Action figures

Giles and Anya’s Halloween costumes (a mexican and a bunny) from Fear, Itself were so popular with fans that they were made into action figures by Clayburn Moore.

Willow and Xander miss each other

The following is from the original script for Fear, Itself:

Sulo Williams

Sulo Williams played Chaz in Fear, Itself (the frat guy who said Arbor Day was the only holiday not about getting laid) and in Hush. He also played Puff Dog in Passions.

Tucker Gates

Tucker Gates directed the episode Fear, Itself. He directed the Angel episode ‘Hero’. Tucker has also directed episodes of Skin, CSI: Miami, Roswell, Providence, Cracker, Dark Skies, and The X Files.

Walter Emmanuel Jones

Walter Emmanuel Jones, who played Edward (the frat guy who painted the pentagram) in Fear, Itself, starred as the Black Power Ranger in Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. He also starred alongside Charisma Carpenter in Malibu Shores and has been in Love And A Bullet and American Gun.

Chaz

Chaz was a college friend of Oz who helped to arrange a frat house Halloween party on campus. Chaz painted the Mark of Gachnar on the floor as a decoration, but it was activated when drops of Oz’s blood dripped onto the symbol. Gachnar then made everyone’s fears into reality. The Scoobies discovered Chaz hiding in a cupboard in Fear, Itself.

Annual vid fest

According to Xander, Halloween during Fear, Itself would be the second annual Halloween video screening, implying that the Scoobies watched videos the previous year. There was no Halloween episode in season three, so this makes sense.

Bunnies

Anya has a fear of bunnies, first referenced in Fear, Itself when she wore a bunny costume to a Halloween party, with the simple explanation: “bunnies frighten me”. This fear is shown in Shadow, The Gift, Once More, With Feeling, Tabula Rasa, Smashed, Selfless and in Chosen. In Bargaining (Part 2), Razor asks Willow what she’s going to do, “pull a rabbit out of a hat?” Anya turns to Tara to be reassured that she won’t. Anya’s final words on the show are about bunnies. She thinks of them whilst preparing for the huge battle - “Bunnies. Floppy, hoppy, bunnies.” Anya’s bunny suit in Fear, Itself became so popular that modelmakers Clayburn Moore created a figure of the character.

Bunny suit

In The Puppet Show, Buffy says, “OK, everyone look at me like I’m in a bunny suit ‘cos I feel so stupid saying this”. In season four’s Fear, Itself, Anya wears a bunny suit to a Halloween party.

Costume fun

Scooby Halloween costumes Fear, Itself include: Buffy as Little Red Riding Hood; Willow as Joan of Arc; Oz as God; Xander as James Bond (or a waiter); Anya as a bunny; and Giles as a Mexican.

Costume insurance

In Fear, Itself, Xander refers to the season two episode Halloween in which the Scoobies were turned into their costumesHe says, “Bond. James Bond. Insurance, you know, in case we get turned into our costumes again. I’m going for cool Secret Agent Guy.”

First Initiative glimpses

We saw the Initiative soldiers for the first time in The Freshman. The Scoobies saw them for the first time in Fear, Itself, but attributed their attire to Halloween costumes.

Homicidal robot

In Fear, Itself, Joyce opens up to Buffy a little about her life post-Hank. She says, “It certainly didn’t help that my last boyfriend turned out to be a homicidal robot”, referring to Ted Buchanan, her boyfriend in the episode Ted.

More foreshadowy goodness

In Fear, Itself, Gachnar tells Buffy, “They’re all going to abandon you, you know.” They do: in season seven’s Empty Places, when everyone chooses Faith over Buffy. In the same episode, Oz is scared of the wolf within him and Willow screams, “don’t leave me” to Oz. Both these fears come true in Wild at Heart when Oz leaves Willow to try and control his wolfish side.

Party last Friday

In Fear Itself, Willow mentions the party “last Friday”. She’s probably referring to the party at Wolf House in The Harsh Light of Day.

Red

In Fear, Itself, Xander calls Buffy “Red”. Spike called Willow “Red” in Same Time, Same Place and The Yoko Factor, and Faith called Willow this in This Year’s Girl. Kennedy also calls Willow “Red” in Chosen, when they’re in the Principal’s office getting ready for Willow to work her mojo.

Stake burned

Willow refers to the events of the episode Gingerbread when she says in Fear, Itself, “I’m Joan of Arc. I figured we had a lot in common, seeing as how I was almost burned at the stake…”

Uncle Rory

Xander’s Uncle Rory, who was a “stodgy taxidermist” by day and at night it was “booze, whores and fur flying”. Mentioned in The Dark Age, The Zeppo (when he lent Xander his car), Fear, Itself, Gone and As You Were. We finally got to meet Uncle Rory when he was a guest at Xander’s wedding in Hell’s Bells - and he didn’t disappoint. He pretended to be electrocuted by a toaster and hit on a waitress at the wedding, pretending she was his date. He then explained the finer points of taxidermy to her.

