#nostalgiamare

I'm always going to defend the conception and backstory behind Abby Cadabby because no matter what anyone says she was always made out of genuine love, effort and consideration for both her character and the audience. But I can't deny that at some point during her third year on Sesame Street the promotional, marketing and merchandising team were getting a little too used to saying "Abby's Elmo for girls!" (Yes she was already becoming very popular but this is not how she was developed nor is this her own character at the end of the day) and began doing whatever they could to mould her into that title and grab the attention of her target demographic (Abby In Wonderland, Flying Fairy School, the plethora of toys, books and other merchandise with her face on it).

Pretty sure so many people that worked on the Powerpuff Girls (Including Craig McCracken himself) already stated time and time again that the Powerpuff Girls was not really a show aimed at a girly demographic despite them having young girls for protagonists (For christ sake there were a few episodes that even made fun of this really weird notion). But it seems that someone who was probably on Cartoon Network's marketing team during the 2000s threw that out the window and couldn't resist the urge to brush off McCracken's feelings about the whole idea because "This is what girls want and we need more money!" or something like that. It's that sort of frame of mind that wouldn't make me surprised that the rumours McCracken was the one that stopped anymore Dream In Style content from being made a year or two into it's run because he hated it so much came out as true.

Dora The Explorer also seemed to fall into this category of a show with a female protagonist but was still for a fairly more androgynous audience during it's early years. Though unlike the Powerpuff Girls situation with it's creators, the people behind Dora The Explorer appeared to have embraced the thought of catering the show to girls more through new storylines, products and promotional content with more feminine themes (Mermaids, princesses, etc), which is probably one of the reasons as to how we got the Explorer Girls era of the franchise.