Chuck/Trivia

• Actor Allusion:
  • Adam Baldwin is playing a patriotic version of his Firefly character, without the greed, the beard, and the disregard for authority. It's also hard to ignore that their initials are identical, which may or may not be intentional.
  • Casey has said lines Adam Baldwin has used before -- as Jayne in Firefly.

Casey: You are starting to damage my calm, Chuck. Casey: Shiny! Casey: We're just happy to be doing good works.

He also threatened to remove Chuck's "man parts"; in Firefly Jayne once threatened to show River his "man parts" if she kept insinuating the femininity of his name. :

• • In "Chuck Versus the Fear of Death", Casey asks Greta what kind of "crew" she used to be on.
  • There's also a mention of Full Metal Jacket. Animal Mother's line "Flush out your headgear, new guy." was also used by Casey at one point.
  • The first thing Scott Bakula says to Ellie? "Oh boy."
  • Emmett yelling "No touching!" at the hordes of Tyler Martin fans.
    • Speaking of Tyler Martin, he's pretty much what Charlie might have become if Locke hadn't helped him kick the drug habit.
  • In "Chuck Versus the Three Words," Morgan says that Carina is not some girl, but "basically a Swedish supermodel." Which is exactly what Mini Anden is in real life. (You may have seen her as the former face of Armani Code.)
  • Brandon Routh as Agent Shaw has donned glasses that look suspiciously like ones Clark Kent would wear.
  • In "Chuck Versus First Class," Hannah sees a character played by Stone Cold Steve Austin and tries to guess his profession-- "A professional wrestler, maybe?"
  • In "Chuck Versus the Mask", Hannah (Kristin Kreuk) mentions how handsome she thinks Shaw (Brandon Routh) looks. In that same scene, Chuck retorts with "Sure, if you're into the strong, Superman-y type of guy" - A twofer, as Routh previously played Superman, and Kreuk previously played Clark Kent's first love.
  • Chuck constantly referring to Dr. Leo Dreyfus in "Chuck Versus the Tooth" (as played by Christopher Lloyd) as "Doc." He then gets Chuck committed to a mental asylum.
  • "Chuck Versus the Anniversary" - Harry Dean Stanton as a Repo Man and Dolph Lundgren dropping several of his Rocky IV lines.
  • "Chuck Versus the Cubic Z" includes an Actor Allusion between two of its guest stars, as Stacy Keibler and Stone Cold Steve Austin have a brief reprise match.
  • In "Chuck Versus the Aisle of Terror," Robert Englund shows up as a man who can make people have "nightmares they can never wake up from."
  • In "Chuck Versus the Leftovers," Mary Elizabeth Bartowski (played by Linda Hamilton) tells Chuck and Sarah to "Come with me if you want to live."
    • There's a scene in "Chuck Versus the Last Details" where a captured Mary Bartowski is doing pull-ups in her cell.
  • Sarah, undercover for Volkoff. With black-dyed hair and a catsuit. "I love a good suicide mission."
  • Volkoff, as played by Timothy Dalton, has one. As it turns out, he once worked for MI 6.
  • Of course, they couldn't have Carrie-Anne Moss as a guest star and not feature at least one Bullet Time scene. (It happens in "Chuck Versus the Frosted Tips.")
  • In "Chuck Versus the Hack Off" a scene featuring Carrie-Anne Moss is segued into a laptop running a Matrix code screen saver.
• Bilingual Bonus: In "Chuck Versus the Last Details," Morgan pretends to attend a meeting as Ettore La Barba. "La Barba" means "The Beard," which is also a Fan Nickname given to Morgan.
• Celebrity Paradox: The James Bond franchise as well as shows like The OC and Smallville all exist in the Chuck universe yet they never notice the likes of Rachel Bilson, Kristin Kreuk and Timothy Dalton walking amongst them.
  • Perhaps the biggest: Chuck & Morgan are huge Star Wars fans & Casey's familiar enough with the series to torture Morgan by having him watch The Phantom Menace first & then spoiling that Vader's the father of Luke & Leia, but none of them notice that they're stealing a vase from Luke freakin' Skywalker at the start of season 5.
  • You can't learn anything about being a spy from Chevy Chase, even if he was Roark
• Expy:
  • Most of the more competent non-main character spies have at least some measure of Bond in them (the rest by and large trend toward MiB Shout-outs):
    • Cole Barker is Daniel Craig's Bond;
    • Roan Montgomery is Sean Connery's Bond;
    • Bryce is Brosnan's bond;
    • And even Charles Carmichael seems to be based on Roger Moore's Bond (though when he does his Bond impression, it's using Connery's accent).
    • And Timothy Dalton plays a Bond Villain.
  • Casey's old team is an evil version of The A-Team.
