Supernatural Bloopers That'll Change How You Watch The Show
Back before "Supernatural" blew up and came to enjoy wider appeal, the series was somewhat of a cult phenomenon. In the early '00s, we didn't have hundreds of convention panels show up on YouTube every year, and most of the hardcore fandom had yet to see the real-life Winchesters Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki in the flesh (or even in videos). However, the release of the Season 1 gag reel and behind-the-scenes compilations included in the DVDs changed all of that. Does anyone remember DVDs?
The "Supernatural" cast's penchant for pulling pranks, goofing off, and becoming a family quickly became clear to fans, and most of that started with the gag reels. The show's bloopers are so well-known that even people who haven't seen the series followed the release of new bloopers to enjoy the balls-to-the-wall antics of the show's stars. Whether it's Padalecki's legendary farting, escalating prank wars, or the cast parodying emotional scenes, these "Supernatural" bloopers change everything.
Brothers in the making
The first set of bloopers gives the viewers a taste of Ackles and Padalecki as people outside of their characters. From Ackles donning underwear on his head to Padalecki pretending to pick his nose or trying to kiss Taylor Cole with fake chocolate lips, fans quickly learn that these two are much bigger goofballs than their characters. How can we take a death scene seriously when we know that the duo is probably making fart noises (or truly farting) between takes?
Even more, the Season 1 bloopers also offer an early glimpse at future director Jensen Ackles. His ambitions become apparent when he can't put the scene marker down and keeps announcing scenes. But even better? Ackles and Padalecki act like brothers in real life, too (just without the whole demon apocalypse thing). And as their spoof holiday video reveals, they're doing it all in Canada—a far cry from the show's purported Americana. That's not really Route 66, folks.
The pranking strikes back
By the beginning of Season 2, fans were already well-versed in Padalecki and Ackles' behind-the-scenes antics. You'd be hard-pressed to attend a convention without a prank question popping up in the Q&A. Yet they continued to up the ante.
When the crew pours 10 gallons of water in a fake sewer pipe during the episode "No Exit," fans know the boys had to have done something spectacular to deserve such a prank from episode director Kim Manners.
This is only the beginning of the barrage. Jared Padalecki's paranormal farts become the stuff of legend. The Season 2 gag reel's fart montage make those wholesome Impala scenes a lot less sweet and a whole lot smellier. (It's also a lot harder to take his character, the bookish, solemn Sam, so seriously). Also, Padalecki may look like a Canadian moose, but the guy apparently isn't as strong as he seems given that we watch him struggle to open a window for the better part of the gag reel.
The biggest question, however, is how the hell the duo isn't sent to HR for endlessly groping and smacking each other's butts. Does hell have an HR department? Speaking of hell, those demon scenes are a lot funnier than they look because the actors absolutely cannot see through those lenses. Just ask Lindsey McKeon, who played Tessa, the Reaper-turned-demon by Azazel.
Maybe it's Maybelline (or maybe it's Padalecki)
By Season 3 of "Supernatural," the jokes were rolling in about Sam's ever-growing locks of hair. But up until the bloopers from that season, it wasn't wholly clear if that was just a Sam thing or a Padalecki thing. Turns out it's both. The gag reel this season gives us a Padalecki hair montage where it's unclear if the actor knows he's on the set of a demon hunting show or if he took two wrong turns on the Warner Bros. lot and ended up in a Maybelline commercial.
We'll also never look at massive fight sequences or grim grave-digging scenes the same way again. Between the boys intentionally screwing up takes with crowds of guest stars like the "Jus in Bello" demon sequence or having a dance party in a rainy graveyard, it's a wonder anything got done on the "Supernatural" set. Yet the most jarring revelation comes from the fact that when it looks like Sam and Dean are impressively lobbing off vampire heads with a machete, they're really hacking off green CGI foam heads. Can we have the magic back, please?
It's all fun and games until Dracula punches you in the face
In Ackles and Padalecki's never-ending quest to be as silly as possible, it's a miracle that the two weren't injured much more on set. At the beginning of the Season 4 bloopers, we see Ackles intentionally banging his head with a prop multiple times until he actually hurts himself. Smooth, Hasselhoff. Then, during a tussle with the shapeshifter pretending to be Dracula, actor Todd Stashwick accidentally clocks Ackles for real. That's gotta leave a mark. After watching these ouch moments, fans are left to wonder whether the resulting bruises were VFX or real.
Meanwhile, at the end of the bloopers, we got our first montage highlighting the crew's efforts to give fans a show every week while our resident hunters were busy teasing each other and mugging "Zoolander's" Blue Steel for the camera. Each crew member should have gotten a raise for every time they said, "We're still rolling." That is, when they weren't the ones doing the pranking or laughing at the dynamic duo's shenanigans themselves.
Misha Collins joins the party
In the Season 4 bloopers, we don't see Misha Collins in the full zany mode he's capable of, but he has more times to shine in Season 5. When he isn't making goofy faces in the middle of takes, he's calling out certain unnamed actors for groping him and farting during Collins' critical scenes with Ackles. (Signature Padalecki move.) It turns out that Collins can hold his own in the impromptu dancing department. After his arrival on set, it's a straight-up miracle that episodes made it to post on time. Even more impressive? Cas and Dean's staring matches are just as iconic between takes when they're laughing.
