The Art of WandaVision Titles (2 of 2)
Wanda never got into Buffy the Vampire Slayer: she found it "too realistic."
The scenes snapshotted in WandaVision’s 1970s titles revolved around her pregnancy. While their “format” recalled The Brady Bunch, the scenes didn’t follow any major sitcom for inspiration…because no traditional sitcom has centered on pregnancy. Many featured pregnancy, starting with I Love Lucy, but most are built to last for years, and pregnancy lasts only months.
(Perhaps a modern animated show could use that idea, since those shows stretch or freeze the passage of time more than live-action. Family Guy did feature a side character, Bonnie Swanson, who was pregnant for over six seasons. But none have focused on the subject, AFAIK.)
A family life with growing children, though? That’s many sitcoms. Here’s what WandaVision did for its 1980s episode, with nods to Family Ties and Full House:
The 1990s titles homaged Malcolm in the Middle. This served the story on several levels. MitM’s chaotic, jaded approach to family life echoed the strain Wanda was starting to show as her paradise frayed around the edges. It also focused on the kids’ perspective, which allowed sitcom-style shenanigans to continue even as Wanda and Vision’s life together was darkening.
The final sitcom treatment took visual cues from Happy Endings and musical cues from The Office. Happy Endings’ opening is a montage of variations on its first word, with its second word only emerging in the last shot. WandaVision’s title does the same. Along with the “staring into the camera” format of The Office, this serves the plot—in which Wanda is depressed and isolated and Vision is mostly “off camera.”
Montage Maniac notes those comparisons…
…but the intro also borrows design elements from Modern Family. (That’s another “stare into the camera” mockumentary, and an influence on the plot, too.)
The original “Agatha All Along” sequence both subverts and continues the idea of the sitcom intros—Agatha Harkness literally steals the show from Wanda as she reveals herself to be behind the story’s unexplained occurrences. But like those title sequences, it’s a nod to classic TV—in this case, to The Addams Family and The Munsters.
The “Agatha All Along” sequence was the show’s most successful single moment (charted #1 on Spotify!), which is remarkable since it doesn’t really make sense. Wanda was “broadcasting” her sitcom adventures, titles and all, as a way of avoiding and escaping her grief. But why would Agatha “broadcast” her misdeeds in the same way? She doesn’t have Wanda’s issues with denial. If the scene’s only for our benefit, then fine, but the other titles were real within the world of the show…
But who cares? The sequence is a snarky, fun, scenery-chewing moment that introduces one of the MCU’s few memorable villains. It may not make logical sense, but it does make emotional sense.
Just for fun, here’s a few “outtakes” (not really outtakes) from WandaVision in the styles of Happy Days, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and Friends. As production company Warp Zone admits, these are a little too spoilery to have been used in the series (the whole point is that Wanda’s in denial over what she’s doing), and they’re not tied to specific points in the series’ development like the actual titles. Still, they’re fun!
Tomorrow: A post-Halloween roundup!