70 Fun Facts About Hard the X-Files

What did Fox reportedly want in a Scully instead of the 24-year-old Gillian Anderson?

Carter insisted she had the no-nonsense integrity the role needed; she went on to win an Emmy, a Golden Globe and two SAG Awards for it.

Duchovny's Mulder was seen as a parallel to which Twin Peaks character?

Duchovny had himself appeared on Twin Peaks as a DEA agent, so the FBI-man comparison came easily.

Mark Snow's theme whistle came from a sound module preset called what?

It was a preset on a Proteus 2 rackmount module; Snow created the theme's echo effect by accident.

Which Smiths track inspired the whistle effect in the theme?

The song appeared on the US edition of the 1985 album Meat Is Murder.

The show's first Emmy, won in 1994, was in which category?

The opening sequence made for season one stayed unchanged until Duchovny left, and the revival seasons brought it back.

Roughly how much did David Duchovny receive when he settled his lawsuit against 20th Century Fox?

He claimed Fox had undersold the show's rights to its own affiliates; the case strained his professional relationships and he stopped being a full-time regular soon after.

Which episode, aired as the lead-out to Super Bowl XXXI, is the most-watched in the show's history?

It drew 29.1 million viewers, and its cancer-eating villain set up Scully's own cancer storyline later that season.

How many Golden Globe Awards did The X-Files win in total?

That was from twelve nominations; the show also won a Peabody Award in 1996.

In the finale "The Truth", Mulder faces a military tribunal after breaking into which facility?

He was there to view plans for the alien colonization of Earth, and ended up charged with the murder of a Super Soldier.

Which supposed murder is Mulder placed under military arrest for in "The Truth"?

Rohrer, played by Adam Baldwin, was Doggett's old Marine friend turned Super Soldier, which made the murder charge absurd since he could not be killed.

The foul-mouthed detective in "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" was named after which crew member?

The character's habit of swearing was lifted directly from the director himself.

Darin Morgan first wanted which performer as Jose Chung, before Charles Nelson Reilly?

Reilly captivated the crew and gave everyone nicknames; the episode was Morgan's last for the show until the 2016 revival.

"Home" was partly inspired by a story about a disfigured man in whose autobiography?

The other real-life inspiration was the documentary Brother's Keeper about the Ward brothers, on whom the Peacock family was based.

Tucker Smallwood, the sheriff in "Home", was the first of many guests from which Morgan and Wong series?

Morgan and Wong had left The X-Files after season two to make that show and returned for season four with "Home".

Vince Gilligan's 'Bad Blood' was inspired by which sitcom's episode where the leads retell a fight differently?

Gilligan came up with the idea with Frank Spotnitz after an earlier concept fell through.

How did Vince Gilligan show the makeup artist what the "Bad Blood" vampire bite should look like?

Luke Wilson was cast as the sheriff having just starred in Home Fries, a comedy Gilligan had scripted.

In "Bad Blood", what does Mulder scatter on the floor to stall the pizza-boy vampire?

Ronnie compulsively starts picking them up, which buys Mulder time in his own version of the story.

"Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" was originally written with which comedian in mind for the title role?

Peter Boyle got the part instead and won the Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor; the character was based on Darin Morgan's own depressive father.

What is Clyde Bruckman's job?

He lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and can foresee how people are going to die, which makes him a grimly appropriate underwriter.

Chris Carter wrote "The Post-Modern Prometheus" with which two performers specifically in mind?

Neither was available; Cher later regretted passing and did authorise three of her tracks for the soundtrack.

Which cartoonist had already used the name Great Mutato for a Simpsons comic character?

The two names were pronounced differently; the episode's Mutato was played under heavy makeup by Chris Owens.

The shipboard scenes in "Triangle" were shot aboard which retired ocean liner?

The ship is moored at Long Beach, California, as a hotel; the episode was designed to look like a handful of uninterrupted eleven-minute takes.

The split-screen effect late in "Triangle" was inspired by the video for which 1998 single?

Each side of the screen showed the same setting in a different time period; the ballroom fight music was modelled on John Williams's swing tune from 1941.

What did Chris Carter eat on a trip to France that gave him the idea for Eugene Tooms's diet?

Glen Morgan said the writers settled on livers because they were funnier than any other organ.

Mulder's polygraph questions in "Squeeze" link Tooms to murders dating as far back as which year?

Tooms passes most of the test but fails exactly those questions, which Agent Colton dismisses before letting him go.

The Flukeman in "The Host" is described as the product of which disaster?

Carter said the episode came from three things: his dog having worms, his reading on the disaster, and 1990s species extinctions.

Jerry Hardin was cast as Deep Throat on the strength of his role in which 1993 film?

The character drew on the real Watergate source Mark Felt and on Donald Sutherland's X in Oliver Stone's JFK.

Fox Mulder graduated with first-class honours in psychology from which university in 1983?

While there he dated Phoebe Green, who returned as a Scotland Yard investigator in the season-one episode "Fire".

What was the title of Dana Scully's undergraduate physics thesis?

Mulder had read it before they met, and teased her about it in their very first scene together.

Scully named her dog after which Moby-Dick character?

Moby-Dick was her childhood favourite; she and her navy-captain father called each other by names from the novel.

Which Section Chief assigned Scully to work with Mulder?

Blevins, played by Charles Cioffi, was bankrolled by Roush Pharmaceuticals and later exposed as a mole inside the Bureau.

Scully's cross necklace was a gift from her mother for which birthday?

Her mother told Mulder about it after Scully's abduction, when he was carrying the necklace around.

What full birth name did the Cigarette Smoking Man's season-eleven soliloquy reveal?

In season six he was called C.G.B. Spender, which Scully suggested was one of hundreds of aliases.

