This surprise is the song "Sympathy for the Devil" by The Rolling Stones, which plays from the loudspeakers outside the map. David Vonderhaar of Treyarch stated that shooting the heads off all mannequins within 15 seconds unlocks "a special surprise".This also applies for the Semtex and Ballistic Knife however, tomahawks ricochet off harmlessly. When a mannequin's head is shot off with the Crossbow, the head falls off, but the arrow remains "stuck" where the head used to be.
The mannequins can be attacked, but only their heads and arms can be knocked off.The mannequins appear in different locations every game.The yellow house and the green house have the house numbers 11 and 13, respectively.It is possible to jump on top of the Nuketown sign from the green house's window, except in the Wii version.presidents William Henry Harrison in the stairway and George Washington in the upstairs area. The green house contains portraits of U.S.The interior can only be seen in spectator mode. There is a hidden empty room in the yellow house visible from the outside only.Similar portraits are present in the campaign level U.S.D.D and the zombie map " Five". A portrait photograph the the upstairs desk of the 'Mason' house is a portrait of Hank Keirsey, a military consultant for Treyarch during the developement of Call of Duty: Black Ops.This is also seen in the campaign level " S.O.G.". On the wall of the garage in the yellow house, an American flag with a peace sign can be seen.In both garages, there are tin cans that say “Scientific Beef”.The mailboxes in front of the houses are labeled " Woods" and " Mason.".In the place where a volume may be set, it reads DG2 and DG3, referring to the Wunderwaffe DG-2 and its Pack-a-Punched variant. On the bookshelves in both houses, there is a book written by Edward Richtofen, referencing a main character from the Zombies mode.When playing Search and Destroy or Domination on this map, a pile of furniture will be placed between the yellow house and the red moving truck.The street sign “Trinity Ave”, clearly visible from the loading screen, is a reference to Trinity Site in New Mexico, where the first nuclear bomb was detonated.The school bus in the center of the map has “Treyarch Unified School District” on the sides.The grill has the letters WMD instead of COE, referencing the term “weapons of mass destruction”. The red moving truck is a 1950 Peterbilt COE.Four other vehicles are present outside of the map. A military jeep is parked in front of the school bus and the truck.On the Welcome to Nuketown sign, there is a population counter stating the amount of players on the map.A Mega Bloks set was released based on the Nuketown area, including the green house and the Doomsday Clock.A double rainbow is in the sky, which is a reference to the viral video.
In a Treyarch interview, David Vonderhaar said that the map was inspired by the scene in the 2008 film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in which Jones, pursued by Soviet soldiers, comes across a nuclear testing site with a replica of a typical 50s suburb and survives the nuclear blast by hiding in a refrigerator.It quickly became a favorite among the developers at Treyarch.