Buffy the Vampire Slayer

“Buffy the Vampire Slayer” made it perfectly clear to us that vampires and demons do in fact walk the earth. And they smoke cigarettes. And they like money. And they make-out, have sex and occasionally, they walk around in broad daylight. In other words, they are just like you or me, but they live longer. A hell of a lot longer.

The TV series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” came to life on the WB in March of 1997. Most people know it was the brainchild of Joss Whedon. Before I get to Joss, let’s talk about his serious writing credentials in the form of natural talent and an unfair gene pool. Joss Whedon’s father was Tom Whedon. He wrote for a couple shows you may have heard of like “Captain Kangaroo”, “Alice”, “Benson”, “The Golden Girls” and one of SoCreepy’s favorite 70’s kid shows, “The Electric Company” (remember Morgan Freeman as Easy Reader??). If that’s not enough, Joss’s grandfather was John Whedon, a writer for “Leave It To Beaver”, “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and “The Andy Griffith Show”.

Before Joss began work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the movie and the TV series), he started out as a writer on “Roseanne” and the TV series “Parenthood”. In 1992, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” was released as a movie starring Kristy Swanson, Luke Perry, Rutger Hauer and Paul Reubens (aka Pee Wee Herman). The characters were all creations of Joss. No one could have possibly had a better idea than making the typical self-obsessed blonde cheerleader type into an ass-kicking vampire slayer. It appealed to the girls and the boys. And of course, the horror geeks and nerds (like us). It didn’t do great business at the box office, but it truly made an impact on the small screen.

The semi-boring, average community of Sunnydale had the misfortune of being located on top of a hellmouth (one of seven on earth), a boiling cesspool that continually spawned evil beyond imagination. Let’s just put it this way - there was no bad “side” of town. It was all bad. Demons of all sorts roamed the streets and alleys, but in particular, Sunnydale was swarming with vampires. Too bad for them it was the home of the Slayer hottie, Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar). Bad for them, great for us.

For seven years, Buffy and her pals Willow Rosenberg, Xander Harris and her Watcher Giles fought the good fight. Along the way, Buffy fell in love with vampire Angel, in lust with vampire Spike and in ho-hum-ville with boyfriend Riley. Plus, there were countless other fantastic characters like Faith, Cordelia, Andrew and Drusilla (Editor’s note: SoCreepy was NEVER a fan of Dawn’s horribly annoying character). The show really was an entertaining and touching mix of horror, humor, friendship, angst, belonging, responsibility and tolerance.

“Buffy the Vampire Slayer” did things well by mixing up genres and turning things a little “wonky” at times. For a reason we’ve never been able to figure out, there was an all-musical episode called “Once More, With Feeling” that really defies description but managed to move the story along and be a hell of a lot of fun. In general, Buffy dialogue was some of the best and wittiest we’ve ever heard - in television or movies.

Buffy was as touching as it was funny. It was suprisingly difficult to watch the episode when Buffy’s mom Joyce was found dead in the house. Equally upsetting and moving was the death of Tara. After all, this was just a goofy TV show, right? Why did we care so much??

After seven seasons, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” went out with a bang. Sunnydale disappeared forever and the Scooby gang moved to hopefully greener pastures. To this day, the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” legacy lives all over the Internet and hope springs eternal that maybe three times is a charm and Buffy will be revived just once more.

Basic Cast:
Buffy Summers - Sarah Michelle Gellar
Willow Rosenberg - Alyson Hannigan
Xander Harris - Nicholas Brendon
Rupert Giles - Anthony Stewart Head

Additional Cast:
Angel (Angelus) - David Boreanaz
Spike - James Marsters
Cordelia Chase - Charisma Carpenter
Anya - Emma Caulfield
Faith - Eliza Dushku
Oz - Seth Green
Dawn Summers - Michelle Trachtenberg
Drusilla - Juliet Landau
Tara Maclay - Amber Benson
Joyce Summers - Kristine Sutherland

Frightening Fact:
The “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” actresses that played Amy, Darla and Cordelia all originally auditioned for the part of Buffy Summers. Sarah Michelle Gellar originally tried out for the part of Cordelia Chase.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 12th, 2005 at 6:22 pm and is filed under Bump in the night, Horror TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.