The season also marks the start of Jake Abel's stint on the show. Abel, who plays Adam, is low-key abused off-set just as much as he was during his forgotten storyline on the show. Watching Collins pelt Abel with Molotov cocktails straight to the nipple is almost worse than watching the Winchesters forget their brother in hell for a decade. Ouch, that smarts.
You know what else hurts? Eating the ridiculous amount of food that Dean, a character with a legendary appetite for meat and pie, has to ingest in the show. Chad Everett, an actor who plays an aged Dean, says of the food he has to eat in one scene, "This is so dry. I can't swallow it." Hold up. Does this imply that Ackles has actually been eating all of that food this entire time? How did he not gain 40 pounds in the first season alone with his junk food galore? Dean's binges take on a whole new meaning after this blooper.
Real booze or fake booze? That is the question
What were they giving these actors on set during the never-ending drinking sequences? In the Season 6 gag reel, Bobby actor Jim Beaver says, "I need fake booze next time, Robin," when he keeps messing up a take. We assume he's joking, but what if he isn't? If the boys were given real booze on set, it sure would explain a lot, like the fact that no innocent line is safe from innuendo in this show.
Anyone who's met the actors or seen a single panel knows that when you get these guys together, raunchy madness ensues. Set or no set, they will have fun. Thanks to Misha Collins, there's an entire montage of innuendo for the line, "I need you to let me touch it." What are we touching, Collins? And why exactly are you saying it like that? It's not only the core three who have filthy minds. Cindy Sampson, who plays Lisa, pops into a scene with a whip and some lube to mess around with Ackles. Somehow, they both managed to stay in character. Exemplary professionalism.
Actors are people, too
It's no secret that the writers of "Supernatural" put in quite a few thirst traps for fans of the show. Whether it was the first steamy scene with Dean and Cassie back in Season 1, the angelic tryst Dean has with Anna in the Impala, or any time Sam gets freaky with a demon. But the Season 7 gag reel shows us that those scenes don't go as seamlessly as they look onscreen, such as when Ackles' shirt gets awkwardly and hilariously stuck on his arm when he tries to quickly disrobe. Every single bedroom scene is ruined because we can't stop giggling at this memory.
This season's bloopers also give us a small dose of what Jensen Ackles can do vocally, even when it's just air guitar. It's clear that the actor manufactured every scene where Dean can't hold a tune because while Ackles can sing, Dean certainly can't. We'll never watch that off-key rendition of "Wanted Dead or Alive" again.
Casually making Destiel canon behind-the-scenes
Ackles and Collins teasingly give Destiel (Dean and Castiel) shippers what they want in the Season 8 blooper reel. There's a pivotal scene when Dean helps Castiel break through his brainwash when he's beating the living daylights out of Dean. The eldest Winchester pleads with Cas to shatter his trance by reminding the angel who he is and telling him that he needs him. Shipper or no shipper, there's not a dry eye in the house when this scene plays out — unless you're Ackles or Collins.
Taking the scene three steps further than reality, Ackles jokes in the blooper, "You're my baby daddy." Collins later says, "I love you, too." Ackles insists that he didn't say that, while Collins assures him that he knows he meant it. Fans can never look at this scene the same way — especially after a certain Season 15 moment. (If you know, you know.) Oh, let's not forget that Collins shoves Ackles' face in his crotch later on.
There's some high-concept silliness in this reel, too, during which we discover that Ackles clearly isn't cut out for larping (or anything that requires balance) because he trips during his iconic "Braveheart" moment.
Misha Collins loses his chill (and who can blame him?)
By Season 9, Collins had already endured Padalecki's supernatural gas for about four years while both onscreen brothers continuously tried to mess up takes. That would drive any angel to their breaking point. Yet even when Collins is mad, he's not really mad. The actor often loses his chill and tells the boys that if he'd known that this is what acting would be like, he would have quit drama school — and that he doesn't like working with Ackles and Padalecki. Ouch. We know you don't mean it, Collins. Team Free Will hug it out?
Meanwhile, Padalecki is on a relentless quest to break the tension for every heart-rending scene. He continually pops up during his hospital coma scenes to ruin takes. Listen, Moose. We're trying to cry here.
Not everyone on set seems bothered by the loopy larks. Ghostfacers A. J. Buckley (Ed) and Travis Wester (Harry) manage to stay in character for pretty much the entirety of their diner scene with the brothers. Who knew that the goofiest guys onscreen would be the most professional off? They do face (read: run from) the ghosts when the others will not, though, so it makes sense.
Whose role is it anyway?
Watching Ackles, Padalecki, and Collins all dressed in each other's outfits and wigs from the musical episode during the Season 10 bloopers is hilarious and disturbing — yet we need more. Given that they open the gag reel with this sequence, it's difficult to pay attention to anything else that comes after. This bizarre image will live in fans' brains rent-free for eternity while the cast gets the last laugh. We wish the show had a body swap episode or an alternate identity AU where they switch places with each other; the Season 4 body swap episode "Swap Meat" just put Sam in some random kid's body, which wasn't as entertaining.
