Cheerleader

Charisma Carpenter was a cheerleader for the San Diego Chargers in 1991, so she had loads of practice for her cheerleading character, Cordelia.

First box-sets

The Witch and Never Kill a Boy on the First Date were released together on 15th September 1998 as the first Buffy the Vampire Slayer home video box-sets.

Nerfherder

The non-U.S. credits for The Witch named Nerf Herder as Nerfherder.

Simply Witch

The episode The Witch is also known simply as ‘Witch’.

Which year?

Check out the notice board in the first scene of The Witch. It reads “1996 Cheerleading Tryouts,” despite the episode being screened in 1997 in America. This is because Buffy was held back and used as a mid-season replacement show rather than starting as intended in the autumn of 1996. So no - I’m not including this piece of trivia as a goof!

Witchy lines cut

The following different lines were deleted from the episode The Witch:

Amanda Wilmshurst

Amanda played Sunnydale High’s head cheerleader, Joy, in The Witch and Some Assembly Required. Amanda appeared in American Pie 2 (with Alyson Hannigan), Never Been Kissed and Port Charles.

Elizabeth Anne Allen

Elizabeth Anne Allen played Amy Madison.. She played Carri in Green Sails and Pam Boyd in Bull (which also starred Christopher Wiehl who played Owen in Never Kill a Boy on the First Date and Elisabeth Rohm, who played Kate in Angel). Elizabeth has also been in Bill the Intern, High Tide, Renegade, Silk Stalkings, Baywatch and Doogie Howser MD.

Jim Doughan

Jim played the Drivers Ed. teacher Mr. Pole in The Witch. Jim had a small role as a party guest in the 1988 film My Stepmother Is An Alien, which featured both Alyson Hannigan and Seth Green. He has also been in The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, Stuart Little, The Mask and The Haunted Mansion.

Nicole Prescott

Nicole played Lishanne, the girl whose mouth was sealed over by Catherine Madison in The Witch. Nicole has also been in Cosby, My Wife and Kids, Big Momma’s House, Train Ride and Tar.

Robin Ryker

Robin Ryker played Catherine Madison in The Witch. Robin was the lead in the 80’s horror movie Alligator. She’s also been in Days of Our Lives (as Maureen Lockhart), M*A*S*H, The A-Team and Murder She Wrote.

Stephen Cragg

Stephen Cragg directed the episode The Witch. He has also directed episodes of Doogie Howser, M.D, Northern Exposure, The Wonder Years, Party of Five, JAG, Early Edition, Cracker and Bull (which starred Elizabeth Anne Allen, who played Amy Madison and Christopher Wiehl, who played Owen in Never Kill a Boy on the First Date).

Amy Madison

Amy was a friend of Willow’s at Junior High, and later got to know Buffy. Amy’s mother (Catherine Madison) practised dark magics (The Witch) and Amy later began to dabble in witchcraft. She helped Xander to create a love spell on Cordelia, which went wrong (Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered). She later turned herself into a rat to escape an angry mob (Gingerbread) but Willow was unable to return her to her human form for three years (Smashed). Amy began to mess seriously with magic, which eventually ruined her friendship with Willow. She got her revenge on Willow by turning her into Warren (The Killer in Me).

Catherine Madison

Amy Madison’s mother and a witch, seen in the episode The Witch. Catherine was a successful cheerleader as a teenager and came to resent Amy’s youth so much that she swapped bodies with her daughter to re-live her glory days. She became trapped in a cheerleading trophy and was presumably blown up with the school in Graduation Day (Part 2).

Joy

Joy was the head cheerleader at Sunnydale High School, seen organising the try-outs in The Witch. She also appeared in Some Assembly Required.

Lishanne

Lishanne was the cheerleader at Sunnydale High whose mouth was magically sealed over by Catherine Madison in The Witch.

Mr. Pole

Mr. Pole was the Driver’s Ed teacher at Sunnydale High, seen in The Witch when Cordelia went temporarily blind.

Alexander Harris

We discover in The Witch that Xander’s full name is Alexander Harris, when the Scoobies realised he had checked out witchcraft books from the library.

