21 Blink-and-You'll-Miss-Them Easter Eggs That Have Popped Up in The Walking Dead

In what might be the most obvious Easter egg on the list, AMC has been gradually decomposing the logo in the opening credits since the first season came out in 2010. It reflects the way the show's world, and its walkers, has been deteriorating with each passing season.

There are a whole string of Easter eggs that appear to be callbacks to another AMC hit, Breaking Bad, but let's start with the most significant: Walter White aka Heisenberg's iconic blue meth. In the season two episode "Bloodletting," T-Dog (may he RIP) cuts his arm and it gets infected, prompting Daryl to reveal he has a giant bag full of drugs, courtesy of Merle, that might help. When he pulls it out, you can see what looks like Heisenberg's bright blue drug of choice sitting at the bottom of the bag. Did Merle and Daryl know Heisenberg and Jesse Pinkman before the apocalypse?

Remember when The Walking Dead basically turns into "The Daryl and Beth Show" in season four? Well, during the episode "Still," Daryl tells Beth a story about a time he and Merle were watching cartoons with Merle's drug dealer, who sounds an awful lot like Jesse Pinkman:

A janky little white tweaker who says "b*tch" a lot? C'mon.

In season three, the Governor is trying to convince Andrea why he has to go after her friends, saying, "Your friends killed six good people." He goes on to list the names of the dead, and "Heisenberg" — Walter White's drug-dealing alter ego — is one of them. Could Walter have survived the apocalypse and ended up in Woodbury?

In the second episode of season one, Glenn steals a red Dodge Challenger that has distinctive black racing stripes on the hood. Walt buys the same exact car for his son, Walt Jr., in Breaking Bad (which you can see below) before his wife flips out over the purchase and orders him to return it. Walt ends up setting fire to the car instead, but maybe it survives the flames and somehow ends up in Atlanta.

Daryl and Carol spend season five's "Consumed" wandering the ruins of Atlanta in search of Beth and fight their way into an abandoned building. Daryl discovers a big pack of "Morley" cigarettes, which are a fictional brand loved by the Cigarette Smoking Man in The X-Files. Interestingly enough, the cigarette brand has a lengthy history of popping up in TV shows, from as far back as early episodes of The Twilight Zone and The Dick Van Dyke Show, all the way to Friends and (you guessed it) Breaking Bad. For what it's worth, season one and season two character Dale also loves Morley cigarettes, and we see him holding a pack of them at one point on the Greene family farm.

In season four, the group gets separated after they lose the prison, and Beth finds herself wandering alone in the woods. She comes to a clearing and finds a pile of dead bodies, who all look like they've had their brains bashed in. You know who's fond of beating people's brains out? Season seven's new villain, Negan. You know what Negan likes to use to carry out these beatings? A bat wrapped in barbed wire, which he named Lucille. You know what happens to be lying next to one of those corpses? Sure looks like a bat wrapped in barbed wire. As far as we know, it's the first time that the show hints at Negan's existence.

Beth's gruesome findings might be the first clue that Negan is around before his arrival in the season six finale, but it certainly isn't the last. In the season six episode "East," Carl is seen holding a gun in the Alexandria armory that has a bat wrapped in barbed wire etched into its handle.

In the season four episode "Live Bait," the Governor (David Morrissey) stumbles across the apartment of Lilly and Tara, who welcome him in despite his scraggly appearance. Around the 25-minute mark, he can be seen napping on their couch, and with his eyepatch and the embroidered parrot that seems to sit on his shoulder, he looks exactly like a pirate. In an interview with The Huffington Post, Morrisey confirmed that the visual gag was done on purpose. "There was one shot of the Governor, I think when he came back," he said. "He was in his disheveled state with his beard and his hair when he was lying on the couch and a the cushion behind him has a parrot, which was by his shoulder, so that was always quite funny."

