Minorities in cartoons: "Waynehead"

Updated on December 10, 2021

This week’s minorities in cartoons entry is the 1996 series “Waynehead.” The series ran for one season (1996-1997) on Kids’ WB.

Background

The series featured the adventures of Damien “Damey” Wayne, a young boy with a club foot, who lives with his family in an inner-city neighborhood. Similar to “Fat Albert,” Damey had a group of friends with who he had various misadventures. The series was partly based on creator Damon Wayans’ childhood in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City.

The series saw some promotion by the network, but was ultimately canceled due to low ratings.

In spite of its short run, the show did get referenced at least once elsewhere. The “Pinky and the Brain” episode “Dangerous Brains” sees the lab mice’s latest scheme involve Brain working as a teacher in a run-down, chaotic high school classroom. Meanwhile, Pinky poses as one of Brain’s students, “Pinkhead.” They even parody the “Waynehead” theme song!

Voice actors

Voices on the series included: Gary Coleman; Marlon, Kim and Shawn Wayans; Jamil Walker Smith; Tico Wells; John Witherspoon; Frank Welker; and T’Keyah Crystal Keymah (the voice of Bumblebee on “Teen Titans”).

Syndication/Home video

“Waynehead” appeared in reruns for a few years on Cartoon Network, before vanishing from the airwaves entirely.

To date, “Waynehead” has yet to see a home video release, and doesn’t seem to be available anywhere on streaming video (Netflix, Amazon, etc.). The only place to see episodes of “Waynehead” are via individuals’ uploads of the show to YouTube.