A One Tree Hill Fan Called Out The Show’s Use Of Mannequins As Extras

There are still secrets to uncover on One Tree Hill. During a recent rewatch, one fan noticed some strange extras in the crowd during a basketball scene and then shared their discovery on social media. It turns out that some of the people cheering on the Tree Hill Ravens weren’t people at all.

Meet The Mannequins

In an Instagram reel posted on Nov. 10, the fan shows OTH footage from a Ravens game and explains it was the first time they had noticed a number of mannequins sitting among the people in the stands. “I’ve watched One Tree Hill my whole life and never noticed this, look at all these extras,” they wrote in their caption in Portuguese. Text on their video adds, “And all those fake dolls on One Tree Hill?” They point out five mannequins in just a brief clip.

The reel was later reposted on Reddit, where many fans laughed over the choice. “STOP … they don’t even try to hide it,” one wrote, adding eight face-with-tears-of-joy emojis. Another dubbed the use of mannequins as extras “hysterical.”

A few of the Redditors in the thread reported that they had been extras on the CW teen drama at the time. “They kept trying to tell us that when it was on screen, these dummies wouldn’t be obvious,” one wrote. “They were wrong.”

OTH Surprises

The mannequin revelation comes more than 13 years after One Tree Hill’s final episode, and some fake extras are hardly the weirdest things to come out of the series. The show ran from 2006 to 2012, and there were increasingly wild storylines during its run. Though OTH initially centered on the tension between half-brothers Lucas (Chad Michael Murray) and Nathan (James Lafferty), the main characters later faced kidnapping, stalking, and more.

Murray and Lafferty recently discussed the moment they considered the most shocking during a conversation for People’s Sexiest Man Alive issue, and they agreed it was when a golden retriever with the munchies (yes, really) ate the donor heart meant for Dan Scott (Paul Johansson). Lucas appeared in the scene, much to Murray’s dismay, and he recalled trying to change the writers’ minds.

“I begged and pleaded — begged and pleaded! — Please, I don’t need to be there,” he said. “There is no need for Lucas Scott to be there. If you really want to do it, fine, go ahead and write the scene. But it’s terrible.”

Maybe he could have tried asking to be replaced by a mannequin.