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Buffy quotes for every occasion. Part 6: Holidays

In honor of the strange and unknown-outside-the-United-States Labor Day (tomorrow), this week's theme is holidays. Okay, mostly it's an excuse to post a lot of quotes from my favorite Thanksgiving episode of all time, "Pangs". Buffy the Vampire Slayer also gave us quite possibly the best Valentine's Day episode of all time as well ("Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered"), and two exceptional Halloween episodes ("Halloween" and "Fear, Itself"). Who's a little fear demon?

Buffy: "So how come Halloween is such a big yawner? I mean, do the demons just hate how commercial it's become?"

Buffy: "I know you. You ran that costume shop."
Ethan: "Oh, I'm pleased you remember."
Buffy: "You sold me that dress for Halloween, and nearly got us all killed."
Ethan: "But you looked great."

Buffy: "Valentine's Day is just a cheap gimmick to sell cards and chocolate."
Amy: "Bad breakup, huh?"
Buffy: "Believe me when I say, uh-huh."

Angelus: "Dear Buffy. I'm still trying to decide the best way to send my regards."
Spike: "Why don't you rip her lungs out? It might make an impression."
Angelus: "Lacks poetry."
Spike: "It doesn't have to. What rhymes with lungs?"

Xander: "Do you know what's a good day to break up with somebody? Any day besides Valentine's Day! I mean, what, were you running low on dramatic irony?"

Willow: "How was your summer?"
Cordelia: "Oh, I can't believe you brought that up. Las Palmas was the nightmare resort. They order you around and make you have organized 'fun', and I used sarcastic quote marks. Plus the fact there are cockroaches in Mexico big enough to own property. It was all about dread. How was your summer?"

Buffy: "Giles, there are two things that I don't believe in: coincidence and leprechauns."
Giles: "Well, Buffy, it's entirely possible that they both arrived here by chance simultaneously."
Buffy: "Okay, but I was right about the leprechauns, right?"

Trick: "Ladies, gentlemen, spiny-headed looking creatures, welcome to SlayerFest '98!"

Xander: "So, you doing anything special?"
Buffy: "Tree. Nog. Roast beast. Just me and Mom and hopefully an excess of gifts. What are you doing for Christmas?"
Willow: "Being Jewish. Remember, people? Not everybody worships Santa."

Buffy: "You know, nothing's really gonna change. The important thing is that I kept up my special birthday tradition of gut-wrenching misery and horror."

Guy: "Eyeballs, man. Blindfold chicks and have them stick their hands in the bowl and tell them it's eyeballs. They love that."
Xander: "And here I was wasting time buying them flowers and complimenting them on their shoes."

Xander: "Hey, Red. What you got in the basket, little girl?"
Buffy: "Weapons."

Willow: "I'm Joan of Arc. I figured we had a lot in common, seeing as how I was almost burned at the stake, and plus she had that close relationship with God."
Xander to Oz: "And you are?"
(Oz pulls his jacket open to reveal a nametag with 'God' on it.)

(Two commando guys wearing ski masks and carrying guns step out of the bushes.)
Buffy: "Nice costumes. Very stealthy."
Willow: "What are they supposed to be?"
Oz: "NATO?"

Xander: "Who's a little fear demon? Come on. Who's a little fear demon?"
Giles: "Don't taunt the fear demon."
Xander: "Why, can he hurt me?"
Giles: "No, it's just tacky."

Giles: "Buffy, Xander is in real danger. Are you sure the solution is pie?"

Willow: "Thanksgiving isn't about blending of two cultures. It's about one culture wiping out another. And then they make animated specials about the part where, with the maize and the big, big belt buckles. They don't show you the next scene, where all the bison die and Squanto takes a musket ball in the stomach."
Buffy: "Okay. Now, for some of that, you were channeling your mother?"

Willow: "Buffy, earlier you agreed with me about Thanksgiving. It's a sham. It's all about death."
Buffy: "It is a sham, but it's a sham with yams. It's a yam sham."
Willow: "You're not gonna jokey-rhyme your way out of this one."

Buffy: "Do you even own a turkey pan?"
Giles: "Tell me again why we're not doing this at your house."
Buffy: "Giles, if you would like to get by in American society, then you are going to have to follow our traditions. You're the patriarch. You have to host the festivities, or it's all meaningless."
Giles: "And this is in no way an elaborate scheme to stick me with the cleanup?"
Buffy: "How about that ceremonial knife, huh? Pretty juicy piece of clueage, don't you think?"

