Circus Freaks: The Harrises are led to believe that Anya's friends and relatives are circus people due to their unusual appearance.
The exhibiting of people with unfortunate birth defects or skin conditions as side-show curiosities was commonplace for many years, and still occurs in some parts of the world.
Famous circus people haveincluded bearded ladies, dog-faced boys, Siamese twins and alligator people. The X Files episode Humbug explored the world of circus folk in some detail.
Balls: Sarah Michelle Gellar's hidden talent as a juggler was especially incorporated into the script. We were very impressed by her ball control.
Where's Giles?: In a scripted but unfilmed scene, it was revealed that Giles remained in England to fight demons, and was thus unable to perform Best Man duties. He did pay for all the flowers, though.
Good God: D'Hoffryn refers to Hymen, the Greek god of marriage. Given the other meaning of Hymen, it's interesting to note that his brother was named Priapus, which means 'ready and willing'.
Uncle Rory: Probably the most famous of Xander's relations, Uncle Rory was always the black sheep of the family. Xander first referred to him in The Dark Age as, "The stodgiest taxidermist you'll ever meet by day. By night it was booze, whores and fur flying."
He does have a very good taste in vintage cars though, lending his to Xander in The Zeppo after he was banned for drink driving.
Velcro: Uncle Rory claims he invented the fastening Velcro. Actually, it was Swiss inventor George de Mestral, who, after a walk in the woods, noted the difficulty of removing burrs from his wool trousers. He discovered that each burr was made up of tiny hooks that attached themselves to the loops of thread in the cloth and recreated this effect with fabric. The name Velcro derives from the words velvet and crochet (the French term for 'hook').
When I grow up: George D. Wallace, who plays 'old' Xander, has previously appeared in Forbidden Planet, the Six Million Dollar Man and Radar Men from the Moon. Xander's dad, by the way, is now played by Casey Sander, having previously been voiced by Michael Harney in season four's Restless.
