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The Walking Dead is back! FINALLY the gang are going to take the war to Negan.
But while that particular feud is playing out, how's about delving into some amazing facts about our favourite zombie walker drama out there?
1. It almost became a crime-of-the-week procedural
Creator Frank Darabont pitched The Walking Dead at various networks before AMC came along. At NBC, it had frankly terrifying ideas for what direction to take the show. At first, it didn't even want zombies in it.
It later offered a compromise: turn it into a procedural show where the lead characters "solve a zombie crime of the week". So, like Miami Vice but with flesh-eaters instead of drugs. Thankfully, Frank politely declined and found its perfect home.
2. Thomas Jane nearly played Rick
Frank Darabont initially intended to bring in Thomas Jane, who he worked with on The Mist, to play lead character Rick Grimes when HBO nearly took on the project. (Incidentally, The Mist also starred Walking Dead favourites Laurie Holden, Jeffrey DeMunn and Melissa McBride.)
Eventually, he lost out to Andrew Lincoln (he also nearly played Don Draper, whoops) – but there was a little reference to Jane in the opening episode. The blood stain left behind on Rick's shirt after his first walker kill appears to resemble The Punisher's skull logo. Who played The Punisher? Mr Jane.
And ironically, who ended up playing the Punisher in the TV series? TWD's Jon Bernthal.
3. Carl's stunt double is a 31-year-old woman
As revealed in a Walking Dead special on AMC, this is what several of the cast's doubles look like:
As with many of the actors, Chandler Riggs actually has several different doubles – both for stunts and for long photo shots. Before season 4, Carl's stunt double was Savana Jade Wehunt, a 21-year-old actress who also played The Governor's zombie daughter.
And here he is hanging out with his 31-year-old stunt double Emily Brobst:
4. The logo has been decaying since day one
You may not have noticed, but the opening title's main logo has been getting darker and grimier with each season:
We dread to think how disgusting it will look by season 19.
You can see the evolution of the walkers, meanwhile, here.
5. That soldier in the tank was meant to get his own episode
Remember that dead soldier in the tank who Rick found in the pilot episode? If you thought he looked familiar, that's because he was played by Being Human and Smallville star Sam Witwer.
Witwer – who also worked with Darabont in The Mist – has since revealed that the creator had originally planned to start season two with a flashback episode focusing on his soldier character, and how Atlanta fell to the walkers, Black Hawk Down style.
"[I was told,] 'You're a soldier and all these horrible things happen, and the chain of command breaks down, and, eventually, you have to take out your superior officer. Then, eventually, in the end, you get bit'. He's pitching me this. 'You're crawling and you crawl into this tank and you have a grenade and you're going to blow yourself up, but you set the grenade next to you and you die. Then, we reprise the scene from the pilot, where Rick gets in the tank and there's a zombie there'."
In the end, AMC turned down the episode and Darabont was eventually removed from the show altogether, so we'll never get this awesome-sounding episode.
6. Tara's real-life brother looks familiar
No, that's not Neil Patrick Harris, that's Francis off Malcolm in the Middle!
Yep, actress Alanna Masterson's brother is Christopher Masterson. Meanwhile, their brother Danny played Steven in That '70s Show and Jordan is best known for his role as Mark in the 2005 film The 40-Year-Old Virgin.
7. Breaking Bad is set in the same universe
Well, not officially, but we like the idea. The two AMC shows (sort of) cross over in season two of Walking Dead when Daryl reveals that Merle was a drug dealer before the walkers arrived, and we see Merle's stash clearly has Walter White's trademark Blue Sky meth at the bottom.
Not only that, but Glenn is seen taking a Dodge Challenger that looks very similar to Walter's car. And a 'Glenn' is the manager of the car company that an angry Walter dealt with.
Later on, Daryl speaks about his brother, and mentions that he knew a "janky little white guy" drug dealer who told him: "I'm gonna kill you, bitch."
(The song 'Negro y Azul: The Ballad of Heisenberg' from Breaking Bad also appears on the radio in spin-off show Fear The Walking Dead.)
8. There's a hell of a lot of green screen
For an example of how clever the SFX department on the show is: the missing arms on Michonne's walkers were made with "green screen gloves".
And walkers are given clever tights:
And pretty much everything you see isn't really there:
9. Extras have to go through 'walker school'
When actors are cast as 'walkers', they have to complete a rigorous training programme before they can even appear on The Walking Dead.
These guys are instructed on exactly how to move around, and apparently the key instruction is to pretend that they're coming out of a bar at 2am. So, if you need a gig, just get drunk and walk around AMC's studios.
10. The word 'zombie' is never said
It's weird when you realise that the Z-word is never uttered in the show. As Simon Pegg says in Shaun of the Dead: "Don't say that! The Z-word, don't say it!"
They're occasionally labelled 'biters' or 'the herd', but Robert Kirkman wanted to portray a world in which movies like Night of the Living Dead don't exist, so that the characters would have zero concept as to what these monsters were. The same isn't true in his comic, where they were called zombies for the first few volumes.
11. Walker blinks are edited out via CGI
There's attention to detail and then there's this: the special effects team have to pick out any time that a walker blinks on camera and edit it out.
The exercise makes sense, as walkers most likely wouldn't be able to (or need to) moisten their eyeballs every few seconds. What with them being dead and all.
12. Walkers are actually eating vinegar-soaked ham
Mmm, tasty. The flesh that we see walkers eating is actually ham plunged in a vat of vinegar, just so the actors have something relatively decent to eat.
In earlier seasons, the ham was actually covered in BBQ sauce, but it kept messing up the zombie make-up.
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