POP culture and Trivia in SPN - Page 2

Filming Location: Gastown, near Victory Square

When Sam is reading his text messages on his phone, one of the messages was sent by a Jerry Wanek, a reference to the show's production designer.

The song playing in the pre-title teaser, In A Gadda Da Vida, may be an homage to the 1986 film Manhunter, in which the same song is background music to a very similar scene. Manhunter was the first film to feature the character Dr Hannibal Lecktor, a character Dean references on other occasions.

Jared Padalecki cited this episode as one of his favorites to the premiere edition of the Official Supernatural Magazine saying: "I really enjoyed Skin! Great sets!"

At the Paley Festival in 2006, John Shiban spoke about the gratification he got from coming up with scary concepts and effects.

"A fan was watching the show and giving her impressions as she watched it, "Oh my god, Dean's taking his shirt off!" And followed immediately by, "Oh my god, he's taking his skin off!" I knew then that we had it. I was very pleased with that."

The fight scene in which Sam fights shapeshifter-Dean was mainly done by the actors themselves. There are just a few edits that uses the stunt actors, the rest of the fight scene was done all by Jared and Jensen.^{S1Com, p. 42}

Sam: I don't know, it was like he was downloading your thoughts and memories.

Dean: You mean, like the Vulcan Mind Meld?

From the TV show Star Trek. "Vulcans are a humanoid species [...] and are noted for their attempt to live by reason and logic, with no interference from emotion. A procedure known as a mind-meld involves physical contact with a subject (though instances of mind-melds without contact have been seen), making it possible to share thoughts, experience, memories, and knowledge with another individual."

The text in the ancient book, "written by a priest who went dark side", is taken from Julius Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico (Commentaries on the Gallic War), book VII.

The aerial shot of the Impala traveling through green fields dotted with livestock was also used in 3.04 Sin City.

The second victim (Lindsay) is played by Anita Brown who later played Hope Lynn Casey in 4.08 Wishful Thinking. She also had previously appeared as "Gill Girl" in an episode of Dark Angel alongside Jensen.

In 1.15 The Benders, Dean's police record indicates he died on March 7, 2006 in St. Louis.

Sam's contacts include Jerry Wanek and John Marcynuk, both named after production designers for Supernatural, and Mary Ann Liu and Stanislava Shmakin, both named after graphic designers for Supernatural.

Filming Location: BCIT Library

This is the first episode in which Rock Salt was considered a threat to supernatural demons. It was "invented" by writers Ron Milbauer and Terri Hughes Burton. Eric Kripke agreed it "...was the perfect combination of occult element -salt is a folkloric repellant of evil - and the blue-collar aspect of shotguns."^{S1Com, p. 47-48}

Kim Manners was asked to come in an work as a co-director on this episode, as the original director had troubles getting the "scare" across.^{S1Com, p.47}

This episode was originally set to air after the Wendigo episode. Eric Kripke originally thought it might have been beneficial to air an episode about such a "classic" urban legend early in the show's run. Phantom Traveler was aired instead.

Dean: [to Sam] Nice job, Dr. Venkman.

Doctor Peter Venkman is the character played by Bill Murray in Ghostbusters.

Dean: Think we'll see a naked pillow fight?

National Lampoon's Animal House: 1978 hilarious comedy about a frat house starring John Belushi, who gets to see some sorority girls in a naked pillow fight. Also involved were Ivan Retiman was the producer and Harold Ramis a writer, as they were on Ghostbusters.

Dean: Saved your ass! Talked the sheriff down to a fine. Dude, I am Matlock.

Ben Matlock is an attorney played by Andy Griffith in the TV show Matlock.

"Eastern Iowa University" is a Fictional Location created by scifi author Stephen Bury. ^source

The Hookman's cross is a Jerusalem cross.

Sam: [to Dean] Maybe. Or, you know how a poltergeist can haunt a person instead of a place?

Jane McGregor, who plays Lori Sorenson, played Patricia Spiro in #4.18 Gaslight of the 1996 TV-Series Poltergeist: The Legacy.

