Baby Cakes (My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic)
Pinkie Pie learns babysitting is harder than it looks.
Pinkie Pie agrees to watch Mr. and Mrs. Cake's newborn twins, Pound Cake and Pumpkin Cake, in the thirteenth episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic's second season. Written by Charlotte Fullerton and broadcast on The Hub on January 14, 2012, the episode shows her discovering that baby care is much harder than she thought.
Quick Facts
- Series
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- Writer
- Charlotte Fullerton
- Air date
- 14 January 2012
- Length
- 22 minutes
Facts from the source article.
Plot
The Mane Six visit the Ponyville hospital to meet Mr. and Mrs. Cake's newborn twin foals, Pound Cake and Pumpkin Cake. A month later, the Cakes face a crisis when they remember a major catering deadline and need a babysitter. With no one else available, they entrust the foals to Pinkie Pie, who receives an extensive instruction list from Mrs. Cake before they depart. Pinkie's confidence quickly fades as the twins use their magical abilities: Pound Cake flies with his developing wings, and Pumpkin Cake uses telekinesis to move toys and objects. Every conventional childcare approach fails, from feeding attempts that become food fights to bath time that floods the bathroom. Pinkie resorts to a slapstick flour routine to calm them. Twilight Sparkle offers help, but Pinkie's pride makes her refuse. The babies escape their crib and create chaos throughout the house, overwhelming Pinkie to tears. The twins notice her distress and recreate the flour comedy routine. When Mr. and Mrs. Cake return, they find the home pristine and the children asleep. They offer Pinkie a permanent babysitting position, which she initially declines, but after hearing the twins murmur her name in their sleep, she agrees to babysit again the next Tuesday.
Reception
Sherilyn Connelly, author of Ponyville Confidential, gave the episode a B rating. In a review for SF Weekly, Connelly described it as essentially a horror story and noted its use of horror homage elements, calling it Friendship Is Magic's first downer ending. Jen A. Blue, in a critical analysis, called Baby Cakes very entertaining and described it as a terrifying warning against unpreparedly accepting responsibility for children. Blue placed the episode within Season 2's thematic exploration of relationships between past, present, and future, arguing that children symbolize both because they represent ancestors in their features and remind adults of their own childhoods while also signifying the future they will inherit. She analyzed how the episode references numerous past episodes in a transformative manner, describing this as a postmodern technique of hybridization where the past recurs not as a fragment to be repeated, but fully absorbed and transformed. Blue noted that unlike a clip show or a formulaic show, this episode repeats the past while saying this is different now than it was then. However, she identified Pinkie's crying at the end as somewhat problematic because it potentially reinforces the stereotype that women use tears manipulatively, calling this a troubling note in an otherwise enjoyable episode. Raymond Gallant of Freakin' Awesome Network gave the episode a rating of 8.5 out of 10 and called it another excellent episode of a quality season, praising the slapstick humor and the adorableness of the Cake twins. Republibot noted that fan reaction was generally positive, though few called it their favorite episode. Brendan Kachel of flayrah wrote that the two baby ponies are annoying, but that this was the point; the lesson Pinkie Pie had to learn was that some things that need to be done are not always going to be fun.
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