Trivia / Friday the 13th: The Series

The Episode Artifacts

1. "The Inheritance": Veda the doll, which can come to life and play with the owner while bringing out their malice in the process.
2. "The Poison Pen": A quill pen that causes any death it writes about to come true.
3. "Cupid's Quiver": A cupid statue that makes women fall in love with ugly men, who must then kill them.
4. "A Cup of Time": A teacup with a Swapper's Ivy pattern that drains life from a victim in order to provide the user with temporary youth.
5. "Hellowe'en": The Amulet of Zohar, which can be used to bring a soul trapped in Hell back to life on All Hallows' Eve if they have another body to enter.
6. "The Great Montarro": A pair of Houdin boxes, where the magician who uses one is kept from harm by its blades so long as a victim is sealed in the other and takes the injuries in their stead.
7. "Doctor Jack": A scalpel that can heal any injury once it kills a previous victim.
8. "Shadow Boxer": A pair of boxing gloves that make the wearer unbeatable in the ring while their shadow kills a victim elsewhere.
9. "Root of All Evil": A garden mulcher that turns bodies fed into it into money based on their "value" as a person.
10. "Tales of the Undead": A comic book which allows the user to become the robot depicted in it.
11. "Scarecrow": A scarecrow that will bring a good harvest if three victims are killed by a certain date.
12. "Faith Healer": The Sforza glove which heals any disease or condition, only to apply it to an exponentially fatal result on another person (or the wearer).
13. "The Baron's Bride": A cape that enhances the wearer's charisma so they are irresistible to the opposite sex and a brooch clasp that allows time travel.
14. "Bedazzled": A lantern which will reveal the location of lost underwater treasure once a victim is killed beforehand.
15. "Vanity's Mirror" (and "Face of Evil"): A compact that brings the user's most heartfelt desire (either love or beauty) at the cost of a victim's life.
16. "Tattoo": A tattoo kit that brings unbeatable luck when it is used to draw a tattoo on another person which comes to life, then kills them.
17. "The Electrocutioner": An electric chair that can turn anyone who sits in it into electrical energy, which can then be used to give the user electric powers.
18. "Brain Drain": A trephinator that transfers intelligence between victim and user.
19. "The Quilt of Hathor" and "The Awakening": A quilt which allows the one who sleeps covered in it to make their wishes (usually murder) come true in the dream world.
20. "Double Exposure": A camera that can create a doppelganger of whoever it is used to photograph after the picture is developed, but only so long as the negative exists.
21. "The Pirate's Promise": A foghorn that summons a pirate's ghost and will provide the user with parts of his treasure for each murdered descendant of his mutinous crew.
22. "Badge of Honor": A sheriff's badge that burns and consumes anyone it is pressed on.
23. "Pipe Dream": A pipe that releases smoke to dissolve a victim and send them to Hell.
24. "What a Mother Wouldn't Do": A cradle that will heal an infant kept within it after seven victims are killed in water.
25. "Bottle of Dreams": A canopic jar which traps the victim in their own worst memories until the fear and stress burst their heart.
26. "Doorway to Hell": A mirror which opens a connection between it and any other which "witnessed" Satanic rites, and allows the user to come back to life if three souls are absorbed through it.
27. "Voodoo Mambo": A voodoo mask that brings the user back to life and allows them the use of all the elemental powers if it is used to kill a voodoo priest of each element.
28. "And Now the News": A cathedral radio that kills its victims by making their nightmares come to life, then provides information to the user.
29. "Tails I Live Heads You Die" (and "Bad Penny"): The Coin of Ziocles, which brings someone back from the dead after killing someone else.
30. "Symphony in B Sharp": A violin that heals injuries and allows the creation of great music once a victim is killed by its hidden blade.
31. "Master of Disguise": A makeup kit which can change one's features to become attractive.
32. "Wax Magic": A handkerchief which brings wax figures to life.
33. "Read My Lips": A boutonniere that brings life to a ventriloquist's dummy (intended to bring someone back from the dead).