28 Days

In Fear, Itself, we hear ‘Kool’ by 28 Days, as the frat boys prepare for the party.

Third Grade Teacher

In Fear, Itself, ‘Ow Ow Ow’ by Third Grade Teacher as people arrive at the party.

Verbena

In Fear, Itself, we hear ‘Pretty Please’ by Verbena as the Scoobies arrive at the party.

Aradia

Aradia is the Goddess of the Lost. She appears as a small light to guide those who are lost. In Fear Itself, Willow called upon Aradia using a guiding spell to get her friends out of the bewitched frat house: “Aradia, Goddess of the lost, the path is murky, the woods are dense, darkness pervades, I beseech thee, bring the light.” The spell went wrong and Willow was surrounded by hundreds of green lights.
In Bargaining (Part 2), Tara successfully helped Willow and Xander out of the woods by sending Aradia to guide them.

Gachnar

Gachnar was an Irish fear demon who was able to make people’s fears come true, seen in Fear, Itself. It trapped a group of students in a frat house at a Halloween party, and forced them to live out their worst nightmares. Buffy accidentally summoned the demon who revealed himself to be only a few centimetres tall. Buffy crushed him wih her shoe.

Halloween

Halloween gets its name from the Catholic celebration of All Hallow’s Eve, a day when all the saints, not just those with their own feast day, were honoured. Its real origins go back much further, to the ancient festival of Samhain, the Celtic new year. On that day it was believed that the boundaries between the worlds of the living and dead were weakened. Thus spirits were able to cause trouble on earth, and humans to gain otherworldly knowledge. According to Giles, Halloween is traditionally a quiet night for undead activity as they think it’s corny. Halloween is celebrated in the Buffy episodes Halloween, Fear Itself and All the Way.

Fantasia

The animated movie Fantasia has been mentioned twice in Buffy. In Fear, Itself, Xander brings home Phantasm from the video shop but discovers he’s been given Fantasia instead. In All the Way, the Scoobies discuss cleaning the Magic Shop. Willow says, “I could whip up a jaunty self-cleaning incantation, it’ll be like Fantasia.” The movie was made in 1940 and features Mickey Mouse in dramatic animated sequences to classical music.

Frankenstein

In Fear, Itself, Giles says, “It’s alive!”, which is from the 1931 movie Frankenstein. Buffy’s “Fire bad” line in Beer Bad also comes from that movie. The monster in the movie (played by Boris Karloff) is chased by angry villagers with torches, when he shouts, “Fire Bad!”
In Goodbye, Iowa, the shot with Adam and the little boy is an homage to the 1931 movie Frankenstein. When Frankenstein’s monster escapes, he walks through a forest and comes upon a little girl, Maria, who is throwing flowers into a pond. The monster joins her in the activity but soon runs out of flowers. At a loss for something to throw into the water, he looks at Maria and moves toward her. In all American prints of the movie, the scene ends here. But as originally filmed, the action continues to show the monster grabbing Maria, hurling her into the lake, then departing in confusion when Maria fails to float as the flowers did. This bit was deleted because Karloff - objecting to the director’s interpretation of the scene - felt that the monster should have gently put Maria into the lake. This scene is restored in the video cassette reissue. Both monsters were created using body parts from other people/demons and both encountered a child and expressed curiosity, which ended in the child’s death.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The title of the episode Fear, Itself comes from American President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inaugural address, on March 4th, 1933. He said, “This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

Joan of Arc

Willow dressed as Joan of Arc when going to a Halloween party in Fear, Itself. Joan of Arc is the patron saint of France. From a young age she thought she heard voices which she believed to have been sent by God. They told her to free France from the English, who were occupying northern France. She was given troops to command and she led them to victory but she was captured, interrogated and tried for witchcraft. Joan was burned at the stake at only nineteen years of age. The people of Sunnydale attempted to burn Buffy and Willow at the stake in Gingerbread when they were under a spell and thought the girls were witches.
In Tabula Rasa, after losing her memory, Buffy decides to name herself Joan (“I feel like a Joan”). This isn’t completely random - like Buffy, Joan of Arc also died young after a violent life.

Julius Caesar

In Pangs, Spike tells the Scoobies:

“You won. All right? You came in and you killed them and you took their land. That’s what conquering nations do. It’s what Caesar did and he’s not going around saying, “I came, I conquered, I felt really bad about it.”

