"Waynehead, Waynehead,
The party's just begun!
Waynehead, Waynehead,
That's the 411 for fun!"
The party's just begun!
Waynehead, Waynehead,
That's the 411 for fun!"
— From the Theme Tune Rap
Waynehead was a short-lived Canadian-American Kids' WB! animated series created by American actor Damon Wayans. It was co-produced by Warner Bros. Animation in the States and Nelvana in Canada, airing 13 episodes as one full season from 1996 to 1997. The show starred Damien "Damey" Wayne, a young boy from a poor background who had to wear a leg brace for his club foot. Along with his friends, he had to contend with bullies using humor. This was based on Wayans' own childhood in the Chelsea neighborhood in the New York City Borough of Manhattan. Actors featured in the show included Orlando Brown, T'Keyah Crystal Keymáh, Jamil Walker Smith, Tico Wells, John Witherspoon, and even Gary Coleman. Some of Damon's siblings such as WB veterans Shawn and Marlon, as well as Kim also had roles in the series. Despite the show's low ratings and its swift cancellation by its original network, it was moved to Cartoon Network and aired from 1998 to 2000.
The show was never released on home video, and thus only way people can watch it is through recordings. Then on April 21, 2021 Warner Bros released digital downloads of all of the episodes through Amazon and Vudu, just a six month shy from the 25th anniversary.
Tropes:
- Action Girl: Roz
- Advertised Extra: Despite being featured alongside the group in the opening, Tripod only appears in the latter half of the series, with his only major appearance being in the last episode, "Rebel Without a Paw".
- Animation Bump: The opening of the series was the sole contribution that Tokyo Movie Shinsha made to this series, and it's a lot more fluid and bouncy compared to the show's actual episodes.
- Athletically Challenged: Damey's dad is shown to be an absolute nightmare at playing basketball.
- Braving the Blizzard: The beginning of the episode "Be Mine...Or Else" parodies this with Roz, who becomes too desperate to go outside during a snowstorm after two weeks. Once she goes outside, she gets dragged by the wind and immediately has to struggle to get back inside.
- Celebrity Toons: The show was more or less based on Damon Wayans' childhood as an inner city kid, complete with the sense of humor that would later make him famous (and yes, Damon Wayans did have a metal leg brace due to a club foot). The show basically played out as a dry-run Everybody Hates Chris if it were an animated sitcom for kids.
- Dancing Theme: Damey, Mo' Money and Marvin.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: In the first 6 episodes, the sound for Damey's leg brace would make a "thump" sound in the opening theme. This vanish in later episodes.
- Funny Foreigner: Aki is a Black and Nerdy boy from Botswana, Africa, complete with the regional accent. Damey initially doesn't want to hang out with him just for being an awkward nerd, wheezing when he gets excited or scared, and mostly has interests that remind him of his home country.
- Green Around the Gills: In "No Mo' Money", after having helped a kid scam Damey out of his money to get a pass for an amusement park, Mo' Money is revealed to have puked sometime offscreen from motion sickness on an rollercoaster towards the end of the episode.
- Special Guest: Heavy D appears as himself in the fourth episode.
- Honest John's Dealership: Mo' Money attempts to run a car washing service, even though he purposefully stained the leather of one car to get the attention of a customer. Not only that, but he also flattens the tire of that car in a attempt to negotiate more money. It doesn't work, it fails miserably in fact.
- Jerkass Ball: While Toof is usually a Nice Guy, he held this in "Quest for Fireworks" when he took credit for Damey finding the Fireworks.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
- Mo' Money is a Greedy Hustler who isn't above Scamming his friends, but he will occasionally pull through for them.
- Marvin isn't the nicest guy around, but he's still a decent guy at heart.
- Roz may seem like a Jerkass due to her Action Girl Personality, but she's far from being that and is actually Damey's most loyal friend.
- Hustler: Mo' Money
- Nice Guy: Damey.
- The Lancer: Mo' Money
- Moonwalk Dance: Damey does this towards the ending of the intro.
- Obvious Pregnancy: Mrs. Wayne is shown to be pregnant from the very start of the series, though outside of the large belly, its not really that obvious. It's not until episode 9 where Damey and the gang have to get her to the hospital when she goes into labor.
- Pounds Are Animal Prisons: Tripod's time spent in the pound after getting captured is treated this way, and he's put on permanent lockdown until Damey and the gang break him out.
- Rescue Romance: Damey saves Roz from a group of stray dogs and she expresses her gratitude by instantly falling in love with him, simply because no one's ever saved her. Damey's not exactly happy about this.
- Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: Damey accidentally bumped the Candy Machine and Toof eats a chocolate:Toof: I went somewhere down the hall
I got Chocolate on the wall
I wipe up, To make a mess
If it's a job, We do... Uh, we do all the time? - The Smurfette Principle: Roz is the only female in the group.
- What You Are in the Dark:
- In "Demon of The Dozens", Damey finds out school bully Byron is the guy in the chicken suit outside of the chicken restaurant and prepares to use the humiliating secret as ammo against him in their insult battle if Byron resorts to mocking his foot, but in the end he decides to be the better person and request a draw, telling Byron he'll keep his secret. But when Byron proceeds to attempt to attack Damey and silence the one kid who knows his secret, he ends up exposing himself when the chicken suit falls out of his bag in the scuffle.
- In "No Mo' Money", after Damey is scammed out of his family's grocery money and desperately looks for work to get it back, he helps an old lady carry her heavy groceries up several flights of stairs and all she gives him is a dime. Then after she leaves the room, he spots a $5 bill poking out of her purse (exactly the amount he needs) and the old lady has fallen over. He's briefly tempted to steal it while she's incapacitated, but instead he helps the old lady up and ends up being given the $5 bill anyway when he takes a job walking her dogs.
- With Friends Like These...: Mo' Money rivals Dijonay as a manipulative, backstabbing, and an overall untrustworthy friend. Sure he hangs out with the group but likewise isn't afraid to scam them if it could benefit him in some fashion.
- Shout-Out: There's alot of references to Hip-Hop and R&B culture and general African American pop-culture that was prevalent at the time.
- The first episode, "Demon of The Dozens" includes a few including:
Roz: "He looks just like the Karate Kid guy. You know, from the movie." - Totally Radical: Given the urban New York setting and the time period of the show being around the same time hip-hop and R&B really started to become mainstream, you can expect lots of the associated lingo of the time being used frequently, such as "It's gonna be the bomb".
- Younger Than They Look: Several of the large and grotesque punks, including The Bully, Byron, look more like a high school students rather a kids attending elementary school.
- Your Mom: "Demon of The Dozens", kicks off its entire plot around this. Damey can get absolutely ruthless with the "Your momma" jokes. especially when he's insulted about his club foot, which gets him in trouble with Byron. During their one-on-one match at the episode's climax, they resort back to doing this.
