I do think the real moment of awesome came at the very end of the first season, when everything went off the rails. Not many kid's cartoons from *any* era are willing to cross into Monty Python territory quite like that, and the creative team pulled it off pretty well. Lots of folks that weren't bronies before became that way after the finale.

There's one other thing that I think contributed: a very timely message. These are *really hard times* for alot of people, and 'friendship is magic' is not a bad message for the day. One that alot of fans, I think, needed to hear.