Actress Christie Laing who plays Taylor, later appeared as the Crossroads Demon in 2.08 Crossroad Blues

When Sam enters the church, looking for the object to which the murdering spirit is tied, he passes a bulletin board with the phrase "Reaping with Joy" on it.

Filming Location: Chemistry Building, UBC

Sam and Dean reasoned that Dustin Burwash died on spring equinox "when sun and moon share the sky as equals".^{BoM, p.32}

While the tribe cited in the show is referred to as "Pucci", the type of graves featured in the episode were typically made by South American natives and a blanket used in the set dressing is of a Pueblo Indian design.

The filming of the climactic scene in this episode spawned Jensen's favourite anecdote - The Bee Story

While the scenes with the bees were filmed with real bees, the insects didn't show up on film, so they had to CGI the bees in at the end.
Kim Manners (who begged Eric Kripke not to do "Bugs"):

"They bring in six hundred bees, or however many bees, and I was like 'Oh my god, I can't wait to see the dailies!' But you watch the dailies and you can't tell there's one bee in that room - they just don't read on camera or they were too sluggish. (...) And you just start laughing because you put your crew in a room with hundreds of bees and then you can't even tell if there are any bees on camera. It's a bizarre job sometimes."^{S1Com, p. 52-53}

Dean: Mad cow? Wasn't that on Oprah?

Sam: You watch Oprah?

In reference to the "Mad Cow" issue: Winfrey's influence reaches far beyond pop-culture and into unrelated industries where many believe she has the power to cause enormous market swings and radical price changes with a single comment. During a show about mad cow disease with Howard Lyman (aired on April 16, 1996), Winfrey exclaimed, "It has just stopped me cold from eating another burger!" Texas cattlemen sued her and Lyman in early 1998 for "false defamation of perishable food" and "business disparagement," claiming that Winfrey's remarks subsequently sent cattle prices tumbling, costing beef producers some USD$12 million. On February 26, after a trial spanning over two months in an Amarillo, Texas court in the thick of cattle country, a jury found Winfrey and Lyman were not liable for damages. (After the trial, she received a postcard from Rosanne Barr reading, "Congratulations, you beat the meat!")

Dean: Maybe they're being controlled somehow, you know, by something or someone.

Sam: You mean, like Willard?
Dean: Yeah, bugs instead of rats.
Sam: There are cases of psychic connections between people and animals. Elementals, telepaths...
Dean: Yeah, that whole Timmy-Lassie thing... Larry's kid, bugs for pets.

Willard was a 1971 horror movie about a social misfit named Willard, who has a strange affinity/link with rats. He controls the rats to attack and kill people who have been cruel to him.

Lassie, a television series (1954-1974), revolved around a collie named Lassie and her boy owner, Timmy, a farm boy frequently helped out of scrapes by his super-intelligent dog.

Dean: [to Sam] You were kind of like the blonde chick in The Munsters.

The Munsters was a 1960's TV show about a family of... monsters - vampires, a "Frankenstein" type monster, and various other ghouls. "The blonde chick," niece Marilyn Munster, is the only member of the family who is completely normal. The family is vaguely ashamed of their relationship to such an "ugly" person, and even Marilyn is aware of her "plain-ness". She bemoans that she keeps scaring off potential boyfriends, having no idea that the youths are in fact frightened away by her family.

The scene where Dean fights the bugs off with an improvised flame thrower made from a combination of a can of some sort of pressurised accelerant and a lighter, is reminiscent of scenes in the 1990 film Arachnophobia wherein Jeff Daniels' character faces off against the 'Queen spider' in his basement with a nail gun and an improvised flame thrower.

Many of the final scenes in Bugs appear to have been inspired by the Alfred Hitchcock 1963 Classic The Birds - such as the shots of the bugs swarming against the night sky, the bugs penetrating through closed windows and doors, and the ripped back roof through which the Winchesters see the sky the following morning.

Eric Kripke often cites this episode as one of his least favorites in the series. When the prophet Chuck meets Sam and Dean, he asks them if he they had to live through the "bugs". He laments that they were "forced to live bad writing."