Invisible Girl

Although the season one episode is officially known as “Out of Mind, Out of Sight“, it is also widely referred to as “Invisible Girl”.

Joss’s dream

The sequence where Marcie watches as her hand disappears in class in Out of Mind, Out of Sight (and, indeed, the whole episode) was inspired by a vivid dream Buffy creator Joss Whedon had as a child. He used to think nobody loved him and that he was invisible to those around him.

Learning to listen

The conversation between Buffy and Giles in Out of Mind, Out of Sight where he suggests she learn to listen to people wasn’t in the original script and was added during post-production.

Clea Duvall

Clea played Marcie Ross in Out of Mind, Out of Sight. Clea went on to appear in films such as The Faculty, Girl Interrupted, Ghosts of Mars, 21 Grams and She’s All That, alongside Sarah Michelle Gellar’s husband Freddie Prinze Jr. She also starred as Jana in Can’t Hardly Wait with Seth Green and Amber Benson. Clea played Sophie in Carnivale. She and Sarah Michelle Gellar both starred in The Grudge (2004), made in Japan. The film also stars Jason Behr, who played Ford in Lie to Me.
Clea starred alongside Susan Rutton (Doris Kroger in Gone) in the movie Helter Skelter about Charles Manson. Clea played Linda Kasabian, the key witness in Manson’s trial and Susan played her mother, Mrs Kasabian. Clea also appeared in the movie Identity with another Buffy alum - John Hawkes, who played the janitor George in I Only Have Eyes For You.

Denise Dowse

Denise played Miss Miller, the teacher whom Marcie tried to suffocate in Out of Mind, Out of Sight. She has been in Coach Carter (as Principal Garrison), Ray (as Marlene), Book of Love, Dr. Dolittle 2, Pleasantville, Starship Troopers, See Jane Run and Out for Blood. Denise played Judge Rebecca Damsen in The Guardian, Juanita Hendrucks in Dragnet, Yvonne Teasley in Beverly Hills, 90210.

Mercedes McNab

Mercedes, who played Harmony Kendall, has been acting professionally since she was 10 years old. She is probably most widely recognised as playing the Girl Scout in the film Addams Family and as Amanda in Addams Family Values. Other feature films Mercedes has appeared in include a starring role in Savage Land, and a lead role in Fantastic Four. She also appeared in an episode of Dawson’s Creek.

Reza Badiyi

Reza directed the episode Out of Mind, Out of Sight. Reza is the stepfather of actress Jennifer Jason Leigh and a good friend of director Robert Altman. He directed the famous title sequence of Hawaii Five-O. Reza has directed episodes of She Spies, Early Edition, Baywatch Nights, Sliders, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, Baywatch, Cagney & Lacey, Police Squad!” , Fame, Falcon Crest, Hart to Hart, Starsky and Hutch, The Rockford Files, The Six Million Dollar Man, Hawaii Five-O, The Doris Day Show and Mission: Impossible.

Ryan Bittle

Ryan played Cordelia’s boyfriend Mitch in Out of Mind, Out of Sight. Ryan also played Todd Wilkins in the TV series Sweet Valley High. He left the show in 1996 and his part was taken over by Jeremy Garrett, who played Cameron Walker in Go Fish. Ryan also played Eric in Dawson’s Creek.

Skip Stellrecht

Skip’s real name is Henry Douglas Grey. He played Agent Manetti in Out of Mind, Out of Sight. Skip played Corky in The Bold and the Beautiful and Chaplain Miller in ER. He has also been in Babylon 5 and voiced numerous video games including Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault and Street Fighter Zero.

Agent Doyle

FBI Agent who came to Sunnydale High to collect invisible girl Marcie Ross in Out of Mind, Out of Sight. He took her to a secret operations unit where she learned to become an assassin.

Agent Manetti

One of the FBI Agents who took invisible girl Marcie Ross away to be trained as an assassin in Out of Mind, Out of Sight.