Buffy: "You don't have a ricer? What do you mean? How could someone not have a ricer?"
Giles: "Well, do you have one at home?"
Buffy: "I don't know. What's a ricer?"
Giles: "We'll mash them with forks, much as the pilgrims must have."

Spike: "Come on! Vampires! Grrr! Nasty! Let's annihilate them. For justice and for the safety of puppies, and Christmas, right? Let's fight that evil! Let's kill something!"

Buffy: "But this is so nice. Having everyone together for my birthday. Of course, you could smash in all my toes with a hammer and it will still be the bestest Buffy birthday bash in a big long while."

Giles: "Actually, Willow and Xander did all the planning. I'm not sure I would have gone with the surprise party. You know, you have enough things jumping out at you in the dark."

Anya: "A gift is traditional. I've read about it."
Xander: "That's among friends. With bitter enemies we don't give them my lamp."

Willow: "I feel just like Santa Claus, except thinner and younger and female and, well, Jewish."

Anya: "Maybe we could do a holiday promotion. One free with every purchase."
Giles: "Oh, yeah. Dear holiday memories. Merry tykes by the fire, enjoying their new Christmas ... chicken feet."
Willow: " Holding them tight as they fall asleep... painting their little toenails..."

Anya: "Anya Christina Emanuella Jenkins, twenty years old. Born on the fourth of July, and don't think there weren't jokes about that my whole life, mister, 'cause there were. Who's our little patriot? they'd say, when I was younger, and therefore smaller and shorter than I am now."

Buffy: "I didn't even realize it was December. Maybe when we get home, we should decorate the rubble."

Next Sunday? I haven't decided yet. But I have at least two more of these, and possibly three, so there will definitely be a post next Sunday,

Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

13 comments:

  1. Speaking of ‘Pangs’ quotes…

    Spike: I just can't take all this mamby-pamby boo-hooing about the bloody Indians.
    Willow: Uh, the preferred term is...
    Spike: You won. All right? You came in and you killed them and you took their land. That's what conquering nations do. It's what Caesar did, and he's not goin' around saying, "I came, I conquered, I felt really bad about it." The history of the world is not people making friends. You had better weapons, and you massacred them. End of story.

    Forget poet Spike would’ve made one hell of a history teacher.

    Oh, and this one might not really have anything to do with Thanksgiving, it's not even really great Buffy dialogue, but I love it anyway (especially the way Sarah and James delivered it).

    Spike: A bear! You made a bear!
    Buffy: I didn't mean to.
    Spike: Undo it! Undo it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. You're right, Mark -- that one is for the history section. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yea, fear demon! I've always loved that one. My former roommate and I used to "tease" one of our cats with it. "Are you a little fear demon? Who's a little fear demon?" But my favorite part is the Giles and Xander exchange. "Don't taunt the fear demon." "Why can he hurt me?" "No, it's just tacky." I'm smiling just thinking about it.

    I also like Mark's addition of "A bear! You made a bear!" It really is all about the delivery.

    ReplyDelete
  4. My favourite is also the taunting of the fear demon. Just reading it made me laugh out loud. And just out of curiosity, what exactly is Labor Day ?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Jo, it's a federal (national) holiday celebrating workers, started by the trade unions in the early 20th century. Sort of like capitalism's May Day, without the pagan roots.

    It's also the symbolic end of summer. You're not supposed to wear white shoes after Labor Day; primary schools used to start just after Labor Day (although now they start earlier); many people take a last-gasp summer vacation over the long weekend, or barbecue with friends for one last ritual sacrifice with pie.

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  6. I grew up on an island resort off the east coast of the United States. Memorial Day (end of May) was when the nuts started coming, and Labor Day (beginning of September) was when they went home. Tourists, I mean. Not nuts.

    ReplyDelete
  7. No, the nuts were the tourists. The nuts start coming after Memorial Day and leave after Labor Day, and drive us nuts all summer. :)

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  8. Thanks for the explanation. You guys seem to have way more interesting holidays than we do in England. Although we don't have any rules about white shoes, which although making perfect sense (who wears white shoes in winter anyway ?)does seem a little bit like shoe fascism.

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  9. While we're on the subject, my favorite holiday is this one, described in Doctor Who (Voyage of the Damned):

    "Now, human beings worship the great god Santa, a creature with fearsome claws, and his wife Mary. And every Christmas Eve, the people of UK go to war with the country of Turkey. They then eat the Turkey people for Christmas dinner, like savages."

    And the next day, they start boxing.

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  10. Willow Rosenberg: She couldn't have dressed up like Xena?

    ReplyDelete
  11. The Doctor, and Josie, just made my day (and everything I'm reading as well).

    ReplyDelete

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