Author Archives: cookiefonster

Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 82: A Royal Problem

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< Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 >

Season 7, Episode 10

It’s been a while since my last MLP review, hasn’t it? While I’m unemployed I need something to do when bored, and working on my blog is one such thing. I wonder how much of this post series I can get done in 2025. Also, today is my 26th birthday!

And just to recap, I will no longer be releasing my MLP reviews only on Fridays, but instead on the day I finish them. I’ll continue having all of my posts cover either one or two episodes.

Season 7 Episode 10: A Royal Problem

In five words: Starlight swaps princesses’ cutie marks.

Premise: The Cutie Map sends Starlight Glimmer on a mission to Celestia and Luna’s castle because they haven’t been getting along as of late. To help them see eye to eye, she swaps the sisters’ cutie marks.

Detailed run-through:

It’s been over a year since I last reviewed a MLP episode, so forgive me if I struggle to get back into my groove. But I will try! The good thing, this is one of the fan favorite episodes of season 7.

To start the episode, the map sends Starlight Glimmer alone on a mission to Celestia and Luna’s castle. Twilight Sparkle responds with some good old Twilighting, doubled by her motherly treatment of Starlight.

Twilight Sparkle: Don’t worry. For all we know, it’s something small. Like, maybe the cooks are fighting over who has the best butternut squash soup. Or the royal hairdressers are fighting over a comb.
Spike: Or you know, maybe the royal sisters aren’t seeing eye-to-eye on something
Twilight Sparkle: NO! That’s just crazy. Luna and Celestia would never fight. … Again.

Thinking about it, it makes sense the map would send Starlight to solve this conflict for multiple reasons. It’s not just because of Starlight’s brash impulsiveness as the episode later discusses. The Mane 6 and Spike wouldn’t see the sisters’ conflict from an unbiased perspective, because Celestia knows them (especially Twilight) much better than Luna does. And the Cutie Mark Crusaders would be just as biased towards Luna. The map needs a neutral party to solve their rivalry. Moreover, I’m sure the map knows that last time Celestia and Luna got into a conflict, Luna got banished to the moon, and that had better not reoccur.

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Cookie Fonster Re-Examines Eurovision 1963: The Danish Couple Saves the Show

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Intro Post

< 1962 Review | 1963 Review | 1964 Review >

Note: I’ve decided I will only rewrite my Eurovision reviews up to 2019. For 2020 onwards, I’ll just post ranking images with annotations. The reason why is because my posts for 2020 onwards are already extensively detailed and I don’t feel a need to remake them.

Introduction

After having hosted Eurovision 1959 and 1961 and won 1962, France declined to host 1963 and passed the duties to the United Kingdom, who ended up hosting one of the strangest Eurovision years. Eurovision 1963 took place in the BBC Television Centre in London and had an unusual format in several ways. For one thing, the audience didn’t see the performances live, but rather on a TV screen that showcased special effects. The host, audience, and scoreboard were in the studio TC3, whereas the singers and orchestra were in TC4 which had an elaborate stage full of props. I get that Eurovision has always loved to showcase technology, but not letting the audience see the live performances in person was just ridiculous. At least it was fun for TV viewers though.

The producers put quite a few special effects into the performances, which wowed some viewers but caused others to suspect the performances were all pre-recorded, which it turned out they weren’t. If that wasn’t controversial enough, the voting sequence had an infamous mishap that had to be corrected, which caused many viewers to suspect the winner was illegitimate. I find that a real shame, because the winner (“Dansevise” from Denmark) is by far the best song of the show. The second and third places (Switzerland and Italy) are alright enough, but nowhere near as interesting.

For the second time of four, the BBC hired Katie Boyle to host, who is a dignified and confident presenter as always. She opens the show with a parade of sorts to introduce each country set to comfy orchestral music, and I like how she says something different for every contestant, such as “Austria’s entry tonight will be sung by Carmela Corren” or “The first of our Scandinavian guests: from Norway, Anita Thallaug”. It’s a heartwarming and welcoming introduction and just makes me sad that Eurovision 2024 was such a horrible shitshow. Ah well, we have another Eurovision to look forward to in just a month and everyone is praying it goes better.

