It’s crazy to think that Lost has been off the air for almost a decade. Few shows, apart from maybe Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad, have had the level of popularity and fandom that the hit ABC drama received. Fan theorizing, intrigue, and anticipation helped evolve Lost into one of the cornerstone shows in modern television history. The immense cast and even more immense stories allowed for viewers to experience the show long after the credits rolled. Lost ran for the old-fashioned amount of episodes per season (15-25) over the course of six seasons, giving viewers not only much to be entertained by, but also much to speculate about.

Six seasons is a good run for any show to have and with over six years (more like eight if you count pre-production) of hard work, there’s bound to be some pretty crazy trivia stemming from it. Few shows had a main ensemble that rivaled that of Lost and with such a vast crew it’s always fascinating to stroll down memory lane and find out some of the best nuggets from the show’s history. If you haven’t yet “gotten lost” and wish to, be wary; this show is a rabbit hole that will suck you in for weeks and not let you out till you’ve seen the whole series.

For all of you who miss the likes of Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Charlie the island, the hatch, the smoke-monster, flashbacks, flashforwards, flashsideways, and Hurley, here are 25 Wild Details About Lost Only True Fans Know.

25. So Many Baby Aarons

Julie Carlson, the extras casting director for Lost spoke to Stereogum, where she let it be known that in season four alone, 13 babies were used for character Clair’s son Aaron. There are very strict laws in the US when it comes to infants being on set, more stringent than those for a child actor.

When asked how many babies they’ve used on the show for Aaron in the first four seasons, Carlson estimated 76! She also added that most weren’t actually male, “Females tend to have the rounder face and they don’t age as quickly. Plus, the boys squirm more.”

24. Terry O’Quinn’s ironic walks to set

In the episode “Walkabout”, we learn through John Locke’s flashbacks that John, who has been shown as being perfectly physically able, was actually a paraplegic before the crash. Locke was in Sydney to perform a walkabout, proving to himself he could without the use of his legs.

O’Quinn would actually walk to set often, some 12 miles, in a sort of method acting spell. There’s even a story of how one day, while tired, he hitched a ride with a woman who instead of bringing him home, brought him to her house to show her husband.

23. A Lost Easter Egg In Cloverfield

J.J. Abrams produced both Lost and the found-footage kaiju film Clovefield. Many fans were enticed by Cloverfield’s mysterious trailer, but Lost fans were excited to see what their dear leader, J.J. Abrams, had up next.

At the beginning of the film ,the audience sees an intro reminiscent to old VHS home movie, with the words, “Property Of The US Government. Do Not Replicate” sprawled across the screen alongside other random symbols and numbers. One of those symbols was the Dharma logo from Lost. It was a quick homage, but one appreciated by the Lost fans who noticed it.

22. The Hatch is a coffee table now

As seen on Reddit, Damon Lindelof took a souvenir from the set to commemorate his time with the show. The top of the hatch now resides in Lindelof’s office where he uses it as a coffee table. The hatch was one of the primary and first mysteries the island had to offer and is still an integral part in the show’s history.

Many creators take memorabilia from their works, but to convert it into furniture is something pretty unique. If any fans of the show had the hatch to themselves, they’d probably do something pretty similar.

21. 23 million people watched the season 2 premiere

Lost was a pretty popular show, especially after the airing of the first few seasons, when it became very trendy to binge it on DVD or iTunes purchases. The most watched episode of Lost was the season 2 premiere, “Man of Science, Man of Faith”.

The episode captivated roughly 23,419,000 households in late 2005. Actually, all of the top ten watched episodes of Lost, according to Business Insider, came in 2005 during the end of season 1 and the beginning of season 2. When streaming became more prevalent in the late 2000s, people tuned in at primetime less and less, causing viewership to rapidly decline.

20. Josh Holloway Tried To Hide His Accent In The Pilot

Josh Holloway is a southern boy, through and through; the actor was born in San Jose but moved to Georgia at a young age. In the original script, the character of James “Sawyer” Ford was reportedly supposed to be a classy con-artist from urban Buffalo.

Holloway tried to keep this persona in the pilot, till creators realized how much they liked his accent. Sawyer was given a southern drawl and the character was changed consequentially. Given that Sawyer is a fan-favorite, everyone probably agrees the change was for the best.

19. Mr. Eko Was Originally Much Different

Mr. Eko was originally supposed to be a pascifist priest from Nigeria; something that drew Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje to the role since he had been solely playing gangsters and criminals prior. That character was changed when producers saw Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s brutal performance in HBO’s Oz. “It was a bit of a shock. I was devastated,” Akinnuoye-Agbaje told Entertainment Weekly.

The darker version of Mr. Eko, a former smuggler, may not have been what the actor originally planned on, but was seemingly happy with the end results. He said about his own flashback episode, “The character was complete. It was such a well-written episode that I knew I would be able to sew him up in a season.”

