Rocking good horror: This is an episode stuffed full of pop culture references, many of which will mean very little to British audiences. Buffy’s exclamation "Let's do the time warp again!" when they enter the Bronze to find it full of aging adolescents refers to a line from the most infectious song in Richard O'Brien's horror-themed musical The Rocky Horror Show. Anthony Stewart Head played the lead character, Doctor Frank N. Furter in a West End production of the show, so perhaps it wasn't entirely coincidental.
Unwanted Christmas guests: Xander’s question to the uncharacteristically cheery Snyder, "You weren't visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past by any chance?" is, of course, a reference to Charles Dickens’ 1843 novel A Christmas Carol, in which the misanthropic Scrooge is reformed by four visiting spirits.
