In Never Kill a Boy on the First Date, Owen Thurman revealed to Buffy that he is a fan of the American poet Emily Dickinson (1830-1886).

A discrepancy (and not the last!) in vampire mythology is shown at the beginning of Never Kill a Boy on the First Date. When Buffy stakes a vampire, he leaves a ring behind, but in all other cases when a vamp is staked everything turns to dust including clothing and …

Sunnydale’s local newspaper was called the Sunnydale Press. It can be seen in the episodes Never Kill a Boy on the First Date, Reptile Boy, Becoming (Part 1), Bad Girls, Consequences, Graduation Day (Part 1), Hush and Once More, With Feeling.

The Witch and Never Kill a Boy on the First Date were released together on 15th September 1998 as the first Buffy the Vampire Slayer home video box-sets.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer got it’s first UK publicity article for Teacher’s Pet. The Radio Times’ satellite section described Buffy as “a sort of Beverley Hills 90210 meets The X-Files…”

The band Superfine sang in the Bronze in Teacher’s Pet. The singer, Rob Grad, wasn’t very impressed with Xander when he approaches the stage. The band performed “Already Met You” (which appears on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer soundtrack) and “Stoner Love” from their album Stoner Love.

The 1973 movie The Exorcist starred Linda Blair as a child named Regan who becomes possessed by a demon. The film was adapted from the horror novel by William Peter Blatty, and banned in the UK for more than fifteen years. It is referenced a few times in Buffy and …

Godzilla is a massive, nearly invincible dinosaur/lizard-like creature with incredible strength and destructive fire. Godzilla has starred in 22 movies produced from 1954 to the present. Godzilla has been referenced in Buffy a few times. In Teacher’s Pet, Xander says, “We’re on Monster Island”, meaning the island where Godzilla lives. …

Xander’s relationship with the praying mantis in Teacher’s Pet is joked about in several later episodes, such as I Robot, You Jane, Inca Mummy Girl, Anne (in which Cordelia says of Xander, “He’s always been attracted to monsters” and later mentions Ampata from Inca Mummy Girl, calling her “some hot …

The first true hint of a chemistry between Buffy and Angel developed as he gave her his leather jacket in Teacher’s Pet - much to Xander’s annoyance. Buffy wore the jacket in several subsequent episodes (such as The Pack), even as late as the third season (Beauty and the Beasts).

At the end of the episode Teacher’s Pet, we see that there are insect eggs (presumably praying mantises like Miss French) in the store cupboard. They must have a long gestation period because, as far as we know, they never hatched.

Sunnydale High’s sports teams were called the Razorbacks (discovered in The Witch). They got a short lived piglet mascot called Herbert in The Pack, but it was eaten by the hyena-people.

‘Count The Time’ by Humbucker, from the album My Snake, plays whilst Buffy and Joyce are talking at the end of The Witch.

The music “Twilight Zone” by 2 Unlimited plays during the cheerleading tryouts in The Witch. The song comes from the album Get Ready For This.

Gidget was a 1960s American sitcom starring Sally Fields. It is referenced a couple of times in Buffy: In the Witch, Joyce tells Buffy she had “Gidget hair” and in Life Serial, Tony calls Buffy “Gidget”. Gidget was always getting into trouble and often wore her hair in pigtails.