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Musical
Once More, with Feeling - Trivia from
BBC
Don't give up the day job: Writer/producers Marti Noxon and
David Fury both cameo in the episode. Marti plays the
woman arguing over a parking ticket (beware of spoilers) and Fury is
the man singing about his dry cleaning - "They got the
mustard out!"
Fury actually started his career in musical comedy and has previously
appeared in the Angel episode Reprise, as he mentioned
in his interview with us. Requires RealPlayer.
Close to the edge: Joss is a big fan of progressive rock band
Yes. The final confrontation with Sweet features music very
much in the style of the band's classic track Close To The Edge from
the album of the same name. Another track on the album,
And You and I, refers to a "Mutant Enemy" in its lyrics -
hence the name of Joss's production company.
Life is Sweet: The character of Sweet is played by Broadway
star Hinton Battle. Battle has won Tony awards for his stage
work.
It could be bunnies: Anya's fear of Bunnies has previously been
mentioned in such episodes as Fear, Itself, where she
dressed up in a rabbit costume for Halloween.
Splendid Music: Joss spent all summer writing the episode. "[He]
came up with lyrics, melodies, the underlying
chords/harmony, as well as general stylistic direction for each of 16
musical numbers," composer Christophe Beck told the
Bronze posting board.
"The songs started out as four-track recordings Joss made himself.
I co-arranged and co-produced the songs with Jesse
Tobias of the band Splendid," Beck added.
"Tim (Angel co-executive producer Tim Minear) and I went to Cape
Cod to work with Joss in early July," Angel producer
David Greenwalt told the Bronze posting board. "He had four or
five of the songs sort of finished. We were staggered, just
staggered. They're really just what you would expect. It's going to
be the most amazing show of the year."
Joss on the episode: Joss Whedon spoke exclusively to the BBC
Buffy web site during the summer. Requires RealPlayer.
Sarah scary singing schedule: "I'm not a singer, and I
hated every moment of it," Sarah Michelle Gellar said of making
the
musical episode.
"It took something like 19 hours of singing and 17 hours of dancing
in between shooting four other episodes."
Soundtrack and book: The full soundtrack of Once More, With
Feeling is out now to buy. There is also a book with the
score and notes about the creation of the episode available for all
you hard core Buffy fans.