The Janitor is a 1995 animated short film (four minutes), animated and directed by Vanessa Schwartz, written and voiced by Geoffrey Lewis.
It is a monologue from God's janitor, who would like to apologize for a couple of mistakes he's made up in Heaven. It seems that God told the janitor to wash off Earth because it was getting dirty. So the janitor turned on the spigots, then went to his next task of putting a fresh coat of paint on Mars—and forgot to turn the rain off on Earth while he spent forty days and forty nights giving Mars a fresh coat. Later, God told the janitor to keep an eye on things while God's Son visited Earth to spread peace and love, only for the janitor to once again get distracted and then notice that something has gone wrong.
Tropes:
- Almighty Janitor: Pretty much literally, with God's janitor, who caused the Great Flood when he forgot to turn off a spigot and made the Resurrection happen when he went down to Earth and took Jesus out of the tomb.
- The Ark: The janitor hurries back after God told him he flooded the Earth. He notices a boat with some animals in it.
- Blank White Void: When the janitor is just puttering around in some celestial space and talking, the background is a complete white void. It fills in when he tells stories about Noah's Flood or the Crucifixion.
- The Faceless: While the janitor is presented as a man—somewhat oddly shaped like a frog, but a man, with a face—all of God that appears onscreen is his feet and hands and such. And when Jesus is shown on Earth, he's shown either from a long shot as he's preaching, or a close-up of his hands getting nailed to a cross.
- God: Is occasionally irritated by the misadventures of his janitor.
- The Great Flood: Noah's flood happened because the janitor, told to wash the Earth off because it got dirty, forgot to turn off the spigot.
- Job Title: The Janitor, namely, God's.
- Limited Animation: The animation is monochrome pencil sketches, with a rather abstract drawing of a man talking in the middle of a white void. The drawings get more complex to show the janitor's stories, like of the Crucifixion, but they're still pencil sketches in monochrome.
- Line Boil: Seen with the deliberately abstract pencil animation.
- Oh, Crap!: The janitor's reaction of dismay when he's told that he flooded the Earth.