Changes afoot at the house

Buffy’s house was orignally shot on location, but was later built on a soundstage to make filming easier. Changes can be seen in the original and rebuilt house:

1. In The Witch, when Buffy walks into the kitchen, we can see that the regular dining room is not through the door. Instead, there is a hall with peach-coloured wallpaper.
2. In Never Kill a Boy on the First Date, in the scene where Giles finds Owen at Buffy’s house, it looks like there is no entrance to the dining room to the right of the front door.
3. In Angel, when Angel bursts through the back door in the kitchen after Darla has bitten Joyce, we can see that the back door is different. The exterior side is green not white, and it’s window only has 4 panes, whereas the on-set house has 9 panes. The white door with nine panes can be seen in Surprise.
4. In Angel, just after Buffy and Angel run into the house to escape The Three, Angel looks through the window at one of the vampires. At that point, the window is small and divided into four panes. It also has a white and yellow checkered curtain over it’s bottom half. In The Body, it can be seen as a longer, thinner, frosted window on either side of the door.

Cordy’s car

Before her father was arrested for tax evasion, Cordelia drove a red Chrysler Sebring convertible, and her license plate was “QUEENC”. Cordelia passed her driving test sometime between The Witch (when we discovered she hadn’t yet passed her test) and Prophecy Girl (when we saw her driving.)

Gallery

Buffy’s mother, Joyce, owns an art gallery. This is discovered in The Witch.

Giles and Magic

Giles casts a spell against Catherine Madison in The Witch. He says this is his first but we discover in The Dark Age that he has a history using magic. It’s the first time we see him using witchcraft.

Giles’s first car

Giles’s first car seen on the show was an ancient silver Citroen, first seen in The Witch. The licence plate was 2GPU947. During the filming of Phases, the car refused to start so some members of the Buffy crew had to push the car from behind. They can be seen through the rear window in one scene. It finally died a nasty death when Spike crashed it in A New Man.

Jewellery

Xander likes to give girls he likes jewellery. In Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, he gave Cordelia a necklace; in The Witch, he gave Buffy a bracelet saying ‘Yours Always’, and he bought Anya an engagement ring in The Gift.

Moving eyes

Catherine Madison was trapped inside a cheerleading statue at Sunnydale High at the end of The Witch. In Phases, Oz noticed the cheerleading statue’s moving eyes and thought it was cool. This was an in-joke to fans, as well as to prepare us for the return of Amy Madison in the next episode, Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.

Nice outfit

Dawn wears Buffy’s cheerleading outfit to the tryouts in Him. The outfit was last seen in The Witch and dies it’s death in Him when Dawn rips it up in fury.

Prophetic cheerleaders?

In the third episode of season one, The Witch, Amy tells Buffy that the cheerleader Amber trained with Benson:

Cordelia: “Just look at that Amber. Who does she think she is, a Laker Girl?”
Willow: “I heard she turned them down…”
Amy: “She trained with Benson. He’s one of the best coaches money can buy.”

Four years later, Amber Benson joined the cast playing Tara.

Railroad spike

Xander said to Willow in The Witch, “That is the point, you don’t have to drive it through my head like a railroad spike.” The character of Spike (introduced in season two’s School Hard) was said to have got his name by murdering people using railroad spikes. In a flashback to William’s last day as a human, seen in Fool For Love, one of the guests at a party says, “I’d rather have a railroad spike through my head than listen to this stuff.” Perhaps this is how Spike got inspired?

Razorbacks

Sunnydale High’s sports teams were called the Razorbacks (discovered in The Witch). They got a short lived piglet mascot called Herbert in The Pack, but it was eaten by the hyena-people.

Slayerettes

In The Witch, Willow called herself, Xander and Giles the ‘Slayerettes’. This term wasn’t used again until the episode The I in Team.

2 Unlimited

The music “Twilight Zone” by 2 Unlimited plays during the cheerleading tryouts in The Witch. The song comes from the album Get Ready For This.

Humbucker

‘Count The Time’ by Humbucker, from the album My Snake, plays whilst Buffy and Joyce are talking at the end of The Witch.

