''My Little Pony: Rainbow Roadtrip'' is a 2019 one-hour television special based on the

animated television series An animated series, or a cartoon series, is a set of Animation, animated films with a common title, usually related to one another. These episodes typically share the same main heroes, some different secondary characters and a basic theme. Series ...

'' My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic''. Unlike ''Friendship Is Magic'', it was not produced by DHX Studios Vancouver, instead by

Boulder Media Boulder Media Limited is an Irish animation studio founded by filmmaker Robert Cullen in 2000. It is currently a wholly owned subsidiary of Australian media company Princess Pictures, which purchased the company in 2022 from its previous owner ...

Limited in Ireland, and featured the same redesigned art style which was used in the 2017 movie. The special aired on

Discovery Family Discovery Family (known on-air as Discovery Family Channel and abbreviated as DFC) is an American Specialty channel, cable television channel co-owned by The Cartoon Network, Inc. and Hasbro Entertainment, which are divisions of Warner Bros. Di ...

on June 29, 2019.

Plot

Rainbow Dash Rainbow Dash is a fictional character who appears in the fourth incarnation of Hasbro's ''My Little Pony'' toyline and media franchise, beginning with '' My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'' (2010–2019). She is a close friend of Twilight Spa ...

receives an invitation to be the guest of honor at the Rainbow Festival in the town of Hope Hollow. She and her friends set out by balloon, but collide with a rainbow billboard on the edge of Hope Hollow. The billboard and balloon are damaged, but the ponies are unhurt. Petunia Petals puts them up at the hotel she runs. The next morning, the six friends find the town and residents totally devoid of color. The mayor, Sunny Skies, takes them on a tour of the town. The Festival events are meager or nonexistent, and the mayor admits apathy has taken hold. Sunny's grandfather had set up the Festival and built a Rainbow Generator to fill the sky with color. When Sunny became mayor, the generator malfunctioned and drained all the color from the town, so Twilight and her friends agree to help him. The Hoofingtons are bakers whose products suffer because without color, they cannot tell ripe from unripe fruit. Their neighbor Moody Root grows apricots, and once Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie encourage them to start talking, Moody agrees to give the Hoofingtons part of his crop in exchange for some pies. Applejack works with repair pony Torque Wrench to fix the billboard. Rainbow Dash mentors local youngsters Barley and Pickle Barrel in stunt flying, and Rarity collaborates with fashion designer Kerfuffle on designs for the Festival. As Twilight and her friends encourage the ponies, small spots of color begin to manifest around town. Twilight investigates how to bring color back. Torque repairs the generator, but it still fails to reverse the color loss. Twilight realizes that the generator was not at fault and the fading of the town's hopeful spirit had caused the colors to start disappearing even before the generator broke down. By working to revive the Festival, she and her friends have been bringing back that hope. The Festival begins anew, with the Hoofingtons' pies, Kerfuffle's accessories, and Rainbow Dash leading Barley and Pickle in an airshow. In front of a cheering crowd, Petunia accepts Sunny's proposal of marriage. Community spirit and color return to Hope Hollow, and Twilight and her friends return to Ponyville with the town's gratitude.

Voice cast

Tara Strong Tara Lyn Strong (; born February 12, 1973) is a Canadian and American actress. She is known for her voice work in animation, websites, and video games. Strong's voice roles include animated series such as '' The Powerpuff Girls'', '' The Fair ...

Twilight Sparkle Princess Twilight Sparkle is a fictional character who appears in the fourth incarnation of Hasbro's ''My Little Pony'' toyline and media franchise, beginning with '' My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'' (2010–2019), and later in the fra ...

Rebecca Shoichet Rebecca Shoichet ( ) is a Canadian voice actress who has voiced in English dubs of Japanese anime and other shows for Ocean Productions in Vancouver, having moved there from Victoria in 2000. She took over Saffron Henderson's role of Sota Hig ...

as Twilight Sparkle (singing voice) *

Ashleigh Ball Ashleigh Adele Ball (born March 31, 1983) is a Canadian voice actress and singer. She is known for voicing characters in several toyetic movies and television series, notably the ''Barbie'' film series, ''Bratz'', ''Johnny Test'', '' Care Bea ...

and

Applejack AppleJack was a command-line interface for Mac OS X that provided a simplified user interface for single user mode system repairs. It allowed for permission repair, disk repair, cache cleaning, validation of preference- and property list file ...

