Helllppp

The episode Nightmares featured the following line by Xander, “Okay, despite the rat-like chill that just crawled up my spine, I’m going to say this very calmly: Helllppp…”. This line was deleted from the final cut of the episode.

Hospital lighting

The following exchange between Buffy and Giles was deleted from Nightmares:

Sarah’s fear of graveyards

When Sarah Michelle Gellar started filming Buffy, she had a fear of graveyards and being buried alive, which is ironic seeing as her character was buried alive twice in the show (Nightmares and Bargaining (Part 1)), and spends most of her evenings in graveyards. The crew built their own mock graveyard in the car park of the Buffy lot for season two. In an interview on British TV (shown on SKY One) with Richard Blackwood, Sarah Michelle Gellar called herself a “puss” because of her fear.

Dean Butler

Dean Butler played Buffy’s father, Hank Summers. Dean is famous for his role as Almanzo Wilder in the seventies American drama Little House on the Prairie. Dean appeared in the episodes Nightmares, When She Was Bad, The Weight of the World and Normal Again.

Jeremy Foley

Jeremy Foley played Billy Palmer, the boy in the coma in Nightmares. He has also been in Dante’s Peak, The New Adventures of Spin and Marty, Caitlin’s Way, Diaries of Darkness and Soccer Dog: The Movie.

Johnny Green

Johnny played the cool guy whose mother shows up at school in Nightmares. He played one of the kid’s whose scooter was stolen by Michael J. Fox’s character in Back to the Future and has been in Beverly Hills, 90210, 7th Heaven, White Boy and Motel Blue. Johhny played Kyle in My So-Called Life.

Justin Urich

Justin played the spider-obsessed Wendell in Nightmares. He has also been in Monster Man, How High, Nutty Professor 2, MTV’s Undressed, 3rd Rock from the Sun and CSI.

Terry Cain

Terry Cain (also known as Terry Urdang) played Ms. Tishler (the teacher Xander fancied) in Nightmares. She has also been in People I Know, Drive Me Crazy, Desperate Housewives, Alias, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Ally McBeal, Party of Five, ER, Babylon 5.

Aldo Gianfranco

Aldo Gianfranco from Firenze, Italy appeared in Willow’s nightmare in the episode Nightmares. He sang Madame Butterfly with Willow (who was extremely stage struck) in front of a huge crowd.

Billy Palmer

Billy Palmer was a solemn young boy with a strange hair cut who unwittingly unleashed a nightmare on Earth. He was beaten and put into a coma by his Little League coach for missing a ball. Whilst in his coma, Billy made everyone’s nightmares become a reality, seen in the episode Nightmares. Buffy helped Billy to reveal who really put him in the coma, restoring the world to normal.

Laura

Laura was a student at Sunnydale High who was beaten by the Ugly Man when she went to the basement for a cigarette in Nightmares.

Little League Coach

The Little League Coach, seen in Nightmares, had beat Billy Palmer into a coma, then pretended he was innocent. Billy revealed who he was when he awoke from his coma. He called Billy his “Lucky Nineteen”.

Ms. Tishler

Ms. Tishler was a teacher in the episode Nightmares. Xander remembered her as wearing a midnight blue, tight angora sweater. The others reminded him that she had also taught ‘Active listening’ to them from Chapter 5 in yesterday’s lesson.

Wendell

Wendell was a student in the Scoobies’ class who was covered with spiders when everyone’s nightmares came true in Nightmares. He revealed to the Scoobies that he had kept spiders but his brother had accidentally killed them by forgetting to maintain their habitats. He had been haunted by nightmares of the dead spiders ever since.

Buffy’s prophecy

Buffy’s nightmare that the Master attacks and kills her in Nightmares is a foreshadowing of their meeting in Prophecy Girl when he, er, attacks and kills her.

Buried alive

In Nightmares, Buffy has a nightmare of being buried and crawling out of her grave, which actually happens to her in season six’s Bargaining.

Clowns

Xander had a fear of clowns because he was chased by one on his sixth birthday. He finally overcame the fear in Nightmares.

Comatose and lovin’ It

Comas might very well be a running (if depressing) theme in the Buffyverse. First, we had Billy in Nightmares who was in a coma. Then in Becoming (Part 2), Willow was in a coma for a short time after being attacked by vampires. In Graduation Day (Part 2) and This Year’s Girl we see Faith in her long-running coma. In Angel, Cordelia was in a mystical coma until she died, and Faith and Angel lay in mystical comas in the episode Orpheus.