Then, Collins says, "Aloha, cowboy," when he hugs the demon right out of Dean from behind. What does it mean? We're not sure, but Destiel fans don't even need that line to view this scene a certain way.
PG-13 Dean requires too much suspension of disbelief
Forget spicing up the plot; Collins obviously came onto "Supernatural" to release truth bombs that fans can't stop thinking about. In a meta-blooper moment from Season 11, Collins says that his favorite errors are when the boys drop the f-bomb. The Impala horn may bleep out those gag reel moments, but that sentiment makes you think. How are all of these rough, rugged dudes who hunt monsters for a living going around saying the relatively mild "What the hell?" It's obvious that if "Supernatural" were on HBO, hell would freeze over (OK, fine, we know Satan runs cold) before you ever heard a character like Dean Winchester say "friggen." The episode "Ghostfacers!" makes this clear by censoring out Sam and Dean's more colorful vocabulary.
Sadly, because the show aired on prime time, they can't really curse. We'll never look at Dean's half-swearing again without thinking of this moment. Was it really necessary to give us all an existential crisis during the gag reel, Collins?
The arrival of Jack Winchester
The Season 12 scene where Team Free Will finds out that Lucifer has spawned a love child is quite the dramatic revelation. Of course, Padalecki finds a way to undercut the moment when he exclaims to Cas, "You told me she was on the pill!" He also says, "I didn't know he was dating," when they reveal that the baby came from the fruit of Lucifer's loins. There's dancing with the devil, and then there's dancing with the devil. Of course, Collins tattles on him for butchering the lines endlessly because the "Supernatural" cast is actually a family of 12-year-old boys who razz each other for sport.
Speaking of being 12, who remembers the bizarre 2005 viral video called "Charlie the Unicorn" that made its way through middle schools everywhere? Apparently, Padalecki and Ackles do. If we thought unicorns on "Supernatural" were bewildering, Ackles and Padalecki quoting "Charlie the Unicorn" is an out-of-body experience that takes us right back to early internet cringe that marked the year of the show's debut. But you know things will get wild when Richard Speight Jr. directs an episode for the season.
Cas' death isn't funny, Ackles
Another day, another moment when the cast can't help but lampoon scenes that destroyed fans' souls. One of the saddest and most traumatizing "Supernatural" scenes comes in Season 13, when Dean prepares Cas' body for a hunter's funeral. He refuses to let anyone else touch the body. The plotline has since become known as Dean's "widower arc" by much of the fandom. In the blooper reel, while Ackles goes through the motions, he slaps Collins' sheet-encased body multiple times, causing Cas to spring up from the dead. Is The CW paying for our collective therapy bills, or...? This scene will never be the same, and neither will we.
However, Ackles wasn't the only one to have his fun this season. When Cas explains what a ball-handler is, Padalecki pops up every single time Collins says the line, joking, "You called?" At some point, Collins asks if someone's going to restrain the wayward moose. And, of course, the season's altered line winner goes to Padalecki for saying, "Clearly, Cas is on top."
A Winchester family moment ruined
Ah, yes. Another super dramatic scene sullied by a Winchester actor. One of the most heartfelt episodes in the series comes in Season 14, when we get a Winchester family reunion with Mary, John, Sam, and Dean. After so many seasons of perpetual angst and trauma, it's about time. During the gag reel, Padalecki goes to smash the pearl that brought them together as they're saying goodbye, but he misses, it goes flying, and both Padalecki and Ackles end up writhing on the floor cackling. It's a much more realistic family dinner than the wholesome one we see onscreen, but it still kind of ruins the moment.
Later on, Padalecki kisses Collins on the lips, and Collins tries to keep a straight face when Padalecki sticks his finger in his ear, because no season goes by without Padalecki trying to get his co-stars to break character. In some cases, he does it by endlessly farting — which is certainly the case when he ruins Traci Dinwiddie's scene. Apparently, Padalecki "needs new underwear." And we all need to go back to a time before we knew that information.
Sparing the tears
Thankfully, there aren't too many Season 15 gut-wrenching final scenes parodied by our favorite pranksters. And if there are, The Powers That Be saved us from the trauma. However, Padalecki does make jokes about Cas liking the way a flask feels on his lips when he's trapped in the Empty. Yet Collins is the one calling himself unprofessional in that scene. Are we missing something here? Meanwhile, Alexander Calvert's stomach keeps rumbling during his heart-to-heart scene with Cas.
Spoofing another early moment, Padalecki and Collins overplay Cas' dramatic departure from the bunker to excessive lengths while they fake cry. A lot. But the best moment in the final gag reel comes when Dean Winchester the Dancing Clown gets lit on fire, and we see the scene play out without the benefit of CGI. It may look ridiculous, but hey, at least Cas' final episode and the series finale are taken seriously. Thank Chuck for small favors.