Knocking on Heathens' Door: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

OK, here's a test. Go and find every mainstream film that you can that has a scene with a character who is recognisably a Jehovah's Witness. Use these to learn five key facts about Jehovah's Witnesses. You will most likely find that they:

Try to do the same thing for a Mormon, go on, we'll still be here. You've probably found it's a very similar list with the point about blood transfusions being swapped for one about polygamy. In fiction, lots of evangelical sects will have their occurrences and mentions built around the practise of door to door evangelising (with maybe the odd peripheral belief). [[Truth in Television|While it's what they do do in the real world]], on TV, they're the guys who turn up on your doorstep with some leaflets to convert you while the lead character finds inventive ways to repel them. To be fair, it's [[Rule of Funny|often quite funny]] and it's the character's time and doorstep. To be also fair, it may set up the [[Unfortunate Implications]] that there is this one religious sect that it's fine to treat like dicks for their beliefs. For the sake of wiki harmony, let's leave [[Flame War|the debate]] there.

 

 

 

See also [[Hollywood Jehovah's Witness]].

 

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* The Friends of the Gate in ''[[Darker than Black]]'' show up at Hei's apartment to try to recruit him. He just wants to put away his groceries. Made even funnier once you realize that their cult would just about regard him as a deity if they knew who he was.

 

== Comic Books ==

So I hit him. What would you do? }}

 

 

== Newspaper Comics ==

* ''[[Pearls Before Swine]]'' had the Crocks [http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2009/09/29 learn] about this one and immediately imitate.

 

== Film ==

* In ''Coneheads'', the federal immigration officers trying to expose them as illegal [[A Worldwide Punomenon|aliens]] get into their house by posing as Witnesses. They fare substantially better than most TV JWs since their talk of the coming end of the world jives with the Coneheads' plans to be the ones who end it.

* For the Mormon variant see the first act of ''[[Orgazmo]]''.

{{quote|'''Girl Scout:''' "Would you like to buy some cookies?" (Pan to...)

'''Jehovah's Witnesses:''' "Have you heard the good news?"

* In ''[[The Strangers]]'', {{spoiler|the carnage is discovered}} by two young door-to-door evangelists, identified as Mormon in the credits.

* In ''[[Latter Days]]'', one of the main characters, Aaron, is a young Mormon who goes to L.A. to do missionary work, which includes going door-to-door.

* In ''[[Clue (film)|Clue]]'', the dinner party/murder mystery (no, real murder) is interrupted briefly as the summation is going on by a bearded door-to-door Evangelist to warn the characters "The kingdom of heaven is at hand!" {{spoiler|Of course, like everyone else in the movie, he is not who he seems to be.}}

 

== Literature ==

** His days off consist of his trying to convert people with a fellow Omnian, Smite-the-Unbeliever-with-Cunning-Arguments. Entire bars full of people duck under tables and turn off the lights until they're safely past.

* In ''[[The Eyre Affair]]'', set in a world where classic literature is [[Serious Business]], there's a scene where the protagonist answers the door to somebody who's Witnessing for the proposition that Bacon was the true author of Shakespeare's plays, and it plays out with all the tropes usually attached to a fictional JW visit.

 

* Played with on ''[[3rd Rock from the Sun]]''. When the Solomons moved to get away from a reporter, they left a note on their door telling Jehovah's Witnesses where to find them. (The reporter, of course, read the note instead.)

** Another episode showed them talking to the Witnesses and being very confused about this "God" person. (He's always with you? Is he waiting in the car?)

* On the first episode of ''[[Mock the Week]]'''s seventh season, they commented on Michael Jackson's death [[Crosses the Line Twice|in their usual style]]. They noted that being a Jehovah's Witness was possibly the least weird thing about him and pondered whether when he went to meetings if ''they'' pretended to not be in.

* In an episode of ''[[Black Books]]'', a pair of Jehovah's Witnesses knock on Bernard's door, and Bernard is so desperate for a distraction from the paperwork that he invites them in. He then winds up having to give them hints about what to do next, because it's been so long since anybody let them actually do the witnessing that they've forgotten how it goes.

** He also more or less converts them to Catholicism.

* In an episode of ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'', House is interrupted from a conversation when some nondescript Christian missionaries knock on his door. Before slamming the door in their faces, he says, "Oh, you're selling religion. No thanks, I just bought loads of Islam last week."

* Al from ''[[Married... with Children]]'' has a very ''special'' way of dealing with Jehovah's Witnesses...

* In an episode of ''[[Criminal Minds]]'', a woman assumes the duo wearing a suit and knocking at her door are Jehovah's Witnesses. They're FBI agents.

 

* Swedish comedian Johan Glans has mentioned wanting to find out where a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses live, knocking on their door and saying: "Hi! I'm from the Ordinary People."

* German comedian Michael Mittermeier likes to scare Witness by acting as a exorcist-like possessed man complete with scare music and pea soup as fake vomit.

* [[Robin Williams]] mentioned at in one stand-up special that he became so burned out on religion that if a Jehovah's Witness came to the door and asked if he found Jesus, he would like to answer the door naked and say, "No, why don't you help me find him? Come on!"

* [[Jasper Carrot]] once hypothesised that if you [[Subverted Trope|actually invited Jehovah's Witnesses in rather than finding inventive ways to get rid of them]], they'd be so shocked that you could brainwash them and build up your own private army.

 

== Video Games ==

* Used in a scene in Adult [[Interactive Fiction]] game ''The Babysitter'' wherein the Witness in question brings along his daughter and then leaves her behind while he makes his rounds. She doesn't fare so well.

* In another [[Interactive Fiction]] game ''[[Heavy Rain]]'', a doctor is {{spoiler|about to kill one of the main characters}} when one of these knocks on his door. While the devout one preaches about the word of god, and the doctor tries to get rid of him as quickly as possible, {{spoiler|the main character is shown in split-screen, desperately trying to pull themselves free of their ropes before the doctor comes back and performs surgery on them with a power drill.}}

 

== Web Comics ==

* [[Affably Evil|The Sphinx]] from ''[[Subnormality]]'' seems to [http://www.viruscomix.com/page409.html regard them] as {{spoiler|an inexhaustible source of [[I'm a Humanitarian|at-home snack]] deliveries}}.

* ''[[Chopping Block]]'': "If experience had taught him nothing else, Butch had learned that you never, ever leave witnesses. So this "Jehova" fella, whoever he was, was about to owe Butch a favor."

* Sometimes the angels from ''[[Sinfest]]'' fill this role.

** At one point the Devil's [[Loony Fan]] went door to door proclaiming eternal damnation.

* ''[[VG Cats]]'' reports the dreaded [http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=199 Jenova's witnesses] of ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'', though one panel confuses them with Mormons.

* In ''[[The Unspeakable Vault of Doom]]'', [http://www.goominet.com/unspeakable-vault/vault/316/ here].

 

== Western Animation ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Comedy Tropes]]

[[Category:Just for Pun]]

[[Category:Truth in Television]]