Trivia / Pretty Little Liars

• Actor Allusion:
  • Emily and her mom are discussing Aria's hair in the pilot when this line comes up
    "What kind of mother would I be if I let you run around looking like a goth?"
  • In "What Lies Beneath," Paige mentions that she should have taken wood shop instead of trig. Lindsey Shaw previously played Moze, who was pretty much a wood shop prodigy.
  • The Dolls of the Liars in A's lair are Bratz dolls. Janel Parrish was in the live-action movie.
  • Ashley Benson and Janel Parrish are real-life best friends just like Hanna and Mona.
  • In "Love Shack Baby," Hanna tries to turn the music up in the car on a road rip to find Ali. Emily remarks "This is not Spring Break."
    • Hanna also has experience with guns.
  • In "Who's in the Box?", the non-appearing Spencer Expy is named Avery, which happens to be Troian Bellisario's middle name.
  • "The First Secret" has Jenna dress like Lady Gaga. Tammin Sursok previously did so on an episode of Hannah Montana.
  • Mary definitely isn't the first time one of Andrea Parker's characters has had an Evil Twin.
• Adored by the Network: The show is loved by ABC Family so much that it released another series based on novels by Sara Shepard, The Lying Game.
• The Cast Showoff: Janel Parrish bursts into a bit of Sara Bareilles' "Gravity" in "A Dark Ali." And in "Driving Miss Crazy" she gets a entire production number doing "Jailhouse Rock" during a dream Aria is having, with Mona as a guard and Veronica Hastings as the warden officiating Aria's wedding in a prison to a freshly beaten up Ezra.
• Channel Hop: In Britain, the first season was shown on Viva very soon after its US debut - but after the midseason break it eventually started over from the very beginning on MTV. MTV dropped it after season two, but fortunately for British fans, Netflix came to the rescue, and the series made its bow on the service from New Year's Day 2015.
  • In Canada, the series aired on MuchMusic, which has also aired numerous other ABC Family shows (such as Greek and The Secret Life of the American Teenager). The series would move to sibling channel M3 in Fall 2013, and the final season would air on Bravo (Not to be confused with the American and British channels of the same name) in 2016.
  • While all of the shows have been produced by Warner Bros., the original show, along with Ravenswood and The Perfectionists, aired on Disney-owned Freeform (named ABC Family during the bulk of their runs). Original Sin will be the first in the franchise to air on a WarnerMedia platform, HBO Max.
• Creator Backlash: Ian Harding revealed he'd had some issues with his character's Teacher/Student Romance with Aria.
  "One company dropped its advertising for our show in one of the early seasons, because they didn't agree with [a] relationship. And I was like, 'No shit, [Ezra and Aria's] relationship is illegal!' And Marlene said, 'No, it's not yours, it's Emily’s [same-sex] relationship [that's the problem].' So I could be seen as a statutory rapist, and people are like, 'I know, but love knows no bounds, as long as there is a penis and a vagina involved.'"
• Creator-Preferred Adaptation: "Preferred" might be the wrong word, but Sara Shepard, the author of the books, is a big fan of the TV series. In her authors notes, she mentions having regular dinners with Marlene King to discuss the show and she even dedicated "Deadly" to the four leads.
• The Danza: Sara Shepard plays Miss Shepard, whose first name is probably Sara.
  • Confirmed in the opening of 'I'm A Good Girl, I Am'.
• Dawson Casting:
  • All four main girls are played by actresses who are between the ages of 20 and 25. Maya is the most egregious example as the character is 16 but the actress, Bianca Lawson, is 31. Bianca Lawson also appeared on Dawson's Creek in 2000 playing a 16 year old at age 20 making her an original Dawson Casting actress.
  • Sasha Pieterse was 12 when she did the pilot episode and 13 when she filmed season 1 playing 15 year old Alison. To be fair, nobody could tell.
  • Also averted with Cody Christian who was 14-15 during season 1.
  • Tammin Sursok, who plays blind high school student Jenna, is 28.
  • Special mention goes to Troian Bellisario born in 1985 who is older than her teacher and her older brother Jason who were both born in 1986.
• Directed by Cast Member: Chad Lowe (Byron, Aria's dad) directed "Touched By An 'A'-ngel," "Father Knows Best" (appropriately), "Kingdom of the Blind", "That Girl Is Poison," "Hot Water," "Into The Deep," "Who's in the Box?", "She's Come Undone," "Surfing the Aftershocks," "March of Crimes," ""Through a Glass, Darkly," "Game On, Charles" and "No Stone Unturned," "The Wrath of Kahn" and "Playtime"; Troian Bellisario made her directorial debut with "In the Eye Abides the Heart."
