Look Before You Sleep

""Slumber 101: All you ever wanted know about slumber parties (But were afraid to ask...)""

- Rarity reading Twilight's book

Look Before You Sleep is the eighth episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, season one. In this episode, Twilight invites Applejack  and Rarity  to her house for a slumber party during a thunderstorm, but Applejack and Rarity aren't thrilled.

Episode summary
Ponyville needed a rainstorm to make up for a missed scheduled drizzle the other day, and the ponies proceeded to clean up the town square by pruning loose branches from the trees. This led to an argument between Rarity and Applejack. The former worked slowly, trying to make sure everything was beautifully perfect, while the latter preferred to just get the job done quickly. While deciding to avoid saying something they would regret, they tried to find shelter when the storm began.

They were beckoned by Twilight Sparkle to stay at her place until the storm was over. She was on her own while Spike was back in Canterlot  on "royal business". She saw this as an opportunity to set up her first-ever (albeit literally "by-the-book") slumber party. Wary but not wanting to do anything to ruin it, Rarity and Applejack tried to put their differences aside, but their different behaviors made it difficult to get along. In fact, they referenced each other in an attempt to create a ghost story, dared each other in "Truth or Dare" without including Twilight, and turned a pillow fight into a "pillow war".

Their argument continued as the lights went out, from trying to sleep to making the bed. At this point, Twilight woke up, upset that her friends were fighting too much to have any fun and ruining her slumber party. Just as things couldn't get any worse, a nearby tree was hit by lightning and began to topple toward a neighboring house. Applejack lassoed the falling tree, but it crashed through Twilight's bedroom window instead. Rarity focused on cleaning up the mess of books while Twilight read in her slumber party book on dealing with fallen trees in the middle of the bedroom (likely due to state of panic).

When Applejack failed to move the tree out on her own, she eventually convinced the prissy unicorn to instead focus on helping her with the bigger task and not worry about getting her hooves dirty, while apologizing to her about criticizing her habit of attention to detail. Rarity turned the debris into tiny bush sculptures, clearing the house at the price of dirtying herself, while Applejack gently tossed the broken trunk section out the window.

With the storm (and their differences) finally settled, the three ponies were finally having fun and, in the end, Twilight officially declared the slumber party a success.

Major events

 * Twilight Sparkle hosted her first slumber party along with Applejack and Rarity.

Quotes

 * Rarity: You know, there's "messy", and then there's just plain "rude"!
 * Applejack: You know, there's "fussy", and there's just plain "Gettin' on my nerves"!


 * Applejack: I'd like to tell ya'll the terrifying tale of the "Prissy Ghost", who drove everypony crazy with her unnecessary neatness! OooooOOwwoOOO! I'm sure ya'll are familiar with that one?
 * Rarity: Never heard of it. But I have a much better one... It's the horrifying story of "The Messy, Inconsiderate Ghost", who irritated everypony within a hundred miles! OoooooOOOwwwwOOOoo...
 * Applejack: That's not a real story. You made it up!
 * Rarity: It is a ghost story. They're all made up...


 * Rarity: You could at least say "excuse me"...
 * Applejack: Oh, I was about to! But you interrupted me! ...Pardon.


 * Twilight: Now the next item of fun we have to do is... "Truth or Dare"...
 * Rarity: I dare Applejack to do something carefully and neatly for a change.
 * Applejack: Oh yeah? Well, I dare Rarity to lighten up, and stop obssessin' over every... last... little... detail... For a change.
 * Rarity: I think the truth of the matter is that somepony could stand to pay a little more attention to detail.
 * Applejack: And I think the truth is somepony aught'a quit with her fussin', so the rest of us can get things done!


 * Applejack: I dare you to step outside and let your precious tidy mane get ruined again!
 * Rarity: *gasp*
 * Twilight: You have to. It's the rule...
 * Applejack: Hah!
 * Rarity: Fine!


 * Rarity: OK. I dare Applejack to play "dress-up" in a frou-frou, glittery, lacey outfit!
 * Applejack:(dresses up in costume) Happy?
 * Rarity: Very... (giggles)


 * Applejack: I dare you to enter the next rodeo when it comes to town.
 * Rarity: I dare you not to enter the next rodeo that comes to town.
 * Applejack: I dare you to not comb your hair a hundred times before bed!
 * Rarity: And I dare you to comb your hair just once!!


 * Twilight: What does this mean? "Pillow Fight"?
 * Rarity: Oh please. I am not at all interested in participating in something so crude.
 * (Rarity hit by Applejack's pillow)
 * Rarity: IT! IS! ON !


 * Applejack: I... ain't... budgin'!


 * Applejack: And that, my friends, is called "Gettin' 'er done"...


 * Applejack: Is it... a six-legged pony with a purple polka-dotted mane and shootin' stars comin' out of his eyes?
 * Rarity: Who flies through the air all over the world to hide magic, sparkly eggs?
 * Twilight: That's it!
 * Applejack/Rarity: It is?
 * Twilight: No.

Trivia

 * The title of the episode is a pun on the saying look before you leap.
 * This is the first episode without all six of the main ponies appearing.
 * This episode has the smallest cast of any in the series. Half of the show's main characters (Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash) do not appear, and no recurring characters appear, save for a few background ponies who appear in the opening scene but do not speak.
 * This episode may be what is known in the TV industry as a "bottle episode," a simple story taking place almost entirely in the same location and with a minimal cast. These are commonly used to save money and help stretch the budget allocated for a season of episodes. In this case, only three voice actresses perform and almost everything happens within Twilight's library, a preexisting backdrop used in several episodes.
 * The title of Twilight Sparkle's book "Slumber 101: All You Wanted to Know About Slumber Parties, but Were Afraid to Ask" is a reference to the 1972 Woody Allen film "Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex: But were Afraid to Ask" and book of the same name.
 * When Rarity reads this book, after Twilight Sparkle first pulls it down from the shelf, her eyes travel slowly from her right to her left, then jerk back to her right. This is backwards from how her eyes should move if she were reading in English.
 * This episode's slumber party subplot is very similiar to the Spongebob Squarepants episode, House Party, in that both Twilight and Spongebob try to throw parties "by the book". But Twilight's party is more lenient as she only consults the book for fun ideas whereas Spongebob uses it to plan out every minute also very alike the my little pony tales episode slumber party
 * In the beginning of the episode, Daisy uses magic to pick up a tree branch, despite the fact that she is an earth pony.