Five languages

Giles, we discover in Nightmares, can speak five languages - on a “normal day”.

Hospital girls

The scene in Dirty Girls, when Buffy and Willow visit Shannon in hospital, is very similar to the scene in Nightmares when Buffy and Giles visit Laura, the girl who was beaten by the Ugly Man. Both girls are lying in bed in the hospital, badly bruised, deliver vital clues - (”I have something of yours” and “Lucky Nineteen”), and have been attacked by the episode’s villain. Though Caleb saying he has something of Buffy’s is a red herring to lead her to the vineyard, it is true - he has her scythe.

Musical comedy version

In Nightmares, Giles says when he finds out what’s happening, “there should be a musical comedy version of this”. In Once More, With Feeling Willow sings, “I’ve got a theory; some kid is dreaming and we’re all stuck inside his whacky Broadway nightmare”. That indeed would be a musical comedy version of Nightmares.

Smoking bad

Mr. Platt’s smoking in Beauty and the Beasts reinforces the shows clear bias against smoking, as every character in the show who has smoked has been either evil (Spike and the evil Angel) or doomed (Laura in Nightmares; the prostitute who was Angel’s first kill after re-losing his soul; and Sheila in School Hard). The same theory applies to alcohol too.

William variants

The writers of Buffy seem to love the name William and all its derivatives. Here’s a list of all the William variants used on the show:

• William the Bloody (Spike’s human name and original title)
• Liam (Angel’s human name)
• Billy Fordham: (Buffy’s friend from LA who sold her out to Spike)
• Billy Palmer: (the little boy in the coma who caused nightmares to come to life)
• Billy Crandal: (chained himself to a snack machine in I Only Have Eyes For You)
• Billy (an unclassified demon in Angel, who brought out the worst in men with a touch)
• Willy the Snitch (demon bar tender)
• Wil or Will: the name sometimes given to Willow (yeah, this was a bit of a stretch)

Willow’s crush

In I Robot, You Jane, we see that Willow has a picture of herself and Giles pinned to the inside of her locker. It can also be seen in the episode Nightmares. Willow confirms that she used to have a crush on Giles in Where the Wild Things Are, after she sees him singing.

Willow’s stage fright

Willow gets stage fright, which was first hinted at in The Puppet Show when she ran terrified from the stage during a talent contest. In Nightmares, Willow was forced to sing a piece from Puccini’s Madame Butterfly on stage but when she opened her mouth, no sound came out. Her stage fright was also explored in the episodes Restless (when she was in front of her class and everyone was laughing at her) and - to a lesser extent - in Once More, With Feeling when she was the only main character not to sing a great deal.
In The Yoko Factor, Tara suggested to Willow that she take sophomore Psych but Willow suggested drama instead. In Real Me we saw Willow berate Buffy as the Slayer didn’t have the time to take drama class with her. In Restless, Willow has a dream about having stage fright about the drama class, who are performing a play without actually having any classes.

Ugly Man

The Ugly Man was a deformed and violent man-monster-demon-thingy with a club for an arm. He was a product of Billy Palmer’s coma in Nightmares, representing the person who had put him in his coma (his Little League Coach). Billy tore the Ugly Man’s face off to allow himself to come out of his coma.

A Nightmare on Elm Street

The idea of people’s nightmares coming true in the episode Nightmares most likely comes from the A Nightmare on Elm Street movie series, in which villain Freddie Krueger has the ability to hurt people while they sleep.
The demon Der Kindestod in Killed By Death was clearly influenced by the look of Freddie Krueger.

Carrie

In the episode The Prom, Tucker Wells tried to ruin the School Prom by training hellhounds to attack people wearing tuxedoes. Buffy says she’s “Gotta stop a crazy from pulling a Carrie at the prom”. She’s referring to the book Carrie by Stephen King, in which a telekinetic girl destroys her home town after her classmates play a cruel joke on her at the Prom.
In Nightmares, Giles, Xander and Willow find Buffy’s grave. Suddenly, Buffy’s hand comes out of the ground and grabs Giles, scaring everyone. This is a visual reference to the movie version of Carrie, in which the final sequence shows a nightmare a character has about being attacked by Carrie’s hand from a grave.
In She, the following conversation occurs, with Cordy using ‘Carrie’ as a verb:

Cordelia: “A chick that burns? Are you okay? Did she Carrie you?”
Angel: “Did she care about me?”
Cordelia: “Did she Carrie you. Carrie? the movie? You know?”