34. "13 O'Clock": A pocket watch that freezes time for one hour after a murder is committed, so long as the user is in a particular subway station and holding it at 1 AM.
35. "Night Hunger": A car key and chain that psychically connects the user and the car they are driving.
36. "The Sweetest Sting": A transport beehive which can heal and provide youth (as well as the appearance) to one person by taking it from another through its bees' stings; also produces honey that can maintain the results.
37. "The Playhouse": A playhouse which allows children to create whatever fantasy world they like so long as they bring victims inside to be absorbed by their hatred.
38. "Eye of Death": A slide projector that lets one visit the past through the images in its slides.
39. "Better Off Dead": A syringe that heals a patient's violent rages by transferring brain fluid from another (so that they have the rages instead).
40. "Scarlet Cinema": A handheld movie camera that after enough killings allows a character within its film to come to life, so the user can then become that character.
41. "The Mephisto Ring": A World Series ring that foretells the outcome of any gambling venue.
42. "A Friend to the End": The Shard of Medusa, which turns whoever is holding it to stone; and a child's coffin that maintains the life of a body placed in it.
43. "The Butcher": The Amulet of Thule, which both brings the wearer back from the dead and renders them invulnerable to any injury; also allows them to be controlled by someone who wears the other piece of it.
44. "Mesmer's Bauble": A hypnotist's crystal that forces the one it is used on to fatally obey whatever the user says in return for making their wish come true.
45. "Wedding Bell Blues": A pool cue that allows the user to win any billiards game.
46. "The Maestro": A record player which forces its victims to dance to their deaths so as to create a perfect masterpiece of music.
47. "The Shaman's Apprentice": A Native American rattle that kills one person to bring life and healing to another.
48. "The Prisoner": A World War Two jacket that makes the wearer invisible.
49. "Demon Hunter": A knife which can kill the summoner of a demon (and banish the demon) at a particular date and time.
50. "Crippled Inside": A wheelchair that will heal its user after they have killed in astral form.
51. "Stick It in Your Ear": A hearing aid that allows mind reading.
52. "Hate on Your Dial": A car radio which lets the driver travel to the year it was manufactured.
53. "Night Prey": The Cross of Fire, which can kill vampires.
54. "Femme Fatale": A film reel which allows a character within it to become real while a victim takes their place, but only until the movie ends.
55. "Mightier than the Sword": A fountain pen which can make the one it is written about think and act however the writer directs.
56. "Year of the Monkey": A tea set that poisons any tea made in it, and a set of monkey statues that test the honor and morality of those they are used against in exchange for immortality.
57. "Epitaph for a Lonely Soul": An embalmer's aspirator that can temporarily revive the dead.
58. "Repetition": A cameo pendant which brings back the dead, but only by killing and trapping the soul of another in an endless cycle.
59. "The Long Road Home": A Yin-Yang pendant that transfers souls from one body to another.
60. "My Wife as a Dog": The aboriginal Leash of Dreams, which makes its user's dreams gradually come true.
61. "Jack-in-the-Box": A jack-in-the-box that can summon the dead (and possibly bring them back to life).
62. "The Spirit of Television": A TV set which maintains the user's life so long as it is used to berate, terrify, and kill victims.
63. "The Tree of Life": A carving of Cernunnos that provides fertility and the birth of female infants while growing a tree which will make new carvings from its seeds.
64. "The Charnel Pit": A double-sided painting that allows people and items to travel between past and present for every person killed and sent through it.

• The Cameo:
  • George Buza, of X-Men: The Animated Series fame, appears in three episodes, one in each season: as the suspicious neighbor of the original mulcher owner in "Root of All Evil", one of the crazed psych ward inmates in "And Now the News", and one of the biker ghosts in "Midnight Riders".
  • Ray Walston as a comic-book creator in "Tales of the Undead".
  • Gary Frank, a long-time member of the famed Actor's Studio and star of the 70's TV series Sons and Daughters and Family, appears as the monstrous reporter-turned-serial-killer in "Double Exposure".
  • Character actor Val Avery in a rather moving performance as the broken down, vengeful cop in "Badge of Honor."
