So, how bout those edited cartoons? They sure are… edited.

For those out of the loop, the MLP episode "The Last Roundup" contained a scene that referenced our favorite pegasus Derpy by name, and gave her speaking lines. Shortly after airing, the episode was pulled from iTunes without explanation.

Well it's back! And this time it's… different. The derpy scene was altered with a different voice, more underped eyes, and the reference to her name was removed. Why? There's a lot of speculation, but nothing concrete. I'm pretty sure of a few things though:

It wasn't Apple that requested the change. That wouldn't make much sense. I would be VERY surprised if I were wrong about this.

It wasn't because of some legal issue with the name. There would be no reason to edit the entire scene for that.

I saw a few (emphasis on few) complaints about her portrayal, but none so adamant that they would strike me as leading to massive amounts of genuine hate mail.

Which leads me to believe it was non-genuine hate mail (I'M NOT OFFENDED, BUT I'M OFFENDED ON BEHALF OF THIS PERSON OVER HERE WHO ISN'T SAYING THEY'RE OFFENDED BUT I'M PRETTY SURE THEY ARE!), and a corporation (coughLOWEScough) playing it WAY too safe.

I know, on the scale of things that are a big deal, this is probably not as high as Obama trying to kill your grandparents (It's true BTW, I saw the death panels in a satellite photo. They had flowers painted on them to make them look nicer, but don't be fooled!), but it feels like just another step in the wrong direction.

On the subject though, I'd like to applaud JCPenney for doing the opposite of this and standing up for Ellen when they got a bunch "OMG SHE'S GAY!" complaints. I guess all is not lost.