Welcome to the Wayne is an animated series on Nickelodeon created by Billy Lopez (formerly a composer/writer for Peg + Cat and Wonder Pets!). The show premiered on July 24, 2017 and ended on May 31, 2019.
Welcome to the Wayne follows the comedic adventures of three friends, Ansi Molina, Olly Timbers, and Saraline Timbers, as they aim to unlock the secrets of their Manhattan apartment building, The Wayne. Each new investigation brings them face-to-face with new characters, creatures, and oddities that they've coined as “Wayne Phenomena,” getting them closer to uncovering the truth about the weird things happening in their building.
The show began life as a six-episode mini series that aired on Nickelodeon's website in late 2014 before being greenlit as a full-length series, making it the second Nicktoon to be based on a webtoon after Making Fiends. Following a year-long hiatus (in which the show didn't air at all on American television), Nickelodeon aired the remainder of the first season on Nicktoons in October 2018. The second season premiered the following May, with the show's Grand Finale airing on May 31st, 2019.
The mini-series was uploaded to YouTube by Nick Animation, and can be watched here
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Welcome to the Wayne provides examples of:
- Absurd Phobia: Vampires don't like spoons, and it's not because they're made of silver.
- Adventurer Archaeologist: Dr. Jonah Bishop.
- Applied Phlebotinum: The rainbow gas. So far, it's been seen as a food source for the squidgets and Sleepyhead, medicine for a ferret, a method to imbue life into Gleeco bricks, a 'key' for a bracelet that's forced a WP to be under the Spy's service, and a power up for Andrei, letting him shoot energy from his hands.
- Animate Inanimate Object: Many Wayne Phenomena are living objects, some are implied to always have been alive like a secret tribe of pipes and their washing machine pharaoh, a trio consisting of a walking nose, glasses and a moustache, and a group of living mannequins. Others have obtained life by other means like Gleecoman through "Rainbow Gas" and a society of bowling pins that gained life by making a deal with the aforementioned mannequins.
- Arc Symbol: One that shows up on various plot important items that looks like two cones overlapping at their vertices, symbolizing "The Gyre".
- Art Evolution: The animation in the television series looks much cleaner and the characters look less off-model than that of the web series it's based on.
- Bazaar of the Bizarre: The Farway, where the Wayne Phenomena go to shop.
- Big Bad: The Spy from Apartment 8I, who is later revealed to be part of a larger organization named "Calliope" towards the end of the first season.
- Prismal the Spy's boss, is introduced in the second season and is the main enemy until he is defeated in the season finale.
- Bigger on the Inside: Some of the spaces inside the Wayne, like the postal system or the library, seem way too big to coexist with the apartments.
- Book Ends: Each of the pilot episodes began with a view from outside The Wayne, from up to down showing the oddities of the building and ending in the front door. The last episode ends with a view from outside the building starting with the front door showing many characters and ending with a shot of the statue of the Arcsine on top of The Wayne.
- Breaking the Fellowship: The Spy tries to use a shapeshifting WP she's enslaved to break Team Timbers up.
- Building of Adventure: The Wayne itself.
- Casting Gag: In "Like No Other Market On Earth", Tom Kenny, the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants, voices the SpongeBob expy SpongeRobert RectangleShorts.
- Change the Uncomfortable Subject: In "Hit It, Toofus!", Mr. Timbers is about to ask Mr. Molina, a psychiatrist, about something that happens to his body every time he eats asparagus, only for Ansi to cut him off and explain that he's not that kind of doctor.
- Complete Immortality: So far, Sleepyhead has been obliterated twice, and seems to be coming back for more...
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: The postcards are swiped by a robotic pigeon, which is later revealed to be trying to mail them for the kids. It's even lampshaded.
- Dangerous Forbidden Technique: It's revealed in episode 8 that Andrei using rainbow gas is this.
- Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: Andrei hums it at the beginning of "Hit It, Toofus!".
- Easy Amnesia: In "Some Kind of Tap-Dancing, Beekeeping Whaler", Team Timbers erases Wendell's memory of Andrei the vampire.
- The End... Or Is It?: In the last episode after defeating Prismal the camera focuses on his mask and then Mr. Majestic (Olly's hamster) gets close to it and a portion of dark Beam comes from it and is inhaled by him, after sneezing he is revealed to have Red Eyes, Take Warning, meaning that he's been possessed by Prismal and then looks directly at the camera, then the series ends.
