Scootaloo

Scootaloo is a school-age Pegasus pony. She first appears in Friendship is Magic, part 1, and is properly introduced in Call of the Cutie. Scootaloo and her friends, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, form the Cutie Mark Crusaders, a club devoted to helping ponies earn their cutie marks. She is a talented scooter driver. She idolizes Rainbow Dash and develops a sisterly bond with her in Sleepless in Ponyville. Lauren Faust has stated that Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash are not related.

Development
Scootaloo is based on the Generation 3 Earth pony of the same name, who has a pink and purple mane and tail (occasionally ponytails in the Core 7 serials) and a butterfly cutie mark. However, her color scheme is based on that of Sparkleworks, another Generation 3 Earth pony. Scootaloo is also Cheerilee's younger sister in Generation 3.

Scootaloo's cutie mark in promotional material is the same as her G3/G3.5 counterpart's, and was chosen by layout artist Kat Stenson prior to her work on the show.

According to Lauren Faust, Scootaloo was "originally conceived as getting in a lot of schoolyard fights over being picked on for not flying."

Personality
Scootaloo is energetic and tomboyish. She complains about having to listen to "sappy" and "namby-pamby" stories in The Cutie Mark Chronicles. However, like the other Crusaders, she finds Big McIntosh and Cheerilee's romance charming in Hearts and Hooves Day. Although brash and spunky, she is skittish and self-conscious in Sleepless in Ponyville.

Admiration of Rainbow Dash
In The Cutie Mark Chronicles, Scootaloo calls Rainbow Dash "the coolest pony in Ponyville" and is eager to hear about how she got her cutie mark. In Owl's Well That Ends Well, Scootaloo volunteers to be Rainbow Dash's assistant after hearing her praise Spike for his hard work as Twilight's own assistant. Scootaloo tries to get Rainbow Dash's favor by throwing away an apple core for her. Scootaloo chairs the "Official Rainbow Dash Fan Club" in The Mysterious Mare Do Well. She wears a rainbow-colored wig, and attempts, along with Snips, to find a word to sum up Rainbow Dash's virtues.

In Sleepless in Ponyville, Scootaloo reveals her fear of rejection by Rainbow Dash during a camping trip. Rainbow Dash agrees to become an older sister figure to Scootaloo.

Role as a Cutie Mark Crusader
Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom form a club called the Cutie Mark Crusaders to discover their talents and earn their cutie marks.

Scootaloo and Apple Bloom can be stubborn on a few occasions. In Stare Master, they argue over how to call a chicken, even arguing over whether their special talent is arguing. In The Return of Harmony, part 1, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo get into a fight over the meaning of the word "discord" during a school field trip.

Flying and scooting
Scootaloo still hasn't been able to master flying, a fact she is incredibly insecure about. In Ponyville Confidential, she flaps her wings to no avail when she falls out of a tree. Though whether or not she will ever be able to fly is left ambiguous, she is able to masterfully use her wings for propulsion and various stunts on her scooter. Scootaloo performs various skating tricks in The Show Stoppers, such as jumping off a ramp over an awe-struck crowd, doing a 360 and a tailwhip, and passing her scooter underneath a branch while she jumps over the branch and back onto her scooter. In The Show Stoppers and The Cutie Mark Chronicles, she uses her wings to pull loaded wagons with little trouble. Scootaloo hovers along the ground while talking about Rainbow Dash in The Cutie Mark Chronicles. By One Bad Apple, Scootaloo shows some improvement in her capabilities and can hover slightly higher and for a longer period of time than in previous episodes.

There is a running gag throughout the series that the other members of the Cutie Mark Crusaders tend to tease Scootaloo by referring to her as a type of flightless bird: A chicken in Stare Master, and a dodo in The Return of Harmony Part 1. Scootaloo tends to react rather defensively to this.

