During season four, the Government captured Spike and implanted a Behavioural Modification Chip in his head in The Initiative. It rendered him incapable of attacking humans without intense neurological pain, though he could attack demons. Spike first realised he had it when he couldn’t bite Willow. He later made a …

Willow and Xander have a Christmas tradition of watching A Charlie Brown Christmas together. This was first mentioned in Passion. The cartoon features the Snoopy Dance, which is something we see Xander do in The Replacement.
In All the Way, Spike says, “Great Pumpkin’s on in twenty.” He’s referring to Charles …

In Dead Things, Warren, Andrew and Jonathan invented a ‘Cerebral Dampener’ so that they could control any woman they desired. Warren used it to make his ex-girlfriend Katrina his sex slave, but he killed her when it’s effect wore off and she tried to leave. The cerebral dampener was made …

When Buffy first met her college room-mate Kathy in The Freshman, Kathy put a Celine Dion poster on her wall. This sent shivers down Buffy’s spine as she realised immediately that they were not going to get on. Celine Dion is a French Canadian singer, with hit singles including “I’m …

In Bad Girls the Mayor, Mr. Trick and Deputy Mayor Alan Finch discussed their favourite comic strips. Finch liked Cathy, a cartoon which depicts the life of a young, single career woman.

Cassie Newton was a character in the season seven episode Help. The Buffy production team created a Geocities website in the guise of Cassie. The episode’s writer, Rebecca Rand Kirshner, composed the poetry and created the art that appeared on the site, based on her own teenage journals. Buffy fans …

In the episode The Prom, Tucker Wells tried to ruin the School Prom by training hellhounds to attack people wearing tuxedoes. Buffy says she’s “Gotta stop a crazy from pulling a Carrie at the prom”. She’s referring to the book Carrie by Stephen King, in which a telekinetic girl destroys …

Buffy’s motto, which means “seize the day”. In Welcome to the Hellmouth, Buffy tells Willow “seize the moment, because tomorrow you might be dead.” In Surprise, Willow reminded Buffy about “Carpe diem” in their chat about whether Buffy should sleep with Angel. And look what happened then.

Xander and Willow discuss the Captain and Tennille in the episode Ted. Captain and Tennille were a duo who had several hit songs (including ‘Love Will Keep Us Together’ and ‘Come In From The Rain’) in the 1970s, and their own TV show. Xander believes that Toni Tennile was “using” …

In Beauty and the Beasts, Buffy reads quotes from Jack London’s 1903 novel The Call of the Wild. The story is told from the point of view of Buck, a dog who is stolen from his home and forced to become a sled dog in the Alaskan wilderness. He is …

In his crazed state during Same Time, Same Place, Spike says, “Button, button, who’s got the button?” This is a children’s game where a button is hidden and must be found. The line was also used by Wonka in the 1971 film version of Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka & the …

The toy which Anya threw away from underneath her in The Body is a Japanese character called Burnt Bunboy. Joss and his wife, Kai, are big fans of him and Joss said in his DVD commentary for the episode that he couldn’t resist putting him in his show.

The funeral of Joyce Summers was held in the episode Forever. It was organised by The Brown Brothers Mortuary.

Pop starlet Britney was supposedly due to play April the robot in I Was Made to Love You. She backed out at the last minute. Adam Busch (Warren) told Zap2it, “But then Britney backed out in the last minute and they got this other actress.” Coincidentally, Shonda Farr, who ended …

In Get It Done, Willow says to Principal Wood, “Bring it on”. This is a reference to the 2000 cheerleading movie Bring it On which featured Eliza Dushku (Faith) and Clare Kramer (Glory). In Bring It On, one of the Clover cheerleaders says the line: “Can we just beat these …