Derpy

Derpy Hooves is the fan-given name of a gray pegasus background pony who became famous due to having a googly-eyed, or "derpy", expression in the first episode. Starting with Feeling Pinkie Keen, the show's crew began giving the pony crossed eyes intentionally to give her a "derpy" expression, as a nod to the fans. The name Derpy has since been adopted for the character by the crew.

Origin
Alert viewers noticed a googly-eyed pegasus in the series' first episode, standing in the crowd in Twilight Sparkle's welcoming party. After the image was captured and posted on 4chan's comics and cartoons board /co/, fans began speculating of the nature of this odd pony. Her name is derived from the slang term "derp", which is associated with someone behaving in a silly manner and is usually connected with crossed eyes.

Wall eyes
The gray pegasus with a bubbles cutie mark was one of several background ponies, chosen from a palette and placed in the scenes on the whim of layout artists. At first the pony's face wasn't supposed to be visible in that particular scene, but a later layout change uncovered it. Jayson Thiessen, the supervising director of the show, stated that he noticed and was amused by her expression. Since Hasbro had already given the episode green light, he didn't order fixing Derpy's eyes.

Thiessen relayed in a Q&A that he was so delighted after discovering popularity of Derpy that he requested altering Derpy's eyes in all episodes that hadn't been sent to the Hub yet.

Official name
Lauren Faust has acknowledged the fan following of Derpy. She revealed that, in one of then unaired episodes at the time, Winter Wrap Up, there is a mention of a "featherbrained" pegasus named Ditzy Doo whose appearance is never established on-screen, and should Ditzy make an appearance Faust may assign Derpy's design to her.

Officially, background ponies receive no names, but the crew often gives them affectionate nicknames. According to an animator from the Philippine studio working on the show, Derpy was called Stoneface, Bubbles, Bubblehead, and Ditzy by their crew. Thiessen later relayed that the Canadian crew has adopted the name Derpy

Charity auction
Lauren Faust participated in a charity auction for the 2011 Japan relief effort by donating several of her My Little Pony Friendship is Magic production sketches. In addition to sketches drawn in 2008, she drew a new sketch of Derpy Hooves, which sold for 2,151 USD. The character was explicitly called Derpy Hooves by the auctioneer.

Merchandising
An officially licensed shirt sporting Derpy is available on welovefine.com.

Appearances

 * See also character appearances

Derpy first appears in the first episode of the series in the background of several scenes, and, as noted above, makes her googly-eyed appearance at Twilight Sparkle's welcoming party.

Derpy can be seen throughout the season trotting through a park, helping with storm preparations, participating in the Running of the Leaves, visiting Ponyville's market, and more. She is one of the ponies admiring Pinkie Pie's "baked bads" in Applebuck Season, delivering the line "muffins" among the crowd. She appears with intentionally crossed eyes in Feeling Pinkie Keen; when Twilight spies on Pinkie Pie, a series of objects falls on her head: a flower pot, an anvil, a cart of hay and finally a piano. A camera pan reveals that items were dropped by Derpy and her friend, who are hovering next to a movers' truck.

She appears in about half of the episodes of season one as a background character. For season two, she has gained a scripted-character status rather than an arbitrary background pony, and she is considered a "Where's Waldo"-type challenge for the fans.

In the remastered version of the opening sequence that appears from Lesson Zero onwards, she appears in the top window of the train's first carriage.

The following times are approximated from various videos available online.

Galleries

 * Derpy Hooves image gallery
 * Gallery of characters making faces