Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • As mentioned before, this show created TV tropes.
  • Nicholas Brendon (the guy who played Xander) used to have a webcomic.
  • Ability Over Appearance: Producers were reluctant to cast Amber Benson as Tara in Buffy the Vampire Slayer because she was too voluptuous for the supposedly plain girl but she won them over with her awkwardness.
  • Actor Allusion: Giles piping in "Dance Macabre" during his slideshow presentation in "Hush". Anthony Stewart Head appeared in the pilot of Jonathan Creek, which used this song as its theme.
  • Actor Shared Background:
    • James Marsters based his accent on Anthony Stewart Head's. Giles uses an RP English accent on-camera, but his actor sounds like a working-class "tough guy" in real life, using an accent close to Estuary English. Head uses it for Giles' adolescent persona in "Band Candy".
    • In "Nightmares", Buffy's personal nightmare is being buried alive by the Master. Sarah Michelle Gellar is terrified of graveyards for this same reason, which is ironic seeing as her character was buried alive twice in the show ("Nightmares" and "Bargaining Pt. 1"), and spends most of her evenings in graveyards.
    • Alyson Hannigan maintains that she cannot sing or dance (which hasn't stopped multiple writers from shoehorning her into splashy musical numbers, but oh well), mirroring Willow's nightmare of being forced to sing Madame Butterfly ("Nightmares").
    • Baby Buffy went through a phase during which she idolized ice skater Dorothy Hamill. Sarah Michelle Gellar enjoys figure skating in real life, a skill which was put to good use in "What's My Line Pt. 1".
    • The scene in "Lover's Walk" where Cordelia gets impaled is based on a real incident. At five years old, playing around a swimming pool that was still under construction, Charisma Carpenter fell onto a piece of rebar. Only in real life she fell off a horse and not through stairs.
    • "Buffy vs. Dracula" was not the first time Rudolph Martin acted opposite Sarah Michelle Gellar. Both were part of the cast of All My Children, their characters being a married couple.
  • Breakthrough Hit: For Joss Whedon.
  • The Danza: Larry Bagby III as Larry Blaisdell. DB Woodside as Robin Wood.
  • Dawson Casting: Some actors were a full decade older than their characters. In an extreme example, Charisma Carpenter was 26 when she played 16-year-old Cordelia.
    • Averted by Dawn and Faith, who are both the same age as the actresses playing them (Eliza Dushku was even legally emancipated from her parents so she wouldn't be limited by child labor laws). Michelle Trachtenberg started playing the 14-year-old at 14. Probably done to ensure that she would look younger than her sister.
      • Ironically, she became taller than her by Season 7.
  • Fake Brit:
    • Spike, played by American James Marsters.
    • Wesley, played by Seattle native Alexis Denisof.
  • Fake Irish: Boreanaz's accent leaves much to be desired.
  • Hey, It's That Guy!:
  • Hey, It's That Place!: The external (and some internal) shots of Sunnydale High School are of Torrance High, the same school used for the Beverly Hills, 90210.
    • The exterior of Angel's mansion is of Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis House, a popular shooting location.
    • Buffy's old school, Hemery High, is the clock tower made famous in Back to The Future.
    • "Fear Itself" took place in what would become better known as the Murder House house in the first season of American Horror Story.
    • The battle between the Slayers and Kakistos ("Faith, Hope, and Trick") takes place inside L.A. Firestation 23, also used as HQ for the Ghostbusters.
  • Jossed: In Season Seven, it looks like Faith slept with Spike. When Harmony introduces herself in the comics however Faith offers these words.

"I love that I'm supposed to be the slutty one when everyone but me has nailed Spike."

  • Mean Character, Nice Actor: Charisma Carpenter is noted for her many outreaches to fans, most prominent of which is that, unlike most of her co-stars, she absolutely refuses to charge for an autograph any conventions she attends.
  • The Other Darrin: Nikki Wood, the second slayer Spike, is played by a stuntwoman in "Fool For Love". When The First assumes her shape in Season 7, she was recast as a more vulnerable-looking actress.
    • Buffy's old mentor Merrick looks different in a Season 2 flashback.
  • The Other Marty: Riff Regan played Willow in the unaired Proof of Concept to sell the show but never intended to play her in the series.
  • Playing Against Type: So Seth Green isn't the Plucky Comic Relief?
