Near Amish

The following line of Spike’s was deleted from The Yoko Factor:

Bob Fimiani

Bob Fimiani played Mr. Ward, the head of the Initiative in The Yoko Factor and Primeval who ordered the Initiative to be closed down and the earth salted over. Bob also played ‘Grounds Keeper’ in the Angel episode ‘The Prodigal‘ and ‘Codger Demon’ in the Angel episode ‘Heartthrob‘. He played ‘Elder Gamman’ in Joss Whedon’s show Firefly, in the episode ‘Our Mrs. Reynolds’.

Conor O’Farrell

Conor O’Farrell played Colonel McNamara in New Moon Rising, The Yoko Factor and Primeval. He also played Darren Leopold in Port Charles, and has appeared in many films and TV shows including Stir of Echoes, Dark Skies, NYPD Blue, Enterprise, 24, The X Files, Ally McBeal, ER, Chicago Hope, Desperate Housewives, Party of Five, Murder One and Matlock.

Forrest Gates

Forrest Gates was a friend of Riley Finn and a fellow member of the Initiative. He didn’t approve of Buffy’s relationship with Riley. Forrest was killed by Adam in The Yoko Factor and reanimated to work for Adam in Primeval. He fought Riley, who blew him up.

Dorm phone

Buffy and Willow’s phone in their dorm room keeps changing. In Living Conditions it was a white one with an answering machine, then it changed to a different design in Hush, and in The Yoko Factor, it’s a small, blue phone.

Encrypted discs

In the Angel season one episode ‘Blind Date‘, Cordelia calls Willow to get some help decrypting discs that Angel stole from Wolfram & Hart:

This is a reference to the files that Spike stole from the Initiative in The Yoko Factor which Willow was trying to decrypt.

Entertainment station

In The Yoko Factor, Spike has a new TV in his crypt to replace the one Forrest broke in Goodbye, Iowa. He also has a video, a microwave and an old Nintendo - but no obvious sign of electricity.

Giles’s bathroom

In The Yoko Factor, Giles seems to have been doing some redecorating. When Anya and Tara are in his bathroom, it’s different from how it was when Spike was chained up in it earlier in the season (Something Blue). It actually looks a lot like the bathroom from the house in Where the Wild Things Are.

Heading to L.A.

The Buffy episode The Yoko Factor follows on from an episode of Angel called ‘Sanctuary‘, where Buffy turns up in L.A. to find Faith. She’s disgusted to find that Angel is helping her nemesis, despite what she did to Buffy. Angel and Buffy argue, and she leaves. He arrives in Sunnydale in The Yoko Factor to apologise to Buffy. Xander calls Buffy “LA Woman”, referring to her visit to L.A.

King of pain

In The Yoko Factor, Riley calls Angel “Mr. Billowy Coat King of Pain”. Angel’s long black coat billowing as he walks away mysteriously is a trademark of his.

Miss Kitty Fantastico

Miss Kitty Fantastico was a black and white kitten belonging to Tara and Willow. The girls discussed getting a cat in New Moon Rising. She appeared in The Yoko Factor, Restless and Family then disappeared for three seasons. Her absence was finally explained in End of Days, when Dawn implied that Miss Kitty had died, “Xander, my crossbow is not out here. I told you, I don’t leave crossbows around all willy-nilly… Not since that time with Miss Kitty Fantastico.”

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.

Roomies

In The Yoko Factor, Willow asks Tara about housing for the following college year. The two end up living together in a dorm as Buffy moves home to be with her mother in season five.

Slayer killer

Spike tells Adam in The Yoko Factor that he killed two Slayers. We heard this first in School Hard, and see Spike relate his story to Buffy in Fool For Love.

Taser blazer

In This Year’s Girl, Xander tries to repair the faulty taser-gun which Maggie Walsh gave to Buffy in The I in Team (”Sure. As soon as I get my master’s degree in advanced starship technology”). Riley finally fixes it and Buffy uses it in The Yoko Factor.

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.

Freebird

In The Yoko Factor, Giles sings “Freebird” until Spike interrupts him. The song was originally written and recorded by Lynyrd Skynrd in 1973. The lyrics Giles sings are:

“If I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me?
For I must be travelling on now,
‘cause there’s too many places I’ve got to see.
But if I stayed here with you, girl, things just couldn’t be the same.
‘Cause I’m as free as a bird, now, and this bird you cannot change.”

