Some information about The X-Files that you might not have heard of before.
The famous echoing chord from the theme music was a fluke. Composer Mark Snow accidentally rested his elbow on his keyboard with the echo function on, and he liked the resulting sound so much, he wrote the theme around it.
The sixth season episode Triangle contains several references to The Wizard of Oz (1939). The captain of the British cruise liner is called Captain Yip Harburg, after uncredited co-writer (E.Y. Harburg). The ballroom singer is called Almira Gulch, after Margaret Hamilton’s character. Mulder’s boat is called the Lady Garland, after Judy Garland. The episode title “Triangle” may also be a reference to the album cover of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon”, which has also been linked convincingly to The Wizard of Oz (1939).
During a scene in a graveyard the camera pans past a headstone, which bears the names Diana and Nicholas Salinger with the year of death 1994. This is a reference to the late parents of the Salinger family featured in another Fox show, _”Party of Five”(1994)_ .
Recurring use of the numbers: 1013 – Ten Thirteen is the name of ‘Chris Carter’ ‘s production company; his birthday is 13 October 1956. The number 1121 also appears often; it is creator ‘Chris Carter’ ‘s wife, Dori’s, birthday.
“I made this”, the words spoken over the Ten Thirteen company name, are spoken by Nathan Couturier, son of the supervising sound editor, Thierry Couturier.
The dog in the episode titled Ice is the father of David Duchovny’s dog Blue.
‘William B. Davis’ , who plays the cigarette-smoking man, is a non-smoker. The cigarettes he uses in his scenes aren’t tobacco, they’re herbal.
Scully’s family has a thing for Moby Dick: Scully is called Starbuck by her father, her dog’s name is Queequeg, and she calls her father Captain Ahab.
The character Senator Richard Matheson is named after Richard Matheson, whose writing inspired “Kolchak: The Night Stalker” (1974), the show that inspired ‘Chris Carter’ to create The X-Files.
While the show hinted that Skinner had a quiet crush on Scully, in real life, Mitch Pileggi (Skinner) met his wife Arlene Warren on the set of X-Files, while she was Gillian Anderson’s (Scully) stand-in. In later episodes, she gets some screen time… As Skinner’s secretary, Arlene.
The series’ science consultant, ‘Anne Simon’ , a virologist at the University of Massachusetts, wrote a non-fiction book in 1999 entitled “The Real Science Behind the X-Files: Microbes, Meteorites and Mutants”.
The line “The truth is out there”, at the end of the opening credits, was ranked #9 in TV Guide’s list of “TV’s 20 Top Catchphrases” (21-27 August 2005 issue).
The production of the show took place in Vancouver, Canada up and till season 5. From season 6 the show moved to Los Angeles.
David Duchovny and his character Fox Mulder have the same middle name: William.
In the intentionally-humourous episode “Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space'”, FBI Agent Mulder (with Scully) comes to town to solve a mystery involving the disappearance of a young girl and spends one scene in a diner eating more than his fair share of pie. This is a tongue-in-cheek nod to the character FBI Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) from David Duchovny’s previous “spooky” series, “Twin Peaks” (1990). Cooper went to the quiet mountain town to solve the death of Laura Palmer and had a taste for pie. Duchovny guest-starred on that as a cross-dressing DEA agent.
The Cigarette-Smoking Man’s line “Anyone who can appease a man’s conscience can take his freedom away” is taken from Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel, “The Brothers Karamazov”.
In the final episode it is revealed that on December 22, 2012, aliens will invade and take over the world. In reality, December 23, 2012 is the day the ancient Mayan calendar will end.
The recurring character Cigarette Smoking Man was never given a name until late in the series. He is referred to as Cancerman in some early episodes. The show’s fans took to referring to him as simply CSM.
The Lone Gunmen characters became so popular that they were briefly given their own short-lived series, _”The Lone Gunmen” (2001)_ .
Nicholas Lea, who plays the traitorous agent Alex Krycek, does all his own stunt work.
Props from Mulder’s X-Files office are currently preserved and on display at the Hollywood Entertainment Museum in Los Angeles. According to the museum, the famous I Want to Believe UFO poster from the office continually had to be replaced as copies kept disappearing from the set. The poster on display at the museum is reportedly one of the last available copies of the original set-used posters.
The series does not show episode titles on-screen. While this was not unusual even in 1993 (though it is more commonplace in 2004 when virtually no American dramatic TV series display episode titles), what is unusual is that many fans learned episode titles as well as advance plot information via the Internet. X-Files was one of the first TV series to be so promoted.
Scully’s baby, William, is played by producer/writer John Shiban’s son Jerry Shiban.
Ranked #2 in TV Guide’s list of the “25 Top Cult Shows Ever!” (30 May 2004 issue).
The character ‘Fox Mulder’ was ranked #7 in TV Guide’s list of the “25 Greatest Sci-Fi Legends” (1 August 2004 issue).
During the last season of the show, the opening credits included a shot of a list of “FBI Contacts, Witnesses, and Contributors.” The names on the list were actually the screen names of posters on the official “X-Files” message board and changed with each new episode that season. Other names on the list were anagrams of characters on the show.
Mulder saw Edward D. Wood Jr.’s Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) 42 times. He also lives in apartment number 42. 42 is the answer to life, the universe, and everything from Douglas Adams’s _”The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”(1981)_ .
The name of the female lead in The X-Files, Dana Scully, is also found in Anne Tyler’s bestselling 1985 novel The Accidental Tourist.
