW was meh to me. It had its ups and downs but seemingly more downs beyond the music. Don't really hate it but then again, I haven't seen it in ages so maybe a rewatch would change things but eh.

I enjoy FIW. It's just having fun with the clips of the show and turn it into a crazy new adventure. It doesn't have a consistent story, it's just a project where two bronies having fun and turning things upside down. That's what this series is all about and I love it. The Sweetie Bot projects are incredible. I saw them at GalaCon and it's amazing.

FIW always reminded me of that English dub for Ghost Stories where they say crazy things, pop culture references, and other random stuff but they still followed the story.

FiW, Mentally Advanced, and Rainbow Dash Presents have and will always hold a very dear place in my heart. They've always held up to me, but I like a lot of silly humor, being raised on 90s and early 2000s cult classic comedies with similar nonsense humor (think Hot Rod, Kung Pow: Enter the Fist, Zoolander, Undercover Brother, Step Brothers, Ace Ventura, etc.) I've always wanted more FiW and Mentally Advanced, but had to long ago accept that it would never happen. Jenny's new channel sometimes hits a similar spot of humor and enjoyment, but is more hit-and-miss, I've always presumed due to lacking the collaboration with Griffin to balance her out.

I watched FIW later than most in like 2017 when I was 10-11. Like the writers, I didn’t understand the slurs or why they could have been considered bad, and though most of the jokes went over my 10-year-old head, I still thought it was hilarious. I watched it with my cousin, friends, and would talk about it a lot in normal conversation. Im rewatching it again now and understand why it could have been considered to not age well, but I at least now understand most of the jokes and humor. Im still in the middle of it, but I can almost confidently say I still love this series and thinks it’s funny. Yeah, some of the jokes are simple and could be predicted or fall into that “edgy 2010’s dark humor” but most of the comedy catches me off guard and leaves me having a good laugh. I agree with this video, don’t go into FiW expecting a overarching goal or story and character development, because that’s not what it is. If your gonna watch, I’d go in to see what it’s about and have a good time.

i dont know why i was so shocked to find out that griffin lewis is griffinilla 😭 this dude made so many songs i love wth

I love FiW and still go back and revisit the Songs & Episodes from time to time. I like the idea of it being a "Bizarro Universe" version of the show as it's more or less what I would expect if say Adult Swim somehow owned the rights to MLP.

This was my favorite when I was in middle school, I loved how they made up their own story and songs and was super disappointed when they stopped making them. Parts of it definitely didn't age great but it stuck with me for sure

Not gonna lie, I miss FIW. It was genuinely so fun to me as a kid, and still is

I was far too young to be interested in and watching the series at the time, but I do find it interesting how this series was made and how it holds up to this day. Especially as a fan of Jenny! As always, thank you so much for your videos on these pieces of "Brony history". It's been like a trip down memory lane!

i really loved pinkie pie’s songs, i didn’t really think about any of the connotations until people were talking about it in 2020- I loved Sweetie’s Big Race and that Princess Luna song as well. I didn’t really watch the actual episodes so much lol

I have „It‘ll be ok“ living rent free in my head. It’s a very good series and I like it

i have so much nostalgia for fiw, so many quotes from it have lived rent free in my brain for 8 years... even if it doesnt hold up it will still always have a place in my heart

I absolutely love and appreciate how your covering all mlp related content. Still feels like the fandom is alive and makes me feels nostalgic from when I was still watching the series and fan videos

I used to watch FIW as a kid and thought it was the funniest thing ever till mom made me stop when she realized it wasn’t actual my little pony and it had a lot of adult humor. The melody of the Twilight Shining song is still stuck in my head

FiW has always been one of my favorite fandom series, although I feel like the jokes can sometimes be a bit hit or miss. When they hit though, they really hit. I’ve never seen anyone else make this connection but the series actually REALLY reminds me of clone high, in terms of its humor and the way it delivers jokes. I almost have to wonder if it was an influence on Jenny and Griffin or just a coincidence

