IT: Welcome to Derrys opening credits is full of clues and Easter eggs

IT: Welcome to Derry is only a couple of episodes in, but we’re already awash with Stephen King Easter eggs — and the show’s opening credits are no exception.

Set to Patience and Prudence’s discordantly cheery 1956 song “A Smile and a Ribbon”, the opening theme is made up of a series of retro cartoon images that veer between wholesome and terrifying.

Of these scenes, there are certain moments and places that may look familiar. We’ve broken them down below.

The statue of Paul Bunyan

In episode 1, Derry is still trying to approve a statue of Paul Bunyan, despite the protests of residents. This statue appears in both the book and the movies, coming to life and chasing Richie Tozier (Finn Wolfhard/Bill Hader) in a memorable scare sequence.

The storm drain

One image in the opening credits shows a little girl bending down to look into the dark mouth of a storm drain. There’s no clown waiting inside, but the moment is eerily reminiscent of the infamous scene with Georgie (Jackson Robert Scott) and Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) that opens both the book and the first IT movie.

Juniper Hill Asylum

In the opening credits we see a shot of doctors getting ready to operate on a screaming child in the upstairs room of an asylum. As the camera zooms away, this is revealed to be Juniper Hill Asylum; it’s a place that pops up in a couple of Stephen King stories, but in IT it’s where adult Henry Bowers (Teach Grant) is locked up before escaping with the help of Pennywise.

The house on Neibolt Street

We see a family getting their picture taken in front of a very haunted-looking house, the little boy peering over his shoulder at a shadow in the window. If this ramshackle building looks familiar, it’s because it’s a key IT location: The house on Neibolt Street, which serves as the entrance to Pennywise’s sewer lair in both the book and the movies.

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The shooting of the Bradley gang

We know that IT: Welcome to Derry will be largely based on the interlude chapters from the novel penned by Mike Hanlon (Chosen Jacobs/Isaiah Mustafa), which delves into the town’s dark history and the bloody events that mark the start and end of the creature’s killing cycles. In the book, the 1930s cycle starts with the massacre of the Bradley gang — a shooting in one of the town’s main streets in which some gangsters are gunned down. This scene is depicted in the opening credits, as is another scene from the cycle before that one…

The explosion at the Kitchener Ironworks

This is the event that ends the cycle in the early 1900s — an explosion at the Ironworks that takes place during an Easter egg hunt (hence the giant rabbit we see in the opening credits), and which results in the death of 88 children in the novel. Presumably these events will be recreated at some point in the show.

IT: Welcome to Derry debuts on Sunday, Oct. 26 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO, and will be available to stream on HBO Max. New episodes air weekly.