List of allusions

The following is a list of allusions to My Little Pony, works of fiction, people, places, events, and other cultural touchstones in the series My Little Pony Friendship is Magic.

The allusions, references, similarities, homages, and other items on this list must be unique or identifying. They must not be incidental, broad, general, or tangential.

Character names and design

 * All the designs of the leading characters, Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Spike are inspired by G1 characters: Twilight, Applejack, Firefly, Sparkler, Posey, Surprise, and Spike, respectively.
 * Applejack's name and the derisive nickname Appletini that Spike gives her in Bridle Gossip are both names of alcoholic beverages.
 * Big Macintosh, Granny Smith, Braeburn, and several of the Apple family members' names are of apple cultivars. Still other members' names are of culinary dishes made with apples.
 * Big Macintosh's design is inspired by the G1 Big Brother Ponies.
 * Rainbow Dash's derogatory nickname from Bridle Gossip, "Rainbow Crash", is used in later episodes Sonic Rainboom and The Cutie Mark Chronicles by bullies from her former flight school. It is also used by Fluttershy (after being corrupted by Discord) when Spike becomes the new Rainbow Dash in The Return of Harmony Part 2.
 * The royal guards wear crested helmets reminiscent of Roman galea.

Other names, titles, and design

 * Canterlot is a portmanteau of "canter", a three-beat horse gait, and Camelot from Arthurian legends.
 * Cloudsdale's suffix, "dale", is an old word for a valley or open river valley, but the name is also a play on the Clydesdale breed of horse. The city's buildings and general design take clues from Greek culture, which is appropriate as the myth of Pegasus originated from Greek mythology.
 * The hot air balloon that is featured in the opening sequence, Fall Weather Friends, and Sonic Rainboom was requested to be incorporated into the show by Hasbro's toy division.
 * The Wonderbolts appear to be an amalgam of both the U.S. Navy's flight demonstration team, the Blue Angels. They resemble the Blue Angels in uniform colour–blue and yellow–and the "flying bolt" logo, evocative of the "flying shield" portion of the Blue Angels logo.

Mythology

 * The show features dragons, unicorns, and Pegasi in multiple episodes.

Audio

 * When the ponies panic in the final scene of Bridle Gossip, a distinctive gasp sound is played among the cries, which is same gasp that is used by Pinkie Pie in Friendship is Magic, part 1 as a reaction to meeting Twilight Sparkle for the first time. The same gasp sound was used again later in A Bird in the Hoof, and the sound was reversed to form Fluttershy's inhalation at the beginning of Sonic Rainboom.
 * Scootaloo's line "what are you, a dictionary?" from The Return of Harmony Part 1 is used again in Family Appreciation Day.
 * The music that plays during Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara's cute-ceañera party in Call of the Cutie is the same music that plays during the montage of the Cutie Mark Crusaders' attempts to earn their cutie marks in The Show Stoppers and during Pinkie Pie's birthday party toward the end of Party of One.

Animation

 * Pinkie Pie's gushing rivers of tears are used both in Friendship is Magic, part 2, Baby Cakes, and The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000.

Applebuck Season

 * During the bunny stampede, one of the background ponies, Rose, delives the line "The horror, the horror...", which is from the Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness, later used as the basis for the movie Apocalypse Now, which also uses the line at its end.
 * The stampede scene features bunnies running around a pony lying on the ground in a down shot, much like a scene in The Lion King when Mufasa is killed by a stampede.

Boast Busters

 * The title of the episode is a play on the title of the Ghostbusters franchise.
 * The Great and Powerful Trixie shares her title with "The Great and Powerful Oz" from The Wizard of Oz.
 * Trixie's challenge to the audience echoes the phrase "anything you can do I can do better", which originated with the song of the same name from the 1946 Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun.
 * The ursa bears are named after the constellations Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, and feature these constellations on their tails.

