Here's a thought; while there's a tiny possability that in the first episode the CMCs just held on to closest ponies and then forgot about each other until they met again, what I don't about them meeting each other for the "first time" in the later episode is that two of them are related to the main characters - since their sisters are friends wouldn't they have at least heard of each other before?

Also the fanbase has finally been given the Cracked treatment, I was dreading this because Cracked can be really obnoxious sometimes (usually with cartoons/movies I liked as kid), but it really wasn't that bad.