Baby Cakes

Baby Cakes is the thirteenth episode of the second season of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, and the thirty-ninth episode overall. It is listed as number twelve on Zap2it's episode guide. Pinkie Pie babysits the twin toddlers of Mr. and Mrs. Cake, but finds that the task is much harder than she thought.

Summary
The episode starts with Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash looking down on the newborn baby nursery. Some of the babies in the nursery have the same color schemes of other ponies, like Rarity, Trixie, Fluttershy, and Derpy Hooves. Mr. Cake shows his new pegasus son, Pound Cake, and his new unicorn daughter, Pumpkin Cake. Pinkie Pie goes down into the nursery to start celebrating, but is soon reprimanded by Nurse Redheart several times so she doesn't wake up the other babies. After Applejack asks how Pound Cake is a pegasus and how Pumpkin Cake is a unicorn, Mr. Cake explains why he has unicorn and pegasus children even when he and Mrs. Cake are Earth ponies, his explanation is that distant relatives of theirs were pegasi and unicorns.

A month later, Pinkie Pie brings the babies a one-month celebratory cake. The babies' character model is the same as the baby Rainbow Dash saves from going off a cliff in The Mysterious Mare Do Well, with a different hair color and different head-to-body proportion. After singing to the babies and in the process, destroying their cake, she plays peekaboo with them. Shortly after that, Mr. Cake changes their diapers, and Mrs. Cake brings them their bottles to feed them. After Mr. Cake burps the babies, they both run off to play with Pinkie Pie again.

After being reminded about food, Mrs. Cake remembers a large catering order to complete. However, they need a babysitter. They ignore Pinkie Pie's requests to babysit, and begin their search by asking Fluttershy. However, Fluttershy declines, saying she promised to go on a picnic with Angel. They then ask Twilight, who also declined because she is busy summarizing her reports to send to Princess Celestia. Applejack declines because she is too busy saving her apples from a crowd of ravenous caterpillars. Rainbow Dash declines because she has tickets to the Wonderbolts airshow. When Mr. and Mrs. Cake ask Rarity, however, she simply refuses with no given reason to her declining. The music that plays whenever Pinkie asks the Cakes to pick her as babysitter is based on Aquarela do Brasil, a Brazilian samba standard from the 1930s.

Finally, they oblige to let Pinkie Pie babysit their children. Uncomfortable with Pinkie Pie likely not having the level of responsibility to handle little children, they leave her a big list of what she needs to do. After they leave, Pinkie Pie is immediately left with two crying babies to deal with. She tries to cheer them up



with some more peekaboo, and pulling a face. She then begins a pseudo-standup comedy show, and begins telling jokes. While this seems to calm then down to begin with, they start crying at the end of Pinkie's second joke. Pinkie Pie resorts to singing a song and dancing around her stage, but this has no effect as the babies begin crying during the song. Falling over, Pinkie Pie manages to knock a bag of flour off the top of a drawer, which empties on her. This manages to make the babies laugh.

At snacktime, Pinkie Pie brings the babies their pre-prepared meals, only for Pumpkin Cake to start eating the tablecloth, and for Pound Cake to end up with his food on his head. Pinkie Pie then tries to give the two babies a bath, and has trouble to get them into the tub. Once they are in the tub, she manages to keep them shortly entertained by blowing bubbles with the soap and a rubber duck. After they start to cry again, Pinkie Pie, now soaked with water after Pound Cake destroyed the water tap, has no option but to cover herself in flour once again, which mixes with the water and becomes a sticky dough.

Pinkie Pie then needs to change the babies' diapers after noticing the smell, and again she has trouble with this. After wrestling with the twins, she ends up with the two diapers, meant for the twins, on her instead. Twilight then arrives, and offers help to Pinkie Pie, but when she implies that Pinkie Pie is not able to handle the babies on her own, Pinkie Pie gets clearly upset and pushes Twilight out.