‘Chris Carter’ lists All the President’s Men (1976) as one of his inspirations for the series, and there are numerous references to the film, including the shadowy informer Deep Throat, meetings in underground car lots, and hints at conspiracies which stretch all the way to the F.B.I.
Brad Follmer, the character played by Cary Elwes, is named after creator ‘Chris Carter’ ‘s writing assistant.
David Duchovny (Fox Mulder), Gillian Anderson (Dana Scully) and William B. Davis (Cigarette Smoking Man) are the only actors to appear in both the first and last episodes of the series.
In the early years of the series, Mulder is a firm believer in extraterrestrials and Scully is skeptical. The opposite is true for the actors who portray them.
In the beginning of the episode “Die Hand Die Verletzt”,
co-executive producers James Wong and Glen Morgan are credited
as James “CHARGERS” Wong and Glen “BOLTS, BABY!” Morgan.
Occasionally, the phrase “The Truth Is Out There” in the opening credits
has been changed to something else, for example “Trust No One” or “Apology
is Policy”.
The opening credits of the first 7 seasons include an extreme close-up of
an eye blinking. In the 8th season credits, the eye belongs to
Gillian Anderson.
During the 8th season credits, an image of David Duchovny appears,
showing Mulder falling into a void of some sort. This image continued to be
used even when the actor was no longer a regular on the series.
Almost every episode ends with a fade to black and the words “Executive
Producer Chris Carter.” At the end of the episode “D.P.O.,” a character is
flipping through channels on television, and stops on one showing Carter’s
credit.
At the end of the episode “Post-Modern Prometheus” (5X06), the
final shot of Mulder and Scully turns into a comic-book frame, and a hand
flips the comic book shut to reveal the book end cover with Carter’s credit.
As is the case with many 20th Century Fox Films, the film cans for the advance screening prints and show prints had a code name. The X-Files was “Nuts and Bolts.”
The working title “Blackwood” came from the works of English writer Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951), a member of the Golden Dawn Society, about a race of intelligent beings who predated humans. The fire trucks arriving to rescue Stevie (‘Lucas Black’ ) have “Blackwood County” printed on the doors
The final scene takes place in Foum Tatouine, which is an actual place, used for filming the scenes on the planet Tatooine in Star Wars (1977) and Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983).
In the original trailer, the shot with Mulder & Scully running from the bees was used, albeit minus the SFX bees.
After consuming much alcohol and finding the bar’s bathroom locked, Mulder relieves himself on a movie poster for Independence Day (1996). A line in Independence Day, spoken just after the first shot of the cable station, is “Yeah, I love X-Files too. I hardly get to see it.”
Conrad Strughold (Armin Mueller-Stahl)was named for the real Strughold, a Nazi scientist who conducted experiments on prisoners during World War II.
Stevie (‘Lucas Black’ ) is named after one of the original series creator Chris Carter’s boyhood friends. Carter says that he and the real Stevie used to dig holes a lot, just like in the movie.
Former LAPD bomb squad officer Herb Williams and former FBI agent William O. Heaton acted as advisors for the bomb sequence – and appeared in the movie as agents in a scene with Scully.
The newspaper article Mulder reads at the end of the film (titled “Fatal Hanta Virus Outbreak in Northern Texas Reported Contained”) was written by reporter Howard Dimsdale. The real Howard Dimsdale taught X-Files writers Frank Spotnitz and John Shiban at the American Film Institute, and was blacklisted during the McCarthy era, when he wrote under the name Arthur Dales, which was used as a name for the characters played in the series by Darren McGavin, M. Emmet Walsh and Fredric Lehne.
619 – the number on the “Office of Professional Review” door (where Scully is interrogated by the Assistant Directors). 06/19 is the date that the movie opened.
11:21 – the time Mulder goes to the Dallas Field Office, where Scully joins him and analyses the fossils. 11/21 is the birthdate of Chris Carter’s wife.
Ten Thirteen Productions produced the film and the television series. On the last track of the movie soundtrack, if you let it play until 10:13, Chris Carter gives a description of some of the various conspiracies in the series and the movie. 10/13 is also the date in which the film came onto VHS in 1998.
In the chronology of the series, the movie takes place between the fifth season finale, episode #5.20 “The End” (with the CSM torching Mulder’s office) and the sixth season premiere episode #6.1 “The Beginning” (which deals with the gestating-breed of aliens in the movie).
The scene in which Scully and Mulder are chased through a cornfield by helicopters is a reference to the famous “crop duster” scene in North by Northwest (1959). Martin Landau was in both movies.
The video release has additional footage not shown in the theatrical release:
In the opening scene you now see more of the alien. In the theatrical release we see it fight off one of the cavemen, killing it, and the other caveman gets up to see it lying on the ground draining out the black blood (or what fans know as black oil). In the video release, we see it run off after it kills one of the cavemen, and when the other caveman gets up, he tracks it down and then kills it using the broken end of his torch.
In the scene with Mulder talking to the Well Manicured Man in the car, he reveals to Mulder that Samantha, Mulder’s sister, was abducted by aliens at the request of her father, William Mulder, so she could be part of the colonization project, thus ensuring her survival in the colonization of Earth by the visitors. Also revealed is that when plans went awry, Mulder was intended, by his father, to seek the truth and reveal what had been done.
There is also an added scene in the video release with Mulder running down the street after the hospital scene.
