Over the last few weeks, you may have noticed I haven’t come out with any feature posts, and the reason is simple. I’ve been spending all of my time trying to understand the purpose of The Fairly Oddparents, aside from it being a funny show back in its heyday.
During my research, if that’s what you want to call it, I realized that the show taught me way more about life than I ever gave it credit for. While it’s no “Boy Meets World,” this show was far more relevant than I ever realized.
See, I came across something pretty subtle while combing through the TFO narrative, and it’s this: You don’t really grow up until you figure out how to properly deal with your problems.
One thing that bothers me about TFO (and it probably bothers you, too) is that Timmy Turner learns the same lesson every single week. This lesson is that you can’t just wish your problems away. Every time you do, you end up creating more problems. And even in a world where you get everything you want, there are still rules, terms and conditions that will hold you back.
Which brings me to the true purpose of The Fairly Oddparents. It’s not simply to give us a show where we can laugh at the misfortunes of a ten-year-old boy who has the world at his fingertips. It’s to show us that the fairy godparents aren’t really there to just give Timmy whatever he wants.
Instead, the whole point of giving Timmy fairy godparents is to teach him that he doesn’t need them. In fact, the very first episode of the main show is about Timmy wishing that he was grown up, instead of just…well growing up the normal way.
In the pilot, Cosmo and Wanda say they want to help Timmy by granting him wishes, and I still think it’s true. But the point is clearly to help Timmy understand that he doesn’t really need magic to solve his problems. After all, in that same pilot episode, Timmy uses his wishes to abuse and torture Vicky, making him just as bad as her.
As the series progresses, we watch Timmy consistently use magic to make his life better, but it never turns out quite as he expected. And the show won’t end (for real) until Timmy decides to figure life out on his own, rather than rely on magical godparents to preserve his childhood.
To some of you, this may seem obvious. Of course, that’s the point of the show, right? The fairies are just temporary companions meant to help Timmy with frankly temporary problems. It’s no wonder, then, that the show doesn’t occur when Timmy is going through puberty. It really has to take place during the last years of true childhood, because after that, Timmy won’t need them anymore.
We even see this play out to some extent during “Channel Chasers,” when Timmy starts to age quickly at the very end. We see him as a teenager for the first time, and as the years progress, he forgets all about Cosmo and Wanda. By default, we think that’s just because adults can’t fathom fairy godparents, but it’s the opposite. The fairies are there to make sure Timmy stops needing them, so he can get to a place where he’s ready to face life’s challenges on his own.
For these reasons, I’ll always look back fondly on the 2001-2006 run of the show, which is certainly when it was at its prime. These days, there’s a baby and a dog, or something. I’m not really sure and don’t care to find out.
Before I go, here’s one thing about the show you may not know. The truth of Dinkleberg’s name and why Timmy’s dad hates him so much.
The Dinkleberg family name is a reference to D.I.N.K., which is an acronym for “Dual Income No Kids.” Hence, the Dinklebergs have an enormous amount of wealth that makes Timmy’s dad so envious.
Thanks for reading this. To get updates on my theories, books, and giveaways, join my mailing list.
I say “indisputable,” but what I really mean is “really difficult to disprove because the evidence is compelling” (and who has time for that long of a headline?)
Frozen and Tangled are two animated Disney films that exist in the post-Disney Renaissance slew of films that ended with The Princess & The Frog. They are among the first high-profile Disney films, aside from Pixar, to use computer animation as a means to retelling classic “fairy tale” stories.
Fan art – Colby Entertainment
Tangled, which premiered in 2010, features the story of Rapunzel. The movie was a huge success, mostly because it brought a new kind of enjoyable movie experience to both children and adults akin to the Disney Renaissance films of the 1990s.
As you may recall, the films between The Little Mermaid (you can also count The Brave Little Toaster) and Treasure Planet were animated films that took old classic icons and modernized them for a new audience.
The “Disney Renaissance” films according to The Norman Nerd.
Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King (which modernized Hamlet), Pocahontas, Hercules, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mulan, Tarzan, Emperor’s New Groove, Atlantis and Treasure Planet all featured established stories with cutting-edge animation.
Then Lilo & Stitch happened—a Disney film that while successful, signaled a departure from the old format. Disney was going for original stories.
Meet The Robinson’s
For the next few years, Disney would continue experimenting with both CGI and 2D animation, but they would only cover new stories (probably due to the success of Pixar’s original stories).
Valiant, The Wild, Home on the Range, Meet the Robinson’s and Bolt were mitigated successes that ended up being mere shadows of how captivating Disney movies really could be.
The Princess & The Frog
This culminated with the release of The Princess and the Frog, an obvious attempt at cashing in on the old formula (revitalizing an old story).The movie was well-received, but it still didn’t have the cultural impact that Disney was looking for—and they knew this a mile away.
That’s why in 2010, Disney threw a hail mary with Tangled, the first post-renaissance film to combine both strategies of the previous generations: computer animation and established storytelling.