Dragonshy

 * There's a short montage where all of the ponies prepare for their journey, which is heavily influenced by 1970s and '80s action television shows and films.
 * When Fluttershy hears the dragon's snores, she stiffly fall to the side accompanied by a goat bleat, alluding to the practice of some breeds of goat to stiffen after being startled.
 * Pinkie Pie's costume is similar to Daffy Duck's body in a scene from the Looney Tunes cartoon, Duck Amuck.
 * A red dragon inside a tall, skinny mountain laying on a hoard of treasure is similar to Smaug, the antagonist of the The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Bridle Gossip

 * The title is a pun on "idle gossip" as well as a reference to a "gossip's bridle" or scold's bridle", a medieval punishment and mild torture device, used on women who were nagging excessively or were otherwise verbally abusive or unpleasant.
 * Rainbow Dash's phrase "pony up" is a reference to the popular saying, "man up," which means to be brave (supposedly like a man).
 * Poison joke is explicitly compared to poison oak.

Call of the Cutie

 * The episode title is either a play on the phrase "call of duty", or on the title of the classic novel The Call of the Wild.
 * The inside of the dojo where Apple Bloom and Rainbow Dash practice karate has pictures of silhouettes of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna on the walls, as they are illustrated in the prologue of Friendship is Magic, part 1.
 * Diamond Tiara's "cute-ceañera", "a party celebrating me and my fantastic cutie mark", borrows its name and purpose from the Latin American quinceañera, a coming-of-age party for teenage girls.

Fall Weather Friends

 * The title is a play on fair weather friends, which refers to people who are only friends when it is convenient–fair weather–and will abandon their friends at times of strife.
 * The Iron Pony competition shares its name with the sports competition Ironman Triathlon.
 * The Running of the Leaves tradition shares its name with the Running of the Bulls tradition.

Suited For Success

 * Hoity Toity is based on the German designer Karl Lagerfeld

Feeling Pinkie Keen

 * Fluttershy's fear prevents her from flying, as it does in Dragonshy. However when she has to jump to safety, she uses what she learned from Dragonshy and works up her nerve by repeating a line from Pinkie Pie's song.

Sonic Rainboom

 * Rarity's hubris, leading to the loss of her wings to the sun, echoes the story of Icarus from Greek mythology. In the story, Icarus attempts to escape Crete by means of wings that his father constructed from feathers and wax. He ignores instructions not to fly too close to the sun, and the melting wax causes him to fall to his death

A Dog and Pony Show

 * The phrase "a dog and pony show" originated in 19th century America as a term for small traveling circuses that toured through rural areas. The modern usage refers to an over-staged performance. Typically, the term is used to connote disdain, jocular lack of appreciation, or distrust of the message being presented or the efforts undertaken to present it.
 * The episode's plot is reminiscent of the O. Henry story "The Ransom of Red Chief", in which a young boy's antics drive his kidnappers so crazy that they end up paying his family to take him back.
 * Sapphire Shores's upcoming tour, Zigfilly Follies, is a reference to the Ziegfeld Follies series of theatrical productions.
 * The bejeweled costume bears a very striking resemblance to the jumpsuits worn by Rock & Roll Legend Elvis Presley during his 1970s heyday, with a large heavy collar, flared wavy cuffs, and a golden belt.
 * The Diamond Dogs take their name from David Bowie's famous concept album and its titular song, Diamond Dogs.
 * The Diamond Dogs' voices sound similar to Gollum from Lord of the Rings, one of them even saying the word "precious".
 * In Spike's fantasy, the Diamond Dogs attack with the characteristic slow motion leap and 'bionic' sound effect from The Six Million Dollar Man.
 * The dog's question, "What are we? Mice, or dogs?" is a reference to the Little Man's line in One-Third of a Nation, "Are we going to take it lying down like mice? Or, are we men?"
 * Applejack's phrase "Kick 'em up, kick 'em out. Buck 'em up, buck 'em down" is a reference to Rawhide, a song performed by Frankie Laine.
 * Spike's announcement "Hi-ho Twilight! Away!" is a reference to The Lone Ranger.