Spike is referring to the Roman military and political leader Gaius Julius Caesar (c.100 BC-44 BC). The words “Veni Vidi Vici” (”I came, I saw, I conquered”) are often attributed to him.
Caesar is also referenced in Fear, Itself, when Willow says, “Okay, Brutus” (off Oz’s confused look) “Brutus? Caesar?… Betrayal? Trusted friend? Back-stabby?” In his play Julius Caesar, Shakespeare wrote Caesar’s final words as “Et tu, Brute?” after he was stabbed to death by a group of senators including his trusted friend Marcus Brutus.

Star Wars

George Lucas’s Star Wars films are a cult phenomenon. They are referenced numerous times in the Buffyverse. The original trilogy included the movies Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return Of The Jedi (1983) and the movies The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack of the Clones (2002) and Revenge of the Sith (2005) were made later on.

• In When She Was Bad, when Xander and Willow play Guess the Movie from the tag line (Willow: “Use the Force, Luke.”,
  Xander: “Do I even have to dignify that with a guess?”)
• In School Hard, Spike told Angel that, “You were my Yoda!” Yoda was the ancient Jedi master who became the mentor and teacher for both Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker.
• A visual reference to Star Wars can be seen in The Zeppo, when Xander runs into the corridor and runs back out with the gang members chasing him. Han Solo does the same thing in Star Wars.
• In Choices, Buffy says that Faith has turned to ‘the dark side’.
• In The Freshman, Xander confuses the Star Wars Jedi code quoted by Yoda in The Phantom Menace. (”Hate leads to anger…no wait…Fear leads to hate, hate leads to the dark side”). Also in that episode, the old frat house that the vampires are holed up in is the Psi Theta house. If you write those two greek letters together, and pronounce them together, you get Sith.
• In Fear, Itself, Xander says to Oz, “Sensing a disturbance in the Force, Master?”
• Buffy using the chain to choke Sobek the snake-demon in Shadow is reminiscent of Princess Leia killing Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi.
• In Forever, Ben calls Glory’s minions “Jawa rejects” after the small hooded and robed creatures in Star Wars.
• In Life Serial, Andrew paints a Death Star from Star Wars on the side of the gang’s van. It’s the Empire’s revised design from Return of the Jedi, which Jonathan says is flawed.
• In the episode Two To Go, Andrew says, “We’ve got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds us all into to Jawa burgers and not one of you bunch has the Midichlorians to stop her.” These are all Star Wars references: Darth is a title given to a Sith Warrior (such as Darth Vader); Jawas are the hooded creatures who live on Tatooine, and Midichlorians are micro-organisms which exist in all living things. Andrew says, “Laugh it up, Fuzzball” which is a quote from Star Wars. Andrew also later says in Two To Go, “…in a galaxy far, far away” - yet another Star Wars reference.
• In All the Way, Tara and Willow see a couple dressed as Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker kissing in the Bronze. Willow asks, “Do they know they’re brother and sister?”
• In Smashed, we see that the three nerds own a mint condition (though out of its packaging) 1979 Boba Fett action figure. Though Boba Fett was first introduced in The Empire Strikes Back (made in 1980), the earliest Boba Fett figure was made in 1979, before the film was released.
• In Dead Things, Jonathan and Andrew play fight with green light sabres.
• In Entropy, Warren calls Jonathan “Padawan”.
• In Conversations with Dead People, Jonathan and Warren have the following conversation: Warren: “Come on, “If you strike me down…” Andrew: “I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine…That boy is our last hope.” Warren: “No, there is another.” These are all quotes from Star Wars.
• In Potential, Xander says to Andrew, “Say Skywalker, and I smack you.” He is, of course, referring to Star Wars‘ Luke Skywalker.
• In Showtime, Andrew says, “I’m bored. Episode I bored.” He’s referring to George Lucas’s disappointing movie Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.
• In Never Leave Me, Warren/The First says, “I’m like Obi Wan”. He also says to Andrew, “We’re right in the trench, and the exhaust port’s in sight.” This is a reference to the scene in Star Wars in which the Death Star is under attack.
• In Bring on the Night, Andrew says, “I’m like Vader in the last 5 minutes of Jedi with redemptive powers minus a redemptive struggle of epic redemption which chronicles…” He’s referring to the last scenes of the final Star Wars movie Return of the Jedi.
• In Storyteller, there are two framed Star Wars comics on the wall in Andrew’s opening scene.
• In Dirty Girls, Andrew says, “But like so many tragic heroes, Faith was seduced by the lure of the dark side.”

Seen at 13.10 minutes:

In the scene in which Xander and Oz bring over the sound system to the frat house, Xander’s hair changes in a few shots without him moving it.

Seen at 25.33 minutes:

Buffy’s braid goes from behind her shoulder to in front of it when Willow and Oz check her wound. Willow then disappears out of shot.