“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. Following unexpected public demand, the first episode was posted on an official Dootle Dots YouTube account on March 17, 2026. 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, with Axiom and Manuel Giusti both deriding the depiction of Chef Enzo as racist towards Italians, with online viewers giving the episode an average of 1 bag of popcorn. 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.

Sam welcomes the citizens of Dot City to the official ribbon cutting ceremony for Dot City Spaghetti. Sam attempts to welcome Mayor Ron Dot to kick-off the day's festivities, but is told that he is running a bit late. Sam welcomes restaurant owner Chef Enzo to the podium instead, who talks about his longtime dream to open a place like Dot City Spaghetti, and gushes about the quality of the various Italian foods the restaurant will serve including spaghetti, pizza, and lasagna. Cloud is shown sleeping during Chef Enzo's speech. Sam leaves to find the mayor, but not before welcoming Baxter to the podium. Baxter proceeds to give a very short speech, leading Enzo to come back up and assure everyone that Sam will be able to find the mayor.

While Sam is looking for the mayor, the citizens of Dot City speculate on the mayor's whereabouts, with several people noting he was last seen at the grocery store the day prior. One person noted the mayor had asked the fishmonger where the pickles were, noting the oddity of asking the fishmonger that. Cloud wakes up and asks “What is a fishmonger?”, before Baxter tells everyone to settle down. Sam continues to look for the mayor, peeking into the windows of places like the barber shop and the post office. In the meantime, Baxter welcomes Cloud to the podium, who wastes everyone's time and proceeds to say nothing of value.

Eventually, Sam makes it to the mayor's resident, who tells him to “go away”. Sam goes inside to ask Ron what's wrong, and Ron confesses that he is afraid of scissors, begging Sam to not make him hold “those pointy nightmares”. Sam has an idea, suggesting that he, the mayor, Baxter, Mel, Cloud, and Chef Enzo all hold the scissors together as a team, so the mayor doesn't have to do it alone.

Cutting back to the ceremony, Mayor Ron Dot thanks Sam for helping him face his fears, as well as Chef Enzo for all the future bowls of spaghetti. After a count of three, the team successfully cuts the ribbon, officially opening Dot City Spaghetti. Sam tells the citizens, who already have spaghetti in their hands, to “fire up those pots and pans! It's spaghetti time!”

• Sam (debut)
• Mel (debut)
• Cloud (debut)
• Baxter (debut)
• Chef Enzo (debut)
• Mayor Ron Dot (debut)
• Citizens of Dot City (debut)

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. With show co-creator G. Amato having passed away during the development of the series, New Amato co-wrote the episode with grok, who has taken on the voice of his late father.

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]

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• YouTube