Flight to the Finish heavily centers in on Scootaloo's inability to fly. She becomes obsessed with the fact feeling that it makes her unqualified to represent the Pegasi of Ponyville in the flag-carrying ceremony for the Equestria Games. She specifically identifies her relatively small wings compared to her body size as the cause of her inability, something she admits is unusual for a Pegasus her age, and expresses her fear that they will never grow and she will never be able to fly. However Rainbow Dash tells Scootaloo that this is not as important as she thinks and that, regardless of whether she'll fly or not, she's still special in her own way. Scootaloo is thus inspired to tow her two friends to the Crystal Empire using her wing-propelled scooter, and they are chosen to represent Ponyville as its flag carriers.

In an August 2012 summary of an interview with Lauren Faust, it is revealed that Scootaloo was originally intended to be handicapped and would never be able to learn to fly. Faust had conceived a story playing out over three episodes during the first two seasons, during which Scootaloo would learn that her worth is defined by her talents and not by what she cannot do. However, this storyline was evidently dropped.

Musical talents
In The Show Stoppers, Scootaloo plays the piano while struggling to compose lyrics for the talent show. She is a skilled dancer and shows a knack for choreography. However, she fails to realize her aptitude for dancing and opts to sing a "wicked rock ballad" in an off-key manner.

In Hearts and Hooves Day, she does not sing her lines in The Perfect Stallion. However, she sings in the song Babs Seed in One Bad Apple. Later in the episode, she plays the drums during Babs Seed's initiation into the Cutie Mark Crusaders. She also sings Hearts Strong as Horses in Flight to the Finish.

Mechanical skills
In Twilight Time, Scootaloo learns to assemble and ride a unicycle. She later applies this skill by disassembling and reassembling Pipsqueak's scooter.

Equestria Girls
In My Little Pony Equestria Girls, the human Scootaloo is seen with her fellow CMCs in Canterlot High's library. They listen to their music video on one of the library's computers, until Cheerilee confiscates the speaker.

They later appear in the cafeteria during the "Equestria Girls" song, and at the Fall Formal, where Rainbow Dash (granted wings by the Element of Magic) carries Scootaloo over the dance floor.

Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks
Scootaloo and the rest of the human Crusaders are seen passing by DJ Pon-3 on the street while she listens to dubstep on her headphones.

My Little Pony mobile game description
One of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, along with Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, who idolizes fellow Pegasus pony Rainbow Dash.

The Elements of Harmony guidebook
''In addition to earning her cutie mark, SCOOTALOO is determined to learn how to fly. In fact, Scootaloo has fashioned herself a special pony scooter, and she uses her Pegasus wings not to fly but to propel her wheeled contraption through the streets of Ponyville! Scootaloo idolizes the adventurous Rainbow Dash and often tries to imitate her "too cool" attitude as well as her athletic skill.''

Appearances
Beginning with Lesson Zero, she is added to the remastered intro at the end of the train along with Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle.

Promotional material
On October 27, 2012, The Hub's website began offering a PDF file containing seven recipes, each themed to either Littlest Pet Shop or My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, with accompanying illustrations. The "Cutie Mark Crusaders Chocolate Popcorn" recipe's accompanying illustration depicts the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Prior to a revision in early November 2012, a different illustration was used depicting grown-up versions of the Cutie Mark Crusaders with cutie marks, Scootaloo's cutie mark being a butterfly. This illustration was drawn by show layout artist Kat Stenson prior to her work on the show.

Quotes
"I said, you got a problem with blank flanks?"

- Call of the Cutie

"No matter what we try, we always end up without our cutie marks. And, surprisingly often, covered in tree sap."

- The Cutie Mark Chronicles

"What are you, a dictionary?"

- The Return of Harmony Part 1 and Family Appreciation Day

"I'm so, so sorry, Rainbow Dash! I just wanted you to hang out with me and see how cool I was so you'd take me under your wing, teach me everything you know, and become like my big sister!"

- Sleepless in Ponyville

"So what if my wings can't get me off the ground?"

- Flight to the Finish