  • Veteran actor Michael Constantine as Ryan's father in "Pipe Dream".
  • Acclaimed actor and singer Joe Seneca appears as Hedley in "Voodoo Mambo."
  • James Russo as the Phantom Expy, Janos Korda, in "Symphony in B#"—not that you could tell thanks to the mask and makeup, other than one flashback and several photos pre-accident.
  • Canadian supermodel Monika Schnarre appeared in "Face of Evil" as the model the villain burns with an Aerosol Flamethrower and in "Epitaph for a Lonely Soul" as the woobie-ish resurrected victim of the mortician.
  • Singer-actress Vanity starred in "Mesmer's Bauble".
  • Renowned actor Fritz Weaver (most known for his Emmy-nominated role as Dr. Josef Weiss in the 1978 TV miniseries Holocaust) stars as the Fallen Angel Asteroth in the two-parter "The Prophecies."
  • London-born veteran actress Kate Reid, long known for many great Shakespearean appearances as well as the matinee portrayal of Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, a remake of Death of a Salesman alongside Dustin Hoffman (later adapted to TV), and so much more, appropriately enough plays aging actress Lili Lita in "Femme Fatale."
  • Veteran character actor Robert Ito appears as the samurai Tanaka in "Year of the Monkey".
  • Marj Dusay as the villainous psychic in "The Spirit of Television."
  • John Innes as the last doomed husband (though he gets rescued by Johnny) of the Human Sacrificing fertility cult in "The Tree of Life."
• The Cast Showoff: In "Badge of Honor" the song being played at the mobster's night club is sung by Louise Robey, the actress playing Micki; to drive the point home she is later shown randomly singing to herself back at the shop.
• Recycled Script: The third season episode, "Mightier Than the Sword", involves a fountain pen that compels its victims to do whatever its owner writes. This is nearly identical to one in the first season (the very first after the pilot, in fact). The only difference, aside from the earlier pen being a quill pen, seems to be that it can make the victims do anything the user tells them to (including kill others) while the artifact from "The Poison Pen" can only make those it writes about die themselves. There are other types of artifact which recur as well, but luckily these tend to be different enough, and have different powers, as to remain unique. (For example, there are three different episodes revolving around cameras, but in one the camera negative creates a Criminal Doppelgänger, in the second the projected slides allow a person to go back into the past, and in the third running the film in the camera causes people to become part of said film (and eventually, a character in the film to become real)). This last is also similar to a third-season episode, but in that it was the film itself which was cursed, not the projector.
  • Interestingly, one of the few cursed objects to show up twice (the compact) did different things in the hands of two different 'owners'. See the Fridge page for theories.
  • The various healing antiques tended to work the same and raise the same ethical dilemmas: the scalpel in "Doctor Jack", the glove in "Faith Healer", the radio in "And Now the News", and the rattle in "The Shaman's Apprentice".
  • Various antiques could raise the dead by killing someone else: the Coin of Ziocles in "Tails I Live..." and "Bad Penny", the aspirator in "Epitaph for a Lonely Soul", and the cameo pendant from "Repetition". Others simply restored life under certain conditions (the Amulet of Zohar in "Hellowe'en", the mirror in "Doorway to Hell", the mask in "Voodoo Mambo", the boutonniere in "Read My Lips", the Amulet of Thule in "The Butcher"), while still others only enabled the resurrection temporarily, requiring continued murders to maintain (the handkerchief in "Wax Magic", the coffin in "A Friend to the End").
• What Could Have Been: Although never confirmed as a certainty, Word of God has stated that at various points it was discussed whether or not to have a hockey mask appear in the show, whether as one of the items being sought or a background prop. It was even considered to appear in the very last episode and be unequivocally revealed to belong to Jason Voorhees. Eventually this plot thread did get picked up on by William Pattison (writing as Eric Morse), the author of a series of YA novels from the 90's involving the mask as a cursed artifact that turned anyone who wore it into a Serial Killer at Camp Crystal Lake. Almost two decades later he returned to the series in 2011 to self-publish an e-book, The Mask of Jason Voorhees, that brought it to a conclusion and also tied the two series together by having Ryan and Micki appear to try and prevent Jason's resurrection and recover the mask.
