20+ Facts About Iconic TV Series That Found a Way Into Our Hearts in the 2000s and Stayed There Ever Since

Today, it’s not that difficult to tune into any TV series — you just need to do a couple of simple manipulations on the internet. And just 15 years ago, we used to run with enthusiasm to the TV and were anxiously looking for the remote control in the depths of the sofa so we didn’t miss an episode of our favorite sitcom. Those days are long gone, but the characters of the TV series from the 2000s are still shamelessly alive deep in the hearts of TV viewers around the world.

Bright Side decided to indulge our nostalgia and remember the series we watched on TV, when high-speed internet was still an unprecedented luxury.

Charmed (1998–2006)

• Alyssa Milano had a higher fee than other actresses of the first seasons. Milano was paid $90,000 per episode, Shannen Doherty (Prue) — $75,000, Holly Marie Combs (Piper) — $60,000.

• Although the Halliwell sisters are pictured as good witches in the series, most of their spells and potions fall under the category of black magic.

• Some actors, whose appearance was hidden under a layer of makeup, appeared on the screen more than once. This mainly applies to demons. For example, Michael Bailey Smith played several demons, including Belthazor, Shax (the one who killed Prue), and one of the grimlocks.

• During the casting, Shannen Doherty said that she wouldn’t take part in Charmed unless Holly Marie Combs was recruited by the producers. However, when Shannen left the series, Holly didn’t follow her friend.

• The names of all women in the Halliwell family start with the letter “P”, because it’s magical for their kin.

Desperate Housewives (2004–2012)

• The idea was rejected by many famous American networks, including HBO and Lifetime, because they didn’t believe the project would be successful. Only ABC accepted it, and it was the right decision.

• Teri Hatcher (Susan) broke 2 ribs in the scene where she fell into the wedding cake, but courageously insisted on continuing filming.

• A fan of the series loved the dress that Gabrielle, the character played by Eva Longoria, wore in the pilot episode so much that she wrote to the producers asking them to reveal the name of the store or the designer so she could order the same prom dress. Instead, the producers sent her the actual dress.

• Eva Longoria in only 5’2’’. With these measurements, her character Gabrielle wouldn’t have been able to build a supermodel career in the 1990s, as the series claimed. By the way, Gabrielle and some of her friends periodically make fun of the fact that she is so short.

• Bree Van de Kamp (Marcia Cross) is the only one of the main characters who, during the series, wasn’t pregnant and didn’t go bankrupt.

Smallville (2001–2011)

• Smallville was included in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest running science fiction series.

• During the filming of the series, Tom Welling (Clark Kent) wandered around the set, muttering to himself, “Clark is an idiot! He’s such an idiot!”

• In almost every episode, Clark Kent wears a combination of red, yellow, and blue — Superman’s colors.

• The yellow house on the Kent farm was originally green, but the producers asked the owners of the house to paint it yellow. By the way, this same house appeared in an advertisement for a Canadian dairy farm.

• Superman is portrayed in the comics with blue eyes, but actor Tom Welling has green eyes. However, this didn’t stop other characters from telling Clark that they were blue.

How I Met Your Mother (2005–2014)

• All scenes with Lyndsy Fonseca and David Henrie, as the future children of Ted (actor Josh Radnor), were filmed during the first season, so that the age of these characters doesn’t change throughout the series.

• According to the plot, the main characters created several websites, and they’re real. Some of them continue to work to this day.

• Actresses Alyson Hannigan (Lily) and Cobie Smulders (Robin) were pregnant during the filming of season 4, so their characters wore loose clothes and covered their belly with large objects. Sometimes, the scriptwriters approached this issue especially creatively — in one of the episodes, Lily wins a hot dog eating contest, and proudly shows off her round belly. The next pregnancy of the actress was included in the plot — when her character got pregnant.

• The kissing scenes with Alyson Hannigan and Jason Segel (Marshall) became a real problem, because the actor smoked, and kissing him was unpleasant for Alyson. Jason was even able to quit this unhealthy habit for a year, but then he got back into it.

• In the episode where Ted helps Victoria escape her wedding, he says that he can’t climb the drainpipe. However, in season 9, he climbs it without any problem (at the moment when he tries to delete a text from Lily’s phone).

• The proposal in the episode when Ted and Robin broke up was real. The ring was in the champagne glass when Robin thought Ted was proposing to her. But the ring belonged to the man sitting at the next table. He agreed to this with the producers and now, his marriage proposal will forever remain a part of the series.

Xena: Warrior Princess (1995–2001) & Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (1995–1999)

• In a 2013 interview, Lucy Lawless (Xena) admitted that she regrets not starring in Xena when the series was at the peak of its popularity.

• Director Quentin Tarantino once claimed that he’s a huge fan of the show.

• Peter Jackson, the director of The Lord of the Rings, came to New Zealand, where the series was being filmed. Taking into account the budget of the trilogy, the director had no difficulty in enticing a considerable part of the technical specialists who had long wanted to take part in a large project. Lucy Lawless, who played Xena, almost left the series to star in the trilogy. In retaliation for this, the producer and concurrently her husband decided to “kill” his wife at the end of the series.

• Dysnomia, a satellite of the dwarf planet Eris, discovered in 2005, was proposed to be named Gabrielle in honor of Xena’s companion, the main character of the series. At the same time, they wanted to change the name of the planet Eris to Xena. The approved name was chosen in honor of Dysnomia. In ancient Greek mythology — the spirit of lawlessness (translated from the Greek word Δυσνομία), is the daughter of Eris, the goddess of vengeance. However, this name was suggested not only because Dysnomia is Eris’s daughter, but also because the name of the New Zealand actress, Lucy Lawless, who played Xena in the series, also means the same thing.

• The fighting style of Hercules received the name “rope-fu” from witty fans. In the fight scenes, the enemies scattered from the blows of his mighty fist along such a wide trajectory, that vigilant viewers could, sometimes, notice the camouflaged safety ropes. This didn’t alienate the fans at all, on the contrary, according to the fans themselves, it made the series even funnier.

• Throughout the series, directors inserted amusing statements in the closing credits. Here is one of them, “No vicious beasts intent on taking over the world were harmed on the production of this film.”

Do you remember the times when you were in a hurry to get home to catch your favorite TV show? Do you remember its name and the main characters?