Amanda Tapping
“In Soviet Russia, Amanda taps YOU!”
Amanda Tapping (born 28 August 1965) is an English-born Canadian American actress, a fact that she herself finds confusing.
Acting Career[edit]
Amanda Tapping began her acting career as the head of Big Bird on Sesame Street before a brief stint as William Shatner's stunt double. Both these roles showcased her trademark huge eyes and yellowness. Indeed it is believed that photographs of her as a small child, as well as her ability to create electricity, were the inspiration for the Pokemon character Pikichou.
Samantha Carter[edit]
Tapping is best known for her portrayal of Samantha Carter in the TV serial Stargate, the fictionalized true stories of real things that could maybe not have happened. She achieved star-billing alongside John Billingsley when her character's popularity rose following an episode where the main characters finally "did it" and viewers saw her left leg naked. In the seventh season she wrote around half the episodes, treating viewers to such popular treats as Carter Gets Her Hair Cut, Carter Gets A Kitten and Carter Slays Vampires.
The character Samantha Carter is also memorable for disguising herself as Robin Hood by always wearing green and black clothes, talking about science (especially magnets), and bringing a whole new meaning to the term "ex-boyfriend" by having an unfeasibly large number of partners who subsequently die.
At one point in the notorious Season 11 all her ex-boyfriends rose from the grave to follow her around the universe with the assistance of her only surviving (so far) ex-boyfriend Pete "I use the FBI to stalk women I want to marry" Shenanigan. In order to avoid them, Samantha Carter had to change her listing in the phone book to Samanther Carter aka Big Sam Carta aka Magna Carter. This plotline was resolved when Carter's fictional storyline echoed that of real life actress Amanda Tapping. Carter became Mope of the Church of Buffy and acquired the power to deal violently with her undead admirers.
Religious Conversion[edit]
In 1998, Tapping converted to the Church of Buffy. She successfully evangelised her fellow Star Gate cast members and then the production team which led to the infamous Stargategate incident during the notorious Season 11 of the long running show.
Stargate SG-1[edit]
Tapping persuaded the writers to give her fictional character Samantha Carter a plot arc in which she became the fictional head of the fictional Church of Buffy in the fictional Stargate multiverse mirroring Tapping's real life role as Mope of the real life Church of Buffy. The controversy came to a head after the transmission of episode eleventy-one in which Mope Samantha Carter presided at the marriage of Jack O'Neill to Thor of the Asgard. Fans of the show were delighted and they converted to the Church of Buffy by the trailerful.
The authorities were less than pleased and the U.S. Government instigated an official investigation into the broadcast media being used as a tool to evangelise unsuspecting Americans. The conclusions drawn from this investigation led to new legislation to ban all broadcast evangelism and several prominent evangelical leaders were imprisoned for tax fraud and other fibbing. However Amanda Tapping and the Church of Buffy emerged from the Stargategate kerfuffle with their reputations unscathed and, many would argue, more popular than ever.
Sanctuary[edit]
Recently, she was sent back in time to recruit more for the church, but she was sent to a time when the television wasn't invented yet. However, she was granted immortality and has recruited people throughout the ages (like Bigfoot and Jack the Ripper) in the guise of Helen Magnus. On a weekly basis she hunts down traitors to the Church and either kills them or returns them to the path of church and returns them to their equivalent to the Vatican--the Sanctuary (for all as long as your part of the church). Most recently her daughter betrayed the church for the battlestar galactite society The Cabal. We don't know why and the cellphone of The Powers that Be is turned off so they can't be reached. Amanda made a statement about her daughter's treason: "May she burn in the Hellmouth for all eternity!" She has made Bigfoot her Cardinal.
Mapacy[edit]
Aside from her acting, Tapping is best known as Mope Amanda Tapping III of the Church of Buffy, having ascended to the Mapacy in 2003.
Current Factual Triva Stuff[edit]
Tapping hopes to insert her role in the Church into further episodes of both Star Gate and Stargate Atlantis, possibly by bringing Eliza Dushku in to fill the void left by Andrew Dean Richards in the scheduled forty-third Season of Star Gate.
In real life, Tapping is a noted UFO-hunter and book-collector, often combining these two hobbies in unusual and disturbing ways. A widely-circulated myth is that Amanda is an international tapping champion. The origin of this rumour remains unknown. She also has the Nobel prize in Astrophysics or something.