- Eternal Engine: The Wayne's crawlspaces and utilities are big and strange enough to count as their own ecosystem, and that's without counting the secret labs and monster hidey-holes.
- Eye Colour Change: Normas and Normans have their eyes change when suffering from WP exposure induced Go Mad from the Revelation.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Many episodes are very fast paced and backgrounds will flash by, but if you slow things down you can see many things in the hallways and large rooms that are interesting to look at (airplanes, cars, space capsules, the huge number of paintings on the walls, etc).
- Free-Range Children: The kids explore every place in The Wayne on their own, either the public places like the hallways and the roof or the secret zones of the building where Wayne Phenomena inhabits. Justified in that most people are "normans" who can go insane if they catch even a glimpse of a WP which is something that the kids would not want to risk with their parents, although the web series does seem to show it's more of a "they won't believe us/it's not worth getting them involved" issue.
- Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: Andrei is a fairly friendly dude.
- Fun with Acronyms: The monster under Ansi's bed in the pilot turns out to be a Metallic Octagonal Non-Static Escape Route, a Tube Travel system that goes through the Wayne.
- Gasshole:
- Flowershirt might be hinting he's one of these due to his "powerful gas" comment about Spy's line on the rainbow gas.
- Olly also seems to have some elements of this.
- Go Mad from the Revelation: Normal people (or "Normas" and "Normans", according to Saraline) people exposed to Wayne Phenomena tend to, after going into denial, go loopy and blurt out nonsense. If it progresses into its next stage, it can become permanent if not dealt with quickly.
- Great Big Library of Everything: The Wayne has a secret library called the Stanza managed by an elderly lady and a large number of squid-like creatures.
- Griping About Gremlins: They look a lot like Saraline, and other WPs consider them a food source.
- Heroic BSoD: Andrei explodes at Ansi, Olly and Saraline at the end of "Swap Shop Hop & Bop" after he feels like they've ruined his one chance at discovering his past.
- Invisible Parents: While Olly and Saraline's parents made their first appearance in episode 8, and Ansi's father made his in episode 11, Ansi's mother has not yet appeared onscreen.
- Killer Rabbit: Some Wayne Phenomena look cute but are dangerous like the Scurian which is a squirrel made of energy that shoots lasers and multiplies if scared and cuts anything it touches. A more literal is Edward Hopper a rabbit which posseses all kind of magic powers and is almost a Reality Warper, which Team Timbers could only defeat by Talking the Monster to Death and him making a Heel–Face Turn.
- Laughing Mad: "Wayne Brain", the result of a Norma/Norman being exposed to Wayne Phenomena for too long,
- "Lesson of the Day" Speech: Saraline at the end of "Mail Those Cards, Boys!":You know? I think I learned something today. You can't force friendship. Sometimes you have to go to a post office, and fight robots, and... (inspirational music stops) Yeah, I learned nothing today.* Meaningful Name: Flowershirt most likely is called that due to the Hawaiian shirt he wears.
- Mind over Matter: Wendell can control spoons with his mind.
- Nebulous Evil Organisation: Calliope.
- One-Winged Angel: Episode one ends with "Sleepyhead" reforming from the goop larger than before and with a single wing on its back.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: While "Masterson" sounds rather namelike the other two individuals he had currently been spotted associating with are known at the moment only as The Spy from Apartment 8I and Flowershirt.
- The Spy tells Andrei her name in episode 8, but the audience doesn't hear it. All we know is that Andrei doesn't think it's very common.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Played With. Initially, Ansi and Wendell encounter what they think is a vampire, but is really a different creature residing in the Wayne, who is apparently mistaken for a vampire by the inexperienced. But then Ansi finds a real vampire, who seems to follow some basic vampire rules, like a lack of a reflection and burning in sunlight, but also has more unusual traits, like green skin that glows in the dark and a spoon phobia.
- Our Werewolves Are Different: All it takes to transform someone is contact with werewolf saliva, while the cure is a specific brand of lip gloss to the lips. Werewolf hunters fend them off with spatulas instead of spoons.
