25 Facts You Probably Didn't Know About The Walking Dead

23. Nosy Neighbors

While Darabont was filming the pilot episode of The Walking Dead, some neighbors who lived close by to the set believed that the actor Michael Rooker (Merle Dixon) was actually a sniper and called in a real SWAT team to respond. Fortunately, everyone soon realized that a mistake had been made and so no one was arrested that day. You would assume that all of the TV cameras would have tipped the neighbors off, but it seems that there are still some people in the 21st century who aren't aware of how TV shows are made. As if the 'walkers' weren't bad enough...

22. Punisher Wannabe

The eagle-eyed among you may have also spotted that the blood from the first walker that Rick Grimes kills left a stain shaped like a skull on his shirt. Was this a macabre coincidence or a deliberate reference to Marvel's vigilante hero the Punisher? During the time HBO considered producing The Walking Dead, Thomas Jane was originally attached to play a key role, presumably due to his previous experience working with Frank Darabont. The link here is that Jane actually played the Punisher in a big screen adaptation just a few years earlier. Maybe Darabont slipped this sly reference in for his old colleague...

21. Breaking Bad And The Walking Dead Are Set In The Same Universe?

This may sound strange at first, but hear us out. Way back in the second episode of season one, Glenn steals a Dodge Challenger that should be instantly recognizable to fans of Breaking Bad. Seems like a tenuous link so far, but wait for it...

In the episode 'Bloodletting' from season two, Daryl explains that his brother was a drug dealer before the walker epidemic occurred. The viewers are then shown a bag of drugs that Merle carried around with him and at the bottom of the bag, you can clearly see a stash of Blue Sky. Could be a coincidence still, but... In episode twelve of the latest season, Daryl talks to Beth about his brothers' past as a drug supplier, describing Merles' dealer as a 'janky little white guy'. Sounds a lot like Jesse Pinkman, right? Could Blue Sky have somehow caused the epidemic? The fact that both shows are produced by AMC suggests that this could be a possibility...

20. What's A Zombie?

For a show made specifically about zombies, don't you find it strange that the word 'zombie' is never actually mentioned in The Walking Dead? The most common term is 'walkers', although they're also occasionally referred to as 'biters' and even collectively as 'the herd'. Creator Robert Kirkman made a conscious decision to avoid the word 'zombie' as he wanted to portray a world where movies like Night of the Living Dead don't exist, so that his characters had no concept of what they were facing. This deliberate omission also helps set The Walking Dead apart from the many zombie movies which specifically use the word 'zombie' on a regular basis.