The voting system was changed from last year: now each jury had 20 members and they awarded five to one points to each of their top five songs. Even though each country could now award points to five others, we still ended up with four zero-pointers. This time, each song is preceded by a map with a flashing light at the capital of whichever country is up next, which is great because I love maps. The map also has an overlay in a nice bold sans serif font, showing the country name in English, the song name in all caps, and the singer name. What hasn’t changed is the lineup of countries: it’s the same sixteen as last year.

In round 1, I watched this contest with Dutch commentary, and it looks like I tried my hardest to understand it. This time I’ll watch with British commentary, which is linguistically easier for me. The BBC once again hired David Jacobs to commentate, who has a dry sense of wit in a distinctly British way.

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Cookie Fonster Re-Dissects Eurovision 1962: The First Ever Zero Points

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Intro Post

< 1961 Review | 1962 Review | 1963 Review >

I should mention that four days ago, I got a ticket to semifinal 2 of Eurovision 2025 in Basel! I chose that because it’s the show Germany will be performing in, and because it has most of my other favorites. I haven’t heard most entries in full just yet, so my opinions could shift. I didn’t choose the final because I already have a cheaper ticket to the public viewing.

Introduction

I’m honestly tempted to skip this year, because I already know it has no songs I love and I’ve reviewed all of them before, so why should I listen to them again? Well OK, I’ve reviewed all Eurovision songs up to 2024, but I haven’t ranked 1962 yet, so I guess I should get that out of the way real quick.

Luxembourg hosted Eurovision for the first of four times (1962, 1966, 1973, 1984), in a ridiculously tiny building called the Villa Louvigny which was the headquarters of their broadcaster CLT. In Luxembourg’s defense, the country didn’t really have any better options back then. They didn’t have a proper theater building until the Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg was opened in 1964, which hosted the third and fourth Luxembourgish contests. For whatever reason, the Grand Théâtre wasn’t chosen to host 1966.

This year is most notable for being the first where a country scored zero points—in fact, four songs got no points this year. It’s no coincidence that this happened the same year the voting system got revamped. Now instead of dividing ten points across different songs, each national jury awarded three, two, and one points to their top three entries. The juries consisted of ten people back then, so I’m not sure how this system handled tiebreakers between the jurors. In any case, this was a really boring voting system, so it’s no wonder the EBU changed it the next year.

All the same sixteen countries as last year competed in 1962, which is a nice number because their flags can be arranged in a square. All of the top three this year were Francophone countries: France first, Monaco second, Luxembourg third. The host is a French TV presenter named Mireille Delannoy, although not much is known about her aside from hosting Eurovision. She did the entire show in French except a few parts of the voting in English.

For the first time, the opening act is an orchestral arrangement of last year’s winner, which is “Nous les amoureux”. I’m salty that Eurovision eventually dropped those reprises in favor the previous winner either rehashing their last song unedited, or singing a weird rearrangement into a new genre.

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Cookie Fonster Explores Eurovision 1961 Again: An Undercover Gay Anthem and a Few Other Gems

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Intro Post

< 1960 Review | 1961 Review | 1962 Review >

Introduction

Although the Netherlands didn’t want to host again two years after their last time hosting, France was willing to do so just two years after hosting in 1959. The now defunct broadcaster RTF brought Eurovision to the same location as two years ago, the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in Cannes, and brought back Jacqueline Joubert as the presenter.

Three countries made their Eurovision debuts this year: Spain, Finland, and Yugoslavia. This gave the contest a nice, even 16 countries, so it was the first Eurovision year with more entries than 1956. Spain would start a perfect attendance streak that continues to this day, beaten only by the UK who has participated every year since 1959. Luxembourg earned their first victory with a song that we now know is about a gay relationship, the UK came second with a joyful duet, and Switzerland came third with an old-timey waltz.

