Xander gets a job as a bartender at the college pub. Buffy goes to see him at work and ends up drowning her Parker-related sorrows by drinking Black Frost beer with some obnoxious students. They start to act very strangely. Xander discovers that the bar manager is spiking the beer with some kind of magic, causing the targets to revert to caveman mentality. When the cavemen start a fire, Neanderthal-Buffy’s Slayer instincts kick in and she saves the day - and also knocks Parker over the head with a big stick.
| Airdate: | 2 November 1999 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Writer: | Tracey Forbes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Director: | David Soloman | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cast: |
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Buffy: "I'm suffering the afterness of a bad night of... badness."
Behind the Scenes Trivia
Emmy Awards
A bone of contention with many who love Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the fact that it is often overlooked by the Emmy Awards. The show has won in these categories: Christophe Beck’s score to Becoming; and ‘Best Make-Up’ for Surprise and Innocence. Joss Whedon was nominated for the ‘Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series’ award for Hush (interesting considering most of the episode has no dialogue!) and Chosen was nominated in the ‘Special Visual Effects for a Series’ category. Beer Bad received an Emmy nomination for ‘Outstanding Hairstyling for a Series’ in the 52nd Annual Emmy Awards. Hell’s Bells got 3 Emmy nominations: Outstanding Hairstyling for a Series, Outstanding Make-up for a Series (non-prosthetic), and Outstanding Make-up For A Series (Prosthetic).
Shot again
The shot of Sunnydale campus shown at the start of Beer Bad is the same one used in The Freshman. You can even see Buffy walking up the middle of the screen holding the folder and wearing the dress she wore in that episode. The same shot was reused in Hush, after the Gentlemen are destroyed.
Xander’s tache
Here’s the prop direction for Xander’s ID in Beer Bad: “FAKE I.D. showing Xander with a big Tom Selleck moustache.”
Cast and Crew Trivia
Bryan Cuprill
Bryan Cuprill, who played Roy in Beer Bad, played the same character in the Buffy episode Where the Wild Things Are. He has also appeared in Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde, ER, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Zoe, Duncan, Jack & Jane and The Drew Carey Show.
Eric Mathany
Eric Mathany played college student Colm in Beer Bad. He has also been in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Family Law, Time of Your Life, Early Edition and Charmed.
Heath Castor
Heath Castor played various characters in the episodes Dead Man’s Party, I Only Have Eyes For You, The Freshman, Living Conditions and Beer Bad. He was in the Angel episode ‘Untouched‘.
Kal Penn
Kal Penn, who played Hunt in Beer Bad, also played “Fez Boy” in the Angel episode ‘That Vision Thing‘. He can also be seen in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, The Arrangement, Cosmopolitan, Superman Returns, Love Don’t Cost a Thing, All About the Andersons and ER.
Michael Beardsley
Michael Beardsley played an uncredited college student in Beer Bad. He appeared in the Angel episode ‘Sense and Sensitivity’ as an accident onlooker. He had other uncredited roles in Men in Black II, Crazy Beautiful, Dude, Where’s My Car? and The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle.
Character Trivia
Jack
Jack was the manager of the student campus bar at UC Sunnydale. He disliked pretentious students and served them Black Frost beer which had been bewitched by his warlock brother-in-law. Anyone who drank the beer (including Buffy) turned into a Neanderthal, seen in Beer Bad.
Continuity
Alcohol
Drinking alcohol in Buffy the Vampire Slayer has always been frowned upon, though the rules were relaxed slightly as the Scoobies got older. The general rule is: if you have a drink, something bad is going to happen to you. Here are some examples of this rule:
In Teacher’s Pet, Xander is the first of the Scoobies to drink alcohol. He has a sip of Martini given to him by Natalie French who is really a giant preying mantis in disguise. The drink has been drugged and he passes out. When Xander awakes he only narrowly escapes mating with and being killed by the mantis.
In Reptile Boy, Buffy and Cordelia go to a frat house party where they drink alcohol which has (again) been spiked. They pass out and awaken in a basement, ready to be sacrificed by Machida.
In The Dark Age, Giles gets busy with the whiskey and then his girlfriend gets possessed by Eyghon the Sleepwalker.
In Lover’s Walk, Spike returns to Sunnydale and gets extremely drunk, he awakes in the morning when sunlight touches his hand, which goes up in flames.
In Something Blue, Willow’s friends freak out a bit too much when they see she’s drinking - GASP! - low-alcohol beer. Willow later does a spell which makes her will be done, causing havoc for her friends (OK, so the alcohol/badness link isn’t as strong in this example but I like it because she’s only drinking a low-alcohol beer!).
Beer Bad: the episode title says it all. Buffy drinks beer and turns into a Neanderthal… blah blah blah. Unfortunately, the “isn’t alcohol terrible” motto was lost on me as I was forced to get very drunk to sit through the episode.
In Life Serial, Buffy and Spike go drinking together and Buffy is really ill. She then tells Giles about how she’s messing up (though in fairness this started before she was drinking!)
The Bronze serves alcohol but the rules are very strict about the age limit. Underage people have to wear a stamp on their hand so they won’t get served (Dawn in Family) and when Anya tries to get a beer in Doppelgängland, she’s asked for ID.
The rules are later relaxed and finally, in Older and Far Away, Buffy celebrates her 21st birthday, meaning she can now legally drink alcohol, though we saw her previously drinking beer in Dead Things.
