The X-Files 2x20 Humbug

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4.5/5 (2 votes)

First Aired: Mar. 31, 1995 on FOX

Summary: Mulder and Scully are called in to investigate the unexplainable death of a retired escape artist in a town populated almost entirely by former circus and side-show acts. When more murders are committed, they find themselves racing against time.

Main Characters in this Episode

Guest Stars

Dr. Blockhead	played by Jim Rose (II)
Sheriff Hamilton	played by Wayne Grace
Mr. Nutt	played by Michael J. Anderson
The Conundrum	played by The Enigma
Lanny	played by Vincent Schiavelli
Curator	played by Alex Diakun
Jerald Glazebrook	played by John Payne (II)
Hepcat Helm	played by Gordon Tipple

Episode Quotes

Scully: Have you ever had any dealings with a cow?
Mulder: Agent Scully, just exactly WHAT are you implying?

Sheriff Hamilton: May I ask what you're doing?
Mulder: We're exhuming... your potato.

Dana Scully: [talking about her autopsy on Lanny] I've never seen anything like it.
Dr. Blockhead: And you never will again. Twenty-first century genetic engineering will not only eliminate the siamese twins and the alligator-skin people, but you're gonna be hard-pressed to find a slight overbite, or a not-so-high cheekbone. You see, I've seen the future, and the future looks just like him!

Dr. Blockhead: Imagine, going through your whole life looking like that.

Trivia

Scully takes a grasshopper out of a jar and supposedly eats it, only later to show Mulder that she really palmed the insect and faked the eating. However, in the outtakes, it is revealed that Gillian Anderson really did put the live grasshopper in her mouth (much to David Duchovny's disgust).
Jim Rose and The Enigma actually are part of a circus, The Jim Rose Circus. It was founded in Seattle by Jim Rose in the early 1990s. They came to prominence while performing on the second stage at the 1992 Lollapalooza festival as the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow.
'Gillian Anderson''s character Scully was supposed to eat a grasshopper-like insect in front of Mulder. After Scully picked it up, the scene was to be stopped so a candy bug could replace the real one. However, before "cut" could be called, Anderson immediately placed the real bug in her mouth and ate it, and it stayed in the final cut. David Duchovny's off-screen gross out can be seen in one of the many "Making of the X-Files" featurettes.
In this episode, Michael J. Anderson's character, Mr. Nutt, is offended when Mulder mistakes him for a carnival worker. In "Carnivàle" (2003), Anderson plays the head of a traveling carnival.
While this episode is based in Florida, it was actually filmed in White Rock, BC Canada during the winter. They cleared out all the snow from the park to make it look like the States and The Enigma actually swam in a river that was freezing cold.