Scootertrix is my absolute favorite. It ended up growing into a wonderful finale that became a choose your own adventure jumping channel to channel. It's great and I adore how it grew. The kids are the smartest there, one of the main 6 is a changeling, and pinkie is my favorite version of pinkie outside the original mlp

watched these as a kid! loved sweetiebot's whole deal ^^ the entire show was kinda blocked from my memory until I stumbled across a tiktok audio of "it'll be okay" & went "oh. oh no. ew." I wish I hadn't seen it when I was such an impressionable lil kid but it was funny and I generally look back on it fondly ^^

The songs that came out of FiW are still some of my favorite songs to this day. Gypsy Bard will always hold a special place in my heart.

I absolutely loved it, I think I was around 12 and I'm not entirely sure I spoke enough English to fully understand it but man I loved it

talk about eye candy!

Sweetiebot is the pony ever.

I just want to say I appreciate your work, for one it is not only informative, but overall just very entertaining and nostalgic, it really takes me back to the old days.

fuck the jenny = jenny nicholson thing, THE OTHER DUDE MADE FNAF MUSIC? ive been listening to both his mlp and fnaf music since i was little

Could you talk about The Mentally Advanced Series? I loved it as a kid even though I didn’t understand the jokes most of the time. Going back to it as an adult it’s even funnier.

this series was a part of my childhood :D i have kind of mixed feelings of it now but it will always hold a very special place in my heart. i hope you continue going over thinks in the “classic era” of the brony fandom. it makes me very nostalgic and happy i watch these videos several times over ^__^

i literally screamed when i saw this notification

never been into the abridged stuff, so for me it's the songs that really sold it fandom classics right there

I remember Friendship is Witchcraft. I was obsessed with the song that Pinkie Pie sang.

Good to see FIW here! Used to watch and loved the songs a lot back in the day. And your reviews are the best! So it's a perfect combination 🖤

The whole fandroid bit of this video aged so well Context: griffin returned back to making fandroid content a few months ago!

I remember listening to the twilight song as a 11 year old blissfuly unaware that one of my favourite mlp fan songs was about inc*st because I barely spoke english (although I did suspect something because the animation looked really sus but I did not expect that at all for some reason)

I watched FiW when I was like 10, and I remember telling my mom about the Wedding episode, and she was thoroughly confused and concerned.

It's been a while. I loved this series and still rewatch it from time to time. Their songs are just too good.

Holy crap I made it early. I pretty much only ever listened to the music from FIW and at one point thought it was cannon. I look back at that and well...we don't talk about that. But this video is bound to help me understand the full series of FIW.

An MLP Classic Well done finally covering this! It has been 3,000 years

My sister and I used to watch FiW all. The. Time. We used to be able to quote every episode, and loved the music sm. Ngl it still holds up imo

As for the certain word being used throughout the series and FIW’s most popular song, I actually do think Disney’s The Hunchback Of Notre Dame plays a role into how the word was used/popularized. Because in the movie, the word was also used as endearment towards Esmeralda. One lesser known Fall Out Boy song from 2005 I really like uses the word once (the song is Sophomore Slump Or Comeback Of The Year for those curious, it’s a great song). That’s just my input on it. Also, yes you’re using the Final Fantasy VII OST!!

Friendship is Witchcraft was the first MLP abridged I used to watch. I love the bad American humor, coming from a French viewer. Today, it is still the pillar of the golden age of MLP fandom. Now, I am eager to see more MLP abridged and their take on episodes. What a good time it was. My favorite FiW episode is: Dragone Baby Gone.