Harmony Kendall

Harmony was a pretty and popular girl who was also selfish, mean and empty-headed. Best friend of Cordelia Chase. Harmony spent most of her school life hanging out with friends and bitching about those less fortunate than herself. During the huge battle with the Mayor, Harmony was bitten by, and turned into, a vampire. She was a fairly unsuccessful vampire, never fully at ease with her new life. Harmony briefly dated Spike: she left him once when he tried to stake her then went back to him again. She eventually broke up with him when she realised that Drusilla and Buffy were more important to him than she was. Harmony went to L.A. where she eventually got a job at evil law firm Wolfram and Hart.

Marcie Ross

Marcie Ross was an unpopular girl at Sunnydale High who became invisible when no one noticed her. Blamed Cordelia for her plight and set about getting revenge, by hurting her friends and eventually kidnapping Cordy and threating to cut her. Marcie was taken away by FBI Agents Manetti and Doyle to be trained as an assassin. She was only seen in the episode Out of Mind, Out of Sight, but she was also referred to in the episodes Lessons, Storyteller and Gone.

Miss Miller

Miss Miller was an English teacher at Sunnydale High. Marcie Ross attempted to suffocate her using a plastic bag, but she was saved by Cordelia in Out of Mind, Out of Sight.

Mitch

Mitch was a boyfriend of Cordelia who was beaten with a baseball bat by Marcie Ross in Out of Mind, Out of Sight.

Pergamum Codex

Angel met Giles for the first time in Out of Mind, Out of Sight (”A vampire in love with a Slayer. It’s rather poetic, in a maudlin sort of way.”) and revealed to the Watcher that he could get copies of the Tiberius Manifesto and the Pergamum Codex, which are key accounts of Slayer lore. The books proved vital to Buffy in Prophecy Girl, as Giles discovered in them the prophecy that the Slayer would face the Master and die. In the season four episode of Angel ‘Orpheus‘, Willow was asked by Fred about the Pergamum Codex because it had some interesting stuff in it.

Bach

In the episode Storyteller, the classical piece playing at the beginning of the episode, in Andrew’s fantasy, is Brandenburg Concerto 3, Movement 1, by Johann Sebastian Bach. The same piece can be heard in Hell’s Bells, being played by the quartet at Anya’s wedding.
In Out of Mind, Out of Sight, Marcie repeatedly plays Bach’s “Siciliano” on her flute.

Invisible people

In Out of Mind, Out of Sight, the implication is that Marcie became invisible because of the combination of people ignoring her and the influence of the Hellmouth. But at the end of the episode there are invisible students from other schools. Did those schools have Hellmouths too, or were they just wrong in figuring what made Marcie invisible?

Vampire breath

In Out of Mind, Out of Sight, Angel saves Giles, Xander and Willow by turning off a leaky gas valve. He tells them, “It’s not like I need the oxygen.” This ties in with Prophecy Girl, where Xander saves Buffy’s life using CPR as Angel is unable to because he can’t breathe. There have been numerous goofs where vampire have been seen panting when they shouldn’t be able to. See the goofs section for more on this.

Helen Keller

Helen Keller (1880-1968) was mentioned by Cordelia in Out of Mind, Out of Sight (when her boyfriend gets her eye colour wrong). Helen was born deaf and blind but learned to communicate and later became a writer and scholar. Cordy also mentioned her in the Angel episode Blind Date when she says “What, Hellen Kellerus Homicidalus?”

Lost in Space

In Out of Mind, Out of Sight, Buffy says the line, “Crush! Kill! Destroy!”. This is a reference to the TV show Lost in Space, in which the same line is said by the robot.

Marcie’s textbook

The following is from Marcie’s text book in the final scene of Out of Mind, Out of Sight. This is an accurate transcription of the page, including the odd punctuation, the capitalization mistakes, and the misspelling of ‘acquainted’:

The bulk of the text (between ‘August 2, 19XX’ and the final comma) is “Happiness is a Warm Gun” by the Beatles, with the title phrase replaced with “Joy is a hot revolver.”

The rest of the book appears to be Practical Investigation Techniques of which chapter 7 is “Infiltration”. The tiny glimpse of that page shows that the layout of the fake chapter 11 was patterned after the actual chapters of the book. Here is Amazon.com’s scan of the chapter 1 page, which shows that it’s the same book.