• You Sound Familiar: The general music for this was composed by Fred Mollin, who would go on to much praise for the score and background music (including several gothic/pop/rock songs) that he composed for another Urban Fantasy cult TV show, Forever Knight (evident by two soundtrack albums being released). In fact, he even re-used a song: "Some Like It Hot" plays in the episode "Wedding Bell Blues" in the pool hall, and is later used in the strip club in the Forever Knight episode "Dance by the Light of the Moon".
• You Look Familiar:
  • Several actors were recycled, with Denis Forest being a particular standout, appearing in four different episodes as four different characters (the fact that he specialized in playing creepy sleazeballs made him a good fit for this show).
  • Aside from Denis Forest, two other well-known actors had also appeared several times as different characters from within the series, Colin Fox (specializing in cunning, ruthless antagonists) and Colm Feore (specializing in clever, artistic antagonists).
  • Robert Silverman appeared in two episodes – in "Faith Healer," as Jack's friend Jerry who has made a life of criticizing and debunking frauds and charlatans (including the titular Villain of the Week), and in "Hate on Your Dial," as the mentally disabled older brother of a violent racist.
  • Ron Hartmann appeared twice—once in "The Electrocutioner" as the superintendent at the school where Eli Pittman was a dentist, and once as Henry Wilkerson, the original owner of the cursed pocket watch in "13 O'Clock." Oddly enough, the first role was a fine, upstanding and likable gentleman while the second was a sleazy, Dirty Old Man with a young gold-digging mistress...but in both of them he died.
  • Wayne Best appeared thrice in the series — in "The Playhouse" as the last owner of the episode's titular cursed object, in "Stick It in Your Ear" as a D-rate mentalist named Adam Cole who becomes able to hear everybody's thoughts thanks to a cursed hearing aid, and, in a shift to a sympathetic role, in "Jack-in-the-Box" as Brock, a lifeguard whose spirit desperately tries to prevent his daughter from getting revenge on the people who killed him.
  • Thomas Hauff also appeared thrice—as the insane accountant who first used the mulcher in "Root of All Evil", the likable museum owner in "The Pirate's Promise", and the chaplain compelled into being a Serial Killer in "Mightier Than the Sword".
  • David Orth appeared as the doomed high-schooler Scott in the Love Triangle between Helen Mackie and her sister in "Vanity's Mirror", one of the brothers in the titular "Demon Hunter" family, and the preacher's son who was one of the Star-Crossed Lovers in "Midnight Riders".
  • Kate Trotter appeared as the ambitious Penitite Effie Stokes who uses the "Quilt of Hathor", the ambitious Dr. Avril Carter who uses the cathedral radio in "And New the News", and, in a turn to a sympathetic role, Micki's friend Anne Holloway who runs a homeless shelter in "Repetition".
  • Carolyn Dunn appeared as the villain's crush in "Cupid's Quiver", as Ryan's Star Crossed Lover in the two-parter "Quilt of Hathor", and as Maya, one of the damned souls who couldn't carry out her mission in "Wedding in Black".
  • Other recurring actors were Lynne Cormack (playing desperate/cruel mothers or stepmothers), Tom McManus (as a vampire and a ruthless antiques collector), Ingrid Veninger (once as a homely villain, once as a homeless girl who witnesses a murder), Angelo Rizacos (sometimes sympathetic, sometimes sadistic, but always unsettling and creepy), Susannah Hoffman (playing a doomed Love Interest in both "The Baron's Bride" and "Wax Magic"), Louis Ferreira (once as the ex-con who got possessed by Lewis in "Doorway to Hell", once as the scummy pool player engaged to the Yandere in "Wedding Bell Blues"), Neil Munro (playing a doctor in "Better Off Dead" and a mortician in "Epitaph for a Lonely Soul", plus one unexpected turn in the unintended series finale as the Marquis de Sade), and Bernard Behrens, a character actor in several bit parts (including General Robert E. Lee).

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