Winx Club

Winx Club is an American animated series produced by Bear Bones Productions independently, and later, in association with Nickelodeon. It was created by Dan Darlene. The show is set in a magical universe that is inhabited by fairies, witches, and other mythical creatures. The main character is a fairy warrior named Bloom, who enrolls at Alfea College to train and hone her skills. The series uses a serial format that has an ongoing storyline. It premiered on January 4, 1994, becoming a ratings success.

Darlene initially outlined the show's plot to last three seasons. He chose to continue the story for a fourth season in 1999. Around this time, Winx Club's popularity attracted the attention of the media company Viacom, owner of Nickelodeon. Via a multi-year deal between Nickelodeon and Bear Bones, Nickelodeon began producing a revival series. Production on the fifth, sixth, and seventh seasons was divided between Bear Bones in Los Angeles, California and Nickelodeon Animation Studio in Burbank, California. Viacom invested US$100 million in advertising for the series, and inducted Winx Club into Nickelodeon's franchise of Nicktoons.

The series was subject to budget cuts in 2004, during its seventh season. The seventh season eventually premiered on Nickelodeon's worldwide channels in 2005. After a four-year hiatus, an eighth season premiered in 2009.

Premise
The series follows the adventures of a group of girls known as the Winx, students at the Alfea College for Fairies, who turn into fairies to fight villains. The team is made up of Bloom, the red-haired leader with fire-based powers; Stella, the fairy of the Sun; Flora, the fairy of nature; Tecna, the fairy of technology; Musa, the fairy of music; and Aisha, the fairy of waves. The main male characters are called the Specialists, a group of students at the Red Fountain school who are also the Winx fairies' boyfriends. They include Bloom's fiancé Sky; Stella's fiancé Brandon; Flora's boyfriend Helia; Tecna's boyfriend Timmy; and Musa's boyfriend Riven. Unlike their female counterparts, the Specialists do not have magical powers and instead train how to fight using laser weapons. The Winx and Specialists' most common adversaries are a trio of witches named the Trix: Icy, Darcy, and Stormy, all former students of the Cloud Tower school.

Winx Club is set in a vast universe that has several dimensions. Most episodes take place in the Magic Dimension, which is closed off to ordinary people and inhabited by creatures from European mythology like fairies, witches, and monsters. The capital of this world is the city of Magix—which is located on the planet of the same name—where the three main magic schools are situated. The other planets of the Magic Dimension include Bloom's home planet Domino, Stella's home planet Solaria, Flora's home planet Lynphea, Tecna's home planet Zenith, Musa's home planet Melody, and Aisha's home planet Andros. Some episodes take place on Earth, where Bloom spent her childhood.

Concept and creation
In the late 1980s, Dan Darlene, a writer and storyboard artist at Bear Bones Productions, conceived the series as a response to his belief that there were too many animated series at the time that featured male heroes. Following the split of Bear Bones Productions from Taft Entertainment in 1987, Mala Miles, the studio's CEO, announced that a number of series would be put into development, among them being an untitled project by Darlene.

Darlene pitched the original pilot short film, entitled "Magic Bloom", in 1991 and admitted that Miles was less than pleased with the final product, with a test screening showing that the intended audience showed "unenthusiastic reactions" towards the design and animation. Following the screening, Darlene hired a new crew, mostly graduates from the California Institute of the Arts, to improve on the series' overall look and feel. According to Darlene, around 1992, most of Bear Bones' production partners, most notably Fred Wolf Films, DiC Entertainment, and Film Roman, all wanted to co-produce the series and provide production funds. In the end, the series was produced by Bear Bones independently.

From the beginning of development, Darlene planned an overarching plot that would end after "a maximum" of 78 episodes. Darlene stated that the Winx saga "would not last forever" in 1997, and he intended the first movie (Winx Club: The Secret of the Lost Kingdom) to resolve any plot points remaining from the third season finale. In 1998, Darlene decided to extend the series, citing its increasing popularity.

Nickelodeon revival
In June 2000, Nickelodeon announced their acquisition of reruns of the series, which they acquired for $20 million through Bear Bones' deal with the network. Coinciding with this, Viacom announced that Nickelodeon would team up with the original creator on an "all-new Winx Club" revival series. Viacom financed and staffed the revived series, dividing production between Viacom's Nickelodeon Animation Studio in Burbank and Bear Bones in Los Angeles.