Black magic effects

In Two to Go, Willow’s eyes and hair went black from the dark power she had gained. She also gets weird veiny skin. The first time we saw a witch draw on dark powers was in The Witch when Catherine Madison’s eyes also went black. Catherine’s daughter Amy introduced Willow to Rack, from whom Willow gets power in this episode. Willow’s eyes previously turned black in Tough Love and The Gift when she used powerful magics on Glory after she brain-sucked Tara.

Bloodstone Vengeance spell

In The Witch, Catherine Madison performed a Bloodstone Vengeance spell on Buffy. Giles explained that the effects of the spell hits the body like a “quart of alcohol”, then eradicates the immune system. It kills within hours. Buffy was saved when Giles reversed Catherine’s spell.

Witches

A major aspect of the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer involves witchcraft. The first instance of witchcraft on the show was during The Witch, in which we see Catherine Madison use powerful magicks to take over her daughter Amy’s body, so she could become a cheerleader. Willow became interested in witchcraft during season two and her power grew over the years. We saw her perform many spells over the years including the commonly used locator and binding spells. Her first major spell involved giving Angel his soul back (Becoming (Part 2)), though she did this at pretty much the worst time. Willow met fellow Wiccan Tara at a campus Wiccan group and the two began to perform magic together. When Tara was shot (Seeing Red), Willow turned to black magick for revenge and it took her a long time to recover from this. Other spells of note seen on the show include Jonathan’s augmentation spell which made everyone believe he was their ideal in Superstar; the Scoobies’ spell to combine their essences in order for Buffy to defeat Adam in Primeval; Amy’s spell which made Willow decide her own punishment in Killer in Me and Willow’s spell in Chosen to give Slayer-power to all potential Slayers.

Catherine the Great

In The Witch, Amy said her mother’s nickname was ‘Catherine the Great’. This is a reference to the real Catherine the Great, who was Empress of Russia from 1762-1796.

Fantastic Four

The Marvel comic Fantastic Four is referenced a few times in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. In The Witch, Xander says about Amber’s burning hands, “Like the Human Torch, only it hurts.” This is a reference to Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, a character in the Fantastic Four. In the Angel episode ‘In the Dark‘, Cordelia says “It’s daylight, you’re ringless, and unless you changing the act to Human Torch, I don’t think so”.
In Lessons, Willow’s Wicca teacher is named Miss Harkness. There was a witch named Miss Harkness in the Fantastic Four. In Bring on the Night, Andrew mentions the supervillain Dr. Doom from the comic.

Farrah Fawcett

In The Witch, Buffy says, “Mom, I’ve accepted that you’ve had sex. I am not ready to know that you had Farrah hair.” She’s referring to the star of the TV show Charlie’s Angels, Farrah Fawcett, whose flicked out hair became popular in the 1970s. In All the Way, Anya dressed as Farrah in Charlie’s Angels for Halloween, but was confused as she thought her name was Charlie (”I’m an Angel. We look sexy rollerskating and have cool hair. My name is Charlie”).

Gidget

Gidget was a 1960s American sitcom starring Sally Fields. It is referenced a couple of times in Buffy: In the Witch, Joyce tells Buffy she had “Gidget hair” and in Life Serial, Tony calls Buffy “Gidget”. Gidget was always getting into trouble and often wore her hair in pigtails.

Laker Girls

The Laker Girls are referenced in The Witch and in Him. Elizabeth Anne Allen revealed that the actresses who played the cheerleaders in the episode The Witch, were trained by The Laker Girls:

“Actually we learned with the Laker Girls and the LA clipper girls. They were great. They were checking our moves and they have real dance backgrounds, so they were throwing in stuff. We were like, “What, what?” Still, it helped that I could be pretty bad.”

In Him, cheerleader Cheryl says, “Or we could all use chairs. Like the Laker Girls.”