    • The comic relief is his unruffled reaction to pretty much everything.
    • Nathan Fillion as the sadistic, satanic serial killer working for the Big Bad (if you take the First Evil to be Satan and that Caleb had killed people For the Evulz before meeting it).
  • Promoted Fangirl:
    • Michelle Trachtenberg was a huge fan of Buffy before being signed onto the show, and once told Joss "There was never a Buffy episode that sucked. I love you!"
    • When "Lover's Walk episode originally aired in the US, it was followed by an advert for the phone service 1800-COLLECT, in which Sarah Michelle Gellar and David Boreanaz offered a prize of a walk-on part in "The Prom".
  • Recycled: the Series: Although not so much recycled as "remade properly" according to Joss Whedon's vision.
  • Romance on the Set:
    • Here's an odd one: Amber Benson and Adam Busch... known as Tara and Warren respectively.
    • Alyson Hannigan (Willow) is married to Alexis Denisof (Wesley).
  • Schedule Slip: The last Spike issue.
  • Throw It In:
    • The famous Mutant Enemy title card was reportedly scribbled by Whedon with only seconds to go until broadcast.
    • In "Innocence", the scene where Angel dumps Buffy in his apartment was originally supposed to take place on Buffy's lawn. Halfway through shooting the scene, SMG and David Boreanaz told Joss that the scene wasn't working, so he moved it to the bedroom. Buffy can still heard saying she saw him "at the house".
    • The gag in "Earshot" with Giles walking into a tree was ad-libbed by Anthony Stewart Head. He never dreamed Joss would keep in the cut.
    • In the Season Three finale, Cordelia cowers behind the diminutive Jonathan. According to Danny Strong, this scene was an idea of Charisma's, because she was leaving for Angel and never got much screen time with him.
  • Trope Namer: For...
  • And the former Trope Namer for:
  • What Could Have Been: Whedon wanted to put Eric Balfour in the opening credits for the first two episodes so that his death would be a surprise, but literally didn't have the money for two sets of credits. He got to do it with Tara six years later.
    • Darla was originally supposed to be killed in the end of "The Harvest" when Willow hurled holy water at her, but a more interesting plot for episode seven ("Angel") was needed so they kept her in the show.
    • James Marsters originally auditioned for the role of Spike using a Texan accent for the character. He and the writers eventually decided that this was not a good fit, and so instead of a cowboy, Spike became a limey (Marsters based his accent on Anthony Stewart Head's).
    • Spike actually uses this Texan accent in Season 4 when he's attempting to convince people that he's an old friend of Xander's. It's hilarious.
    • "Normal Again" was originally more of a Rage Against the Author episode, with the world of Sunnydale crumbling due to Joss Whedon suffering writers block.
    • Bianca Lawson (Kendra) originally auditioned for the role of Cordelia Chase and won it, but she was opted to take a role in the sitcom Goode Behavior instead. Producers liked her so much that she was introduced on the second season as Kendra.
    • Buffy's bazooka in "Innocence" was originally a tank in the script.
    • Oz was originally supposed to be killed by Angelus in "Passion", but his character had a lot of potential, so the decision was made to bump off Jenny instead. Jenny Calendar was supposed to have died in an earlier episode, "Innocence", presumably in place of Uncle Enyos.
    • Warren was only intended to be a lackey on par with Jonathan during Season 6, working under Tucker Wells (from the episode "The Prom"), who would have been the real villain of the season. However, actor Brad Kane was unavailable to reprise the role, so Andrew Wells was created to be Tucker's brother as a substitute. Warren was likely promoted to main villain because he ended up being the most unpleasant of the three — Andrew was an amusing Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain, and Jonathan was generally well-liked by the audience by that point.
    • Word of Joss says the door was left open for either Xander or Willow to come out of the closet. Willow's backdoor was set up in "Doppelgangland" (see Wishverse Willow), and let's not forget Xander and Larry ("Your secret's safe with me!"). Seth Green left the show to pursue other projects, and this sealed Willow's fate.
    • Lavinia and Sophie Fairweather were originally intended to appear in the BBC's cancelled Buffy spinoff Ripper, played by Anthony Head's daughters Daisy and Emily.
  • X Meets Y: Joss Whedon himself refers to Buffy the Vampire Slayer as My So-Called Life meets The X Files.
  1. ↑ Armin Shimerman actually played both roles between 1997-99
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