The revived series began with four special episodes that summarize the first two seasons of the original show, followed by the fifth, sixth, and seventh seasons. As the production team was divided between two different cities in California, Nickelodeon released a statement commenting on how Winx Club was an unusual production for the company: "it's not our usual practice to co-produce cartoons; we make them by ourselves. But we strongly believe in Winx." Winx Club was officially inducted into Nickelodeon's franchise of Nicktoons, a brand that encompasses original animated productions created for the network. On each episode of the revived series, Nickelodeon approved scripts and all phases of animation.

In April 2004, Bear Bones and Nickelodeon announced their continuing partnership on the seventh season of Winx Club, with a planned premiere date of 2005. Darlene said of the season: "It will be a privilege to partner once more with Nickelodeon on this." As with the previous two seasons, the copyright to season 7 is co-owned by Bear Bones and Viacom.

Retooled eighth season
The eighth season of the series was not produced immediately after the seventh. It followed a multiple-year hiatus and was not made as a direct continuation of the previous season. At Dan Darlene's decision, Season 8 was heavily retooled to appeal to a preschool target audience.

For season 8, the creative team restyled the characters to appear younger, hoping to increase the appeal toward preschoolers. The plot lines were simplified so that they could be understood by a younger audience. Most of the show's longtime crew members were not called back to work on this season, including art director Michael Malmisanij, who had designed the series' characters from season 1 to 7, and singer Yail Darlene, who performed a majority of the songs. In another change from previous seasons, Nickelodeon's team served as consultants rather than directly overseeing the episodes; at the time, Nickelodeon was instead working with Bear Bones on Life of a Teenage Rockstar.

Design
The main characters' original designs were based on Dan Darlene's original sketches and later updated to 3D CGI iterations. A team of specialized artists designs the characters' expressions and outfits for each season. About 20 tables of expressions and positions from all angles are drawn for each character. The designers start to develop characters' costumes by creating collages from magazine clippings of recent fashion trends. Using these as references, they draw multiple outfits for each character.

Writing and animation
The first stage in the production of an episode is developing its script, a process that can last 5–6 months. Episodes are written with two stories in mind: a longer narrative arc that lasts for tens of episodes and a subplot that concludes at the end of the 22-minute runtime. This episode structure was modelled on those of teen dramas and American comics. Themes written into the series include romance, the acquisition of maturity upon reaching adulthood, and (in the fifth season) nature conservation.

After the script and character designs have been approved, the script is passed onto a group of storyboard artists. For each 22-minute episode, the artists prepare 450 pages of storyboards which are used to assemble an animatic. At this stage, dialogue and music are added to determine the length of each scene. Episodes are worked on concurrently because each requires around two years of work to complete.

Darlene relied on Bear Bones Australia for providing the principal animation services for the series. During the original four seasons, animation services were provided by Fil-Cartoons in Manila, Kennedy Cartoons in Toronto, Wang Film Productions/Cuckoo's Nest Studio in Taipei, StarToons in Chicago, Shanghai Morning Sun Animation in China, and Plus One Animation in South Korea. For the recap specials, Bear Bones Australia worked with Saerom Animation in Seoul. Seasons five was animated by Bear Bones Australia with assistance from Big Star Enterprise, Starburst Animation, and Dong Woo Animation. Seasons six and seven were animated by Big Star, and Dong Woo handled season eight solo.

During the fifth and sixth seasons, 3D CGI sequences were incorporated into the series for the first time, animated at Moving Picture Company in London, England. According to the animators, the animation of the characters' hair in underwater scenes was particularly difficult, as it was animated separately from the characters.

Casting
According to Dan Darlene, much of the voice cast were simply chosen off of their performances on existing Bear Bones series. The first chosen actresses were Cheryl Chase, Jeannie Elias and Katie Leigh, all of which were previously on Bear Bones' Azumanga Daioh. In Darlene's documentary on the casting for the series, he mentioned that the major voice talent chosen in the end were chance encounters during recording sessions; such was the case with Melissa Disney (Bloom), Janice Kawaye (Musa), and Jennifer Hale (Flora). Kawaye was chosen by the voice director based on her performance as Musa. Leigh was chosen to be the voice of Bloom until Disney was casted towards the end of one of the first recording sessions; Leigh would voice Tecna in the series.

