Veronica Mars made her television debut in 2004 as a high school junior moonlighting as an assistant to her private detective father. She spent her high school years as an outcast, but she solved her best friend’s murder while doing it. Fifteen years later in Hulu’s revival of the show, she’s a full-fledged detective.
Over the course of four seasons (and a Kickstarter-funded movie five years ago), Veronica and her allies tackled a lot of mysteries. There were plenty of twists to catch and details hiding in plain sight. The mysteries weren’t the only things hiding in plain sight. Cameos, running jokes, Easter eggs, and callbacks to previous episodes all run rampant in the Veronica Mars series. We’ve compiled ten of the best.
For those who haven’t yet watched season four, there are a few things that fans might have missed in the newest season as well. Beware of the spoilers.
Kevin Smith Cameo
Veronica Mars has just as many fans inside the entertainment industry as she does outside of it. Some of them even appeared on the series.
Kevin Smith became a fan after receiving a set of the first season’s DVDs as a gift. He then scored a cameo appearance in the second season. Smith appeared as an employee at a gas station. Veronica interviewed him after finding out a bus driver who died in an explosion spoke with him right before it happened.
The Mars Family Loves Famous Detectives
Fans of shows like Psych remember Shawn and Gus introducing themselves with ridiculous made-up names while investigating cases. They weren’t the only TV detectives to do that. The difference is Veronica Mars and her father liked to use the names of fictional detectives.
When out in the field, Keith Mars introduced himself as Adrian Monk, the detective of USA’s Monk. He also claimed to be Carson Drew, father of teen detective Nancy Drew, and later introduced Veronica as Nancy. He also name-checked the Hardy Boys. Veronica even found herself compared to Angela Lansbury on more than one occasion. Lansbury played the main character in the TV drama Murder, She Wrote.
The Move To The CW
The first two seasons of Veronica Mars aired on the now-defunct UPN network. Season three made the move to a brand new network - the CW.
Veronica Mars was always a bubble show. Season two was no different than the season before or after. Plenty of fans were worried that the show wouldn’t make the move to the CW. During the season two finale, fans got a tongue-in-cheek nod that it would. Duncan Kane, who had fled the country with his infant daughter earlier in the season, got a phone call on a beach from Clarence Weidman.
Weidman was the head of security for his father’s software company, and Duncan had him get rid of the man that killed his sister. The phone call was short and sweet as Duncan asked, “CW?” Clarence Weidman, the CW in question, responded with “done deal.”
Joss Whedon Cameo
Like Kevin Smith, Joss Whedon was also a huge fan of the show. He even reviewed the first season for Entertainment Weekly in 2005. Much like Smith, he, too, snagged an uncredited cameo appearance.
Whedon also appeared in a season two episode of the show. Unlike Smith, he wasn’t someone Veronica attempted to interview, but someone she attempted to con. He played the manager at a car rental office. Unfortunately, his character didn’t fall for Veronica’s attempt to get tracking information on a car. Instead, Veronica targeted the unhappy woman working with him to get the job done.
LOST Numbers
LOST premiered the same year as Veronica Mars and developed quite a following with all of its mysteries to unravel. Many fans were curious about the cursed numbers on the show. 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42 were numbers that recurred throughout the series. In real life, they’re retired Yankees numbers. The show saw them as “bad luck.”
They made an appearance as an Easter egg in Veronica Mars. In the twelfth episode of season two, they appear as the number sequence at the bottom of a fortune cookie slip. They also aren’t the only reference to LOST in the show.
Kitsis And Horowitz
Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz are a pair of writers/producers who frequently team up together. The pair wrote episodes of One Tree Hill, Black Sash, and Felicity before getting their biggest break working on LOST. They went on to become the showrunners for Once Upon A Time.
While the duo doesn’t appear to have worked on any episodes of Veronica Mars, they did get a shoutout in a season three episode. In episode 18, two of the officers in the police station are identified as Kitsis and Horowitz when assignments are being handed out. Clearly, someone working on the show was a fan of their work.
Michael Cera And Alia Shawkat Appear In The Same Episode
Arrested Development fans also got a bit of a surprise when two of the sitcom’s stars appeared in the same episode of Veronica Mars.
In season three, Veronica took a tour of the fictional Hearst campus while deciding on her college plans. Her campus tour leader was played by Michael Cera. He awkwardly attempted to bond with Veronica. A girl she met at a party was played by Alia Shawkat. She ended up as a victim of assault Veronica tried to help. The duo shared no scenes in the episode, but they played cousins on Arrested Development.
A Pony For Veronica Mars
In season four Veronica has a dog with an unusual name: Pony. That name has backstory from the first three seasons.
Throughout the show, the Mars family had a dog named Backup, so the line, “make sure you take Backup” became more amusing. Veronica’s running joke with her father, however, was that she always wanted a pony. She’d joke that she wasn’t sure how her dad got one in the house when he promised her a gift, or wonder if one was going to be waiting for her on a holiday. It looks like she finally got her Pony.
Cho’s Pizza
“The pizza guy” plays a large role in the latest installment of Veronica Mars. Season four isn’t the first time Cho’s Pizza has appeared in the series.
The pizza place is actually a Neptune mainstay. It appeared way back in the first season of the show when the son of the owner was up for the Kane Scholarship. Cho’s Pizza again appeared when a series of muggings targeted pizza delivery staff.
The Cho family didn’t make an appearance in season four, but it’s nice to see that 15 years later, their restaurant is still going strong.
Veronica’s Purse
Veronica Mars uses a very distinct bag in the fourth season of the show. It’s symbolic of her embracing her private investigator life and her time in Neptune.
Though the first two seasons of the show, Veronica typically used messenger bags popularized by high school students in the late 90s/early 2000s. Season three saw her switch to a leather purse with studded straps. It’s that same bag that she digs out of a box of her old belongings in the Veronica Mars movie nearly a decade later. Using the bag in the movie was a way of showing the audience that she was really back to stay after abandoning Neptune nine years earlier. The bag in season four appears to be the same, if not a near-exact replica.