18. Lost almost had a different title

As Grantland explained, the story is as follows: ABC chairman Lloyd Braun and head of drama development Thom Sherman were both obsessed with the idea of Lost. They hired Jeffrey Lieber to write the pilot and hoped it would be good enough to greenlight.

When they got back the script, it wasn’t what they expected, especially because Lieber had changed the title from Lost to Nowhere. Braun and Sherman ended up sacking Lieber and replacing him with a showrunner who has already proved his worth to write the pilot: J.J. Abrams– as well as Damon Lindelof. Needless to say, the show ultimately kept its original name.

17. How I Met Your Mother crossover

Jorge Garcia was arguably everyone’s favorite character on Lost, and was no surprise that the character has followed the actor. When appearing as “The Blitz” on the How I Met Your Mother episode “Blitzgiving”, Garcia brought his Easter eggs.

Much like Hurley, Garcia’s “Blitz” has unbelievably bad luck that he can’t seem to shake– though in HIMYM he eventually gives it to Barney. One of the episode’s biggest laughs is when a character asks for random numbers to prank-call someone and Garcia runs in suggesting (481) 516-2342; a pretty familiar group of digits.

16. Forest Whitaker Was Almost Sawyer

We now know that Sawyer wasn’t supposed to be Southern, but did you know that he was wasn’t originally supposed to be played by Josh Holloway at all? Many film actors take up roles in TV; it’s a steadier paycheck, after all. Forest Whitaker was all set to play Sawyer in the ABC show but dropped out during pre-production.

He left the show to direct his feature film First Daughter. During the show’s run, Whitaker went on to win his first and only Oscar for The Last King of Scotland, so all’s well that ends well.

15. Lindelof Only Took The Gig To Get A Job On Alias

As detailed in Grantland’s article, Lindelof wanted nothing more than to get a job on J.J. Abrams’ series Alias. He asked ABC drama executive Heather Kadin and her response was a proposition. J.J. Abrams needed help with a new show. It was sadly not Alias, but she asked him to help write the pilot.

Kadin is reported to have said: “Impress J.J. at the meeting, and you will get a job on Alias. Forget about this pilot.” Lindelof brought a slew of ideas, including the hatch and in his own words, “the audience would want the characters to get off the island. How do we defuse that desire?” The two would go on to write the two-part pilot.

14. Sparks between Kate and boyd

It’s not uncommon for cast members of a show or film to end up together in real life. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie on Mr. and Mrs. Smith; Jennifer Gardner and Ben Affleck on Daredevil; Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes on The Place Beyond the Pines. Lost wasn’t no exception to this.

Evangeline Lilly and Dominic Monaghan dated for roughly three years before they broke it off. In 2010, Lilly had just started dating production assistant Norman Kali, who she is still with today. Monaghan is still not publicly in a relationship.

13. Sun was created after Yunjin Kim Auditioned For Kate

Lost started casting for the pilot before a script was even finished, but the main few characters were known. Kate was one of the few female characters on the show. Yunjin Kim auditioned for the role, but the show-runners wanted to go with Evangeline Lilly instead.

Her audition was so good, though, that they created the character of Sun-Hwa Kwon just so they could keep her on the show. They even went so far as to create Jin-Soo Kwon for Daniel Dae Kim to give her a counterpart. Hurley was similar created for Jorge Garcia after he read for Sawyer.

12. The Last Number Is The Answer To Life, The Universe, And Everything

Writer David Fury did an interview with Lostpedia where he detailed how he got the last number in the infamous sequence, “When I confirmed my number choices with Damon, I was still missing the last number. I had thought to make it ’42.’” The number is a reference to the ultimate question from Douglas Adams The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy books.

The Adams novel and the Abrams show share a lot of similar sci-fi themes, and 42 is one of the most important running gags in the series of books. The other numbers were random ones spoken in the show, but the last was an homage: “When Damon had the same idea, that clinched it.”

11. “Hoffs/Drawlar” Is An Important Anagram

In the season finale of season 3, “Through the Looking Glass”,we learn that the flashback we’ve been watching wasn’t a flashback at all, but a flashforward. We begin seeing what life is like off the island for the castaways, proving that they will at some point get off.

This came to a shock to most viewers, except those especially keen ones. In that same episode, Jack visits the Hoffs/Drawlar Funeral Parlor. Other than playing a pretty important plot point, the name of the parlor is actually an anagram for “Flash/Forward.”

10. Michael Keaton Was Almost Jack

Jack was never supposed to be the main character– it was supposed to be Kate. He was actually supposed to be taken by the Smoke Monster in the first episode as a surprise twist, but this eventually happened to the pilot instead.

Michael Keaton set to play Jack in the pilot, but when the studio decided that they wanted the character to stay on the show for much longer, Keaton backed out because he wasn’t interested in such a long-term gig. Keaton would eventually go on to star in the film First Daughter, which was directed by other another lost Lost cast member, Forest Whitaker.

