Trivia: The Smallville Torch that Lex views on the internet has two articles that refer to past episodes. Pete wrote an article about his trip in a limo called Take Yourself Out Of The Driver's Seat ("Hourglass") and Chloe reprinted The Most Controversial Speech Ever Given In Smallville by Lana's mother ("X-Ray"). (00:17:45)
Trivia: When Clark is on the computer, there's an article about a teen becoming the fastest man alive, normally a title for the Flash. The article names the teen Scott Higgs though, who isn't the Flash. The article says he ran the 100-m dash in 2.4 seconds, which is about 93 miles per hour. In the article it said the old record was 8.5 seconds. In real life, the record in 2001 was 9.79 seconds, so it seems the Smallville universe has several fast metahumans.
Trivia: The song Greg is listening to while driving before the bugs swarm him is "Last Resort" by Papa Roach, another bug reference.
Trivia: The 9/11 attacks occurred during production. As all planes were grounded, Annette O'Toole had Michael McKean drive her to and from Vancouver; during those car trips, they wrote the songs which later appeared in A Mighty Wind. They later earned a Best Original Song Oscar nomination for "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow."
Tempest (1) - S1-E21
Trivia: Remy Zero, the band who plays the opening theme of the show, has a cameo in this episode.
Trivia: Lex Luthor owns project Cadmus. In the comics project Cadmus is where he performs several experiments on metahumans and where he made Superboy and Supergirl clones.
Answer: No, there is no such character in the comics. He's a "meteor-freak" like all the other baddies on the show. The sound has something to do with him vibrating his vocal cords very fast to create a high-pitched squeal.