Original air date: 4/4/1999
Production code: AABF-14
During an Easter Vigil, Reverend Lovejoy finds a chocolate bunny in the collection plate. Since no one in the congregation confesses to doing it (though it's shown that Homer did so), he punishes them with a thorough reading of the entire Bible, prompting four Simpsonized takes on popular Biblical tales: Homer and Marge are Adam and Eve (with Flanders as God and Snake as [what else?] the snake that tempts Eve into partaking of the forbidden fruit), Milhouse as Moses leading Egyptian slave children to the Promised Land, Homer as King Solomon presiding over a dispute about a pie, and Bart as David out to defeat Goliath Nelson.
Tropes featured:
- Bait-and-Switch:
- In Homer's Dream Sequence as King Solomon, he splits the pie into two... then orders Lenny and Carl to be killed, before eating the pie.
- In the epilogue, when a stairway to hell opens up for the Simpsons, Homer thinks he smells barbecue and runs excitedly into it. We then hear him screaming, and assume he's joined the souls being roasted, but... nope, they actually are having a barbecue down there. But... they're out of hot dogs! And the coleslaw has pineapple in it! And there's German potato salad!
- Boring Religious Service: Actually invoked by Reverend Lovejoy, in order to punish the congregation for putting a chocolate bunny in the collection plate and not owning up to it. It's so boring it sends the Simpsons to sleep, with the titular "Simpsons Bible Stories" being their dreams.
- Bring My Brown Pants: When the Apocalpyse occurs (maybe) at the end of the episode:Marge: It's the Apocalypse! Bart, are you wearing clean underwear?
Bart: Not anymore. - Call-Back: The Orb of Isis seen in Season 9 episode "Lost Our Lisa" is seen inside of the pyramid.
- Cartoon Whale: When Goliath II (Nelson Muntz in Bart's dream) spits out the skeleton of the whale that swallowed Jonah, the skull is square-shaped.
- Caught Up in the Rapture: How the episode ends.
- Couch Gag: The family slips on banana peels and flip through the air before landing on the couch.
- Demythification: Oddly zigzagged with the Exodus short: all the plagues were just faked by Moses and his Hypercompetent Sidekick, but the burning bush is real... and rats one of the Jews out to the Egyptians. Lisa also seems to have some sort of prophetic scripture and mentions seeing some manna. (It's worth noting this was Lisa's dream.)
- The Dinosaurs Had It Coming: According to the pig in the Garden of Eden, one of the dinosaurs ate fruit from the Tree of Knowledge and, well... that was the end of them.
- Disproportionate Retribution: The ending implies that God kickstarted the apocalypse because one family fell asleep in church.
- A Dog Named "Dog": Snake plays the role of the Serpent during the Adam and Eve segment, making him a snake named Snake.
- Double Standard: Several Simpsons contributors who were very religious weren't offended by the episode, though only because it mostly poked fun at the Old Testament and not the New Testament.
- Dream Sequence: All stories are dream sequences. The final part, where the Apocalypse breaks out, might be one too.
- The End of the World as We Know It: The episode ends with the Simpsons waking up to find out that the apocalypse has begun while they were asleep in church.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The episode is about Simpsons characters being transplanted into various Bible stories.
- Evil Laugh: The Horsemen of the Apocalypse are heard wickedly cackling as they bring about The End of the World as We Know It.
- The Faceless: God is played by Ned Flanders, but we only ever see Him as a hand and arm in the sleeve of a distinctive green sweater.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: A Three Shorts Easter episode featuring Biblical story parodies and featuring a non-canon ending (the Simpsons going to Hell while the Flanderses ascend into Heaven; though Lisa had a chance to go to Heaven, only for Homer to pull her down).
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: The "hieroglyphics" Bart chisels on a blackboard in the second segment's Opening Shout-Out are actually a rebus for "I will not deface."
- Gainax Ending: A Three Shorts episode about Bible stories being told (and reimagined) in church on Easter ends with The Rapture happening apropos of nothing and the titular family being trapped on Earth as hellfires brim from below.
- Godiva Hair: Marge's hair is left down for the entirety of the Adam and Eve segment, which helps to keep her breasts covered for the length of it.
- Historical In-Joke: The pig from the Garden of Eden states that it wasn't an asteroid that caused the dinosaurs' deaths, but one of them ate the apple taken from the Tree of Knowledge and God wiped them all out.
- Horsemen of the Apocalypse: When the Simpsons exit the church and see the apocalypse, the Four Horsemen are riding across the sky and laughing with delight as they set the world ablaze.
- Hurricane of Puns: Bart's confrontation with Nelson!Goliath.Nelson!Goliath: Whaddaya know? A king fit for a meal!Bart: Hope I don't give you... heartburn!
- Ironic Hell: At the very end, during the Apocalypse, after the Flanderses ascend to Heaven, and Homer stops Lisa's ascension, a stairway to Hell opens up on the ground, and Homer, ever the Big Eater, runs down the stairs when he smells a barbecue. Upon reaching the bottom, he screams in despair when he finds out there's no more hotdogs, and the only food available is coleslaw with pineapple slices and German potato salad.
