Buffy the Vampire Slayer in popular culture



Buffy and its spinoff, Angel are culturally influential US television series that have been parodied and spoofed in several mediums. Some of the most notable Buffyverse parodies follow:

Sketch shows
There have been a number of spoofs of Buffy on notable TV comedy sketch shows. In chronological order:


 * "MADtv" (1997) - "Buffy the Umpire Slayer" sketch in which Nicole Sullivan starred as 'Buffy'. The clip features Buffy, Willow, Xander and Giles attempting to control the threat from blood-sucking baseball umpires.


 * "Saturday Night Live" - Sarah Michelle Gellar starred in a sketch first aired on 1999, in which the Slayer was relocated to the Seinfeld universe, starring as an Elaine Benes version of Buffy.




 * "MADtv"(2001) - Michelle Trachtenberg appeared in a sketch that has been entitled "Bunny the Vampire Slayer" by MadTV, and features the MadTV recurring character, Bunny Swan, (more commonly known as "Ms Swan)". The five minute clip includes Trachtenberg as Dawn Summers coming face to face with Bunny Swan in a graveyard. Bunny tells Dawn that she is her aunt, and also the slayer. It also includes castmembers Andrew Daly as Spike, Mo Collins as Willow and Stephnie Weir as Tara.


 * "V Graham Norton" - When Anthony Stewart Head appeared on Norton's show he spoofed "Buffy" in a "Poofy the Vampire Slayer" sketch. Graham Norton portrayed 'Poofy', whilst Head portrayed 'Rupert Giles'.


 * "Robot Chicken" - Series co-created by Seth Green (who portrayed Oz on Buffy). Sarah Michelle Gellar lent her voice to the episode "Plastic Buffet", which included a parodied would-be eighth season of Buffy. The story featured soulless Cabbage Patch Kids terrorising America.

Friends
The episode, The One Where Chandler Can't Cry, included a scene in which Phoebe's sister, Ursula Buffay starred as Buffay the Vampire Layer (parodying Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and perhaps alluding to real life Buffy adult parodies). Ursula Buffay uses her twin sister Phoebe's name for the credits.

The Simpsons


The Simpsons episode, "Treehouse of Horror XVI" originally aired in the US six days after Halloween. The last of four segments was entitled, "I've Grown a Costume on Your Face" and had similarities with the Buffy episode "Halloween" (which had aired eight years earlier).

In the Buffy episode, a sorcerer transforms many of the residents into their Halloween costumes. Willow (who would later become the witch of the series) dresses as a ghost, and becomes a ghost-version of herself, whilst her friends identities are completely transformed and their memories wiped. Therefore Willow can initiate a return to normality.

In the Simpsons episode, citizens of Springfield dress in their Halloween costumes for a costume contest. A wicked witch also entered, and won. But after revealing that she isn't wearing a costume, and is really a witch, she is disqualified and her prize is taken away, and in revenge, turns everyone into the actual characters that their costumes are. In one scene Principal Skinner in army clothes stands next to his mother dressed in a big, poofy pink Victorian dress in a shot reminescent of Buffy characters Xander and Buffy wearing said clothes in "Halloween":



The only person who can reverse the spell is Maggie, who was actually dressed as a witch, and now really is one. Unfortunately, Maggie turns the people of Springfield, including guest star Dennis Rodman, into pacifiers with their normal heads.

Comics
DC Comics' "Young Justice" title made numerous references to a show called "Wendy the Werewolf Stalker", including a two-part story, during #33-34 where several of the book's heroines actually go to Hollywood to take part in an episode. "WtWS" is a pretty straight-forward "homage" to "BtVS", with the twist that show creator "Joe Westin" is revealed to himself BE a vampire!

Other

 * A season-one episode of the show "Big Wolf on Campus" was called "Muffy the Werewolf Slayer."
 * Miley's foil/rival/crush, Jake Ryan (played by Cody Linley), on the Disney Channel Series "Hannah Montana" is the star of a fictional television series "Zombie Slayer at Zombie High," with obvious Buffy parallels.

Music
Buffy and Angel have also been the topic of spoof songs.


 * "Angel's Lament" - By the Brobdingnagian Bards. The song is a parody of "How's It Gonna Be" by Third Eye Blind. Band member Marc Gunn claims to have written and recorded the song before 1998, over a year before the series Angel began. The song contains these lyrics:


 * Gonna get my own TV show [[Image:Once More With Hobbits (logo).JPG|right|thumb|230px|Logo for Once More With Hobbits]]
 * They'll call it "Angel" named after me you know
 * I gonna taste leading role success


 * Once More With Hobbits - Rewrites the lyrics of most of the songs from Buffy's musical episode Once More, with Feeling. The series is also spoofing The Lord of the Rings. Two tracks were recorded and distributed in mp3 format; "Rest In Peace" (from the perspective of the characters Saruman and Gandalf), and "Standing" (from perspective Samwise Gamgee)


 * "Wannabe A Slayer" - Luke Sienkowski edited together this song which parodied both "Buffy" and the Spice Girls song, "Wannabe". Lukeski also released onto the internet, "I am a Vamp of Constant Sorrow"

Fanfilms
Fan films have become more common, as computer and digital technology has advanced and become affordable, and distribution over the internet has become easier. Several (but not all) Buffyverse fan films are parodies of Buffy/Angel, in chronological order:

Music parodies

 * Once More With Hobbits
 * "Wannabeaslayer" (also see Lukeski.com/freemp3s.htm'').
 * "Angel's Lament" by the Brobdingnagian Bards

Internet parodies

 * Cautionzero.net/cherub/ - Cherub site
 * Fluffytheslayer.com/
 * The Wotch
 * "Muffin the Vampire Baker"
 * Spoofpark.com/
 * Vangelis-film.livejournal.com