Buffy Guest Star’s Gross Experience On Set
While it mostly kept things light (Season 6 notwithstanding), Buffy the Vampire Slayer was generally a light comedy, but it never shied from its horror roots. Because of that, our beloved Scoobies would often encounter some of the grossest monsters to ever slither across the small screen. In one memorable early adventure, though, it was the monster who got grossed out: in the Buffy episode “Teacher’s Pet,” the actor who had to play the demonic mantis had real bugs placed around the sandwich the villain was seen eating on screen.
No Special Effects
Most Buffy fans watching “Teacher’s Pet” likely assumed that the bug sandwich was just one of the show’s more convincing special effects. However, Musetta Vander (who played substitute teacher Ms. French) reportedly confirmed these creepy crawlies were all too real.
Teacher’s Pet
In “Teacher’s Pet” all the boys go crazy for a hot new substitute teacher, and she inexplicably seems to show a romantic interest in Xander, the show’s nerdiest and (especially in Season 1) most off-putting character.
The teacher being hot for student proves too good to be true, though, when the substitute is revealed to be a demonic “She-Mantis” who preys on virgins, and she wants to make Xander her next meal.
Throughout this Buffy episode, the title character and most of her friends are wary of the substitute who wants to make Xander into a very different kind of “teacher’s pet.”
Poor Xander
Xander (traditionally used as a stand-in for showrunner Joss Whedon) doesn’t want to believe she’s evil, but he doesn’t see some of what Buffy sees, including the teacher rotating her head 180 degrees like…well…a mantis in human form.
Another Day At Work
Luckily, Musetta Vander didn’t actually have to eat the bugs or the sandwich. The process was likely used to make the creepy-crawly episode all the more believable.
No One Liked Xander Until Later
As far as first seasons go, Buffy had a surprisingly great one, and “Teacher’s Pet” is a truly standout episode. The Whedon-powered dialogue is great, the effects are creepy, and Xander’s creepy self gets taken down a few pegs.
Sadly, surviving an encounter with a bug sandwich-eating demon simply left Xander with an appetite for a Buffy sandwich, and fans had to put up with his cringe crush until Anya came along two years later.
