This Week's CSI: Ten Things You Didn't Know

As you sit down this Thursday night to watch the "Chick Chop Flick Shop" rebroadcast of CSI, keep the following fun facts in mind:
1) The character of director Zack Putrid is played by John Asher, who is himself an accomplished director as well as an actor. The name "Zack Putrid" is a nod to current horror-meister Rob Zombie.
2) John Ventimiglia, who guest-stars in this episode as producer Stanley Vespucci, is best remembered as Tony Soprano's longtime friend and restaurant owner Artie Bucco on The Sopranos.
3) Carla Orlandi, who plays horror diva Weatherly Adams, has been seen before on CSI. She played "Bubbles," the wife of chicken slaughterhouse owner Ike Mannleigh in Season 7's miniature-killer episode "Loco Motives."
4) In the episode, horror-movie posters adorn the walls of the studio, including "I Have to Axe My Mother" "Can I Lick the Spoon?," "Vortex of Evil," "Into the Mouth of Hell" and "Chop Chop Fizz Fizz." Each of these was considered (and rejected) as the title of the episode itself.
5) Character actor/comedian Will Sasso ("Mason Lafoon") has appeared in many films and television shows, and is probably best known for his comedy work on Mad TV.
6) Character actor Irwin Keyes, who plays horror-film star Russ
Beaudreux in our episode, is easily recognizable as a fixture of actual
horror films, having acted by his estimation in over 50 of the sort!
7) To create the horror production company and studio lot of Repulsion
Pictures, the show used L.A.'s legendary Lacey Street Studios, which
has been home to many low-budget horror movies. The name Repulsion
Pictures is a nod to the famous European director Roman Polanski and his 1965 film Repulsion, starring Catherine Deneuve.
8) In this episode, Catherine gets a determined admirer in the form of
Dickie Peebles, played by actor Martin Klebba, who was most recently
seen in Pirates of the Caribbean.
9) The "movie-in-a-movie" sequence in which DNA tech Wendy Sims (Liz
Vassey) is chased down a hall by a chainsaw-wielding maniac was filmed
in the CSI production offices.
10) The place where Jessica gasses her car up in the rainstorm is actually the set of the Bates Motel from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.
More strike survival guidance:
" Movies-on-TV: Ken Fox's Picks for the Week of Feb. 11
" NBC's Lipstick Jungle Promises Sexy and Chic
" Survivor: Micronesia - Do the Newbies Stand a Chance?