New Episode 05/08/05: Thank God, It's Doomsday

Simpsons News — Posted 13 May, 2005 by MrBurns

Bart and Lisa want to start getting their hair cut at the mall. They go to the mall with Homer and while getting their haircut they get into a fight, which results in them each getting really bad haircuts. Out in the mall they are spotted by fellow school students who have cameras in hand. They find Homer and go on the run; they sneak into the back entrance of a movie theater and see the film "Left Behind," which is a movie about the apocalypse. The images in the movie are disturbing to Homer, who fears the worst. Marge assures him that there needs to be some ominous signs before the rapture will come. When Homer is out driving, he sees what he believes to be the signs. Homer gathers some books on the subject and he calculates that the "rapture is nigh" at 3:15 PM on May 18th, seven days from now. Continue...

He starts to spread the word and tells everyone on television a passage from Revelations 6:13 that says before the rapture "the stars will fall to Earth." At the Springfield Stadium, there is a celebrity filled blimp accident that causes the stars on board to fall to the Earth and Homer gains instant credibility. He gets a bus full of people to join him at Springfield Mesa. When the appointed time comes and goes, Homer loses credibility and everyone return back to their normal lives. Homer later realizes that he made a mistake in his calculation and the new time is only 30 minutes away. When no one in his family will join him Homer goes to the Mesa on his own. The rapture comes and Homer goes to heaven, but despite all that heaven has to offer, Homer needs his family. He gets an audience with God, but when God won't grant his request to have his family join him; Homer begins raising hell in heaven. To put a stop to it, God agrees to turn back time and put off the rapture.

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Couch: Our favorite family enters the living, only Homer's head has been replaced by Moe's and the rest of the family all have Moe's facial characteristics as their own.

Sign: You Can't Put a Price on Cool. Cool Haircuts $30

Ron Howard can be seen in Krusty's blimp, still in his bathrobe.

LOOK HARD: According to the clocks in Heaven, Heaven resides either on the same longitude of New Zealand, or three hours ahead of Tokyo, or somewhere in the east atlantic ocean, one hour behind Greenwich.

When Homer redoes his math, check the board when he wakes up his family. It's the same math, plus the same date and time as his first caculation. What's more, there's no "666" on the board like he said he had to carry.

God's hair is grey in this episode, but in all previous appearences his hair was white.

If Homer wanted his family to be with him, why didn't he just wish for them to be in heaven?

The title refers to the saying, the restaurant and the 1978 film Thank God It's Friday.

The image Ralph wants to look like is Charlie Brown from the Peanuts comic strip.

Left Below is a parody on the right-wing religious film about the Rapture, Left Behind.

The song the Baha Men sing in the barber shop is a parody of their one-hit "Who Let The Dogs Out."

Homer takes the family and friends to a mountain to wait for the Rapture, mimicking a similar scene from the 1991 film The Rapture.

Deus Ex Machina is Latin for "God in the machine". In the old days when a play's plot got out of control and there was no easy or reasonable way of resloving it, plays would often end with God being lowered onto the stage by a machine where he would just set things right.

The "painting" above the bed in Homer's room in Heaven keeps changing, one of the images it displays is a girl sitting in front of an orange/brown/white striped cloth. This is the famous Farrah Fawcett poster of the 1970's.