• Fake American: Samara and Caleb's dad are played by Australians Claire Holt and Bernard Curry, Jenna by South African-born/Australian-raised Tammin Sursok, and Emily by Canadian Shay Mitchell. This is not the case for Alison because while Sasha Pieterse was born in South Africa, she has spent most of her life in the United States. And in-universe, Elliot Rollins is a Brit pretending to be American, played by actual Brit Huw Collins.
• Fake Brit: Because Alex Drake was adopted as a baby by an English family, she speaks with an English accent.
• Genre Throwback: This article by Zachary Paul on the horror website Bloody-Disgusting makes the case that the show is a modern-day TV version of '70s Italian gialli, albeit Lighter and Softer for teen audiences.
• Hey, It's That Place!: It was shot on the same WB set as Pushing Daisies and Shameless. If one's seen both shows, it's easy to point out the set used for Radley was in Pushing Daisies, and if you look closely in certain street shots, you can point out the Alibi Room.
• Killed By The Adaptation: Not only is Emily's dad renamed, he passes away offscreen. Also Maya, Wilden, Wren, and Noel Kahn.
• Lying Creator: Marlene King. She even outright admitted it when asked about why she stated Mona was dead when it was revealed to be false.
• The Other Darrin: In the pilot Jessica DiLaurentis and Toby were respectively played by Anne Marie DeLuise and James Neate.
  • In his first appearance, Jason was played by Parker Badgley but in all subsequent appearances, he is played by Drew Van Acker
• Out of Holiday Episode: The series has Halloween episodes during October, while its seasons air between January-March and June-August.
• Queer Character, Queer Actor: Shay Mitchell has said she's attracted to people based on a specific personality, regardless of their gender. In 2022, she appeared on TikTok with a video that indicated she's bisexual. She played lesbian Emily Fields on the show.
• Playing Their Own Twin:
  • Andrea Parker plays Jessica DiLaurentis and Mary Drake.
  • Troian Bellisario plays Spencer Hastings and Alex Drake.
• Promoted to Opening Titles: Andrea Parker in the final season.
• Real Life Writes the Hairstyle: Due to Lucy Hale cutting her hair short after filming Season 5, "A" cutting her hair as a punishment for refusing to dye her hair pink was written into Season 6.
• Recycled Set: The exterior shots of Rosewood were filmed on the same WB lot as ‘’Pushing Daisies’’.
• Romance on the Set: Troian Bellisario got her back together with her ex-boyfriend Patrick J. Adams when he guest-starred in Season 1. The two later married and have two children.
  • Not a romance but Lucy Hale did admit to having a crush on Drew Van Acker while filming together.
• Separated-at-Birth Casting: Sasha Pieterse bares strong resemblance to both actors who play her on-screen siblings: Drew Van Acker and Vanessa Ray
  • Lucy Hale and Cody Christian are very convincing as siblings Aria and Mike.
• Screwed by the Network: However it's not really the network's fault in this case. Due to the agreement signed by Disney when it bought what would become ABC Family, the name "Family" has to be kept in the name of the network. As a result, series with adult themes and sexuality, such as this series, are targeted regularly by parents groups and moral guardians who feel a show like this inappropriate for a network called ABC Family (even though if Disney had its way, it would be airing on a network called XYZ, and the show is actually tame compared to some of the series airing on the main ABC network, such as Scandal). A double-whammy is that for much of its early history the series was dismissed by viewers who assumed that because it was made for a network called ABC Family, it must be "just for kids."
• Trans Character, Cis Actor: Ce Ce Drake, played by cis actress Vanessa Ray, was revealed to be a trans woman and the main antagonist A. Her reveal as the main villain of the show coupled with the fact that she is played by a cis woman has attracted a lot of criticisms for playing to harmful stereotypes of trans women.
• Underage Casting: Holly Marie Combs is only sixteen years older than Lucy Hale, and she admitted she knew she was too young to play the mother of a teenager, but took the role so that "this time I'm choosing it before someone tells me I can only play mothers to teenagers from now on."
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: Even though show runner Marlene King has repeatedly confirmed to have known who A, other A and AD were all along (or at least from mid-Season 3) the immense amount of plotholes one can discover once one re-watches the series knowing already who will be revealed as A(s) makes one think that Marlene was practically just winging it in the writer's room for seven seasons straight and when it came to a season finale and it was time to reveal somebody as A, she just drew a name out of a hat.