- Judgment of Solomon: Parodied. As mentioned above, Homer/King Solomon mediates a dispute between Carl and Lenny over a pie.Homer: The pie shall be cut in half, and both men shall receive... death. I'll eat the pie.
- Let's Meet the Meat: Homer-Adam regularly helps himself to the ham and bacon strips provided for him by his best friend in Eden, a talking pig. Justified in that since it's Eden, the pig doesn't die or feel any pain for having parts of him pulled out and eaten.
- Oh, Crap!: Moses and Egyptian Lisa when they see they put a trap in their prison in motion.
- Opening Shout-Out: When Moses calls all of the slaves for their journey to freedom, a scene is shown staged exactly like the Chalkboard Gag scene in the opening, with Bart writing "I will not deface" in hieroglyphs, then running off when he hears Moses's horn.
- Prayer Is a Last Resort: When the Pharaoh comes for the slaves at the Red Sea, Milhouse/Moses is ready to pray to the Egyptians' gods.Milhouse: Screw this, I'm converting! Save us, oh mighty Ra!
Lisa: Hey! Cut that out. - Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: Santa's Little Helper flees after seeing Goliath II.SLH!Goliath: See ya later, Davey.
- Selective Enforcement:
- Despite Homer having bit in the apple first, God misses the obvious evidence, gets mad when Marge does the same and only throws her out of Paradise as a result.
- David!Bart is arrested for killing Nelson!Goliath, despite the fact Ralph finished him off. Granted, Ralph is the chief of police's son.
- Sexy Secretary: Krabappelpatra is Pharaoh's (Skinner) secretary, sculpting "bird, bird, bird, pyramid, bird" on a stone table. She sits in a very sexy pose and has Egyptian eye lines.
- Shout-Out:
- Bart (as King David) is addressed by Santa's Little Helper with the words: "I don't know, Daaaaavey." the Catchphrase of Goliath in Davey and Goliath. Bart responds with "Quiet, you!"
- When Bart is arrested by Chief Wiggum, he says: "Where's your Messiah now?". This is a reference to The Ten Commandments (1956) where actor Edward G. Robinson (on whom Wiggum's voice is based) is
popularly believed to say the same to Moses (he doesn't). In the Moses segment, Wiggum's character is wearing the same clothes Dathan did in the same movie. - When Nelson arises from the rubble of his castle, he strikes the same pose as Chernobog from Fantasia, while a snippet from "Night On Bald Mountain" is heard (his hair is even spiked up to resemble Chernobog's horns).
- "Highway to Hell" by AC/DC plays at the end of the episode when Homer and the remaining Simpsons go to hell.
- Stylistic Suck: Bart's dream is stylized after old action movies (including a title card, end credits with the Lethal Weapon font and a Rocky-style Training Montage).
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: As it turns out, Goliath II was such a capable ruler that the townspeople actually preferred him to King David, and when David kills him and takes the throne back, he's swiftly arrested for regicide.
- Talking Animal: The pig and the snake in the Garden of Eden. Also, Santa's Little Helper and one of the sheep in the King David segment.
- Tempting Fate:
- After Homer and Marge are thrown out of paradise, Homer remarks that they will be let back in pretty soon, after all: "God can't stay mad forever, right?"
- When Moses dumps frogs on the Pharaoh:Moses: Well, we spent all of our money, but it was Worth It. Now he's gotta let us go!
(cut to the Pharaoh dining on the frogs)
Pharaoh: Mmm, these are the juiciest frogs I've ever eaten. Ra has rewarded my cruelty to the slaves. - Lisa tells Moses (Milhouse) that the Jews will wander in the desert for 40 years. Milhouse then asks: "But after that everything will turn out well for the Jews, right?"
- At the end of the episode, when Marge is embarrassed that the family fell asleep in church, Homer reassures her that it's not the end of the world… then they exit the church to see exactly that.
- "Too Young to Die" Lamentation: Parodied; when faced with the Apocalypse, Lisa bemoans that the world is ending before she found true love… and Homer's upset that he never got a chance to use his pizza coupons.
- Training Montage: King David (Bart) trains for a fight, action-hero style. He is helped by Ralph's sheep after he was defeated by Goliath II.
- Unexplained Recovery: Ralph's death occurs offscreen, but his marked grave spells it out. He later shows up perfectly fine to deal the final blow to Goliath II.David: Ralph? I thought you were dead!Ralph: Nope!
- Women Are Wiser: Marge and Lisa's dream sequences are rewritten to invoke this. In Marge's retelling of Adam and Eve, it is Adam rather than Eve that first eats the fruit and tempts their partner (with Adam pushing all blame onto Eve on top of it), while in Lisa's dream she basically poses as herself instigating all of Moses' plans, with Moses only there as The Scapegoat, and, being Milhouse, an incompetent coward.
- You Get What You Pay For: After Pharaoh's Death Trap destroys itself, allowing Milhouse and Lisa to simply climb out, Lisa invokes this with, "Slave labor. You get what you pay for."