The intro makes it clear this show is something of a rehash of the 1959 contest: once again we get an outdoor look at the Palais with flags on top, this time sixteen of them from l’Allemagne to la Yougoslavie. And once again we have Jacqueline introducing all the contests, but this time they start off positioned on a little building on stage, then they exit the stage one by one. Jacqueline says the name of each country, then each contestant says their own name into the microphone, presumably so that the host would avoid any pronunciation mistakes. The Allisons from the UK are the only duo here; they start off on opposite sides of the stage, then they approach the microphone together. John says “The Allisons”, then the two of them say their own names.

The scoreboard design is pretty similar to 1959, except it uses a cute handwriting font this time, and there are more countries so the scoreboard is way too tall to fit in a 4:3 aspect ratio. This means I have to brace myself for lots of annoying scoreboard zoom-ins.

This contest has been archived with French, Dutch, and British commentary. I watched with British commentary last time, so this time I’ll watch with French commentary. That way, the host won’t be talked over so much. The commentator Robert Beauvais said he served as the commentator for all of French-speaking Europe—not just France, but also Luxembourg, Monaco, and the francophone parts of Belgium and Switzerland, which is unusual and seems unique to this year.

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Cookie Fonster Re-Discusses Eurovision 1960: Storytelling Songs at the Start and End

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Intro Post

< 1959 Review | 1960 Review | 1961 Review >

Introduction

This is where the grayscale years start getting repetitive, but since I’m still unemployed and have way too much free time, I’ll prod on. Though it’s possible that if I get a new job soon, I’ll pause round 2 of my Eurovision blog.

Although the Netherlands won Eurovision 1959, their broadcaster NTS declined to host 1960, probably because they were short on money. So instead, the runner-up nation the United Kingdom had the honor of hosting. The BBC hosted Eurovision for the first of nine times, in London for the first of four times, and presented by Catherine “Katie” Boyle for the first of four times. She holds the record of presenting the most Eurovision contests, followed by Petra Mede three times and Jacqueline Joubert twice. Katie Boyle speaks in perfect Received Pronunciation, an accent that comes off as laughably posh today, but back then was seen as prestigious and educated.

Luxembourg returned to Eurovision this year after skipping 1959, and Norway made their debut, so this contest has a total of 13 participating countries.

To open the show, Katie Boyle introduces every contestant by saying “good evening, (country)” in English and each country’s national language, then “welcome, (contestant)”. The introduction isn’t quite as glamorous as what France did last year, but I like watching each contestant introduced one by one anyway. It’s a shame Eurovision didn’t start doing that consistently until 2013.

This contest has two countries’ commentary archived: the Norwegian commentary by Erik Diesen, and the British commentary by David Jacobs. Last time I watched the NRK commentary because that was the only archive I was aware of; this time I’ll watch the BBC commentary. David Jacobs is a confident, entertaining commentator whose commentating style is extremely British, and I mean that in a good way. He said the stage is “a blaze of blue, red, and gold”, which sounds absolutely lovely and makes me wish we could’ve seen this contest in color.

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Cookie Fonster Re-Critiques Eurovision 1959: The First Winner I Agree With

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Intro Post

< 1958 Review | 1959 Review | 1960 Review >

Introduction

Since France won Eurovision 1958, they were given the first choice to host the 1959 contest, which they did in the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in the southern coastal city of Cannes. RTF, a broadcaster that hasn’t existed since 1964, put on the most ambitious Eurovision show to this point, and the first one that truly manages to wow me. It’s also the first to feature an opening film: we see guests entering the Palais, then the camera pans up to show the flags of all 11 participant countries in French alphabetical order, starting with l’Allemagne and ending with la Suisse. The UK came back to the contest after skipping 1958 and hasn’t missed a year since. Monaco made their debut as well, but Luxembourg for whatever reason skipped this year.

The show starts with an orchestra playing the Eurovision theme song “Te Deum”, then through a revolving door enters the fabulous host, Jacqueline Joubert. She’s a very charming presenter with excellent diction, so much better than the last two. There are so many nice touches in France’s hosting, like the glamorous orchestral music that plays when Jacqueline shows us the scoreboard, or her saying “good evening, [country]” in each country’s language when the contestants are introduced. The part where all the contestants are introduced is pretty awesome because they’re each revealed on one of three rotating platforms. This introduction scene was long before my birth, yet it amazes me even 66 years later. The intro of the contest was neither too long nor too short—seven minutes was a perfect length.

