User:Masem/Derpy

Derpy Hooves (sometimes referred to as Ditzy Doo) is a fictional character from the American/Canadian animated series, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. She was only intended to be a background character, one of several pegasi, with the name "Ditzy Doo". She became a significant character from the series due to an animation goof in the first episode, where her eyes were given a wall-eyed stare for one scene. The unexpected "brony" fandom for the show, originating at 4chan, caught the error, and subsequently named her "Derpy Hooves", based on the Internet slang term "derp". The showrunners adopted the fandom's appreciation for the character, and began including her more purposely with the wall-eyed look and klutzy behavior, as a call-out to the fandom. Derpy has since become a symbol of the brony fandom.

Origin
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, first broadcasted in 2010, is Hasbro's most recent effort to develop programming alongside the "My Little Pony" toy franchise aims for young girls. Hasbro brought in animator Lauren Faust, who previously worked on The Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, as the creative lead for the show. Faust, wanting to challenge the "girly" nature of the show, adapted the setting to create complex, non-stereotypical female lead characters and a setting allowing for more adventurous stories to talk place.

The show was generally received well by critics, but one essay written by Amid Amidi for the animation industry website "Cartoon Brew", was highly critical of the show for bring talent like Faust aboard to be used to sell toys. Through cartoon discussion boards at 4chan, many older fans took interest in the concerned nature of this review, creating a large interest for the show that would ultimately spread throughout 4chan and the rest of the Internet. The show garnered a large number of adult male fans calling themselves "bronies", appreciative of the show's writing, characters, animation, and humor, while incorporating elements of the show into new works and Internet memes.

Derpy Hooves was originally designed by Faust and her team as one of the unnamed incidental background ponies for the show; Faust stated that she had planned on using the name "Ditzy Doo" for this character, a named mentioned in "Winter Wrap-Up" for a pegasus that mislead a flock of migrating birds. Using Flash animation, the animators can quickly render a variety of ponies, using these incidental background ponies to fill out the scene. The first broadcasted episode, "The Elements of Harmony", included one scene with numerous ponies in the background of a party. During one cut, Derpy is visible with a wall-eyed stare; this was later determined to be joke by one of the animators, overlooked during final production. The mistake was caught by 4chan readers, who quickly latched onto the name "Derpy Hooves", based on the Internet slang term "derp" which was often used for image macros of faces with blank or awkward stares. Faust would later say that "She can be 'Derpy' if everyone wants her to be" on her deviantArt account.

Faust responded to the fans and has since kept the Derpy character with the cross-eyed look and incorporated her into a slapstick sight gag during "Feeling Pinkie Keen". According to supervising director Jayson Thiessen, the teams considered Derpy "like a little Easter Egg for people to catch". As part of a relief effort for the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Faust auctioned several original drawings from the show along with a new sketch of Derpy Hooves, which alone sold for more than $2,000 on eBay, contributing to a total of more than $15,000 in charitable earnings. At the conclusion of the first season, one of the show's animators confirmed that Derpy would be a scripted background character in the second season, which culminated in a scene within one episode, "The Last Roundup", that gave her spoken lines, and performing klutzy antics, as a nod to the fans, according to storyboard artist Sabrina Alberghetti. However, due to negative response from some viewers believing the depiction was derogatory of mentally disabled people, and Hasbro altered subsequent broadcasts to remove some of these elements; according to Hasbro's Nicole Angello, "Some viewers felt that aspects of the episode 'The Last Roundup' did not stay true to the core message of friendship which is the heart and soul of the series. Hasbro Studios decided to make slight audio alterations to this single episode." Despite Hasbro's intentions, the change itself has elicited disappointment from the brony community and efforts to try to restore the original voice.

Personality and Appearance
Derpy Hooves is a pegasus pony, with a grey coat, blonde hair, and a set of bubbles as her cutie mark. In the first half of season one, she was manly shown aiding other pegasus ponies with the weather around Ponyville, the main setting for the show. In episodes in the second half, produced after the fandom's recognition of the character, Derpy often appeared once in an episode with the wall-eyed stare; in one episode, "Feeling Pinkie Keen", she was part of a slapstick routine, accidentally dropping heavy items from a delivery truck onto Twilight Sparkle. Derpy was purposely storyboarded into several background scenes within the second season, often demonstrating her klutzy manners.

Within the brony fandom, Derpy is often connected with a love of muffins, based on a scene she is present in from the first season episode "Applebuck Season". She is often paired as a "companion" of Doctor Whooves, another background male stallion named by the fandom due to his resemblance to David Tennent's version of the British television icon, Doctor Who. When a unicorn filly with a similar color scheme was spotted, it led to the creation of her baby daughter in fan-fiction, Dinky. However, in the actual show, they have never interacted.

The Last Roundup
In the second season episode The Last Roundup, Derpy was called out by name and given speaking lines; her klutzy nature was called out further, as she accidentally damages one of the Ponyville buildings. The callout was meant as a tribute to the fans by HXM Media; though the scriptwriter, Amy Keating Rogers, had penned the scene using the "Ditzy Doo" name, she was asked to change the name in the final script to Derpy. Tabitha St. Germain provided Derpy's voice; however, she had not seen the animation, and created a voice based on a boy she knew in her neighborhood that was slow and methodical.

Though most of the fandom praised the inclusion of Derpy in the episode, several considered the combination of name, voice, lines, and actions to be making fun of mental handicaps and encouraging ableism. Hasbro and Rogers received numerous emails from upset fans regarding this. Rogers, herself, was originally surprised, as her son is mentally handicapped, and did not realize that the name "Derpy" could be connected to such.

Hasbro initially pulled the episode from the iTunes store while it determined what steps to take. Hasbro contacted Rogers to discussion possible solutions, but realized that any action, either leaving the episode or altering the episode, would raise complaints by the fans. Ultimately, Hasbro decided to alter the scene, having HXM remove the mention of Derpy's name, re-record a new voice for the character, and reduce the degree of wall-eyed-ness that she was presented with, before returning the episode to iTunes. The original episode before alterations remained as on of the offerings on the first home media release for the show. As Hasbro anticipated, a vocal portion of the fandom was upset at the changes and a "Save Derpy" campaign was started to try to convince Hasbro to reverse these changes.