Merchant of Venice

In Out of Mind, Out of Sight, Cordelia’s English class discuss Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice:

In The Wish, the Master asks Willow and Xander, “What news on the Rialto?” This is a line from Merchant of Venice. The Rialto is a bridge in Venice, and Salanio, who asks the question, is asking for the latest news on the local scene (gathered, in this case, from local gossips, who apparently hung out on the bridge).
In I Only Have Eyes For You, Xander quips “The quality of mercy is not Buffy…” This is a reference to the famous “Quality of Mercy” speech delivered by Portia in Merchant of Venice.

Scooby Doo

The cartoon Scooby Doo has several ties with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Xander calls Buffy’s group of friends the “Scooby Gang” for the first time in What’s My Line? (Part 1) as they have similarities with the young crime-fighting sleuths in the Scooby Doo cartoon. He says to Cordelia, “C’mon, Cordelia. You want to be a member of the Scooby Gang you gotta be willing to be inconvenienced every now and then.”
In Out of Mind, Out of Sight, Willow wears a white Scooby Doo t-shirt in this episode and in Beauty and the Beasts we see that she keeps her forensic tools in a Scooby Doo lunch box. In When She Was Bad, Xander wears a red Scooby Doo t-shirt.
Sarah Michelle Gellar appeared in two Scooby Doo movies, and Seth Green (Oz) appeared with Sarah in Scooby Doo: Monsters Unleashed. Sarah’s Buffy stunt double, Michele Waitman, also doubled for Sarah in Scooby Doo: Monsters Unleashed.
More Buffy/Scooby Doo trivia: In the movie Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back there is a spoof scene of Scooby Doo’s gang. The part of Fred was played by Marc Blucas (Riley Finn), Shaggy was played by Matthew James (who played the demon Merle in Angel) and Velma was played by Jane Silvia (who played the “conservative woman” in The Freshman).

The Beatles

In I Robot - You Jane, Xander refers to the Beatles song “With a Little Help from My Friends” when Buffy says that Dave’s death looked like suicide. The song is from the 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band Band.
In Out of Mind, Out of Sight, most of Marcie’s text book at her new school is not actually about ‘Infiltration and Assassination’, as the chapter suggests. Most of it is either nonsense or devoted to the Beatles’ “Happiness is a Warm Gun”.
In What’s My Line? (Part 2), Xander says, “I am the bug man, coo coo ka choo.” This is a reference to The Beatles’ psychedelic song “I Am The Walrus” (1967) which contains the line, “I am the eggman, they are the eggmen, I am the walrus, goo goo g’joob.”
The episode The Yoko Factor is named after John Lennon’s wife Yoko Ono, who was widely believed to have been the catalyst for breaking up The Beatles. In that episode, Spike explains this to Adam, who replies, “I like Helter Skelter” (a Beatles song).

Twinkie Defence

In Tough Love, Ben’s (now former) boss is talking to him about the excuses Ben could give for not being at work for two days:

This is a reference to the shootings of Harvey Milk (San Francisco City Supervisor) and Mayor George Moscone. The perpetrator Dan White’s attorney said that the shooting was in part a result of a depressive state brought on by (among other things) eating too many Twinkies. It became known as the ‘Twinkie Defense’.
In Out of Mind, Out of Sight, Cordelia says about Shylock from The Merchant of Venice, “That is such a Twinkie defense. Shylock should get over himself.”

Seen at 08.35 minutes:

Watch the hands of the characters while they are eating. Xander’s crisps turn into a sandwich and back, while Buffy suddenly has a drink in her hand.

Seen at 18.38 minutes:

As Cordy gives her speech of thanks, Snyder changes positions behind her in several different shots. In the long shots, he’s just to her right, and in the close up shots he’s not there.

Seen at 32.05 minutes:

How does Marcie reach down from the roof in the cupboard to grab Cordelia, and then have the strength to lift Cordelia up through the roof? There’s no visible means of support for Marcie, and nowhere she could have held on to.

Seen at 33.38 minutes:

The Bronze has a sign saying ‘Closed for fumigation’, but the post fumigation party had been seen in the episode Angel.

Seen at 37.15 minutes:

As Buffy is knocked down by Marcie, the rope around Cordy’s left hand becomes untied. For the rest of the scene, the rope is tightly tied around Cordy’s hand once again.

Seen at 42.00 minutes:

In the class of invisible students, how does Marcie know the chair she picks to sit in is unoccupied?