Magic Bloom (partially found early Winx Club pilot; 1999)

A screenshot from the pilot.

Status: Partially Found

Winx Club became a hit after premiering in 2004. The show quickly attracted the interest of the American company Viacom, which now co-owns the Winx Club animation studio (Rainbow S.p.A.) alongside the cartoon's creator, Iginio Straffi. Viacom's Nickelodeon started co-producing the show in 2011 and it became even more popular, ranking as Nickelodeon UK's second-highest-rated series. Before Winx Club even aired, however, Mr. Straffi spent several years developing the show. These testing stages resulted in the production of a short pilot episode, of which only small pieces have seen the light of day.

Magic Bloom (1999-2001)

The first incarnation of the series was titled Magic Bloom and was in development from 1999 to 2001. Here, the main characters were younger teenagers and the character designs resembled those of classic European fairies. 20 seconds of footage were released as part of a video interview with Iginio Straffi, in which he briefly discusses the circumstances surrounding the pilot's production.

Sometime around early 2002, Rainbow held a test screening of the pilot in order to gauge audience reactions. According to a 2003 article, the test viewers "loved the series' concept, but found its look less than enchanting." Iginio Straffi himself was unsatisfied with the pilot, recalling in 2016 that the end product "looked like just another Japanese-style cartoon ... nothing like [the modern] Winx." Despite already gaining the support of broadcasters and investing over €100,000 in the pilot, Straffi scrapped it and started retooling the series from the ground up. He hired an array of new designers to change the pilot's "dull" designs and color palette.

The original character design sheets from Magic Bloom (source unidentified) have been uploaded to the Internet.

At the 2018 Lucca Comics & Games convention, the transformation scenes from the Magic Bloom pilot were shown as part of an exhibition commemorating the 15th anniversary of Winx Club. At around 33 seconds, this is the most footage from the pilot that has been released so far. The exhibition also revealed that Stella's original name was Sasha (see here for the video).

On May 7th, 2024, the official Instagram account for Winx Club posted some character designs for Magic Bloom for the 20th anniversary celebration of the franchise. On the same date up until June 13th, 2024, Iginio Straffi posted Instagram reels of him talking more in-depth about the Magic Bloom pilot that included more never-before-seen screengrabs and sketches from the pilot, some behind-the-scenes information on the development, and character designs. Though there is no footage shown in these three Instagram reels, it does give hope that someone behind the team has the pilot in itself.

Winx: Just Fairies! (2003)

A small poster with a logo reading Winx: Just Fairies! was on Rainbow SpA's website in early 2003, before the show's premiere. The image shows the finished designs of the three characters who appear on it (Bloom, Sky, and Icy). This image is the only known material that uses this title, but there is other scrapped animation that uses the final character designs. Fans have identified footage from early promotional material (early Italian DVDs and pre-release teasers) that show scenes that are absent in the finished show. It is possible they were created for a trailer from before the first season was finished.

Gallery

Video

Magic Bloom footage

Magic Bloom transformation sequences

Concept Sheets

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Footage

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  screenshot from found footage

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  screenshot from found footage

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  Early design of Alfea College

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  A screenshot from Rainbow spA's website, circa 2003, featuring an early design of the fairy college from the show.

External Link

• Wikipedia article for Winx Club.