The first season of the

animated series An animated series is a set of animated works with a common series title, usually related to one another. These episodes should typically share the same main characters, some different secondary characters and a basic theme. Series can have either ...

Winx Club ''Winx Club'' is an animated series co-produced by Rainbow S.p.A., Rainbow SpA and later Nickelodeon. It was created by Italian animator Iginio Straffi. The show is set in a magical universe that is inhabited by fairies, witches, and other myth ...

'' aired from 28 January to 26 March 2004, consisting of 26 episodes. The series was created by

Iginio Straffi Iginio Straffi is an Italian animator and former comic book author. He is the founder and president of Rainbow SpA, which he co-owns alongside the American media company Paramount Global. Straffi is the creator of the studio's animated series '' ...

, who also acted as executive producer and director of the season. The season revolves around Bloom, a 16-year-old girl from Earth who discovers she has magical abilities, as she enrolls in the Alfea College for Fairies. Along with her newfound best friend Stella, a 17-year-old fairy, Bloom meets her new roommates Flora, Musa and Tecna. Together, they form the Winx Club. During their adventures, they become good friends and get to know some of the boys from another school called Red Fountain, but also encounter some adversaries, including a trio of young witches called the Trix. In February 2011,

Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick) is an American pay television television channel, channel which launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children. It is run by Paramount Global through its List of assets owned by Param ...

's parent company

Viacom Viacom, an abbreviation of Video and Audio Communications, may refer to: * Viacom (1952–2006), a former American media conglomerate * Viacom (2005–2019), a former company spun off from the original Viacom * Viacom18, a joint venture between Par ...

became a co-owner of the Rainbow studio. Rainbow and

Nickelodeon Animation Studio Nickelodeon Animation Studio is an American animation studio owned by Paramount Global. It has created many original television programs for Nickelodeon, such as ''SpongeBob SquarePants'', ''The Fairly OddParents'', ''Rugrats'' and ''Avatar: The ...

produced a ''Winx Club'' revival series, which began with four television specials that retell the first two seasons of the original show. The first three specials summarized the plot of the first season with new animation, and they aired on June 27, August 1, and September 18, 2011.

Production

Comic artist Iginio Straffi conceived the idea for ''Winx Club'' in the mid-1990s, when he noticed that action cartoons were usually focused on male heroes. By 2000, he had developed a short

pilot episode A television pilot (also known as a pilot or a pilot episode and sometimes marketed as a tele-movie), in United States television, is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell a show to a television network or other distri ...

for the series, then titled ''Magic Bloom''. This animation included many concepts that would eventually appear in the series, such as the five original Winx members and the Trix, but the characters were younger and their outfits were not modelled after fashion trends. The pilot garnered the support of Italy's public broadcasting company,

RAI RAI – Radiotelevisione italiana (; commercially styled as Rai since 2000; known until 1954 as Radio Audizioni Italiane) is the national public broadcasting company of Italy, owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. RAI operates many ter ...

, but Straffi was unsatisfied with the final product. He made the decision to scrap the animation and heavily rework the concept, despite a financial investment of over €100,000 in the completed pilot. Production on the retooled series was underway by 2002, and Rainbow estimated that the episodes would be delivered to distributors by autumn 2003. At the October 2003

MIPCOM MIPCOM (Marché International des Programmes de Communication, English: International Market of Communications Programmes) is an annual trade show held in the French town of Cannes, traditionally in the month of October and running for 4 days. It ...

event, Rainbow screened the show's first episode to international companies. Later in the month, the American network

Fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

announced that it had picked up the show's first season of twenty-six episodes. The first season eventually made its world premiere on

Rai Due Rai 2 is an Italian free-to-air television channel owned and operated by state-owned public broadcaster RAI – Radiotelevisione italiana. It is the company's second television channel, and is known for broadcasting ''TG2'' news bulletins, talk ...

Production

Episodes

Home media

References