One thing I’ve been noticing more and more recently is. A lot of people have been saying they think Cosmo and Wanda must’ve gotten marriage counseling between the ending of the OG show and the beginning of the new one.
Which is fine! I think if anyone wants to take everything from the original, even the "bad", as canon, that’s entirely okay. As much as I would like to pretend those things were never written, I can’t change the fact that they were written.
But one thing I think is important to note is: Cosmo and Wanda were never intended to be written in a loveless marriage in the first place. They were never intended to be written mean, or neglectful, or hateful. And that’s very obvious to me, reading the original show’s pitch and reference books.
There is nothing in this world that could ever convince me Cosmo and Wanda were meant to be anything but loving. These are screenshots from the original Pitch and the show’s guideline booklet:
They really spell it out perfectly. “It’s a show about friendship.” It was always meant to be.
The inclusion of “great, fleshed-out characters” here leads me to believe they never meant for Cosmo or Wanda to become flanderized to a single trait. Cosmo was never meant to just be “the idiot”, and Wanda was never meant to be the “anti-fun” one. They were meant to be equals.
“[he] doesn’t have a mean bone in his... body,” as well tells me Cosmo was never meant to be written the way he was in later seasons; he wasn’t meant to be mean, nor was he meant to hate his wife. It’s my belief that, had the writers never changed, or had they hired writers who Did care, the writing of the show would not have suffered the way it did.
“So if it was never intended to happen, then why did it happen?”
Around the time Cosmo and Wanda’s characterization began deteriorating, they had hired writers who were notorious for writing mean-spirited and anti-marriage jokes in other shows. And this was around the time those sexist and “I hate marriage” jokes began seeping into the Fairly Oddparents’ writing. Nickelodeon saw success with the pilot and first two seasons of the show, and when their original writers left, they hired people who didn’t care as much for the continuity or storytelling of the show because they wanted that success to continue.
I think a lot of people tend to forget this show was cancelled five separate times during its run. For every season past its fifth, they wanted to end production, but Nickelodeon would not let them.
It was, and still is, one of Nickelodeon’s highest rated and longest running shows they’ve ever made; they kept ordering new episodes, despite the writer’s wish for it to end, because Nick wanted to ride its success. They didn’t care if it deteriorated or got worse; they just wanted it to continue making them money.
That’s why so many characters were added to the show past season five. Nick told the writers they had to add one new character per season. That’s why Poof, Foop, Goldie, Sparky, and Chloe were all added—for views and for money.
And when it stopped making them money, they cut its budget. They switched to flash animation. They moved it to their sister channel, where Nicktoons go when they’re not profitable enough for the network.
The original was a show that suffered in the hands of corporate greed.
I really, really appreciate the new show and all who have worked on it for taking what went wrong with the original and repairing it from the ground up. Oddparents has been my special interest since I was a child; it means a lot to me to see it, once again, in the hands of people who seem to really care. (though, this does not include what they did to cupid)
Again, if anyone wants to headcanon C&W as going through marriage counseling, that’s entirely fine! This isn’t meant to be me taking a jab at anyone or anything; it’s more-so just me spilling my own thoughts (because I sure have a lot of them). And if anyone likes anything from the "worse" seasons, thats fine, too! Even I like episodes from the later seasons. They're not all bad!
*For anyone interested, the original pitch from 1999 and the guidelines reference book can both be found on the Internet Archive.
