Entertainment
The Forgotten Buffy Episode That Inspired The Best Superhero Show Ever Made
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a show that very nearly got an animated spinoff. Sadly, that show never saw the light of day, and this cartoon project remains deader than the Master. However, that didn’t keep this seminal urban fantasy show from inspiring one of the greatest animated series in television history!
You see, one of Buffy’s biggest fans was Bruce Timm, who kickstarted the DC Animated Universe with Batman: The Animated Series. He went on to produce other beloved DCAU shows, including Justice League Unlimited. In a bit of geeky synchronicity, the JLU episode “This Little Piggy” was inspired by the Season 2 Buffy episode “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered.”
Ratty, The Vampire Slayer
The Buffy episode in question has its characters gearing up for Valentine’s Day, and Xander gets his heart broken when a peer-pressured Cordelia breaks up with him. He then forces local witch Amy to cast a love spell on his ex, but it ends up backfiring, and everyone but Cordelia falls in love with the young man. Eventually, the spell is reversed, and Xander gets back together with Cordelia, but along the way, a jealous Amy transforms Buffy into a rat.
What does this rat transformation have to do with Justice League Unlimited? That show’s producer (animation legend Bruce Timm) was a big fan of Buffy, and he thought that “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered” would feature a different ending. Specifically, he thought that Buffy would have to use her Slayer skills to fight off a cat (she does approach the kitty and unexpectedly scares him off) while she was still transformed into a rat!
Wonder Woman Or Wonder Bacon?
Obviously, that didn’t happen, but Timm still thought it was a cool concept. So cool, in fact, that he wrote something similar into his own show. In the Justice League Unlimited episode “This Little Piggy,” Circe transforms Wonder Woman into a pig, leaving Batman with the unenviable task of figuring out how to restore his kindasorta goddess girlfriend (it’s complicated) back to her divine self.
In the audio commentary for “This Little Piggy,” Bruce Tim revealed that this Wonder Woman plot point was based on how he thought the ratty Slayer would have to fight the cat. In the Justice League Unlimited episode, Wonder Woman is a bit like Buffy: she is transformed into an animal but otherwise retains her human intelligence. Unlike Buffy, though, Wonder Woman has to fight against humans who aren’t afraid to take her to the slaughterhouse.
Slay, Queens!
This is evident when one of the humans tries to kill her with a gun; when he fires what would have otherwise been a fatal blast, Wonder Woman deflects the shot with her bracers. It’s a crowd-pleasing moment, one that shows that the Amazon’s warrior spirit is more than skin deep. The scene also helps to illustrate what Timm was hoping to see in “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered:” a transformed hero taking on foes who are way above her weight class.
As a very different kind of cartoon pig might say, th-th-th-that’s all, folks! A forgotten episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer ended up inspiring one of the craziest episodes of Justice League Unlimited, transforming Wonder Woman into a pig just as Buffy was transformed into a rat. It’s a fun bit of franchise crossover that reminds us of a very important point: no matter what form they take, these two women know how to slay!
Entertainment
This tiny $22 cable could replace your whole charging setup
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Packed with 100W ultra-fast charging, the GoCable makes it speedy and simple to supercharge your device efficiently — from laptops to smartphones and everything in between. It also offers high-speed file transfer capabilities. All you need to add is a power bank or wall adapter, and it’s ready to work with everything from Type-C and Type-C+ to Apple Lightning connectors.
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Entertainment
How Resident Evil Survived Itself
For decades, Resident Evil has constantly reinvented itself. From fixed-camera survival horror to explosive co-op action to first-person psychological terror. At times, those reinventions pushed the franchise to the brink of losing its identity entirely. But through resets, remakes, and refinement, Capcom rediscovered what truly defined the series: structured vulnerability, spatial tension, and controlled escalation.
With Resident Evil 9, the franchise no longer feels reactive. It feels confident. In this episode of How It Hits, we break down how Resident Evil survived itself, and why it finally feels like everything has come together.
Resident Evil Requiem is now available.
Entertainment
Trump orders Pentagon to stop using woke Anthropic in fiery Truth social post
Negotiations between the Pentagon and the AI company Anthropic were severely complicated on Friday when President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that the government would stop utilizing the company’s tech. The president ordered the Pentagon to begin a six-month phase-out, accusing Anthropic of being run by “Leftwing nut jobs.”
The Truth Social post said that Anthropic wanted the government to abide by its terms of service.
“THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL NEVER ALLOW A RADICAL LEFT, WOKE COMPANY TO DICTATE HOW OUR GREAT MILITARY FIGHTS AND WINS WARS!,” Trump wrote. “That decision belongs to YOUR COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, and the tremendous leaders I appoint to run our Military. The Leftwing nut jobs at Anthropic have made a DISASTROUS MISTAKE trying to STRONG-ARM the Department of War, and force them to obey their Terms of Service instead of our Constitution.”
Credit: Screenshot courtesy of Truth Social
The federal government and Anthropic have been at odds for weeks as they tried to hammer out an agreement on how the military can use Claude, Anthropic’s AI model. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has been firm that he will not allow the Pentagon to use Claude for mass surveillance of Americans or to create autonomous weapons, like pilotless drones.
The government reportedly agreed to those terms, according to the New York Times, but the contract’s legal language provided too much wiggle room for Anthropic’s comfort. Anthropic is known for taking a more cautious approach to AI development, and its founders famously left OpenAI over AI safety concerns.
On Thursday, Amodei explained his stance in a blog post:
Mashable Light Speed
“Anthropic understands that the Department of War, not private companies, makes military decisions. We have never raised objections to particular military operations nor attempted to limit use of our technology in an ad hoc manner.
However, in a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values. Some uses are also simply outside the bounds of what today’s technology can safely and reliably do.”
A deadline of Friday evening was set for an agreement between the Pentagon and Anthropic. It’s not clear if Trump’s announcement of a phase-out will equate to more time for negotiation or if the government is truly moving forward with firing Anthropic by declaring it a supply chain risk. The government may also seek to compel Anthropic to agree to its terms through the Defense Production Act, according to the Times. The government may also choose another AI partner, like Elon Musk’s Grok, but CIA officials believe that product is inferior to Anthropic’s, the Times reports.
Following the president’s Friday afternoon announcement, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman appeared on CNBC and voiced support for Anthropic. “For all the differences I have with Anthropic, I mostly trust them as a company and I think they really do care about safety, and I’ve been happy that they’ve been supporting our war fighters,” Altman said, according to a clip of the appearance posted to X.
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Meanwhile, dozens of employees at Google and OpenAI, both competitors of Anthropic, signed letters backing Amodei’s stances. And outside Anthropic’s San Francisco headquarters, words of support appeared in chalk on the sidewalk, according to a post on X.
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This week, Anthropic softened its safety policy — often viewed as one of the strongest in Silicon Valley — citing competitors’ reluctance to do the same and the federal government’s disinterest in prioritizing security.
“The policy environment has shifted toward prioritizing AI competitiveness and economic growth, while safety-oriented discussions have yet to gain meaningful traction at the federal level,” the company wrote. “We remain convinced that effective government engagement on AI safety is both necessary and achievable, and we aim to continue advancing a conversation grounded in evidence, national security interests, economic competitiveness, and public trust. But this is proving to be a long-term project—not something that is happening organically as AI becomes more capable or crosses certain thresholds.”
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.
This tiny $22 cable could replace your whole charging setup
MLB Salary Cap Proposal: What a Cap and Floor Could Look Like
