It’s time for more filly fun in Equestria with those littlest of the the ponies, the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo are back in My Little Pony – Friendship Is Magic: Adventures Of The Cutie Mark Crusaders, a new collection of My Little Pony – Friendship Is Magic episodes from Shout! Factory Kids in collaboration with Hasbro Studios.

This five episode DVD includes:

• “The Cutie Mark Chronicles” – Season 1, Episode 23

  A six-pointed sparkle, balloons, apples, a rainbow, butterflies and diamonds, ever wonder how the ponies got their cutie marks? This is an origin story episode, where each of the Mane Six regale the Cutie Mark Crusaders with the tales of how they earned their own Cutie Marks. It serves as an entertaining way to provide more back story for each of the ponies.

• “The Cutie Pox” – Season 2, Episode 6

  Apple Bloom, one of the three young members of the Cutie Mark Crusaders (along with Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo) is impatient, and frustrated that she still hasn’t gotten her cutie mark and wants to discover her special talent. She gets afflicted with an ancient, mysterious and incurable? disease called the Cutie Pox. Can she find a cure? Will she ever get Her cutie mark? Besides being impatient…what IS her special talent?

• “Flight to the Finish” – Season 4, Episode 5

  The young ponies are informed that the students in the class who come up with most spectacular routine will get to carry a flag at this years Equestria Games. Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo come up with a spectacular routine, but after getting teased and insulted by some classmates the Cutie Mark Crusaders start to second guess themselves and lose their confidence. Can they regain their courage and win the coveted spot at the Games?

• “Pinkie Pride” – Season 4, Episode 12

  Pinkie Pie’s party planning prowess is tested when a new party planning pony tries to poach her title. This is a music-filled episode with the introduction of a a great new character, Pinkie’s rival party planning rival, Cheese Sandwich (voiced by “Weird Al” Yankovic).

• “Twilight Time” – Season 4, Episode 15

  When the Cutie Mark Crusaders realize that some of their classmates are impressed by the fact that they are friends with Princess Twilight Sparkle, they start to take advantage of their famous friend to gain popularity and celebrity among their peers. When the princess catches on, she teaches Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo a lesson about true friendship and not taking advantages of others’ generosity.

My Little Pony – Friendship Is Magic: Adventures Of The Cutie Mark Crusaders offers viewers a fun collection of themed episodes across multiple seasons of the series. They are all well-written episodes and even though my girls (ages 5 and ~8) have seen the entire series multiple times, they really enjoyed re-watching these episodes again. Heck we’ve already watched them on the DVD several times again. My younger daughter is especially fond of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, prob because they are a little like her.

Both girls found the “The Cutie Mark Chronicles” particularly fun because you get that look at the Mane Six’s back stories and “The Cutie Pox” they were very familiar with due to PlayDate Digital’s recent storybook app of this episode. “Flight to the Finish” and “Pinkie Pride” both had a lot of great musical numbers and the latter’s featuring of “Weird Al” Yankovic was especially awesome for me, since I’ve been a fan of Weird Al since I was a kid in the 80s.

Finally “Twilight Time” is a good ‘message’ episode that is both entertaining and endearing and features a giggle-getting appearance by Spike at the end.

This being a gathering of Cutie Mark Crusader episodes, one possible omission could be the lack of “Call of the Cutie” (episode 12 of season 1) where Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo meet for the first time and form the Cutie Mark Crusaders, though it could be that that episode already appears on another compilation.

The presentation of the episodes is excellent, even though it is not in HD, the animation looks nice and crisp and the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack fills the room, giving the show a more movie like feel than a kids cartoon TV series.

As far as extras go, the “Super Duper Party Pony” Sing Along (once again featuring Weird Al) is humorous and fun. With so many songs to choose from in the “Pinkie Pride” episode alone as well as the powerful ‘Hearts Strong as Horses’ song featured in “Flight to the Finish”, I wish there would have included additional Sing-Alongs.

My girls always love coloring sheets and both they and my co-worker’s two girls both really enjoyed the Cutie Mark Crusader one included with this DVD . Though the extras lists ‘a coloring sheet’, I honestly was a little surprised that it literally only came with one due to our previous experience with the Strawberry Shortcake DVDs (a former fellow Discovery Family series) which always came with three or more, so I thought that was the norm. And last but not least were six different wallpaper images themed toward each of the Mane Six’s cutie marks.

What’s Included:

Episodes: (100 min)

• 5 episodes of the series:
  “The Cutie Mark Chronicles”, “The Cutie Pox”, “Flight to the Finish”, “Pinkie Pride”, “Twilight Time”

• 480p / Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78:1
• Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1
• Closed Captions

Extras:

• “Super Duper Party Pony” Sing Along
• A Coloring Sheet
• Downloadable Wallpapers

Final Thoughts:

My Little Pony – Friendship Is Magic: Adventures Of The Cutie Mark Crusaders offers viewers a fun collection of 5 themed episodes from across multiple seasons of the series. At only $9.96 on Amazon, this a nice bargain for episodes that your kids will really enjoy and it is perfect for car rides as you can just hit ‘play all’ for longer rides or just play their favorite episode or two when you need a shorter distraction.