As with 1958, the only commentary of this show that’s ever been archived is that of the host nation, this time the French commentary. Luckily I’m pretty good at understanding French, so long as it’s not spoken with too much slang.

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Cookie Fonster Reanalyzes Eurovision 1958: The First Song to Stand the Test of Time

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Intro Post

< 1957 Review | 1958 Review | 1959 Review >

Introduction

The third Eurovision Song Contest was originally going to be hosted in the United Kingdom, but since the BBC apparently failed to reach an agreement with artistic unions, the EBU had to find another broadcaster to host, and after other broaddcasters declined to host, the Netherlands’ NTS was given the hosting duties. As a nice coincidence, the Netherlands happened to be the winner of the last contest, so in all following years, the EBU gave the most recent winner the first choice of hosting. It’s good that the pattern of the previous winner hosting was established so early, because it gives countries an incentive to send competitive entries. The Netherlands chose to host the show in AVRO Studios in Hilversum. In the old days, it was common for the contest to be hosted in the headquarters of broadcasters.

The United Kingdom dropped out of Eurovision this year, while Sweden made its debut, meaning that Eurovision 1958 has ten entries just like last year. Out of these, the Italian entry became an enormous international hit that even charted in the United States and Canada, but for some reason it only scored third place behind Switzerland and the oft-forgotten winning entry from France.

One more odd fact about this contest: this is the only Eurovision year where the host doesn’t appear at the beginning. Instead, we see a camera shot of the scoreboard set to an orchestral opening act, while the commentators introduced the show. This is the first year of the contest where any country’s commentary has been archived, specifically the Dutch commentary. In fact, Eurovision 1958 has never been archived without commentary as far as I know. The Dutch commentator has very good diction and I find him relatively easy to understand, even though I can’t speak Dutch.

Update: A few weeks after this post, the French commentary of this contest has been archived! However, it starts in the midst of Italy’s entry.

After only a minute and a half, the opening entry begins! The orchestra was very much put front and center in this contest—they even have orchestral transitions between each of the competing entries, a detail I absolutely love.

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Cookie Fonster Re-Judges Eurovision 1957: The Longest and (Former) Shortest Songs

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Intro Post

< 1956 Review | 1957 Review | 1958 Review >

Introduction

Eurovision 1956 went by without any hitches that I know of: the show ran smoothly and the winner was a song that the audience in Lugano clearly loved. So it’s no wonder that the EBU decided they should do this again in 1957. I have to wonder why the date is so different this time: the first Eurovision was on May 24, whereas the second was on March 3. Maybe the contest was normally supposed to be in March, but the setup of 1956 ran into delays? I wonder if anyone knows the answer. Another mystery is why Frankfurt, Germany was chosen to host the 1957 contest. It’s sometimes believed that the EBU was originally going to rotate hosting duties between all the participating countries, until the next year when the rule was changed so that last year’s winner will host.

All seven countries that participated in Eurovision 1956 came back this year, and three new countries expanded the map: Austria, Denmark, and the United Kingdom. This time, each of the participating countries sent only one song. The show was hosted by a German actress of Armenian descent, whose name is a nightmare to spell: Anaïd Iplicjian. She did the whole show in German, except for the voting sequence which was done in a mix of German, English, and French.

That’s right, this is the first ever Eurovision contest to feature a live voting sequence. The EBU got this idea from the BBC, which ran a TV show from May to October 1956 called the Festival of British Popular Songs. This festival was heavily criticized for the low quality of the songs, but the voting sequences were seen as very entertaining, since they featured the host calling representatives of jury members throughout the UK to deliver their points. So the EBU copied this exact idea into Eurovision 1957. Personally I think Eurovision should’ve had the juries in person back then, because the show often ran overtime with many different types of voting mishaps. But the tradition of the host calling juries on the phone soon became one of the most iconic parts of Eurovision—so much that when the EBU tried an in-person voting system starting 1971, they went back to the host calling each country by phone just three years later.