9. The Dharma Initiative Was Originally “Medusa Corp”

After the hatch was introduced, the creators then realized they needed a reason for that hatch to be there. They then hatched the idea of “Medusa Corp,” a scientific research group that would have been responsible for the plane’s crash.

The writers decided to scrap the name and instead went with the acronym, Dahrma (Department of Heuristics And Research on Material Applications) Initiative. The department became a huge part of the show, and introduced the “others” camp, which was actually a retrofitted YMCA in Oahu.

8. Jack Bender Directed Every Season Finale

More and more we’re seeing directors direct full seasons of shows/limited series (True Detective, Maniac, Big Little Lies, The Haunting of Hill House) but Lost did the best it could to keep one vision with over 100 episodes. Jack Bender directed 39 episodes of the series and, more importantly, each of the six seasons’ finales.

The finales for each season were always some of the most-watched and highest-rated episodes. Since his Lost career, Bender has gone on to direct episodes of Alcatraz, The Last Ship, Under the Dome, and Game of Thrones.

7. The composter used airplane parts to make the score

Michael Giacchino has had a vast career; with over 130 credits on IMDb, the composer has been nominated for two Academy Awards as well as five Emmys. His scores are highly praised, but not many realize the creativity in how he composes.

Giacchino reportedly used parts from the plane’s fuselage as percussion in the show’s Emmy nominated score. Giacchino has stuck with Abrams throughout the directors blockbuster career, composing all three Star Trek films as well as Super 8; only missing out on the Star Wars films.

6. The show’s pitch was completely different

A document leaked in late 2013 was obtained by Slashfilm and detailed the version of Lost Lindelof pitched to ABC executives. The manuscript painted a very different show than what we got.

Here are just a few of the details Lindelof presented: the Smoke Monster would be solved in the first few episodes. The show wasn’t supposed to have a central mystery. Most of the plane’s passengers were only supposed to be in the first few episodes. Guest stars would be an integral part of the show. Craziest of all is that everything was going to have a scientific explanation.

Go ahead and watch ABC’s three second studio logo here and see if you can catch anything Lost related! Did you catch it? The numbers on the slate (the clapper that most sets have to sync audio and video) has the numbers 4, 8, 15, 16 on it, which then turn to 4, 8, 23, 42.

Lost was one of ABC’s biggest hits and it was a sign of appreciation when the channel decided to honor it with a little Easter egg for fans. That said, if you needed to pick some numbers from any show, it’s pretty hard to find more iconic numerals that 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42.

4. Who says “Previously on Lost”?

As complex a story as Lost is, there’s no wonder that ABC decided they needed to catch viewers up from week to week. They added the “previously on Lost” bumper so that viewers could remember the important plot point that’d play into the week’s episode.

No one probably took the time or care to wonder who the voice saying the three words was, but it was none other than ABC chairman Lloyd Braun; the same Braun who was obsessed with the script and got the show off the ground. It’s cool that such a fan of the show got to be in nearly every episode.

3. No Character Is In Every Episode

To be fair, Hurley has made it in every episode if you count the aforementioned “previously on Lost” intro, but who does? Hugo “Hurley” Reyes leads all characters with 107 episodes, 10 shy of the 117 that aired.

Some episodes would focus on certain characters or just a certain part of the island, so it makes sense that not every character would be in every episode. When a show has an ensemble like Lost’s, it’d be nearly impossible to have time for everyone to be present in all 117 episodes, especially with a traditional 43-minute run time.

2. Terry O’Quinn didn’t have to audition

Terry O’Quinn actually had a two-season guest appearance on J.J. Abrams Alias. An interview on The AV Club revealed that Jennifer Gardner wanted him as a regular but the studio wouldn’t allow it. Guest actors make considerably less than regulars so O’Quinn was heartbroken when they wouldn’t budge.

O’Quinn disclosed that J.J. pulled him aside and said, “They won’t let me make you a regular, but I promise you: I will find a thing for you, something that you’ll be glad you took.” The actor continued, “He said, ‘Well, it’s about this…’ I said, ‘Look, okay, go ahead and take your time and talk to me, but I’ll tell you: I’ll take it.’”

1. Everything wasn’t planned from the beginning

Fans like to think that Lost was this multi-faceted beast that took decades to plan, but sadly that’s reportedly not the case. Independent spoke to Prison Break writer Nick Santora who recalled talking to his Lost writer friend; “I’m like, ‘How are you going to pay all this stuff off?’ And he looked at me and goes, ‘We’re not.’”

Santora then clarified, “’What do you mean you’re not?’ He said, ‘We literally just think of the weirdest most f****d up thing and write it and we’re never going to pay it off.’" This is second-hand, but it seems that the string of yarn and tacks may not have been what we thought.

What wild detail about Lost did you find most interesting? Let us know in the comments!