It has been 24 years since a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode aired that almost cost the show several sponsors. However, this show didn’t have anything worthy of that reputation. Buffy the Vampire Slayer aired for seven seasons and followed Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) as the Chosen One and the Slayer who operated in Sunnydale, California, and protected the world from vampires, demons, and more. The show was always known for being ahead of its time, specifically when it comes to female representation and a focus on LGBTQ+ issues in an era where it was rare. However, the one episode that got the most complaints had nothing to do with those issues.
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It was 24 years ago that Buffy the Vampire Slayer released the episode “Doublemeat Palace,” and it almost cost the show some of its biggest sponsors.
24 Years Ago, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Released “Doublemeat Palace”
“Doublemeat Plaza” came out on January 29, 2002, the 12th episode of the sixth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In this season, Buffy had to figure out her place in the real world, out of school, and attempt to find a way to make a living when she wasn’t slaying. In this case, she got a job working for a fast-food restaurant called Doublemeat Plaza. The episode had Xander and Anya dealing with demons, while Amy wanted Willow to return to her magical obsession. However, the main plot surrounded Buffy’s new job.
Buffy seems to see evil everywhere, and when she finds a severed finger in the secret ingredients for Doublemeat Plaza, she comes to the conclusion that the secret ingredient is human meat. When employees start to disappear, she decides to investigate and look for proof that her job is killing people and turning them into burgers. When Xander and her other friends arrive and eat some burgers, it is too late for her to warn them.
However, the big twist in the episode was that it had nothing to do with cannibalism, and her job was never killing people to serve in their meat. Instead, there was a demon that was using the restaurant as a feeding ground. Buffy then fights the demon and kills it to keep anyone else from dying. However, she does learn that the secret ingredient for the meat is processed vegetables. The punchline is that Buffy promises not to reveal that the burger restaurant doesn’t use real meat to get her job back. However, this didn’t stop businesses from threatening to cancel their sponsorships for the show.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Almost Lost Sponsors Over Controversial Episode
Joss Whedon revealed that several sponsors threatened to pull their support from Buffy the Vampire Slayer thanks to how he portrayed the fast food industry in the episode. In an interview with the New York Times, Whedon said that the show always struggled to get big stars on the show, but they were always allowed to tell their stories any way they wanted, with this one exception.
“The only thing that we’ve ever actually been stopped or asked to stop doing was the fast food run,” Whedon said. “When Buffy worked at the fast food joint it made the advertisers very twitchy. So apparently, the most controversial thing we ever had on Buffy was a hamburger and chicken sandwich.”
It seems almost hard to believe this was the only episode where Joss Whedon suffered some clapback. There have been several controversial Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes. There have been scenes that depicted main characters in what were basically sexual assaults (Xander in “The Pack” and Spike in “Seeing Red”). However, even compared to those episodes, it was a story about possibly tainted beef and a toxic fast food restaurant that angered sponsors the most.
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