In 'Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man', what is the Smoking Man's fictional spy-novel alter ego called?

Publishers rejected or altered every draft, leaving him no choice but to keep working for the government.

How many audible words does the Cigarette Smoking Man speak in the entire first season?

He was credited in the pilot simply as Smoking Man and became the primary antagonist only over later seasons.

William B. Davis, who played the Cigarette Smoking Man, was a former national champion in which sport?

He held records in older age divisions, and switched to herbal cigarettes on set for fear of becoming addicted again.

Where do Russians amputate Krycek's left arm to protect him from black-oil experiments?

He and Mulder had been held captive there; the site is famous in real life for the 1908 explosion.

Skinner served as a US Marine in which war?

After "One Breath" aired, Mitch Pileggi received fan letters from veterans of that war.

Before the FBI, John Doggett was a detective in which police department?

His young son Luke was abducted and murdered during that period, a case Monica Reyes worked on.

Where was Monica Reyes born and raised?

She speaks fluent Spanish and joined the FBI at Quantico in 1990.

Byers of the Lone Gunmen was born on the day of which historical event, which explains his middle name?

His parents named him John Fitzgerald after the fallen president; the trio's name mocks the Warren Commission's lone-gunman finding.

Under what name did Langly play Dungeons & Dragons?

He was also a Ramones fan and a Quake player who liked picking apart the science of Earth 2.

The thief Yves Adele Harlow in The Lone Gunmen spin-off uses an alias that is an anagram of whose name?

Her real name, Lois Runtz, was revealed in the X-Files episode "Jump the Shark".

The March 2001 pilot of The Lone Gunmen involved a plot to crash a plane into which building?

It aired six months before the September 11 attacks; the plotters were rogue government members hoping to justify a profitable new war.

What codename did the production use for the 1998 feature film?

Rob Bowman directed from a script by Carter and Frank Spotnitz written at the end of 1996.

In the 1998 film, Mulder finally finds the abducted Scully in an underground facility on which continent?

She had been stung by a virus-carrying bee 48 hours earlier, and the facility holds many other humans suspended in ice.

Which Martin Landau character tells Mulder the Dallas bombing victims were already dead?

He also predicted that FEMA would seize control of the United States when colonization began.

Who plays Father Joe, the defrocked psychic priest in I Want to Believe?

The film was made in Vancouver and Pemberton for $30 million and grossed $68.4 million worldwide.

Which rapper played Agent Drummy in I Want to Believe?

He was paired with Amanda Peet's Agent Whitney, who brings Mulder back in from hiding.

Rhys Darby played which shape-shifter in "Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster"?

Darin Morgan wrote and directed it, and Kumail Nanjiani appeared as an animal control officer.

What is the name of the immune-system-destroying contagion unleashed in "My Struggle II"?

Scully and Agent Einstein try to build a vaccine from Scully's own DNA before a UFO hovers over the 14th Street Bridge.

Which actors played the younger agent duo Liz Einstein and Kyd Miller in the revival?

Einstein was the hard sceptic and Miller the believer, a deliberate mirror of the original pairing.

What is the surname of the family that adopted William, revealed in season eleven?

The teenager calling himself Jackson invented a monster called Ghouli as cover for what was after him.

Which X-Files season included the crossover episode that gave Frank Black of Millennium his de facto finale?

Millennium had been cancelled by Fox in early 1999 after three seasons.

Who played Frank Black in Millennium?

The show was set around Seattle but, like The X-Files, filmed in Vancouver.

The Syndicate's leader is a former German industrialist who relocated to which country?

Meetings with him were held in London, while the rest of the group met in a nondescript building on West 46th Street in New York.

Where did the Syndicate formally forge its 1973 alliance with the alien colonists?

The Smoking Man presented the aliens with a folded American flag as a symbol of surrender.

What caused the colonists' ship to crash in New Mexico in 1947?

The men who covered it up went on to form the Syndicate.

What forced the aliens to abandon Earth long before they returned?

Their viral form is deactivated by extreme cold, and the black oil carries their genetic blueprint until they come back.

Which two-part season-six story ends with the faceless rebels destroying the Syndicate?

With their human liaisons gone, the colonists sent in the Super Soldiers.

Which Sinners director developed the X-Files reboot that Hulu ordered a pilot for in 2026?

He said he took it on because of his mother's love for the original, and promised both monsters of the week and the conspiracy arc.

Before television, Chris Carter spent thirteen years working for which publication?

He became its editor at 28; his birthday, October 13, gave Ten Thirteen Productions its name and Mulder his birthday.

David Duchovny holds a master's degree in English literature from which university?

His undergraduate degree was from Princeton, and he has since published several novels.

Gillian Anderson trained at the theatre school of which university?

She was born in Chicago, grew up partly in London, and has lived in London since 2002.

The pilot episode is set outside which Oregon town?

It was shot in fourteen days around Vancouver in March 1993 on a $2 million budget.

Which actress played Diana Fowley, Mulder's former partner introduced in the season-five finale?

Fowley simply vanished during "The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati", with Scully later reporting her murdered offscreen.

Roughly how many actors auditioned for the role of John Doggett?

Only about ten were seriously considered before Robert Patrick got the part.

A 2010 WildStorm graphic novel sent Mulder and Scully to Alaska in a crossover with which vampire comic?

Topps had published 41 regular X-Files issues from 1995 to 1998 before IDW's Season 10 comics arrived in 2013.

Fox's scrapped animated comedy reboot, announced in 2020, carried which working title?

It was confirmed dead in March 2023, the same month Ryan Coogler's live-action reboot was first reported.

The 2004 PlayStation 2 survival-horror game Resist or Serve is set during which season of the show?

It let players control both Mulder and Scully, with voice work from members of the cast.