Oh, this series was definitely my childhood. I learned how to sing basically all the original songs (including Sweetie's Big Race!!) by heart when I was like eleven years old, because they were just. Really Catchy. I still have them engrained into my brain Side note, god, MLP is _12 years old??_ Time REALLY flies, huh?

okay but hearing about tally hall literally anywhere gives me total whiplash. i rarely stumble across tally hall fans, so most of the time i deliberately look for them. thats super cool to hear that you (and the creators of this series) are tally hall fans!

it's been so long since i watched FIW that i literally don't remember my own opinion of it, it's been something i've been meaning to rewatch with friends for a long while. i love fandubs and abridged series in general though, and i would definitely recommend checking out the rest of scootertrix if you haven't already as it's probably my all time favourite.

I'm weirdly happy you brought up Voice of Reason, I remember as a kid he said how awful FIW was and I ended up watching and finding it to be the funniest thing but never understood he hated it so much he said it's the worst brony thing he has ever seen Like, a silly little parody of mlp that yeah has some edgy jokes but never was trying to hurt someone made this grown man hate it to the point he needed therapy for it. like, HUH

I don't remember much about FIW but I do remember a lot of people liking a character sweetie bot. A lot of fan art, music even animated for her. I even got a fusion of one of the pony with sweetie bot Edit 1: I just watched the video and you just talked about the part I was talking about lol

I loved FIW to the point where I had the sweetie bot song as my ring tone for years I also watched mentally advanced and scootertrix too so yeah mlp stuff was and still is something I go back to I even got my ex into fiw back then to me at least it was just fun a bit of wacky content that made me smile I still sing the songs from it 😊

YESSS omg FIW was my first intro to MLP:FiM and to my first bff so it holds a special place in my heart 🖤

i remember not being a fan of it when i was younger, but i did like sweetiebot a lot and the 'it'll be okay' song gets stuck in my head more often than i'd like to admit. maybe i'll check it out again sometime.

I love this video! I actually got myself and my childhood best friend in trouble since we were in elementary when these released so we didn’t understand a lot of the more mature jokes and just repeated whatever they said. I still love Jenny Nicholson and she’s got some really great original content on her own channel. Would you ever consider covering the rainbow dash presents series or the mentally advanced series?

I rewatched it last week and I still love the show. I’ve listened to all of the songs countless times for the years

Your videos never fail to make me smile, I had a rough start to my day but this is gonna cheer me right up. Thanks Shunks :}

i literally just binged fiw and have had the songs w=stuck in my head for like 3 days and suddenly your video shows up i was like OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH

I love your videos! Always a fun watch

There are so many reasons to love fridays, but the number one reason is NEW SHUNKS VIDEOS !!!

I remember being just about the only person who preferred FiW over Mentally Advanced series - the characters were just a little more tolerable and the original music gave it a huge bonus for effort. I recall there being some other short-lived abridged series' around that time (I think one was literally called FiM Abridged) but I don't remember anything about them except that it existed and that FiW and MA were in a whole different class. Another abridged series to check out is Ultra Fast Pony by Wacarb, which has done every episode up to season 5 (with a long wait for new episodes now, but still surprising you with a new one every now and then)

FiW was a big part of my brony friends in-jokes and it just takes me back to those awesome days, it will forever hold a special place in my heart, long operate sweetie bot

The Sleep Song made me laugh so hard!

My favorite was always Mentally Advanced/RDP over FiW, the humor still sticks, and while it's rough at first, it had massive quality improvement all around! The creator is still making content in the form of a fake real play rpg podcast, and it's pretty great to see him still writing and keeping the quality up all these years later.

Thank you for talking about the Abridged Series that drove me Insane.

3:31 On the bright side, Lauren Faust did save that series from the copyright takedown by adding some original flare from herself and now we have “Them’s Fighin’ Herds”. So at least the developers got some fame and fortune out of their hard work.

As I came along to MLP late enough, with the Movie in late 2017, very nearly all the big Abridged Series had wrapped up or being discontinued. Thus, I only watched back the ones others insisted others I check, which was basically this, for fandom context. It’s fine, but I’ve never felt compelled to rewatch it (outside of listening to some of the songs again). For my money, Scootertrix is a much better abridged series (and if you’ve never watched it, just bear with the opening routine 2-parter recreation, it takes a massive uptick pretty quick).

