Winx Club

Winx Club is an 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 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 1990, 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 of which wanted to co-produce the series and provide production funds. In the end, the series was produced by Bear Bones independently, with staff from the aforementioned studios providing assistance to Bear Bones.

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.