DJ P0N-3 / Vinyl Scratch

About

DJ P0N-3 (also known as Vinyl Scratch) is a nickname given to a background unicorn character from the animated TV series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Despite its very brief appearance as a nameless disk jockey in one of the episodes, the character’s cool demeanors caught the attention of My Little Pony fans and led to a series of audio / video remixes on YouTube, usually set to electronica and house music.

Origin

This blue-haired unicorn originally appeared in Episode 14: “Suited for Success,” as a DJ at the fashion show hosted by one of main characters Rarity. Although the character was seen on-screen for less than 5 seconds (starting at about 13 min 37 seconds as seen below), her unique design and cool attitude left a distinct impression on the fans for greater period of time.

Soon after the broadcast on February 4th, 2011, single topic blog Equestria Daily^[1] published a poll on February 9th, asking readers to choose the character’s unofficial fan name:

The poll resulted in a tie between DJ P0n-3 and Scratch; the character was given the nickname “Scratch” and the stagename “DJ P0N-3” (generally written only in capital letters). Later on, her name was extended to Vinyl Scratch by Equestria Daily and 4chan’s fanbase. As with other beloved background characters who were given fan nicknames, there are dozens of fan illustrations and anthropomorphic drawings made in tribute to DJ P0N-3.

Fan illustrations

Usage

Following the successful launch of Scratch on Equestria Daily, some YouTube users began sampling Scratch’s head-bobbin’ footage in loop with electro-dance music. While the earlier instances of A/V remix generally consisted of the looped video footage and a dance track, many derivatives that came later adopted heavier modifications in lighting, playback speed, background footage and others.

DJ P0N-3 Videos

Confirmation

On May 27 the Hub released an extended edition of Equestria Girls, a ponified version of Katy Perry’s California Girls, exclusively for Equestria Daily to recognize the site’s dedication to the community, show, and ponies in general. The video itself explicitly recognizes the name bronies have given DJ P0N-3, calling her “DJ Pon-three” to emphasize the spelling.

It is currently unknown if she will return in the second season for more screen time as perhaps background or even a secondary role.

On February 11th, 2012, Hasbro on his My Little Pony FaceBook account revealed a lot of new products, including a Vinyl Scratch pony toy called here “DJ Pon-3”^[3]. She also became the first background pony to be officially included in the toy line.

Outside Recognition

In November of 2011, DJ-P0N3 was recognized as OC Weekly’s #1 cartoon DJ^[2], beating out characters such as Homer Simpson and Futurama’s Scratchmo. The publication provides coverage to Orange County and Long Beach and reaches about 224,000 readers, most of whom are not bronies.

Derivatives

Scratch’s Glasses

A popular fact about Scratch is that she wears glasses, which is also recognized as one of her character traits. They also serve the function of giving Scratch an excentric look as a disk jockey. This makes it very likely that her glasses are one of the reasons for her popularity. Her glasses also became a popular exploitable.

Scratch without Glasses

By the fact that Scratch only appears in one short scene in the series, with glasses, it is unknown how Scratch looks without glasses. This lead to discussion amongst fans of Scratch’s natural look.

Over time her eye color became the main topic of discussion. Although this is still being discussed amongst fans sometimes, most of the fandom has accepted her eyes as being red. Therefore, most fanart showing her without glasses, shows her with red eyes.

Characters associations

Since her popularity begun, Scratch is commonly associated with real life electro artists Daft Punk and Deadmau5, both being very popular and excentric-looking with helmets and costumes. This lead to fanart in which DJ P0N-3 does duets with them. The musicians also gained ponified versions of themselves, called Daft Pony and Deadhor5 (one of the fan-names suggested for Vinyl Scratch by the Equestria Daily poll).

Scratch is also frequently associated with another background pony from the show, a grey Earth Pony fan-named Octavia. Octavia is known amongst the fans for playing the cello and having a liking towards classical music. This lead to the two characters often getting into arguments with each other in fanworks, mainly because of their different taste in music. Although they are also often depicted as close friends.

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External References

^[1] Equestria Daily – Poll Results: What is the Pony DJ’s Name? / Posted on 2-9-2011

^[2] OC Weekly – Our Top 5 Favorite Cartoon DJs, Including Skrillex In My Little Pony Form

^[3] Facebook – New Toys Announcement