My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is an animated television series based on Hasbro's My Little Pony franchise. The series follows a studious pony named Twilight Sparkle (Tara Strong), her dragon assistant Spike (Cathy Weseluck) and her friends, Applejack (Ashleigh Ball), Rarity (Tabitha St. Germain), Fluttershy (Andrea Libman), Rainbow Dash (Ball) and Pinkie Pie (Libman). The six pony friends, collectively known as the "Mane Six", go on adventures and help others around Equestria, solving problems with their friendships.

Animated in Flash, the series aired on Discovery Family (formerly The Hub) from October 10, 2010, to October 12, 2019. Hasbro selected animator Lauren Faust to head the show. Faust created deeper characters and adventurous settings, seeking a show resembling how she had played with her toys as a child, and incorporated fantasy elements. However, due to a hectic production schedule and a lack of creative control, she left the series during its second season.

Friendship Is Magic became one of the highest-rated productions in The Hub's history. Despite its target demographic of young girls, the series attracted an unexpectedly large following of older viewers, mainly adult men, known as "bronies". The series gave Hasbro new merchandising opportunities. A spin-off franchise, My Little Pony: Equestria Girls, was launched in 2013 and ran alongside the series for six years. A feature-length film adaptation based on the television series was released in October 2017 in the United States. A spin-off comedy series, My Little Pony: Pony Life, premiered on Discovery Family in November 2020.

In the kingdom of Equestria, its three subspecies of ponies (often described as "tribes" or "races")—earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns—live harmoniously. Twilight Sparkle, a studious unicorn (later an alicorn), travels to Ponyville to learn about friendship at the urging of Equestria's ruler (and her mentor) Princess Celestia. Twilight and Spike, her dragon assistant, become close friends with five other ponies: Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie. The ponies discover that they represent different facets of friendship, with powerful magical artifacts known as Elements of Harmony. They go on adventures and help others in and around Equestria, solving both interpersonal issues between them, and defeat destructive threats to both Equestria and the wider world.

Hasbro has produced several incarnations of the My Little Pony franchise, often called "generations" by the toy line's collectors. With many brands, including My Little Pony, the company uses a multi-generational plan. The 2007 Transformers film inspired Hasbro, since it helped to increase sales of the Transformers toy line; the company wanted to retool the My Little Pony franchise to appeal to the young-girl demographic. According to Margaret Loesch, CEO of The Hub, revisiting properties which had been successful was an important decision; it was somewhat influenced by the network's programming executives, several of whom were fans of the shows. According to Hasbro senior vice president Linda Steiner, the company "intended to have the show appeal to a larger demographic"; the network was trying to create shows that parents and children would watch together. Central themes Hasbro sought for the show included friendship and cooperation, determined from market research in how girls played with toys.

Animator and writer Lauren Faust approached Hasbro to develop "Galaxy Girls", her girls'-toy property, into an animated series. Faust, who had worked on Cartoon Network's The Powerpuff Girls (1998–2005) and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends (2004–2009), had unsuccessfully pitched animation aimed at girls for years. When Faust approached Lisa Licht of Hasbro Studios, Licht was uninterested but showed Faust the My Little Pony special Princess Promenade (2006). Licht thought that Faust's style was suitable for the brand and asked her to consider "some ideas [on] where to take a new version of the franchise".

Faust was initially hired by Hasbro to create a pitch bible for the show, enabling her to get additional help with ideas. She was "extremely skeptical" about taking the job, because she thought that shows based on girls' toys were dull. Although My Little Pony was one of her favorite childhood toys, Faust was disappointed by the television shows; the characters "just had endless tea parties, giggled over nothing and defeated villains by either sharing with them or crying". With the chance to work on My Little Pony, she hoped to prove that "cartoons for girls don't have to be a puddle of smooshy, cutesy-wootsy, goody-two-shoeness" like the original series. Faust incorporated many elements contradicting stereotypes of girls – diverse personalities, the message that friends can differ and remain friends, and the idea that girls should not be limited by what others say – into the design of the characters and the series. Elements of the characters' personalities and the show's settings were based on her childhood imagination of the ponies' adventures, inspired by shows such as Transformers (1984–1987) and G.I. Joe (1983–1986) which her brothers watched. According to Faust, she was making Friendship Is Magic "for [herself] as an eight-year-old". Faust wanted the characters to be relatable, using "icons of girliness" (such as a waif or a bookworm) to broaden their appeal to a young female audience.

Using her childhood as a guide, she imagined the three types of ponies—unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies—with different cultures and living in different places. Faust pictured the unicorns in the mountains, the pegasi in the clouds, and the earth ponies on the ground. She envisioned them as realistic horses who ate hay, lived in barns, pulled carts, wore saddles, and picked up objects with their mouths.