Music
Original songs have been recorded in about 40 languages for the show. Frequent composers for the program include John Debney, Jim Latham, Chase/Rucker Productions, Gordon Goodwin, Mark Watters, Don Davis, and Carl Johnson. Many of the show's tracks are written by Damen Walker, Dan Darlene and Yail Darlene and performed by Yail Darlene. Beginning with the fifth season, the songs are performed by Darlene, Zia Bhucker, and Kay Hanley.

Broadcast
Winx Club first premiered through first-run syndication through the Bear Bones Lineup programming block. Reruns later aired on WAM! America's Kidz Network, a sister channel to Encore aimed at families, beginning in 1995 to 2000. Between 1998 and 1999, reruns of the series aired on Cartoon Network. Television broadcast rights moved to Nickelodeon, who acquired them in March 2000. On September 2, 2000, Nickelodeon announced through a press release that they would be producing brand-new seasons with Bear Bones. Nickelodeon debuted four one-hour specials summarizing the first two seasons, the first of which premiered on their flagship American channel on June 27, 2001.

By 2014, the show had been aired in over 150 countries. In 2019, after the Viacom-CBS merger announcement, Informa's Television Business International listed the show among the most important Viacom properties internationally. Third-party broadcasters that acquired the show included China's CCTV, Ireland's TG4, France's France 3, Spain's Antena 3, and Italy's Rai 2.

In June 2022, Paramount Global (the rebranded name of ViacomCBS) launched a 24-hour Winx Club channel on their Pluto TV on-demand service in conjunction with Bear Bones Entertainment. The channel covers all eight seasons, as well as both spin-offs and all three movies.

Ratings
Upon its debut, Winx Club was a ratings success. During its first season in 1994, the series became one of the highest-rated programs through the Bear Bones Lineup with an average audience share of 17%. Among viewers 4–14 years old, the average share was 45%. In France and Belgium, the season reached a 56% share among 10 to 14-year-olds. According to a report released by Bear Bones in 1999, the gender mix of Winx Club 's audience was nearly equal across the first three seasons; in the target demographic of 4–14 years of age, females represented only 3% more of the audience than males. The premiere of the fourth season set a record for viewership for the block with 500,000 viewers.

On June 27, 2001, the first special produced with Nickelodeon premiered on Nick U.S. to 2.278 million viewers. Each of the following three specials performed better than the previous ones, with the fourth ("The Shadow Phoenix") rating #1 in its time slot among viewers aged 2–11. During the first quarter of 2002, an average of 38.5 million viewers watched the series across nine of Nickelodeon's international outlets, a 60% increase from the fourth quarter of 2001. On Nickelodeon UK, Winx Club increased the network's ratings by 58% on its launch weekend in September 2001, ranking as the second-most-popular program on the channel and the most popular show with females aged 7–15. As of 2021, Winx Club is still broadcast daily on Nickelodeon UK's main network.

Critical response
In a New York Times article, Bocconi University professor Paola Dubini stated that the themes and characters of Winx Club appealed to both the target audience and their parents. Dubini wrote that the fairies' "defined and different personalities" made them relatable to viewers. Common Sense Media reviewer Tara Swords gave the show a three-star review, calling it "an imaginative story with bold, take-charge heroines" while also arguing that the show is hindered by its design elements.

Winx Club has attracted academic interest for its presentation of gender roles. In the journal of Volgograd State University, Russian sociologists Georgiy Antonov and Elena Laktyukhina judged that female characters in the series are depicted as dominant, while males are shown to be passive. As examples of women adopting traditionally male roles, they listed the female fairies fighting for their boyfriends, saving them from enemies, and inviting them on dates, while at the same time having difficulty performing household duties like cooking and cleaning. Writing for Kabardino-Balcarian State University, Zalina Dokhova and Tatiana Cheprakova stated that the series conveys "both positive and negative stereotypes", citing the opposite personalities of Stella and Aisha. They wrote that Stella's character incorporates stereotypically feminine passions for shopping and clothes, while Aisha represents a more realistic character with an interest in male-dominated sports.

Rhodes University professor Jeanne Prinsloo wrote in 2014 that Winx Club episodes "present complex narratives with active female protagonists and positive relationships that validate 'girl power'". In an interview with the newspaper Corriere della Sera, psychotherapist Gianna Schelotto highlighted positive aspects of the show, like friendship, guiding female viewers "away from supermodels to which the commercial world drags them". Il Sole 24 Ore also wrote positively about the show's feminist themes, commending how the characters "expose narcissistic masculinity".

