Trivia / Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

• Actor Allusion:
  • Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion play characters whose names begin with "Dr." and "Captain", respectively. Now, why does that sound familiar...?
  • Continuing the Doogie Howser, M.D. allusions, the supplementary material even mentions that Billy was a child prodigy, skipping grades and excelling in (what else?) science.
• The Cameo:
  • Drew Goddard at the end of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog as Bad Horse member "Fake Thomas Jefferson". He's written for both Buffy and Angel and directed The Cabin in the Woods.
  • Director Joss Whedon plays one of the karaoke cowboys during "Bad Horse".
  • The newsreaders in Episode III were played by David Fury and Marti Noxon, also from the Evil League of Evil, "Professor Normal" is played by Doug Petrie. All Buffy writers also.
  • In the new Homeless Shelter, the woman with a dark bob and sunglasses sitting beside Captain Hammer's three primary groupies is Sarah Michelle Gellar, the Vampire Slayer herself.
• The Cast Showoff: Neil Patrick Harris has significant musical theater experience, and it shows. Felicia Day and Nathan Fillion also get to show their singing chops.
• Demand Overload: This happened when it came out.
• Development Hell: The sequel.
  • Likely never to escape at this point, with Joss Whedon having retreated from the spotlight after a public cancellation due to his allegedly poor treatment of women in his personal and professional life, and the actors getting to be too old for the characters to still work, as noted by Harris himself below.
• No Export for You: In some places outside America. Good thing the DVD isn't region-locked.
• The Other Darrin: While promoting A Series of Unfortunate Events, Neil Patrick Harris said he was too old to star in a sequel and joked that they'd probably have to cast Nick Jonas.
• Playing Against Type: Nathan Fillion, known for playing Loveable Rogue characters like Mal Reynolds and Richard Castle, as Jerk with a Heart of Jerk Captain Hammer.
• Recycled Script: Two examples from Angel:
  • There was an episode about a shy scientist who liked to sing and was in love with a red-head. He built a machine that could stop time to solve his relationship problems.
  • In Season 5, in which the death of a character was used to get into an evil organization. Angel pretended to be involved in his friend Fred's death and really murdered another to infiltrate the Circle of The Black Thorn and Dr. Horrible's involvement in Penny's death filled the qualification to enter The Evil League of Evil.
• Shrug of God: Nathan Fillion said in a 2009 interview with The TV Addict that he knew what the unmade sequel was going to be called but refused to say.
• Viral Marketing: The word spread about Dr. Horrible by word of mouth and word-of-internet. So fast and so far that the server was not prepared for the load and went down.

---