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Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Trivia

< Buffy the Vampire Slayer
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  • As mentioned before, this show created TV tropes.
  • Nicholas Brendon (the guy who played Xander) has 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 Shared Background: 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.
  • Fake Brit: Spike, played by American James Marsters.
  • Hey, It's That Guy!:
  • 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: 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."
  • Retroactive Recognition: Amy Adams appears as Tara's bitchy cousin Beth.
    • Danny Messer being bitten by Darla in the pilot.
    • Agent Seeley Booth (Bones) got his own spinoff (Angel)
    • Billy "Ford" Fordham ("Lie to Me") is best known as Max Evans.
    • In "Reptile Boy", Machida, underneath the scales, is actually Byron.
    • One of the members of the school swim team in "Go Fish" is Michael Scofield.
    • Saverio Guerra, who played Willy the Snitch, is best known as Bob from Becker.
    • Billy Fordham from "Lie to Me". Roswell fans know him as Max, but seven years later, Jason Behr & SMG would be reunited for The Grudge.
    • Scott Hope is played by Fab Fillipo, who went on to star in Queer as Folk. It should as no surprise, then, that Scott came out of the closet in passing.
    • Scott Evil flies the Normandy.
    • Gwendolyn Post is Dr. Molly Warmflash.
    • Nathan Fillion was fresh from Firefly. Whatever fan glee existed surrounding his arrival was crushed after Caleb's true colors were revealed five minutes in. People watching the show for the first time now, will likely recognise him as Castle.
    • Cordette #1 (the girl who is drained by The Master's blood machine in "The Wish"), Nicole Bilderback, played opposite Seth Green in the 1998 movie Can't Hardly Wait. She also appeared in Bring It On with Clare Kramer (Glory) and Eliza Dushku.
    • Kal Penn, more well known as Kumar and Kutner shows up as a random college student in "Beer Bad".
  • Romance on the Set: Here's an odd one: Amber Benson and Adam Busch... known as Tara and Warren respectively.
  • Throw It In: The famous Mutant Enemy title card was reportedly scribbled by Whedon with only seconds to go until broadcast.
    • It has several variants through the series.
      • Graduation Day: Wearing a graduation hat
      • Amends: Wearing a Santa hat
      • Becoming 2: Says "I need a hug"
      • Hush: Silent
      • Once More With Feeling: Sings the "grr, argh" line in falsetto
      • Storytellers: Sings "We are gods!"
      • Chosen: Looking right at the viewer
    • 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.)
    • 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.
  1. ↑ Armin Shimerman actually played both roles between 1997-99
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