Trivia / Wizards of Waverly Place

• Acting for Two:
  • In "Delinquent Justin", David Henrie plays four different versions of himself, two of them at the same time.
  • Also, Selena Gomez plays herself and Harper in "Family Game Night". In "Quinceanera", she plays herself, her father and her mother. In "Third Wheel", she plays herself and Justin. So, basically, she played almost every main character, except for Max.
    • Special mention to "Family Game Night" where Alex and Harper's brains are in the same body
    • She also plays Alex's evil side in the new special, The Wizards Return: Alex vs. Alex.
  • Jake T. Austin plays Max, Justin and Alex in "Three Maxes And A Little Lady".
  • Both David DeLuise and Maria Canals Barrera play Alex in "Quinceanera".
  • Jennifer Stone plays Alex in "Family Game Night".
  • Jennifer Stone also plays Harper twice (often simultaneously) in "My Two Harpers".
  • The actors who play Justin, Max and Zeke play their regular characters, "Cinderella"-versions of their characters and the Three Little Pigs in "Harperella".
• Ascended Fanon:
  • Fans theorized that Mason would somehow come back at one point, reverting to his human-like form. This turns out to be what the last few episodes of Season 3 revolve around.
  • Harper is constantly being written by fans as a girl who has a terrible life at home, and is eventually forced to live with the Russos. In Season 3, she moves in.
  • Ever since Zeke's introduction, he was paired with Harper by fans, due to their similar Sidekick statuses. In later episodes, they have a love interest growing.
  • Many fan stories have been written about Alex fearing Justin leaving for college, and coming up with wacky hijinks to stop him from leaving. In "Delinquent Justin", this turns out to be the entire plot, which she has been planning for four years in advance.
  • One of the most famous fanfics in the Jalex fandom, In Fire, In Ice, revolves around the government finding out about magic, and the government hunting down/imprisoning all wizards, and Justin and Alex going on the run desperately trying to survive. In the Season 3 finale, the government finds out about magic and imprisons the Russos along with numerous other wizards, though in the context of the show it was just a test by Professor Crumbs.
• Actor Allusion: "Off The Chain" is mentioned by Alex who's actor Selena Gomez has a song called Off The Chain in the episode Eat To The Beat.
• California Doubling: The show is set in New York City but was filmed at a Hollywood studio in Los Angeles. This is not the case for The Movie, which was filmed on location in Puerto Rico.
• Cast Incest: Selena Gomez and David Henrie used to be seen going on a few dates, and being much more friendly with each other than they are with rest of the cast members, throughout the course of filming the show.
• Dawson Casting: While Selena Gomez and Jake T. Austin are the same age as their characters, David Henrie is a couple years older than Justin, making him a downplayed example.
• Enforced Method Acting: A lot. The show is filled with improv from the more talented actors, and they just roll with it.
• Executive Meddling: Disney pushed the creators hard for Mason/Alex.
• Fake Mixed Race: The kids are half Italian-American, half Mexican-American. Selena Gomez is the only one of the actors who is the same combination, with David Henrie being Italian and Jake T. Austin being English and Puerto Rican.
• Follow the Leader: There are some very obvious similarities to other existing series. In fact, multiple episode plots seem to be copied directly from Sabrina the Teenage Witch. (e.g. Alex getting trapped inside her mirror or Alex being trapped inside a silent movie. Both of those happened to Sabrina.) The series was also released at the height of the Harry Potter craze, and ended one year after The Deathly Hallows — Part 2 was released. Later episodes involve vampires and werewolves to compete with The Twilight Saga.
• Irony as She Is Cast: in "Dancing with Angels", Alex is shown to be a terrible singer.
  • Series Continuity Error: But in "Dude Looks Like Shakira" and "Make It Happen", she sings well.
  • Fridge Brilliance: She cast a spell for it.
• Queer Character, Queer Actor: While it was never said in the show itself, years later it was confirmed Alex and Stevie had a relationship. Stevie's actress Hayley Kiyoko is openly lesbian.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Max Russo's actor Jake T. Austin took a short break from the series to attend college and to finish his role on the Blue Sky Studios film, Rio during the fourth and final season of the series; his absence was explained by a story arc in which Alex botched a transformation spell during a Zany Scheme to restore her powers, and Max was changed to a girl named Maxine (played by Bailee Madison).
• Reality Subtext: David Henrie (Justin Russo) and Selena Gomez (Alex Russo) liked one another in Real Life, a fact which affected their characters' relationship to the point where even the fans, the critics and their friends noticed that Justin and Alex acted a little "strange" around each other, especially in The Movie.
• Romance on the Set: Between David Henrie and Lucy Hale. Henrie asked Hale, his then-girlfriend of a couple years to play his love interest on the series, appearing in two Season 1 episodes.
• Star-Making Role: For Selena Gomez.
• Teasing Creator: The creator is known to joke about the Justin/Alex pairing, recently stating that if he ever runs out of ideas, he'll do a whole season of Jalex-filled episodes.
• Throw It In!: All Myths Are True, as long as they can be Played for Laughs.
• Underage Casting: In "Movies", Ruby Donahue is in a movie about a sorority, even though her actress Malese Jow was only 16 at the time.
• What Could Have Been: The original idea was that Justin and Alex would be friends instead of siblings.
  • The family was originally supposed to be Irish, but this was changed for Gomez.
  • There could have been a Christmas Episode that would have Santa Claus as a wizard. It was rejected by Disney because it was either too weird or it would have Santa become a Fallen Hero.
  • In the original unaired pilot, Alex and Justin were twins named Jordan and Julia, with no sign of Max, and Justin had a best friend played by Brandon Mychal Smith. David Deluise also wasn't Jerry in the pilot, having been brought on afterwards.
  • According to writer and executive producer Peter Murrieta, Alex was originally intended to be more explicitly bisexual and her relationship with Stevie was planned to be more romantic. However, Disney Channel executives forced the crew to scrap their plans, leaving Alex to only be Ambiguously Bi in the final show.
  • Henrie was originally signed to Disney for his own star vehicle TV series which was eventually scrapped, and he was basically forced to do Wizards in its stead.
• Word of Gay: According to head writer and executive producer Peter Murrieta, Alex is bisexual, which was only subtly implied by the show. According to Peter, the team wanted to explore Alex's bisexuality in more depth, such as with her relationship with Stevie, but Disney Channel executives forced them to scrap their plans.
• Word of God: About Stevie's apparent death, creator Todd J. Greenwald said on his Twitter that she was fused back together and sent of to an island for 6 months of 'Soul Rehab', and that she now lives a happy, fulfilling life back in the Wiz World with her new dogs, Mark and Susan.
• Written by Cast Member: David Henrie wrote two episodes.
• You Look Familiar: Amanda Tepe has played several characters, many of which have a dry, bored sounding voice.

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