- Persona Non Grata: Ms. Clara bars the group from being able to enter The Stanza when they refuse to let her kill Andrei even after he saved Goodness. They are still able to sneak in thanks to Goodness, and by the season finale Andrei and Ms. Clara make amends and the ban is lifted.
- Phantom-Zone Picture: Scurians, a type of WP that manifests as a flying squirrel made out of light, can only be captured by taking a photograph of them.
- Public Secret Message: In several of the episodes encoded messages are seen out in the open. So far, the characters haven't noticed them nor drawn attention to them. Among other locations, one appeared in the hotel's playground at the base of some stairs, and another is in an abandoned hallway where someone used a scaffold to reach high enough to write it.
- Pun: In "Today Was Wassome", George the doorman says "Nice venting to you" after complaining about an insult through the ventilation shafts.
- Rite of Passage: In episode 8, Andrei has to fight a large, spectral fish-like entity on the roof of the Wayne as part of one. He gets exposed to the rainbow gas in the process, and gets the ability to shoot beams of energy from his hands.
- Shout-Out:
- In "Rise and Shine Sleepyhead", Ansi names the squidget whom he befriends "John Keats" after the author of the poetry book the squidget steals from him.
- Ansi, Olly and Saraline are fond of assigning nicknames based on celebrities to mysterious creatures or objects in the Wayne, such as "Brick Springfield"/"Brick Astley" (a toy Gleeco brick imbued with rainbow gas), "Tony Stanza" (the mysterious knight in The Stanza), and "Kate Moth" (a giant magical moth).
- The host of the informational video on The Gyre in "Gimble in the Wabe" is named "Judd Hirsch".
- "Gyre and Gimble in the Wabe" is also a part of the Jabberwocky poem from "Alice in Wonderland".
- A chase sequence in "Like a Happy, Happy Bird" is punctuated by the opening notes of "Yakety Sax".
- In "It's the Mid-Season Finale", as Saraline and Tony Stanza are looking through visions of the past, present, and future:
Saraline: So let's go Back to the Future!Tony Stanza: I thought this was A Christmas Carol. - Speak in Unison: Ansi and Olly tend to do this a lot.
- The Speechless: Katherine Alice is completely mute and communicates via elaborate origami creations. Until midway through season 2 when she regains her voice, which it turns out was stolen by Prismal when she was a baby.
- Strong Family Resemblance: Olly and Saraline certainly bear some resemblances to their father and mother respectively.
- Super Team: "The Gyre", a prophesied group of individuals tasked with protecting the Wayne. Later revealed to be Ansi, Olly, Saraline, and their allies in the expanded Team Timbers.
- Take Over the World: A running plot point is that whoever takes control of the Wayne may eventually take over the world.
- The Voiceless: Leif in season two. Though quite chatty in the first season, Leif's voice actor wasn't available for season two, so he never says anything. Lampshaded in the finale, when everyone in the Gyre gets to say a few words at the end, but everytime Leif tries to speak someone interrupts him.
- Time Skip: A short one. The series takes place a few weeks after the events of the miniseries, with Ansi already being friends with the Timbers siblings and aware of the building's oddities.
- Tube Travel: The preferred method of transportation around the Wayne is the "MONSTER" tube system, which shoots them around the building at neat-sonic speed; see Fun with Acronyms above.
- Van Helsing Hate Crime: Wendell Wasserman, to the point of mocking Ansi for sympathizing with the vampire.
- Villain Over for Dinner: "In Hit It, Toofus", the protagonists try to hide Andrei from the Spy in the siblings apartment, but Olly arranged a dinner with their parents without the others knowledge, everything complicates when The Spy from Apartment 8I and Flowershirt join them, to protect their secrets they pretend that she is Saraline's French teacher and her husband.
- We Will Meet Again: Tony Stanza tells Team Timbers that despite the failure of her plan to take over the Wayne, The Spy from Apartment 8I will be back.
- Weirdness Censor: Normal people (or "Normas" and "Normans", according to Saraline) go into denial when they see WP's, before devolving into Go Mad from the Revelation (though it seems that being able to rationalize it as something more mundane, like with Gleecoman, prevents this).
- You Have Failed Me: The head of Calliope to The Spy from Apartment 8I at the end of the season 1 finale.
- Youkai: A WP encountered in the Wayne's supermarket looks like a futakuchi-onna.