A Bird in the Hoof

 * The episode's title is a play on the phrase "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush".
 * The scene with Angel holding a pocketwatch references Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, in which one of the characters is a white rabbit that carries a pocket watch and is always running somewhere due to being late. In addition, Fluttershy's remark "I'm late, for a very important date" is a quote from Disney's 1951 film adaptation of Alice in Wonderland.
 * Fluttershy stresses over how she looks and what to wear, and looks through a rack of dresses which carries the Grand Galloping Gala dresses from Suited for Success.
 * The scene where the ponies pursue Philomeena is accompanied by sound-alike music to "Yakkety Sax", made famous in Benny Hill Show-styled chase scenes.
 * The scene where Fluttershy attempts to feed birdseed to Philomeena was storyboarded to look like a talk show, and Philomeena's bird-seed-eating gag was styled after similar gags from Roadrunner Looney Tunes cartoons.

Green Isn't Your Color

 * Photo Finish wears the same distinct hairstyle and sunglasses as Anna Wintour, editor of Vogue magazine.

Owl's Well That Ends Well

 * Shortly after the show starts, when Spike falls asleep in the punch bowl, Pinkie Pie says "And now the punch has been, SPIKED!", which is a drug reference.

The Return of Harmony Part 1 and Part 2

 * Discord is inspired by John de Lancie's popular character Q from various Star Trek television series.

Sweet and Elite

 * A painting in an art gallery is inspired by Salvador Dali's Persistence of Memory.
 * Twilight's awkward dancing at the Canterlot ponies' party mirrors a scene in Seinfeld.
 * The music that is heard during the scenes with Twilight's birthday sounds similer to Stray Cats' hit single, "Rock this Town".

Hearth's Warming Eve

 * A creature similar to Discord is depicted fighting a Pegasus on a relief in the theater.

Baby Cakes

 * The brief screeching violins that play when Pinkie Pie finds Pound Cake on the ceiling echo the musical piece The Murder, made famous by the film Psycho. The scene in general is modeletd after horror films, with an unidentified silhouette crawling in the shadows.
 * The music that plays when Pinkie Pie urges the Cakes to pick her as babysitter is is based on Aquarela do Brasil, a Brazilian samba standard from the 1930s.
 * Pinkie's instructions for using the crib mirror a line from The Simpsons episode The Last Temptation of Homer.

The Last Roundup

 * The scene where Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy work at a conveyor belt and can't handle the pace is a homage to the television series I Love Lucy. The scene replicates one from the I Love Lucy episode "Job Switching", where Lucy and Ethel wear mushroom-like hats and work on a production line wrapping candies. They can't handle the pace and stuff the unhandled chocolates into their hats and mouths.
 * Rainbow Dash mentions Calamity Mane and Wild Bull Hickok, whose names are based off two prominent Wild West figures.

The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000

 * The musical number Flim Flam Brothers Song shares many similarities with the number "Ya Got Trouble" from The Music Man.
 * The scene where one of the Flim Flam brothers asks Granny Smith if she's "chicken" bears similarities in staging and dialog to a scene from the film Back to the Future.
 * The competition between the apple family and the machine is a homage to the legend of John Henry.

Read It and Weep

 * The musical cue that plays when Rainbow Dash looks at the book and starts reading it is very similar to the one that plays in a similar scene in the film The NeverEnding Story.
 * The game that Fluttershy and Twilight Sparkle play with Rainbow Dash is very similar to Battleship.
 * Ahuitzotl petting his white cat at the end of the Daring-Do story is a cinematic element made famous by the character Ernst Stavro Blofeld of the James Bond series.
 * There are several allusions to the Indiana Jones franchise:
 * The harp plucking that plays when Daring-Do first enters the temple bears a stong resemblence to the music that plays in the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indiana Jones casually brushes spiders off of his back.
 * The sunlight shining into the chamber is a reference to the map room scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, where the sunlight shines on a crystal at the center of the room.

A Friend in Deed

 * The episode's title is part of the phrase "a friend in need is a friend indeed".
 * "Cranky Doodle Donkey" has the same meter as "Yankee Doodle Dandy", a pejorative song sung by the British to mock the American revolutionaries. The first two lines are "Yankee Doodle came to town / Riding on a pony".