Zombie Research Society
This is not a spoiler post, so don’t worry if you haven’t yet seen the most recent episode of The Walking Dead. Even if you did watch it, you may have missed a hidden tribute to the legendary zombie filmmaker George A. Romero.
Immediately below are two screen grabs from The Walking Dead episode that first aired in North America on Sunday, March 24, 2013. They briefly show an injured bald zombie in a red plaid shirt shambling along. Does it look familiar? Scroll down to see the connection to Romero.
The zombie seen in the top image of this post and below appears in George Romero’s classic Dawn of the Dead from 1978, and has remained such a cult favorite that it even has its own action figure.
The creators of The Walking Dead are lifelong Romero fans. Robert Kirkman has even said he modeled his zombies, and the infection they spread, after Romero’s original concept. The plaid shirt zombie showing up on TV 35 years after it first made its bigscreen debut is no accident. And we love it!
Greg Nicotero–now a producer on TWD–even worked on Romero’s Day of the Dead back in 1985 as an assistant to Tom Savini. Wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t see a tribute to “Bub” show up eventually—if he hasn’t already. Heh.
Actually, they did do a tribute to Bub in Season 4, when Glenn and Tara were stuck in the tunnel while Glenn was looking for Maggie after all the crap went down in the prison! 🙂