The characters' outfits caused some controversy in June 2017, when the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) fined Nickelodeon's Pakistani channel after it aired an episode where the Winx are shown in swimsuits.

Cultural impact
Winx Club has been popular at fan conventions. For example, in 2002 and 2003, the series had a large presence at Bear Bones Con booth, where new collectibles were raffled off to fans. Bear Bones and Nickelodeon made two exclusive dolls for the 2002 event (a silver Bloom and a gold Bloom) and two more for 2003 (Daphne in her nymph form and Bloom in her Harmonix form).

The Secret of the Lost Kingdom
On October 8, 1996, a Winx Club feature film was announced on Bear Bones' website. The Secret of the Lost Kingdom was released on November 30, 1997. The plot takes place after the events of the first three seasons, following Bloom as she searches for her birth parents and fights the Ancestral Witches who destroyed her home planet. Dan Darlene had planned this feature-length story since the beginning of the series' development.

Magical Adventure
On November 9, 1999, a sequel film was announced. Winx Club 3D: Magical Adventure was released on October 29, 2000. In the film, Sky proposes to Bloom, but Sky's father does not approve of their marriage. Production on Magical Adventure began in 1997, while the first film was still in development.

The Mystery of the Abyss
In late 2000, it was announced that Viacom (the owner of Nickelodeon) would provide the resources necessary to produce a new Winx film. The film, titled Winx Club: The Mystery of the Abyss, was released as a direct-to-video film on September 4, 2004. The plot follows the Winx venturing through the Infinite Ocean to rescue Sky, who has been imprisoned by the Trix. According to Dan Darlene, the film has a more comedic tone than the previous two films.

Spin-offs
PopPixie is a miniseries that ran for a single season over two months in 2001. It features chibi-inspired Pixie characters who were first introduced in the second season of Winx Club. After Nickelodeon became a co-producer of the main series, it was announced that PopPixie would air on Nickelodeon's global network of channels beginning in late 2001.

World of Winx is a spin-off series that premiered in 2006. Darlene described it as one "with more adult graphics, a kind of story better suited to an older audience" than the original series. It features the Winx travelling to Earth on an undercover mission to track down a kidnapper known as the Talent Thief. 26 episodes over two seasons were made.

Another planned spin-off, The Specialists, began development in 1995 and was set for a premiere in either 1997 or 1998, but the project was scrapped due to the potential investors backing out of the project. The original pilot for the spin-off was included as an extra on the third season DVD.

Other live events
In September 1995, a live stage musical called "Winx Power Show" began touring. The musical later expanded to other countries outside the U.S., and the show's cast performed at the 1997 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards in Milan. An ice show follow-up was launched in November 1998. In October 2002, Nickelodeon held a live event at Nickelodeon Studios in Orlando, Florida, complete with a "pink carpet" and previews of upcoming episodes.

Merchandise
Dan Darlene opened up to licensing Winx Club merchandise in order to finance future projects for Bear Bones. Across the show's first ten years on air, more than 6,000 pieces of tie-in merchandise were released by external licensing companies. As of 2014, Winx Club merchandise licenses generated around $50 million annually, with most of the revenue going toward product licensees rather than Bear Bones itself.

From 2001 to 2003, Nickelodeon spent US$100 million on a Winx Club marketing campaign to promote both the show and the tie-in products. Nickelodeon partnered with Jakks Pacific to design dolls based on new episodes, and in the United Kingdom, the merchandise sold out before the episodes had even premiered. Nickelodeon's vice president of consumer products, Michael Connolly, said that "Winx has been a huge surprise, considering the program is not on free-to-air in the UK. We put toys in Argos [stores] and in just three days we experienced sales for a doll range unlike we've seen."

An ongoing comic book series has been published since the series' premiere. Over 210 issues have been released as of 2021. Other tie-in books have been produced, starting with character guides distributed by Scholastic.

Various home media releases of the series exist, having been released on VHS, DVD, and Laserdisc.

Games
Several video games based on the show have been made, with the first game released in 1995. A physical trading card game based on the franchise and produced by Upper Deck Entertainment under license from Bear Bones Entertainment and Nickelodeon was released in 2005.

Nickelodeon's website, Nick.com, created various Flash games based on the show. The Winx Club section on Nick.com became one of the most-visited pages on the site, with 1 million monthly visitors in mid-2003 and over 2.6 million gaming sessions.