In season six, we get a flashback to how Enid ends up at Alexandria after her parents are eaten by walkers. Desperate for food, she kills a turtle and graphically chows down on its raw insides. Not too long after that scene, Morgan is shown practicing his bo staff technique with Eastman (John Carroll Lynch), who's wearing a t-shirt with the words "Save Terrapins" and a picture of a turtle on it. Although we personally think the moments are placed too close together to be mere coincidence, showrunner Scott Gimple denied that it was an Easter egg via Talking Dead. A few eagle-eyed Redditors also seem to think that it's just product placement for Terrapin Beer Co., which brews a TWD-themed IPA. Personally, we find the theory that the character is a reference to Kevin Eastman, the creator of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the strongest.

Fan favorite Tyreese dies from blood loss in season five's "What Happened and What's Going On," but before he succumbs to his wounds, he hallucinates a radio broadcast from a British man about the zombie outbreak in the car. That British man happens to be none other than Andrew Lincoln. He might nail Rick's Southern accent on the show, but he was born and raised in the UK.

There's a poster hanging on the wall of Dale's RV featuring a cup of coffee and the words, "How about a nice cup of shut the hell up?," which you can see at the 1:40-minute mark in the video above. It's a reference to Zack Snyder's remake of Dawn of the Dead when CJ (Michael Kelly) tells another character that "The plan is you drink a nice tall glass of shut the f*ck up!"

In a scene from season six's "Not Tomorrow Yet," there's a shot of a trio of decapitated heads on the ground, and if you think the one on the right looks familiar, you're not alone. "One of the other heads, I don't know if I'm going to get in trouble if I say this, was Johnny Depp," executive producer Greg Nicotero told Entertainment Weekly after the episode aired. "I think we had sculpted an emaciated version of a dummy head for something and we used Johnny Depp's head as a basis just for a clay sculpt."

Although we've yet to see any pets rise from the dead in TWD, the zombie drama still has a connection to legendary horror writer Stephen King. Before the zombie apocalypse hit, Rick worked for the Sheriff's Department in Georgia's King's County, which is named after the author. Original showrunner Frank Darabont happens to be close friends with King after working on the film adaptations of King's The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Mist together.

What might have been an innocuous piece of set dressing in Father Gabriel's church is actually much more meaningful. When Rick and the rest of his group take refuge with Father Gabriel, the Bible passages posted on a bulletin board are way more significant than you might have noticed the first time around:

Any Resident Evil fans in the house? In a season five scene, we can just make out a symbol on the wall behind Michonne that looks remarkably close to the Umbrella Corporation logo made famous by the film and video game franchise. If Umbrella Corp. was responsible for starting the zombie apocalypse in one universe, who's to say it didn't have a part in this one, too?

Anthrax lead singer Scott Ian is a huge fan of The Walking Dead and happily agreed to get zombie-fied for an episode in season five. He ends up getting killed by Carl, but doesn't he look gorgeous?

As a way to reference Daryl and Carol's relationship, the bow-wielding survivor comes across a heavily decayed, moss-covered walker in season six that has Cherokee roses growing out of its back. If you remember back in season two when Carol's daughter, Sophia, is missing, Daryl tells her a sweet story about the flower and brings her one to lift her spirits. The tender moment is a turning point for Daryl's gruff character, and just seeing the flower four seasons later makes us fall in love with him all over again.

Nicotero regularly pays homage to old-school horror movie zombies in TWD, which you can see in this side-by-side comparison of a scene from Dawn of the Dead and the season five finale.

Of all the terrifying moments that go down in Jaws, one of the more shocking jump scares comes courtesy of Ben Gardener, whose severed head pops out from a hole in the bottom of his boat. In season three's fifth episode, we get a look at the Governor's extensive, disturbing collection of heads, all submerged in fish tanks. One of the heads in the upper left tank, which we've circled, is modeled after poor Ben.

The Walking Dead is Robert Kirkman's most popular comic series, but he carved some time out of the season six midseason finale to reference the characters from his Invincible series. You can see the action figures of Invincible, Allen the Alien, Atom Eve, and Omni-Man sitting on Sam Anderson's dresser when the episode starts.