Thank God It's Doomsday
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| The Simpsons episode | |
| "Thank God It's Doomsday" | |
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| Episode no. | 354 |
| Prod. code | GABF14 |
| Orig. Airdate | May 8, 2005 |
| Written by | Don Payne |
| Directed by | Michael Marcantel |
| Chalkboard | None |
| Couch gag | The family's heads are all replaced with that of Moe's |
| Guest star | None |
| SNPP capsule | |
| Season 16 November 7, 2004 – May 15, 2005 |
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| List of all Simpsons episodes... | |
"Thank God It's Doomsday" is the nineteenth episode of The Simpsons' sixteenth season. The episode aired on May 8, 2005 in the US.
[edit] Synopsis
Marge wants to cut Bart and Lisa's hair, but they want to have it done at a new kids' barbershop in the Springfield Mall. Marge refuses to let them go there, but Homer brings them with him while he eats trash Cinnabons. Bart and Lisa get into a fight at the barbershop and shave each other's hair. They drag Homer into the cinema to hide from their classmates who are taking pictures around the mall. While in the cinema, they see Left Below, a parody of Left Behind: The Movie; when Homer sees this, he fears that the Rapture is coming. In response to the kids losing their hair, Marge later makes them wigs using the leftover hair. Marge comforts Homer by telling him that the Rapture would not go unannounced. Homer, however, is determined to secure his place in Heaven and warn everyone else of the impending danger.
The next day, as Homer drives around Springfield in his car, he sees the devil (actually a man in an advertising costume) and blood falling from the sky (actually from an injured whale hanging from a helicopter), which he takes as signs that the Rapture is coming. He uses nonsensical numerology to calculate the date and time, finding that it's only a week away.
As he goes around Springfield, Homer predicts that stars will fall from the sky, with Kent Brockman reporting on this, and indeed they do when there is a blimp accident at the Krusty Celebrity Salute to Specials special. This causes many of Springfield's residents to believe that Homer is right in predicting that at 3:15 p.m. on May 18th, the apocalypse will come, and so the believers follow him to the Springfield Mesa to wait for it. However, the predicted hour passes without incident, and the dismayed citizens go home. All of them are annoyed at Homer, particularly Moe, who had sold his tavern to a Japanese sushi bar. Homer goes home and starts throwing away the books he'd bought, but suddenly realizes he'd made an error in his calculations. His new prediction is for 3:15 a.m. on May 19th, but since he can't convince his family to come with him again, he returns to the mesa alone. When nothing happens at first he thinks that he is wrong again, but the next moment he is naked and floating through space.
After incorrectly identifying Saturn as Earth, "with its beautiful rings", Homer arrives in Heaven, where the tour guide dresses him despite Homer being comfortable naked ("because this is Heaven for everyone"). They fly past several heavenly places including a waterslide which will not be available for another year (thanks to Heaven's using Leprechaun labor). The tour guide informs Homer that he can do whatever he wants, so he promptly makes the guide's head explode, causing the tour guide to put Homer next to the kiddie pool.
Since his family would not follow him to the mesa, he asks if he can see them on the big TV screen in his luxurious room (which includes an ashtray for Homer's cigar with miniature angel wings). After a commercial for a restaurant in Heaven, the TV turns to Earth and Homer sees his family. Marge and the kids are shown being tormented by the devil. He has a talk with God about saving his family. When God refuses to help, Homer assures Him that He just made a powerful enemy. Homer runs around trashing Heaven, trying to change God's mind, and gets stopped by security. In the destruction scene we see famous people such as Leonardo da Vinci. God finally agrees to undo the Rapture by turning back time (because, Homer points out, "Superman can do it"). Homer later wakes up on the mesa and is reunited with Marge, Bart and Lisa. He suspects that it was all a dream, but the fact that his final wish was granted (Moe's Tavern having been restored) indicates that the events were real. The final scene in the tavern parodies the painting The Last Supper.
[edit] Trivia
- The title is a reference to the phrase "Thank God It's Friday"
- According to the floating clocks in God's office, the time in Heaven is one hour behind the time in London. Since London would be observing British Summer Time in May, this would indicate that Heaven uses GMT.
- God is seated in a Herman Miller Aeron chair behind his desk.
- In this episode, several unnamed celebrities, including the members of Los Lobos, die. This is the first time that real world celebrities have died in non-"Treehouse of Horror" episodes.
- Homer thinks that the date of the Rapture is Wednesday, May 18 and Thursday, May 19. On the year this episode first aired (2005), May 18 and 19 landed on a Wednesday and a Thursday respectively.
- Homer's original doomsday calculations:
- 12-333×666=
- (a×b²)>2=7
- (2+2b²)-144,000
- -0=3 15 05 18 (which he interprets as 3:15, 05/18)
- where 0 is the number of Filipinos in the Bible.
- The song played as Homer enters heaven is "Lakmé" by Léo Delibes.
- In the final shot of the episode, with Homer at Moe's, Mr Thompson from the movie Homer had watched at the beginning of the episode (Left Below) is sitting between Lenny and Carl. An unknown man is sitting next to Barney.
[edit] Cultural references
- There is a subtle reference to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy when Marge says that God would have signaled the coming of the apocalypse with something along the lines of all the dogs leaving earth on UFOs, similar to Dolphins leaving in the book. The film adaptation of that book series was released 9 days prior to this episode's original airdate.
- Los Lobos play their version of the end credits theme.
- Among the deceased seen in heaven are Leonardo DaVinci and Dean Martin.
- Charlie Brown is shown for the third time. The first time he was seen was as a candle in Grade School Confidential, then again as a costume in Treehouse of Horror XIV.
- Krusty mentions not wanting to die next to Kathy Griffin
- The scene in Left Below were the Dalai Lama is dying say "I believed all religion was a path to God, I was wrong!" is a reference specifically to the Enigma Babylon One World Faith in the Left Behind series.
- Three of the rapture books Homer throws away are Tuesdays with Morrie in Hell, 'Chicken Soup for the Damned Soul' and Rapture for Dummies, parodys of Tuesdays with Morrie, Chicken Soup for the Soul and ...for Dummies
- When the Duff blimp explodes during Krusty's Celebrity Salute to Specials event, it is a parody of the Hindenburg disaster.
- When Homer made his tour guides head explode it seems to be a reference to Jhonen Vasquez's comic book series Johnny the Homicidal Maniac.