  • In "Chuck Versus the CAT Squad", the all-female CAT Squad, Sarah's old team, is obviously based on Charlie's Angels.
• Fake American: Yvonne Strahovski is Australian, and briefly uses her real accent while Sarah is masquerading as an Aussie.
  • Strahovski is actually Polish-Australian; English is her second language. Of course, Sarah spoke Polish in at least one episode.
• Hey, It's That Guy!:
  • Gift Shop Girl (after dyeing her hair black) is Chuck's sister.
  • Jayne Cobb is an NSA agent!
  • Hey, Big Mike sold Greg a rat!
  • Neal Caffrey is just one of Bryce's aliases. We later discover that Peter Burke was Sarah's handler.
  • Buster Bluth and Vince Masuka before him were Buy More assistant managers.
  • Oswald is a Ring agent.
  • Ivan Drago is a Volkoff operative.
    • As if just being there wasn't enough, he even makes at least two Shout Outs to Rocky IV: "I must break you!" and "If you die, you die."
  • Sarah Connor is Chuck and Ellie's mom and Sam Beckett is their dad.
  • Volkoff is James Bond and Rassilon.
  • The Devil is Volkoff's lawyer.
  • The character "Greta" is Olivia Munn, River Tam, The Man Your Man Could Smell Like, and Stacy Keibler.
  • Superman is Daniel Shaw.
  • Lana Lang is Hannah.
  • Imhotep and the Kingpin are FULCRUM agents.
  • Captain Gideon is Sarah's dad, while Captain Sheridan is Devon's.
    • Which makes Chuck's Tron poster all the more interesting.
  • Chuck has to battle noted HITG Richard Burgi (The Sentinel, Desperate Housewives, 24) to save Sarah. He's also the guy who insulted Jayne and his cunning hat. ("That hat makes you look like an idiot.")
  • Crowley (Mark Sheppard) is the Director of the Ring.
  • Miranda Lawson and Kal'Reegar are Chuck's protectors.
    • And in one episode, EDI replaces Miranda and turns out to be a hardass.
    • And Aria became a spy.
  • Hugo Panzer is Stone Cold Steve Austin.
  • Casey's former unit featured Munroe/Sal Maronia as the leader, Batista as The Big Guy and Dr. Norm Spellman/Colin Fisher as the resident Cloudcuckoolander.
  • Green Arrow needed protecting from his brother in "Chuck Versus the Bearded Bandit". Guess it wasn't a job for Superman...
  • Anyone paying attention to NBC's advertising knew that Abed was going to show up in "Chuck Versus the Hack-off." Not touted at all? Shirley, as a Buy More greenshirt with the hots for him.
    • Keeping with Community references, the same episode features Kick-Puncher as a prison inmate.
    • Also: Freddie Wong, as Freddie, a fellow hacker.
  • Casey Hendershot, Deadliest Warrior expert, appears twice as a mook. An Iranian villain from "Chuck vs. The A-Team" was (ironically) the lead IDF simulation actor.
• No Export for You/Screwed by the Network: In the UK, and waiting for the start of Season 5? You'll be waiting for a while - Sky decided they didn't want to purchase the rights to show the fifth & final season of the show, and it's not likely someone else will purchase the rights for just the final season since Sky still own the rights to (And show, for that matter) the first four seasons. But it's okay, because Sky have several new shows that they're sure you'll enjoy.
• Shout-Out: So many, we had to give it its own page.
• Truth in Television: As in the plot of Chuck Versus Tom Sawyer, many old arcade games do indeed have a "kill screen" where achieving a high enough level or score can generate bugged levels or cause other unusual effects. However Missile Command is actually not one of them, and merely loops back to the beginning when a certain point is reached.
  • This can be excused, however, if one takes the designer at his word when he says that only he can access the Missile Command kill screen, and that Rush's Tom Sawyer is the "pattern of the universe." The game possibly requires following a particular pattern to access it, which only he knows (and is synced to Tom Sawyer...somehow).
• What Could Have Been:
  • Apparently Devon (Captain Awesome) was supposed to be a limited character who was supposed to turn out to be an enemy operative towards the end of season one. However his popularity led to the idea being dropped and Awesome becoming a series regular. The idea was recycled into Jill and re-recycled into an arc in season 3 where The Ring thinks Devon is the resident spy in the Bartowski family.
  • According to a discussion Alan Sepinwall had with the creators, they were originally going to try and hire Chuck Norris to play a major villain (most likely Leader from "Chuck Versus the Gravitron") in an episode that could only be titled "Chuck Versus Chuck."
• You Look Familiar: The actor who played Yuri the Gobbler had also played one of La Ciudad's goons.
• Truth