Batman

The comic Batman, by DC Comics, is mentioned several times in Buffy.

• In Some Assembly Required, Buffy says to Willow, “Sorry to interrupt, Willow, but it’s the Bat-Signal.” She’s alluding to the ‘Bat-Signal’ in Gotham city which is used to alert Batman that he is needed.
• In Halloween, Xander says to Cordelia, “Catwoman, you’re with me.” In the Batman comics, Catwoman is a cat-burglar, and the alter ego of Selina Kyle.
• In The Yoko Factor, Xander says, “You and Willow go do the superpower thing, I’ll stay behind and putt around the Batcave with crusty old Alfred here.” The Batcave was Batman’s high-tech base and Alfred was his loyal butler.
• The nerds’ freeze ray gun in Smashed may have been inspired by Batman’s Mr Freeze, who used a similar device.
• In Beneath You, Spike says, “A little touchy-feely, and you’re off to the Batpoles?” He’s referring to the 1960s TV show Batman in which Batman and Robin would slide down poles to the Batcave when they were needed.
• In Bring on the Night, Andrew mentions Batman’s foe The Riddler.
• Vincent Schiavelli, who played Jenny’s uncle in Surprise and Innocence played the Organ Grinder in the movie Batman Returns.
• In the Angel episode Lonely Hearts, Doyle says, “It’s not like you have a signal folks can shine in the sky whenever they need help, you know?”, referring to the Batsignal.
• In ‘In the Dark‘, Spike says of Angel, “quickly to the Angelmobile, away” - another Batman reference.
• In Benediction, Lilah says of Connor,”Who’s the boy wonder?” This is the name often given to Batman’s sidekick, Robin.

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).

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.”

WP (Widespread Panic)

A black and white oval sticker with the letters “WP” can often be seen in Sunnydale. The sticker is for a band called Widespread Panic. Examples of episodes in which this is seen include:
Inca Mummy Girl: behind Xander when he says to Ampata, “Why’d you run away?”.
Halloween: next to Cordelia when she’s dressed as a cat and talking to Oz (on Oz’s locker door), and when Willow walks into the library when she’s a ghost, there is one on the bulletin board to her right. There is also a sticker on the bathroom wall, seen behind Buffy’s right shoulder when she an Willow look through the book.
Reptile Boy: at the beginning of the episode, behind Xander’s left shoulder in Buffy’s room.
Bad Eggs: behind Jonathon’s right shoulder on the locker when he is being attacked.
Surprise: on the locker behind Cordelia when she is talking to Xander and behind Xander when he calls Giles a party weasel. A colourful Widespread Panic poster can also be seen behind Joyce in Buffy’s dream.
Phases: when Buffy is in the Bronze looking for the werewolf, a WP sticker can be seen on a pillar behind her right shoulder.
Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered: poster in Xander’s room and behind Xander when Harmony tells him he should learn a second language so more girls can reject him. A sticker can also be seen on the locker behind Cordelia when Harmony is telling her off for breaking up with Xander.
Becoming (Part 2): at the beginning of the episode, when the cop is arresting Buffy in the hall, you can see a WP sticker on the lockers behind her.
Dead Man’s Party: on a guitar case behind the drums during the party.
A New Man: behind Giles when he’s at Buffy’s party.
Wild at Heart: a colourful WP poster (not the sticker) can be seen to the right of Oz’s bedroom door.
The Yoko Factor: in Buffy and Willow’s dorm room.
The Replacement: on the payphone that Xander uses to call Buffy.

Yoko Ono

The Buffy episode The Yoko Factor is named after Yoko Ono. The artist married John Lennon, and was ultimately blamed for the break up of the Beatles. Her son Sean appeared in the Bronze band Cibo Matto in When She Was Bad.

Seen at 26.26 minutes:

Angel says that he needs an invitation to enter Buffy’s dorm room, but Sunday and her buddies didn’t need one in The Freshman.

Seen at 27.08 minutes:

When Buffy, Riley and Angel are arguing in Buffy and Willow’s dorm room, Willow’s laptop is on her desk but Willow is supposed to have been decrypting the Initiative disks from Spike all day, on her laptop, at Giles’ house.