It's A Good Life (The Twilight Zone) - References in Other Media

References in Other Media

• Audio samples from the episode and referencing lyrics were used in the song "Cemetery Girls" from the 1980 album Voobaha by the novelty rock group Barnes & Barnes. Mumy, using the stage name Art Barnes, is one of the members of Barnes & Barnes (although this was not generally known when the album was released).
• The 1990 EP "Escape From Pain" by the Nashville, TN based thrash metal band Intruder contains a song entitled "It's A Good Life" which is based on the episode.
• "It's a Good Life" was parodied on the season three Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror II", in the 1991 segment, "Bart's Nightmare." In the parody, Bart plays the "monster" character who turns Homer into a jack-in-the-box when Homer goes to kill Bart after Bart sends Homer flying into a goal post during a football game. The segment ends on a more upbeat (though ultimately sarcastic) note, where Marvin Monroe advises Homer to spend more time with Bart (whose omnipotence is diagnosed as a cry for fatherly attention) and, after a day of bonding, Bart turns Homer back to a human and the two share a hug (which is interrupted when Bart wakes up screaming from the dream).
• This episode was also parodied in the 1997 Johnny Bravo episode "Johnny Real Good", in which Johnny, in order to make money for a new car, babysits a young boy with godlike powers, and is tormented when he doesn't speak to the boy nicely, including being sent to a literal cornfield outside the boy's house whenever he tries to discipline him.
• The opening narration features as the introduction to Michael Jackson's "Threatened," from his 2001 album, Invincible.
• In the 2007 novel Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, "Peaksville" and The Twilight Zone are mentioned in comparison with Trujillo's reign of the Dominican Republic between 1930 and 1961.
• The animated series American Dad! parodies "It's a Good Life" in its 2007 episode I Can't Stan You. Main character Stan Smith finds out his neighbors don't like him and abuses his CIA authority to have all their houses seized. The neighbors receive "a coupon good for five nights' stay at the Cornfield Motel". Later in the episode, his family members Francine, Hayley and Klaus quietly discuss Stan's madness, with Klaus warning "Shh! If he hears us, he'll send us all to the Cornfield Motel!"
• The first sentence and a half of the opening narration from this episode is used in the pre-boarding video for Disney's The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror attractions. Voice actor Mark Silverman dubs the voice of host Rod Serling and the shot of Serling (masked out of its original environment and placed onto a background showing one of the ride's elevators) is cut short. Serling's original dialogue was "Tonight's story on The Twilight Zone is somewhat unique and calls for a different kind of introduction. This, as you may recognize, is a map of the United States..." For the attraction video, the Serling footage is used up to the point that Serling forms the sounds "This as you may recognize..." then cuts away from Serling to just a shot of the elevator as Silverman instead goes on to say "is a maintenance service elevator, still in operation, waiting for you."
• The comic book PS238 describes the chronically terrified parents of a child with telepathic powers as suffering from "Wish You Into the Cornfield" Syndrome.
• The on-line virtual world Second Life has a "region of mythological status where once naughty avatars were sent to think about what they had done" called "The Cornfield".
• Legends, a two-part episode of Justice League, features homages to "It's a Good Life" and The Prisoner, in which the survivors of an alternate universe's nuclear war are forced to act out normal lives in a simulated world created by psychic mutant Ray Thompson. Four dimension-lost members of the Justice League help the recreated Justice Guild of America defeat Ray and free the people.
• The 1999 horror game Silent Hill features a young girl, Alessa Gillespie who has powers similar to Anthony, and even is mentioned to have made classmates "disappear".
• In the 2008 videogame Fallout 3, the character known as Betty, encountered within the Tranquility Lane computer simulation, was partially based upon Anthony Fremont.
• In the season 2 Falling Skies episode "The Price of Greatness," when angered, character John Pope tells his antagonist, "I'm gonna wish you into the cornfield."
• In the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, on the episode Older and Far Away, the cast gets stuck in Buffy's house when Dawn accidentally wishes that nobody would leave her. When the cast first finds out about their inability to leave, the character Xander says "No, it's just, you know, you're upset 'cause we want to leave, and now we can't leave. Only thing missing is a cornfield. There- there isn't a cornfield, is there?", referencing It's a Good Life.