Mommie Dearest

Buffy says in The Witch, “So mommie dearest is really… Mommie Dearest.” In Inca Mummy Girl, Buffy says, “Ok, I’ll still get Xander before he gets smoochy with Mummy Dearest.” Mommie Dearest was an autobiography by Christina Crawford about her abusive mother, the movie actress Joan Crawford. It was made into a movie in 1981, starring Faye Dunaway.
In Habeas Corpses, Cordy says “Listen up, Daddy Dearest”.

Nazis

Nazis have been referenced a few times in Buffy:

• In The Witch, Buffy says Amy’s mother is, “Nazi-like”.
• In I Robot, You Jane, a student’s essay has been changed by Moloch the Corrupter, “This isn’t my report! Nazi Germany was a model of a well ordered society’? I didn’t write that! Who’s been in my files?”
• In Nightmares, Xander says, “I’m sorry, I’m unruffled by spiders. Now, if a bunch of Nazis crawled all over my face…”
• In Becoming (Part 1), Cordelia says of Principal Snyder, “How about because you’re a tiny impotent Nazi with a bug up his butt the size of an emu?”
• In Gingerbread, Xander says, “Aw, man it’s Nazi Germany and I’ve got Playboys in my locker!”
• In The Freshman, Buffy mentions the Nuremberg rallies, where the Nazi’s held their anti-Semitic rallies from the early 1920s to 1938.
• In the episode The Initiative, Spike is in his containment cell talking to another vampire about who could have captured him, Spike says, “And they are? The government? Nazis? A major cosmetics company?” In the Angel episode ‘Why We Fight‘, we see in a flashback that Spike was captured by Nazis in 1943, who were experimenting on vampires as a means of controlling them for their war effort.

Sabrina, the Teenage Witch

In The Witch, Buffy said, “That’s our Sabrina”, and in Two To Go, Andrew said, “Do we sit around waiting for Sabrina to disembowel us?” They are both referring to Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, which has been a comic, cartoon and TV show, about a teenage girl who’s, yes you guessed it, a witch.

Sonnets from the Portuguese

In The Witch, Amy said about cheerleading tryouts, “How do I hate this? Let me count the ways.” This is a misquote from a love poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning titled Sonnets from the Portuguese. The real quote is, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”
In Helpless, Angel bought Buffy an edition of Sonnets From the Portuguese for her eighteenth birthday.

Village People

Xander’s construction work clothes in Pangs are described as “not at all Village People” by Buffy. The Village People are a camp band who dressed in various costumes, including a construction worker. They formed in the 1970s, and famously sang ‘Y.M.C.A.’ and ‘Macho Man’, which Buffy sang while under Catherine’s spell in The Witch.

Seen at 02.00 minutes:

This is not necessarily a goof but it’s something which bugs me everytime I watch The Witch. We see Amber doing the splits and stretching whilst resting her feet on two chairs. How did she get on and off the chairs? We see her standing shortly after the Scoobies pass her… did one of the cheerleaders lift her off? Did she fall?

Seen at 08.30 minutes:

Before the group performance in cheerleading tryouts, Cordelia is seen putting a pink headband on. Then while she’s cheering it’s no longer there. When Amy falls on her, Cordelia has the headband back on.

Seen at 09.18 minutes:

Did Catherine Madison have the same last name before and after her wedding? Her school cheerleading trophy says ‘Catherine Madison’ but she won this before she was married.
It’s possible that Catherine changed her name back to her maiden name after her husband left her and made Amy do the same thing.

Seen at 18.10 minutes:

Why is there no passenger-side brake pedal in the Driver’s Ed car? It would have enabled the teacher to safely bring the car to a stop.

Seen at 18.42 minutes:

Cordelia gets out of the Driver’s Ed car and shuts the door. In the next scene, the door is open.

Seen at 18.50 minutes:

Why doesn’t the driver of the truck that nearly kills Cordelia try to stop? He even speeds up, then drives off after he’s hit the door of the Driver’s Ed. car!

Seen at 22.39 minutes:

When Willow fills the test tube with the yellow liquid in science class, the tube is filled half way but in the next shot, as she hands the test tube to Buffy, it is only filled a quarter of the way.

Seen at 29.27 minutes:

When Giles and Buffy arrive at Amy’s house, you can see that Giles’s car doesn’t have a front license plate.