Andrea Libman Andrea Libman is a Canadian actress. She is known for providing voice acting in various animated shows, such as voicing the characters of Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy in the Discovery Family series '' My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'' and it ...

Pinkie Pie Pinkamena "Pinkie" Diane Pie is a fictional character who appears in the fourth incarnation of Hasbro's ''My Little Pony'' toyline and media franchise, beginning with '' My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'' (2010–2019). She is a close friend ...

and

Fluttershy Fluttershy is a fictional character who appears in the My Little Pony (2010 toyline), fourth incarnation of Hasbro's ''My Little Pony'' toyline and media franchise, beginning with ''My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'' (2010–2019). She is a c ...

Shannon Chan-Kent Shannon Chan-Kent (born September 23, 1988) is a Canadian voice and stage actress. She is known for her roles as Silver Spoon and Smolder and the singing voice of Pinkie Pie in ''My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'', Misa Amane in the Englis ...

as Pinkie Pie (singing voice) * Tabitha St. Germain as Rarity **

Kazumi Evans Kazumi Evans (born September 14, 1989) is a Canadian actress. She began her career as a contestant on the CBC's '' Triple Sensation''. As a voice actress, she has voiced Saffi on ''Bob the Builder ''Bob the Builder'' is a British anima ...

as Rarity (singing voice) *

Cathy Weseluck Cathy Weseluck is a Canadian actress and comedian who frequently works with Ocean Productions in Vancouver, British Columbia and is known for her roles as Near in ''Death Note'', Cybersix/Adrian Seidelman in '' Cybersix'', and Spike in Discovery ...

as Spike *

Ian Hanlin Ian Stuart Hanlin is a Canadian voice actor based in Vancouver. Originally from Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, he is known for his voice roles of Sunburst in ''My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'', Lance Richmond in ''Nexo Knights'', Acronix in ' ...

as Mayor Sunny Skies * Kelly Metzger as Petunia Petals * Rhona Rhees as Torque Wrench *

Terry Klassen Terry Klassen is a Canadian voice actor, ADR director and writer. Before animation, Klassen worked in radio in Winnipeg (CITI-FM), Toronto (Q107), Calgary (CFAC), Portage la Prairie (CFRY) and part-time at CFOX and CFMI. In animation, he is best ...

as Moody Root * Racquel Belmonte as Kerfuffle *

Michael Daingerfield Michael Daingerfield is a Canadian actor, acting coach and founder of On The Mic Training, a voice acting school in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is best known for his voice roles of Ace Ventura in '' Ace Ventura: Pet Detective'', playing Gordo ...

as Mr. Hoofington *

Veena Sood Veena Sood (born 21 November) is a Canadian actress. Sood is best known for dramatic and comedic roles in a career spanning more than 3 decades. Early life and education She was born on 21 November in Nairobi, Kenya. Her father was a doctor an ...

as Mrs. Hoofington * Sabrina Pitre as Barley Barrel * David A. Kaye as Pickle Barrel

Merchandise

A toyline collection pack tie-in, titled "Rainbow Tail Surprise", was announced at the 2019

Toy Fair The North American International Toy Fair (formerly the American International Toy Fair and also known as Toy Fair New York) is an annual toy industry trade show held in mid-February in New York City's Jacob K. Javits Convention Center and at to ...

in New York. This pack was made available in the

third quarter A lunar phase or Moon phase is the apparent shape of the Moon's directly sunlit portion as viewed from the Earth. Because the Moon is tidally locked with the Earth, the same hemisphere is always facing the Earth. In common usage, the four major ...

of 2019. Multiple books based on the special were released, including a "Passport to Reading" Level 2 ''My Little Pony: Road Trip Event'' reader on June 25, 2019. In the United Kingdom, ''My Little Pony Annual 2020'' is set for an August 8 release and ''My Little Pony: Essential Handbook: A Magical Guide for Everypony'' on September 5.

Release

''Rainbow Roadtrip'' received a private screening at the

Odeon Cinema Odeon Cinemas Limited, trading as Odeon (stylised in all caps), is a cinema brand name operating in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway and Greece, which along with UCI Cinemas and Nordic Cinema Group is part of the Odeon Cinemas Group subsid ...

theater on May 23, 2019 and premiered on June 29, 2019 on Discovery Family. A release on Netflix was also announced but never occurred.

References

External links

* {{Allspark and Entertainment One My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic 2019 television specials 2010s animated television specials