Double standards
We see in Beer Bad that Oz missed two classes of Psychology. This is interesting, since Professor Walsh told Buffy in Fear, Itself that if she missed a second class, she’d be kicked out.
Fire bad
In Flooded, Buffy suggests she burn her house down for the insurance. She says, “plus fire? Pretty.” In Graduation Day (Part 2), Buffy said to Giles “fire bad, tree pretty”. She also said the line, “fire bad!” in Beer Bad.
UC Sunnydale pub
There is a pub on campus at UC Sunnydale, seen in Beer Bad. There is a Welsh flag behind the bar in the pub (the green and white flag with a red dragon on it).
Veruca spotting
Oz notices Veruca from the band Shy again in Beer Bad, making Willow jealous. Willow says that Veruca “dresses like Faith”.
Music Trivia
Ash
Ash’s song “I’m Gonna Fall” (from their album Nu-Clear Sounds) plays in Beer Bad when Buffy and Xander talk in the pub.
Collapsis
“Wonderland” by Collapsis (from the album Dirty Wake) can be heard in the background when Willow and Parker talk in Beer Bad.
Kim Ferron
“Nothing But You” by Kim Ferron plays on the jukebox in the bar in Beer Bad.
Lauren Christy
When Buffy bumps into Riley in the college pub in Beer Bad, the song “Perfect Again” by Lauren Christy plays in the background.
Lee Goulding & Gary Corcoran
During Buffy’s dream about Parker in Beer Bad, we hear Lee Goulding & Gary Corcoran’s “Some People Say” from Gale Music Library.
Luscious Jackson
The music video Buffy watches in Beer Bad is Luscious Jackson’s video for ‘Lady Fingers’. Jill Cunniff, one of the vocalists for the band, knew Joss Whedon as a child.
Smile
Smile’s “The Best Years” (from the album Girl Crushes Boy) plays in the Bronze as Oz brings Willow a drink in Beer Bad.
THC
The name of Veruca’s band is Shy, but the music is actually perfomed by the real band THC. They play the song ‘Overfire’ in Beer Bad. George Sarah, who can be seen on the piano in Shy’s performances, is actually THC’s songwriter. He collaborated with Anthony Stewart Head on his album ‘Music For Elevators’. Shy play ‘Dip’ and ‘Need to Destroy’ in Wild at Heart.
In the Angel episode ‘Lonely Hearts‘, when team Angel arrives at the club we hear “Girlflesh” by THC.
Mythology Trivia
Black Frost
The bewitched beer sold in the college pub in Beer Bad was called Black Frost. The beer was enchanted the barman Jack’s brother-in-law, who just happened to be a warlock. Black Frost turned the students who drank it into really annoying Neanderthal-types who feared fire, as revenge for being snotty to the barman.
References
Cocktail
In Beer Bad, Xander compared his bartending skills to those of Tom Cruise in the 1988 movie Cocktail.
Electric Kool Aid
In Beer Bad, Xander calls Giles, “Mr I-spent-the-60s-in-an-electric-kool-aid-funky-satan-groove,” referring to Tom Wolfe’s 1967 book The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, about hippies who take drugs.
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.
Quest for Fire
In Beer Bad, Xander says, “How much beer would you say a person needed to consume before they started seriously questing for fire?” Quest for Fire is a movie, made in 1981, about three prehistoric men who search for a new source of fire.
Wild Turkey
In Beer Bad, Willow refers to Wild Turkey (”I’m pregnant by my stepbrother who’d rather be with my best friend and he’s left me with no place to live and no food except this bottle of Wild Turkey, which I drunk all up”). It is a brand of American bourbon whiskey.
Yummi Sushi pyjamas
In Goodbye, Iowa, Buffy wears ‘yummy sushi pyjamas’ (”That probably would have sounded more commanding if I wasn’t wearing my yummy sushi pajamas.”). They are made by the same company, The Cat’s Pajamas, that made the butterfly pyjamas she wore in Beer Bad. The Yummi Sushi flannel PJs cost $86.
Goofs
Seen at 04.45 minutes:
When Xander holds up his fake ID, the shots from behind him show that he’s holding the license with his thumb and middle finger, but in the shots facing him, he’s holding it on the right with his thumb and index finger.
Seen at 12.31 minutes:
Willow drinks from the cup that Oz brought her, then sets it down, touching the rim with one hand, but from another angle, that hand is nowhere near the rim.
Seen at 23.45 minutes:
While Parker talks to Willow, he gestures with his arms. At one point, he folds them in front of himself, but there’s an immediate cut to a shot where his left arm is still extended towards Willow.
Quotes
Xander: "What gives it away?"
Willow: "Looking at it."
Xander: "Oh, I've seen Cocktail. I can do the hippy-hippy shake."
Xander: "Nothing can defeat the penis! ... Too loud. Very unseemly."
Buffy: "I'm suffering the afterness of a bad night of... badness."
Willow: "He deserves a torturous and slow death by spider bites. Well, for today, we'll just have to throw spitballs at his neck in class."
Xander: "I didn't know it was evil."
Giles: "You knew it was beer."
Willow: "That's right. I got your number, id boy. Only thing you're thinking about is how long before you can jump on my bones."
Xander: "Giles, don't make Cave-Slayer unhappy."
Xander: "And was there a lesson in all this? Huh? What did we learn about beer?"
Buffy: "Foamy!"