Disney’s Cinderella

In Nightmares, the Master says, “A dream is a wish your heart makes.” This is a line from Disney’s 1950 movie Cinderella.

Evita

In Nightmares, Willow says, “Why is she so Evita-like?” Evita was the nickname of María Eva Duarte de Peron (1919-1952), an Argentinean actress who married political leader Juan Peron. She gained a massive political following as an outspoken champion of women and the poor. Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote a musical based on Eva Peron’s life, called Evita. It was turned into a 1996 movie starring Madonna and Antonio Banderas.
In Expecting, Cordy says to her ghost, “Alright Dennis, knock it off! This is the first guy I’ve actually liked in a long time, and if you keep killing the mood I’ll kill you - all right, empty threat, you being a ghost, but I’ll do something worse… I’ll play Evita around the clock… the one with Madonna!”

Hansel and Gretel

The story of Hansel and Gretel as we know it first appeared in Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s collection of fairy tales, published sometime between 1812 and 1815. Grimm’s stories were based on folk tales that had previously been told in oral storytelling traditions. The episode Gingerbread takes a lot of elements from Hansel and Gretel. Additionally, Xander following a trail of chocolate in Nightmares is inspired by the trail of breadcrumbs in the fairytale Hansel and Gretel.
In Couplet, Angel says, “It’s better than breadcrumbs.”

It

In Nightmares we see that Xander has a fear of clowns (who doesn’t?!). This is probably based on Steven King’s 1986 book It. It was made into a movie in 1991 which featured Seth Green (Oz) who played the character of 12 year old Richie Tozier. Richie’s worst fear just happened to be… werewolves.

Madame Butterfly

The unrehearsed opera in Willow’s dream in Nightmares is a duet from Puccini’s Madame Butterfly. Willow plays Cio-Cio-San.

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.

Nerf Herder reference

We see in Nightmares that Willow has a Nerf Herder bumper sticker on her locker door. Nerf Herder wrote and performed the Buffy theme tune. Alyson Hannigan is a big fan of the band and was the person who persuaded Joss Whedon to get them to write the theme.

The Wizard of Oz

The movie The Wizard of Oz, made in 1939, in mentioned several times in Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
Buffy refers to the hyena-possessed bullies in The Pack as the “winged monkeys”. The phrase comes from the scene in The Wizard of Oz in which the Wicked Witch of the West sends her loyal winged monkeys to collect Dorothy and the ruby slippers. In Flooded, Andrew says he trained flying demon monkeys to disrupt the school play.
In Nightmares, Billy Palmer awakens from his coma and, seeing the Scoobies around his bed, says, “I had the strangest dream. And you were in it, and you”. This is a reference to when Dorothy wakes in her bed and sees her friends around her.
In What’s My Line? (Part 2), Xander says, “Welcome my little pretties”. In The Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Witch of the West called Dorothy her “pretty”.
In The Yoko Factor, Willow says, “If ever a whiz there was.” This is a line from the song in the film ‘Follow the Yellow Brick Road’ / ‘We’re Off To See the Wizard’.
The episode No Place Like Home takes it’s name from Dorothy clicking her heels together and repeating the phrase, “There’s no place like home” in order to get back to her Kansas home. A similar reference to this phrase is in the Angel episode There’s No Place Like Plrtz Glrb.
In Grave, Willow says, “Fly my pretty…fly!” when she sends her ball of fire to find Andrew and Jonathan. This is what the wicked witch says to her flying monkeys when she sends them off. In Empty Places, Rona says, “Ding, dong, the witch is dead.” This is from a song in The Wizard of Oz.
The title of the Angel episode Over the Rainbow is another reference to The Wizard of Oz, in which the land of Oz is said to be ‘over the rainbow’. In that episode, Cordelia clicks her heels three times (as Dorothy does in the film) and says, “Worth a shot.”

Seen at 02.15 minutes:

If you look closely at the shot from outside the school early on in the episode (and use your zoom button on your DVD player!) you can see that the shot was actually taken from Teacher’s Pet. Willow can be seen sitting on a bench wearing a red t. shirt and checked trousers, the same clothes she wore in the scene when the gang first see Natalie French in that episode. The same shot can also be seen in the episode The Pack, and also at 16.57 in this episode (though at a different angle).

Seen at 02.35 minutes:

Willow takes off her rucksack twice but never puts it back on in between the two times.

Seen at 02.52 minutes:

When Buffy is talking to Willow about her parents, she shuts her locker. A few seconds later she shuts her locker again.