Dootle Dots Episode 1: "Welcome to Dot City Spaghetti"
| “Welcome to Dot City Spaghetti” | |
| Dootle Dots episode | |
| oncinemawiki | |
| Created by | New Amato |
|---|---|
| Executive producer | New Amato |
| Written by | New Amato grok |
| Animation supervisor | Aidan Boyle |
| Storyboard artists | New Amato Aidan Boyle |
| Music by | David Augusto Amy Shein |
| Original character designs by | G. Amato New Amato |
| Animation services provided by | Riverboat Digital Media |
| Special thanks to | amatofoundation |
| In loving memory of | G. Amato |
| Premiered | March 15, 2026 |
| Runtime | 6 mins. |
| [META] Real credits | |
| Written by | Annie Dolan Katie Dolan |
| Animation by | Ashley Brown |
“Welcome to Dot City Spaghetti” is the series premiere of the American animated television series Dootle Dots. Written by series creator New Amato and grok, the episode aired as a sneak peek on HEI Network on March 15, 2026, during the Last On Cinema Oscar Special. In this episode, a new Italian restaurant opens in Dot City and Mayor Ron Dot, set to cut the ribbon in the opening ceremony, is nowhere to be seen.
Immediate responses during the special were mostly negative. It is unknown when, or if, there will be more episodes of Dootle Dots, following the negative reception and falling out between New and the animation supervisor, his son Aidan Boyle.
Table of Contents
Plot
Characters
Production
Aidan Boyle, the animation supervisor, was hired by New through Indeed, unaware at first that Aidan was his first son, when he was married to Stephanie. Aidan, a graduate of CalArts with prior work on The Croods (2013, 98 mins.), used Toon Boom Harmony to produce the series.
Reception
The episode has received mostly negative reviews from critics and animation fans. The Dootle Dots website was updated to allow viewers to rate the special, using On Cinema at the Cinema's traditional popcorn scale rating metric. The average rating, as seen during the special, was 1 bag of popcorn, the lowest possible rating. Axiom and Manuel Giusti at first called it “cool” and “great”, but shortly after criticized the Italian stereotypes as seen in the Dot City Spaghetti chef Chef Enzo as “racist”. Show creator New Amato also had some criticism towards the animation, supervised by his son Aidan Boyle, noting how Enzo's humanoid design fails to match with the rest of the show's art style. Near the end of the special, he more directly criticized his son's work, calling it, and him, a “disappointment”.
On X, the everything app, reception was slightly more mixed, with plenty of animation fans expressing confusion over the similarities between this show and Battle for Dream Island, of which they accused the Dootle Dots crew of stealing art assets from the latter. Gold Coin (OSSP) called it “decent I guess”,[1] while FlannelFloofs stated that “it's a pretty good episode on its own,” calling it “feelgood kids show content”.[2] DooplissAnimate stated that they preferred Battle for Dream Island and Rocket Monkeys over this,[3] while 2026 Animation Hype (Mario Galaxy, Toy Story 5) and Jimmy (Johnson) stated it was better than two seasons of BFDI, Elsewhere and The Power of Two.[4][5]
Trivia
- This is the second original piece of animation in the overall On Cinema franchise, after the Decker animated pilot.
- The voice cast is currently unknown.
[META]
- Annie Dolan and Katie Dolan are credited in the Last Oscar Special credits for actually writing this episode, while Ashley Brown is credited for the animation.
- As mentioned above, this episode takes heavy influence from so-called “object shows”, of which Battle for Dream Island is the most well-known and influential series. The mouth movement on all the characters (save for Enzo) appears to be directly taken from BFDI, and the character design and backgrounds look incredibly similar.
Observations
- With Grok “G” Amato being credited as a co-writer, one can assume all New did for writing was ask Grok for a premise for a cartoon episode.