Heroes (TV series)/Trivia

• Actor Allusion: Christopher Eccleston got to say "fantastic!", his Catch Phrase as the Doctor.
• Billing Displacement: Averted. Not only are the main cast members always billed in strictly alphabetical order, Heroes (along with Charmed and Eastwick) is one of the few non-soaps to credit just the actors who appear in each episode, instead of running a standard cast list.
• Cast Incest: Heroes co-stars Hayden Panettiere (Claire Bennet) and Milo Ventimiglia (Peter Petrelli) dated while playing an onscreen uncle and niece.
• Fake Brit: Adam is played by Oregon native David Anders.
• Fake Nationality: James Kyson Lee (Korean) plays Ando (Japanese). Additionally, while Mohinder is from India, Sendhil Ramamurthy was born in Chicago and grew up in Texas. Lampshaded by Ando who says (of white people, though): "They all look alike."
  • Samuel and Ricky are played by Americans Robert Knepper and Holt McCallany. Will and Caitlin are played by Brits Dominic Keating and Katie Carr.
  • While Mohinder is from India, Sendhil Ramamurthy was born in Chicago and grew up in Texas. Lampshaded by Ando who says (of white people, though): "They all look alike."
• Fandom Nod: Sylar explains that he, in fact, does NOT eat brains.
  • Also in one GN when meeting a trio of evolved humans who think of him as an inspiration, Sylar notes with some surprise "I have... fans!?" most likely a nod to the Sylar fandom.
• Fan Nickname: There are several, but highlights include:
  • Mystery Sock for Isaac
  • Fryingmon for Nathan (based on Hiro's pronunciation of "Mister I-saac" and "Flying Man").
  • Momo, "Moe" (as in the Stooge), or Pretty-But-Stupid for Mohinder and/or Peter.
  • Mohindrance and D'ohhinder, for the many, many times Mohinder steals the Idiot Ball.
  • Rafiki for Usutu, the man Matt meets in the African plains.
  • Pac-Man for Matt (based on Usutu's pronunciation of Parkman).
  • HRG for Mr. Bennet (because of the glasses).
    • This was a canon nickname at least amongst the cast as Coleman referred to his character as such a couple times
  • Senator Bambi for Nathan Petrelli (it's the eyes).
  • President Worf or Worfbama for the President, because he's played by Michael Dorn and he's kinda sorta an Expy of Obama
  • Pasbeard for the infamous, butt-ugly Beard of Sorrow sported by Nathan Petrelli (Adrian Pasdar) in the beginning of Season 2.
  • Nuke, for Luke the microwave boy.
  • Hiro ando Ando (bilingual pun).
  • Sythan for Nathan!Sylar.
• Franchise Killer: Season 4/Volume 5 ended up being the final season of Heroes, despite leaving a Cliff Hanger. Your Mileage May Vary whether or not it was due to Volume 5 itself, or just karma from arguably inferior previous seasons catching up. Actually, not only was the show cancelled, but they also ended up abruptly ending the graphic novels, and original plans for an end-of-series movie was also scrapped as well.
• Hey, It's That Guy!: Veronica Mars has lightning powers.
  • • And Weevil can really scream.
  • Kairi can now never get hurt.
  • Clear Rivers can now evade death thanks to her endless supply of siblings.
  • Captain Sheridan appoints Nathan to the Senate.
  • Quinn Fabray as a cheerleader.
  • How often to do you see a show with Franklin and another Franklin.
  • The Ninth Doctor can now turn invisible.
  • Alison DiLaurentis as Lydia's daughter who makes things blow up.
  • Andie Star is the tattooed lady, and Darth Maul is the knife-thrower.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: Anakin Skywalker as a quarterback who accidentally kills Claire.
• Jossed: "Are you going to eat it?" "Claire, that's disgusting."
• McLeaned : Arguably Adam Monroe. Of all the character deaths in Volume 3, his was the most spiteful. David Anders left to film Children of the Corn very shortly afterwards. The interviews he gave shortly before Adam was killed off seem to hint at this as well. And Elle for sure.
  • Apparently, Adrian Pasdar only found out he was fired when he read Nathan's final death scene... ouch. His fangirls promptly started baying for Tim Kring's blood, leading to some serious damage control by everyone involved.
• Name's the Same: Claire shares the name of a character in Tales of Rebirth, of all things.
• The Other Darrin:
  • In the famous group photo of the Company founders, Arthur Petrelli's face is kept obscured from the camera, but the man identified as him is clearly not Robert Forster.
  • Justified for Candice Willmer (played by Missy Peregrym, later played by Rachel Kimsey) since she can "shapeshift" into other people.
• Real Life Relative: The actors that play Ted Sprague and Sandra Bennet are married in real life and Milo Ventimiglia (Peter) and Hayden Panettiere (Claire) briefly dated.
• Scully Box: Hayden Panettiere and Kristen Bell are very petite women, only coming up to 5'1" at best. They either needed the Scully boxes or wore heels in order to fit into scenes against Zachary Quinto (6'3) and Jack Coleman (6'2").
• Star-Making Role: Hayden Panettiere wasn't exactly unknown before, but the show pretty much made her and Zachary Quinto much more known. It also hasn't done Masi Oka any harm.
• What Could Have Been: The obvious example is how Volume 3 was cut short, with plot threads obvious to be related to the main story ending up going nowhere. A bigger example would be the entire style of the series: The original intent was to have a revolving cast, with most characters not returning in future seasons. What could have been, indeed, if after Season 2 we didn't have to deal with most of the extended Petrelli family?
  • Also, the Aborted Arcs caused by the writer's strike, which led to the Seasonal Rot which the series never fully recovered from.