Wizards of Waverly Place

Wizards of Waverly Place
File:Wowppy.jpg Official Show Poster The Russo kids. (l-r: Justin, Alex, and Max.)
Created by	Todd J. Greenwald
Starring	Selena Gomez David Henrie Jake T. Austin Jennifer Stone Maria Canals Barrera David DeLuise
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	18 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	Todd J. Greenwald Peter Murrieta
Running time	22 minutes approx.
Original release
Network	Disney Channel
Release	October 12, 2007 – present

Wizards of Waverly Place is a new live-action comedy Disney Channel Original Series which premiered on October 12 2007 on Disney Channel, and is due to be released on Family Channel in Canada on October 26th at 7:30pm, as well as Disney Channel UK in late 2007. The series focuses on the three Russo children who on the surface seem to be normal teens, but are actually wizards in training.

Wizards of Waverly Place is the first Disney sitcom to feature simple computer-generated imagery such as superimposing. The tagline in advertisements is "They've got the power!" and "Being a teenager can be tricky." On its premiere night, it scored 5.93 million viewers.

On October 5, 2007, the pilot episode was made available as a free download from iTunes. On October 12, 2007 iTunes required it to be purchased.

Plot

The show centers upon a girl named Alex Russo (Selena Gomez) and her brothers Justin (David Henrie) and Max (Jake T. Austin) who are a lot like the teens in their Manhattan neighborhood, but with one significant difference. They come from a long line of wizards, and they must learn to harness their budding magical powers or soon risk losing them.

The three children live with their father Jerry (David DeLuise), who was born with the same powers but had to relinquish them when his brother surpassed him, and their mother Theresa (Maria Canals Barrera), a mortal woman. While their parents run the family business, Waverly Sub Station, the three siblings grapple with both their budding wizardly powers and typical teen challenges spanning school, friends, and family.

Cast

• Selena Gomez - Alex Russo
• David Henrie - Justin Russo
• Jake T. Austin - Max Russo
• Jennifer Stone - Harper Evans
• David DeLuise - Jerry Russo
• Maria Canals Barrera - Theresa Russo

Theme song

The theme song is "Everything is not What it Seems", performed by Selena Gomez.

Characters

File:Wizards of Waverly Place.jpg

The Russo family

• Alex Russo (Selena Gomez) is a wizard in training. At age 14, she is the middle child in the Russo family: younger sister to Justin, and older sister to Max. Confident in her magic, and undisciplined in using her powers, she is constantly competing with her brothers to keep her powers. Often times her magic is used in such a way that she requires assistance from her brothers, a favor she at times needs to reciprocate. Her best friend is Harper.

• Max Russo (Jake T. Austin) is the 12-year-old younger brother to Alex and Justin. As the youngest in the Russo family, Max is the most mischievous, determined to take his magic "to the Max." When he's not dodging homework and vegetables, Max plays practical jokes on his siblings and makes sandwiches in the family sandwich shop.

• Justin Russo (David Henrie) is the eldest child in the Russo family. At 16, Justin is an overachiever and exercises restraint over his powers as he tries to fit in at school. He enjoys reading comic books and learning about subjects in school. As the more mature sibling, Justin often finds himself cleaning up after Alex and Max's mishaps. He's also gained the unreciprocated affection of his sister's best friend Harper.

• Theresa Russo (Maria Canals Barrera) is the mother of Alex, Max and Justin. She runs the Waverly Place Sub Shop with her husband Jerry. As a mortal, she possesses no powers, but encourages her children's discovery of magic and their Latino heritage.

• Jerry Russo (David DeLuise) is Theresa's husband, and father to Alex, Max and Justin. Having posessed magic powers as a child, until his brother became the family wizard, Jerry instructs his children in the proper practices to be used when conducting magic. He owns the Waverly Place Sub Shop and runs the restaurant with his wife.

• Harper Evans (Jennifer Stone) is Alex's BFF, and girlfriend of Justin (or, so she thinks). She enjoys making her own clothes, even if she's the only one who thinks they look great. She believes it's better to stand out as an individual rather than be the same as everyone else. She has a major crush on Justin, Alex's brother. Although she doesn't know that her BFF's family can practice magic, she's always there to lend Alex a helping hand whenever she can.

Minor Characters

• Gigi (Skyler Samuels) is Alex's enemy. She is always trying to embarrass Alex since they were in kindergarten when she spilled water on her and said she had an 'accident'. Her real name, as mentioned in "The Crazy Ten Minute Sale", is Gertrude.

• Miranda (Lucy Hale) is Justin's girlfriend. She is gothic, but very pretty. She likes Justin very much because according to Alex she "brightens from tragic to gloomy when they're together" and wants to kiss him. She is very fond of the color black. Harper is very jealous of her because of Justin's affections towards her and thinks he's dating her simply because she reminds him of her, though they look nothing alike.

Spells

Edgebono Utoosis - The duplication spell. First seen in "Crazy 10 Minute Sale".

Macreary Timereary - The time rewinding spell. First seen in "First Kiss".

Trivia

• 'Waverly' is also the name of the neighborhood where Camryn and Alex live in Twitches and Twitches Too, which is ironic because Twitches Too premiered the same night as Wizards of Waverly Place. Waverly is also where Camryn and Alex go to college. Another similarity between the two is that there is an Alex as a starring Witch/Wizard.

• Waverly Place is also an area in Greenwich Village (in New York City), where this show obviously takes place as seen in the signs and footage in between scene changes.

• In "The Crazy 10 Minute Sale" the name of the store is "Suburban Outfitters" which is a parody of the store Urban Outfitters.

• In "The Crazy 10 Minute Sale", Max says "I'm practicing for that new reality show Dancing with My Sister." which is a spoof off Dancing with the Stars.

• Most of the episodes have an interlude scene where one or two of the characters appear to be dancing or looking down on the screen they're standing on, similar to That 70's Show.

• The duplicating spell in the first episode is a reference to Bono, The Edge, and the band U2 in general.

• In the first episode, Harper agrees that Gigi backwards is Gigi, but it is obviously Igig. But the spelling could be GG, which is GG backwards, but in the credits it's spelled Gigi

• The show received nearly 6 million viewers during its premiere.[1]

• The show was originally called "The Amazing Hannigans", then it was changed to "The Amazing O'Malleys", then it was changed to "Wizards of Waverly Place", then to "Disney Wizards" and now it is back to 'Wizards of Waverly Place".

External links

• Official site
• Behind the scenes pictures
• Wizards of Waverly Place, an external wiki