The voting system of 1957 was simple: each country had ten jury members who could each give a vote to one song, so long as it wasn’t from their own country. I like this system personally: it’s very transparent and no-nonsense. But unfortunately, this system didn’t last too long, probably because some of the hosts and spokespersons didn’t get the numbers right. Even though it should be very easy—it’s really not that hard to make sure numbers add up to ten.

This contest was supposed to have a length rule limiting songs to three and a half minutes, but for whatever reason, the EBU didn’t actually enforce it, which led to a controversial Italian entry. Another new change is that duet performers were now allowed, but only one country chose to do that and their song also has a bit of controversy.

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Cookie Fonster Re-Reviews Eurovision 1956: Let’s Begin Round Two!

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< Intro Post | 1956 Review | 1957 Review >

Introduction

OK, so… I just got fired from my job shortly before my one-year anniversary. And while I apply for new ones, I need to find something to do during the cracks in the day. Since I’m done with all the 2025 national final reviews I wanted to write, I’ll do what my heart wants and restart my Eurovision blog post series! And do other projects when I need a break from this, like my large number site. The main change in round 2 of my Eurovision blog is: this time I will rank all the songs per year. I wasn’t up for the task of ranking all the songs in round 1, because I was getting to know most of these songs for the first time, but now I’m ready to rank.

In case you aren’t aware of how Eurovision came to be: shortly after they were founded in 1950, the European Broadcasting Union wanted to make a collaborative telvision program between multiple countries. All the European countries speak different languages, but the one language they all can understand is music. The EBU took inspiration from Italy’s annual Sanremo Music Festival, which began in 1951 and was first broadcast on television in 1955, and adapted its format into a competition between multiple countries. Italy sent the winner and runner-up of the Sanremo Festival to Eurovision this year.

Now to recap the basic facts about this contest: seven countries participated—the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, France, Luxembourg, and Italy—and each of them sent not one, but two songs. Some countries sent the same artist singing two songs, others sent two different singers. Switzerland was given the duty of hosting in their Italian-speaking city Lugano, and most people believe that was because they’re closest to the center of the competing nations. In the early years, the show was hosted in the host city’s language, so the contest was presented entirely in Italian by the TV host Lohengrin Filipello. Luckily, his diction in Italian is very clear and easy to understand for those familiar with at least one Romance language, as is the case for me with French.

Switzerland sent Lys Assia to sing two songs, one in German and one in French, and her francophone song “Refrain” won the contest. Some people suspect that the only reason Switzerland won was because back then there was no rule against voting for your own country, and Switzerland had the extra boost of Luxembourg hiring Swiss citizens as their jurors. But this is nothing more than a theory, because the voting results of 1956 are lost to the sands of time. Plus, the huge applause at the end of “Refrain” is evidence against this theory. Also lost to time is the video footage of that year (except for Lys Assia’s winner reprise), and apparently even one of the interval acts. Luckily, we have audio footage of all 14 competing songs, which I’ll start reviewing right now!

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Cookie Fonster Reviews Festival da Canção 2025: The Angry Rock Song Should’ve Won

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Introduction

Now comes the third and last national final for me to review this year: Festival da Canção 2025, a three-week competition to determine which song will represent Portugal in Eurovision 2025. Festival da Canção, FdC for short, is one of the oldest Eurovision national finals, having begun in 1964. It’s as big of a deal to the Portuguese as the Sanremo Festival is to the Italians, or Melodifestivalen to the Swedes. I won’t go into the full history of FdC here, but just know that even though it’s a long-running tradition in Portugal, after years of sending songs that no one really cared about, the contest was completely reinvented in 2017, and that’s how FdC as we know it today began.

This national selection consists of two semifinals (February 22, March 1) and a final on March 8. The semifinals consist of ten songs each, then six from each make it to the grand final. This means I have 20 songs in total to review: 19 fully in Portuguese, and just one in English.

I didn’t watch the semifinals live and instead watched them starting on March 2, right after I finished my review of the German national final. I wanted to start watch the final live, but I was so absolutely amazed at the song that won Melodifestivalen that I couldn’t watch FdC right afterwards, plus I had other shit to do. So instead, I started watching the final on a day I was sick, March 11, then finished it on another sick day three days later.

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