Buffy the Vampire Slayer: A to Z JOSS WHEDON These days, the show’s creator (left, directing Chris Evans as Captain America) is wrangling superheroes on the big screen: He wrote and directed The Avengers and The Avengers: Age of Ultron. X- MEN Buffy was

Nostalgic for the Scooby Gang? Believe it or not, the cult hit debuted 20 years ago this month BRITNEY SPEARS

ANGEL

Buff y’s great love, this vampire with a soul was described as “the most gorgeous, mysterious, fantastic, the most incredible man on the face of the earth — I think I saw every guy in town,” says casting director Marcia Shulman, who finally found David Boreanaz after her friend saw him walking his dog in LA. (Fans loved him so much, he got his own spin-off, Angel, in 1999 that lasted five seasons!) The pop singer almost played a robot in Season 5.

COMIC BOOKS

It may be off the air now, but the show’s story lines have continued into Season 11 in comic books, some of which have even been written by Nicholas Brendon (who played Xander).

DRACULA

Sarah Michelle Gellar’s old All My Children co-star, Rudolf Martin, embodied literature’s most famous bloodsucker in Season 5 — though her future husband, Freddie Prinze Jr., almost played the part. And to this day, Freddie admits he’s never seen the show!

EMMYS

Despite universal critical acclaim, Buff y was never recognized in any of the award show’s major categories.

FINALE

The rest of the cast learned the show would be ending after Season 7 from an interview Sarah gave.

GUEST STARS

Amy Adams, Rachel Bilson and Game of Thrones’ Pedro Pascal all appeared on the show before they were famous.

HIGH SCHOOL

LA’S Torrance High School was used for exterior shots of Sunnydale High. It also stood in for West Beverly High on Beverly Hills, 90210!

INFLUENCE

The numerous college courses inspired by the show are known in

academia as “Buff y Studies,” and there are reportedly more papers and books written about it than any other TV series.

KATIE HOLMES

The actress won the lead role, but decided to go to high school instead. A year later, she landed her part on Dawson’s Creek.

LOVE SCENES“[

We] were the worst,” Sarah says of on-screen passion with David. “We would do horrible things to each other, like eat tuna fish and pickles before we kissed. If he had to unbutton my shirt or trousers I would pin them or sew them together to make it as hard as I could. Once I even dropped ice cream on him.”

MID-SEASON REPLACEMENT

The show debuted in 1997 as a mid-season replacement for the soap Savannah. (Remember that? Yeah, neither do we.)

NAME

Joss almost called his lead character Rhonda the Immortal Waitress, but instead chose “the name that I could think of that I could take the least seriously,” he says. “There is no way you could hear ‘Buffy’ and think, ‘This is an important person.’” ONCE MORE, WITH FEELING” The show’s widely praised Season 6 musical episode was so popular, it was later shown in theaters, where fans could sing along Rocky Horror Picture Show– style.

PROPHECY

In the Season 3 finale, fellow slayer Faith appears to Buff y in a dream and tells her: “Miles to go, Little Miss Muffet counting down from 7-3- 0” — foreshadowing her sister Dawn’s sudden arrival and Buff y’s death in Season 5 (730 days away). “QUEEN

Despite campaigning hard, Buffy did not win the Homecoming Queen title, but she did get a “Class Protector” award at prom.

RYAN REYNOLDS

He turned down the role of Xander. “I love that show, and I loved Joss Whedon,” he says. “But my biggest concern was that I didn’t want to play a guy in high school.”

SHEERAN, ED

The singer admits that he’s so obsessed, he incorporated some of the show’s music into one of his songs. “I love Buff y, I watch it a lot, and some of the soundtrack is brilliant,” he says.

TOMBSTONE

“She saved the world a lot,” read the epitaph at Buff y’s grave after her Season 5

UPN

The fledgling network managed to steal rival WB’S crown jewel in 2001 by offering $2.3 million per episode — more than double what the show had been getting.

VALLEY GIRL SLANG

New Yorker Sarah was often baffled by her character’s California-girl dialogue. “Joss has his own sort of language that’s difficult for us mere mortals to understand,” she says. death (she was resurrected for Season 6).

WELCOME TO THE HELLMOUTH”

The title of the first in a two-episode premiere, featuring Buff y’s first day of school in Sunnydale, Calif., which happens to be positioned over a portal to the underworld that attracts supernatural creatures. YELLOW CRAYON MOMENT A reference to the speech in which Xander reminds Willow — who had turned evil — of a broken yellow crayon to stop her from destroying the world. It’s now used by fans of cult shows to describe incidents in which a character brings another back from the brink of crisis by

mentioning a shared memory.

“ZEPPO”

This Season 3 episode, in which Xander saves the world and no one notices, inspired Joss’ current ABC show, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.