Lauren Faust

"Cartoons for girls don’t have to be a puddle of smooshy, cutesy-wootsy, goody-two-shoeness. Girls like stories with real conflict; girls are smart enough to understand complex plots; girls aren’t as easily frightened as everyone seems to think."

—Lauren Faust on developing My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.

If the Western Animation business ever had to pick a King Midas figure, Lauren Faust would be that person. This is due to the fact that (nearly) everything she works on turns to gold and is labeled a masterpiece. How she does it, no one knows.

Lauren Faust is an animator who was born in Annapolis, Maryland. She studied animation at the school Calarts and decided to go into the animation industry. Lauren has been known for the preteen girls' Web site Milky Way and The Galaxy Girls, as well as being married to animator Craig McCracken. For a long time now, Lauren has been trying to get strong female leads for animation. Previous projects include The Powerpuff Girls, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends and My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.

She has a Deviant ART account you can find here.

Films and other works Lauren Faust has worked on:

• Cats Don't Dance: Animator, in her days starting out in the business. She was given parts of Danny to animate on what the other animators didn't finish, and she later did a few scenes with Sawyer.
• Quest for Camelot: Animator, but she pretends that it never happened. See Old Shame on the Trivia page.
• Powerpuff Girls: Storyboard artist, writer, director of several episodes, as well as supervising director for the show. She also was a writer for The Movie.
• The Iron Giant: Animator. Lauren's crew handled mostly Hogarth and Annie, but got to do a little work on Dean as well.
• Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: Writer, developer, story editor, storyboard artist and character designer; she also wrote/co-wrote the made-for-TV specials Good Wilt Hunting and Destination Imagination, the latter of which won an Emmy in 2009. The design and personality of Frankie Foster is confirmed to have been based somewhat on Lauren.
• Milky Way and The Galaxy Girls: An original concept featuring girls named after planets and other celestial objects, a la Sailor Moon. She is trying to develop this into a show of her own someday. Faust is holding stuffed dolls of the characters in the page pic. The web site is here.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Series developer, executive producer, storyboard artist and creative director for the first season of the show. It is often considered as a Spiritual Successor to The Powerpuff Girls. Due to various circumstances, she was "only" the consulting producer of the second season.
• Super Best Friends Forever: Her current project. A series of roughly one minute shorts starring Batgirl, Supergirl, and Wonder Girl for Cartoon Network's DC Nation block.
• Wander Over Yonder: Craig McCracken's next major show. Lauren is helping as co-producer and head of story, according to this LA Weekly article.

Lauren Faust provides examples of the following tropes:

• Animesque: As evident in her Deviant ART account.
• Big Good: She's considered as this to the brony community (nicknamed "Queen Faust"). Considering some of her awesome moments and the fact that she created the show, it's rather appropriate.
• Fan Service: She made a series of drawings labeled "Halloween cheesecake", featuring sexy monsters.
  • She also did some parody "fan" art of Sawyer from Cats Don't Dance that likely falls under this.
• Friend to All Children: Makes shows for kids, and has also donated art towards auctions that help out kids.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: A good part of her character designs seems to be influenced by her time in The Powerpuff Girls.
  • Cute Bruiser: And most of those characters can kick a lot of butt. Including the aformentioned Powerpuff Girls.
• No Hugging, No Kissing: She made sure that there was to be no romance among the main characters in My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, as she considers it to be a major factor in bringing down thousands of girl's shows. Any romance shown, such as the wedding episode season finale, is for side characters only.
• Older Than They Look: Is 37, see picture.