Pinkie Pie begins to be assertive and stops Pound Cake jumping on his crib and Pumpkin Cake from chewing on a toy. Pinkie's instructions for using the crib mirror a line from The Simpsons episode The Last Temptation of Homer. Pinkie tells the babies to go to sleep, and unexpectedly, they comply immediately and fall asleep. Pinkie Pie leaves the room, but after checking back on the twins, she sees that they have disappeared. She immediately starts to search for them, and quickly finds Pumpkin Cake in a closet chewing on a toy. She finds Pound Cake walking on the ceiling using his wings. The brief screeching violins echo the musical piece The Murder, made famous by the film Psycho. The scene in general is modeled after horror films, with an unidentified silhouette crawling in the shadows. Pinkie gets Pound Cake down, but then Pumpkin Cake uses her magic to move a bunch of toys to chew on. When Pinkie Pie puts these away, she grabs on to Pound Cake to stop him flying around, but she ends up getting dragged around. Overwhelmed by the twins, Pinkie Pie bursts into tears. Pinkie's animation is almost the same animation of her crying in Friendship is Magic, Part 2, only with strands of hair sticking out of her mane. In that instance she cries of joy, but this time she cries in exasperation.

However, the twins manage to cheer her up by covering themselves in flour. She manages to get the twins to fall asleep. After cleaning everything up, Mr. and Mrs. Cake return home. Expecting the place to be a mess, they are astounded by the immaculate condition of their home, and praise Pinkie Pie for her unprecedented level of responsibility. They ask her if she wants to be their permanent babysitter, but Pinkie Pie rejects, saying she is available "a week from never". But once she hears the twins utter her name as they sleep, she has a change of heart and says she has some free time next Tuesday.

Pinkie Pie writes a letter to Princess Celestia, saying that being a caregiver means more responsibility than just being a playmate, and that sometimes our desire for responsibility can outrun our actual ability to handle it. This the first letter she writes to Celestia solo, unlike the one she wrote together with her friends in Lesson Zero.

Quotes

 * Applejack: Now how in thunderation is one of them twins a pegasus, and the other one a unicorn?
 * Mr. Cake: Easy. My great-great-great-great grandfather was a unicorn, and Cup Cake's great aunt's second cousin twice removed was a pegasus. That makes sense, right?
 * Rainbow Dash: Aw yeah, just you wait! Once little Pound Cake gets his wings going, he'll be all over the place.
 * Twilight Sparkle: And be careful around Pumpkin Cake.
 * Rarity: Baby unicorns get strange magic surges that come and go.


 * Mr. Cake: [groans] [unenthusiastically] Pinkie Pie, how would you like to babysit for us.
 * Pinkie Pie: [gasps] I dunno. I'll have to check my schedule.


 * Mr. Cake: Now, Pinkie Pie, are you sure you really understand the responsibility of watching over two babies?
 * Pinkie Pie: I can be responsible. Why, responsibility is my middle name. Pinkie Responsibility Pie.


 * Pinkie Pie: Hey, you're a wonderful crowd here tonight, where y'all from? Well that's great, I used to have an ant farm, but I had to get rid of it 'cause I couldn't find tractors that small!
 * [ba-dum tish]
 * Pinkie Pie: Get it? Tractors that small? [pause] The other day, I spilled spot remover on my dog, and now I can't find him!
 * [ba-dum tish]
 * [Pound and Pumpkin cry again]
 * Pinkie Pie: Oof. Tough crowd.
 * [Back at microphone]
 * Pinkie Pie: Tell me about it.


 * Twilight Sparkle: Hi! I finished up the work I had to do so I thought I'd stop by and see if you needed any help. Whoa!
 * Pinkie Pie: Thank you, thank you, thank you for coming! I can't begin to tell you what my day has been like, I mean, these babies just won't listen to reason, and don't even get me started on their taste in stand-up comedy.
 * [ba-dum tish]


 * Pinkie Pie: Pound Cake. [growls] This is a crib. It is only to be used for napping, sleeping, and on occasion with permission, as a pretend old-timey Western fort. It is not a trampoline, so stop your jumping right now, mister!


 * Pinkie Pie: Mm, razzleberry.


 * Pound Cake: Pinkie...
 * Pumpkin Cake: Pie...

Gallery

 * Baby Cakes image gallery