Martin Sheen Makes Doomsday Hilarious on ‘Last Week Tonight’
Whenever the human race eradicates Earth, whether it’s from “nuclear Armageddon or environmental destruction,” at least we can reflect on our triumphs – like space exploration, MC Hammer and peanut butter – with the lighthearted words of Martin Sheen. John Oliver recruited the actor on Sunday’s Last Week Tonight for a hilarious, victorious Doomsday video.
Earlier this year, CNN unveiled their own such clip, the “Turner Doomsday Video,” which features grainy footage of a marching band performing “Nearer My God to Thee” as the world, presumably, came to an end. “That’s it? A band playing a slow dirge?” Oliver asks in the above clip. “Well, to be fair, when the world ends, it would be comforting to look at any marching band and think, ‘Well, at least they’ll all die too.'”
The host emphasizes that “a doomsday video shouldn’t just be sad — it should be celebratory.” To give our species a more uplifting “best of” review, Sheen helps us “celebrate the greatest things about humanity’s time on Earth.”
“We had a good run, didn’t we?” the actor asks. “We harnessed fire, invented languages and engineered transparent underwater tunnels simply because we felt like looking at shark tummies. And since no compilation video is complete without a blooper reel, Sheen compiles humanity’s biggest screw-ups – the Third Reich, guys hitting each other in the testicles – into a brief review.
“Before we all embrace whatever awaits us, I have something important to show you,” the actor intones, cutting to an adorable Old West saloon model filled with cat bartenders and cat cowboys. And before saying his final goodbyes, Sheen encourages us to reflect on our amazing achievements: “Give thanks to peanut butter, to water slides, to the night sky, to the Beatles and the pyramids, to that YouTube video of Kelsey Grammer falling off a stage.”
It’s a beautiful world, indeed.