Tangled wasn’t an immediate hit culturally, but it would eventually become a mainstream staple upon DVD releases and the onslaught of meme-generation online. It was a good first start.
But Disney didn’t figure out why Tangled worked before they would make a colossal mistake in 2011, which saw the release of Mars Needs Moms—one of the biggest box office disasters in movie history.
That same year was also when they brought back Winnie the Pooh and figured out that 2D animation just wouldn’t cut it anymore—not because it doesn’t look amazing, but because the tastes of the new generation have changed.
Wreck-It Ralph
Disney’s next experiment would come in 2012 with the release of Wreck-It-Ralph, an odd case study about a movie where video games come to life. The makers of the film clearly wanted to find a new groove for these movies without having to rip off old properties by featuring…well old properties from video games.
Wreck-It Ralph drew in viewers because it was a fantastic homage to dozens of iconic video game characters, even though it featured an original story and computer animation.
So, does Wreck-It Ralph exist in the same universe as Tangled and Frozen? Well, there’s actually more evidence that they take place in the same universe as The Fairly OddParents…
The Fairly OddParents
Hold on, let’s zoom in a little bit:
Of course, it’s probably too good to be true.
By 2013, Disney had figured out that original stories coming out under their umbrella need to have something familiar for audiences to grab on to in order to gain momentum in the box office.
And then everything changed when Frozen came along.
Frozen
One of the most successful animated films of all time (especially our time), Frozen finally got the Disney recipe right. Based on The Snow Queen, the movie was a familiar, but fresh take on a classic fairy tale.
Of course, it was still successful without having to be instantly familiar to children. Thanks to a viral soundtrack, fun storytelling and memorable characters, Frozen has essentially marked the beginning of a new era of Disney movies, and what is a Disney movie without some universe sharing?
Yes, Tangled and Frozen exist in the same universe for plenty of reasons, but the most important being that the two movies are of a significant recipe that is uniquely different from every other Disney film. Also, I have evidence:
See that couple in the bottom-left corner of the image? That’s Flynn and Rapunzel (after her hair changes color and length) from Tangled showing up to Elsa’s coronation in Frozen.
It’s clear that the animation style is seamless enough for these characters to show up in the movie without looking out of place, and you can even see that their wardrobe has subtly shifted.
Another persistent theory you may buy into was proposed by this redditor who claims that Flynn and Rapunzel were at the coronation because Elsa and Anna’s parents died while traveling to their wedding 3 years before the events of Frozen.
He also claims that Flynn actually refers to Arendelle as “being nice this time of year,” but I’ve yet to find the actual clip of him saying that in Tangled or Tangled Ever After.
Corona
Another interesting piece of evidence is how similar the settings are conceptually. Tangled is loosely based on the fairy tale about Rapunzel, which takes place in Germany. In the movie, however, their adventures take place in the fictional kingdom of Corona, rather than any real settings.
Arendelle
In similar fashion, Frozen is based on a Norwegian tale, but it takes place in the fictional kingdom of Arendelle. The idea here is that Disney is trying to build new fictional kingdoms to go along with their adaptations, so you can expect to see more of this in future Disney CGI films.
Going forward, 2014’s big animated movie is Big Hero 6, which is an animated adaptation more similar to Wreck-It-Ralph than Tangled and Frozen due to its ties with “geek” culture (the movie is based on a graphic novel and features fighting robots).
2015 will be even stranger, with the release of The Descendants, a Disney Channel Original Movie that calls back to the 90s era with the offspring of the protagonists from those films. If you needed more evidence that the Disney Renaissance movies shared a universe, then that should settle the discussion.
Other than that, however, there are no announced projects on the horizon that will continue the post-renaissance film sharing that has begun with Tangled and Frozen…for now.
[UPDATE]
Some clever commenters pointed out that The Little Mermaid may exist within this universe as well. The theory (which has now been propagated by Tumblr users and promoted by Buzzfeed) is that the sunken ship in The Little Mermaid is the same one that Elsa and Anna’s parents died on when it was lost at sea.
One piece of evidence has to do with the location of each movie. Tangled takes place in Germany, Frozen takes place in Norway and The Little Mermaid takes place in Denmark. In order for Elsa’s parents to travel from Norway to Germany via boat, they would have passed by Denmark. See below:
I have to admit that this definitely solid evidence (and kudos to you readers who pointed it out in the comments, including my roommate who pointed out the same thing). Of course, the biggest piece of evidence is the fact that both The Little Mermaid and Frozen are based on fairy tales written by the same person: Hans Christian Andersen.
If this is all true, then that would mean Frozen and Tangled exist within the same universe as the Disney Renaissance films, albeit with some new twists to their conceptual design and settings.
Another update: a lot of people like to argue that this is somehow connected to Tarzan and/or Beauty and the Beast. Guys, it’s not. It’s just not.
Thanks for reading this. To get updates on my theories, books, and giveaways, join my mailing list.