I love fiw and I have since it first came up on my RU-vid homepage when I was 11 or something, I grew up on it, and I think it's where most of my sense of humor developed from. it will always hold a very special place in my heart as well, and I often find myself going back and watching old episodes of it in my free time every now and then. love it.

I was always vaguely aware of FIW as a thing in the MLP fandom but never actually watched it, but one day I just happened to stumble into finding It'll Be Okay by itself and to this day it still gets stuck in my head

Every so often I think about how I, well before I knew about this series, was introduced to Portal and, not knowing what the turrets were called, referred to them as "sweetie-bots," because "they're so sweet!" What a funny coincidence, I think. Also, this video brought back so many memories and I think I want to rewatch these. I already rewatched Rainbow Dash Presents (which was another huge part of my time in the My Little Pony fandom) so why not? After that I just need to rewatch... [checks list] the actual show.

While it's TRUE FIW did a lot of trendsetting, nearly every Abridged Series didnt actually try to, yknow, abridge, and just told their own story. Not only MLP, but a lot of anime too, like SAO Abridged. Now PLEASE do a video on the Mentally Advanced Series!

i don't think i've gone a week since like 2014 without thinking of a quote from this

While I barely remember it I do know I really loved it back in the day and would get really upset when the reviewers I watched said they didn't. I'm surprised it wasn't actually around that long all things considered

Way off topic but I heard the first beat of the song towards the end and I had flashbacks. I forgot it existed and I was pleasantly surprised to hear it.

To me honestly, the witchcraft series was kind of a hit or miss when it came to the humor, it was super fun at moments and EXTREMELY boring at times, at that time i preffered the Mentally Advanced Series and the RDP, and the scootertrix abridged, but yeah the cultural impact of FiW is giagantic, to the point Sweetiebot project it's almost done

I am glad I got to watch some of the MLP abridged/dub series that were made, ones that ended years ago like Classy Raccoon, Friendship Is Witchcraft and Camaderie Is Supernatural, ones that only ended more recently like Totally Legit Recap, Nepotism Adventure Series and Dualshade Studios, and ongoing series like Scootertrix the Abridged/Epilouge and /mlp/ AI REDUBS. Some of them were excellent, some of them were all right, some of them were disappointing, all for one reason or another. While it wasn't the first MLP abridged series (that honor goes to Camaderie Is Supernatural), Friendship Is Witchcraft is probably the most influential and for good reason. I will never get enough of certain songs in the soundtrack (It'll Be OK is an excellent villain song) and Sweetie Bot is precious beyond just the show itself.

I used to watch FiW when I was a kid, I didn't have access to whatever channel FiM was on so I watched FiW instead. It was the funniest thing on youtube when I was like 13. I still go back and rewatch it once in a while, one of the only series on yt that I actually laugh at. I tried showing it to my friends and they all thought I was deranged for enjoying lol.

I JUST GAINED A WHOLE NEW RESPECT FOR FANDRIOD MY JAW ACTUALLY DROPPED BRO

this is relevant to nothing but im watching your channel for the first time at 5 am after not being able to sleep & stumbling upon your LPS games deep dive and you seem like the kind of person who would be fun to get stoned with 😂

Half of my brain is composed of FiW quotes, I’m so glad to see somebody else talk about my comfort RU-vid videos :)

i was just a kid when first getting into the fandom (like 8 years old) and fiw was one of my favorites. the other abridged series werent my favorites, and i think this series really helped shape my sense of humor. i think about the abbalanche often

I've been listening to the songs since yesterday so I thought "I bet shunks has made a video on this" and yep. and the day before I started listening to the songs as well

I just watched FiW for the first time ever, and it holds up really well. It’s well-written and I found myself forgetting it was parody. The music is also incredibly catchy

The sweetie bot sisterhooves episode was seriously great

I've recently checked SweetieBot project, I'm glad it still going! 2 months ago the team trained her to recognize plushies.