History Main / TheEndIsNigh

* ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'': Calvin had at least one strip with snowmen doing this. [[ComicStrip/FoxTrot Jason]] as well.

* ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide'' has a cartoon with a flea holding up a sign saying "The end of the dog is coming." He's right.
** Another had the guy who ''makes'' all these signs glaring out his shop window as the mushroom clouds bloom, and bemoaning the fact that the bottom just dropped out of the market.
* In ''ComicStrip/FrankAndErnest'', they see such a man.

* ''ComicStrip/JumpStart'': Sunny's friend Dexter starts joyfully carrying one of these when he realizes it's almost the end of the school year.

* A guy like this is featured in one of the early issues of ''ComicBook/{{Buffy|the Vampire Slayer}} Season 8''.

* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}''. Justified in Season 5 because the angels have [[BoringButPractical recruited Christian fundamentalist street preachers to locate Sam and Dean]], as part of their plan to bring about the Apocalypse. So when these preachers say that Angels of the Lord have told them TheEndIsNigh, it's the literal truth.

* It's worth mentioning that ''Literature/TheBible'' is ambivalent about these types, claiming that only God knows when the world will end and anyone preaching of this is either misguided or outright a false prophet.

*** Following on from this the spinoff game ''VideoGame/{{Hearthstone}}'' has cards based on these Doomsayer characters, which proclaim "The end is coming!" on entering the playfield and [[KillEmAll destroys everything on the board]] if allowed to survive to the next turn. He says, "I knew it!" when he dies. If prevented from dying with a silencing effect and then buffed to be able to attack, his attack dialogue is, [[DevelopersForesight "Did I miss it?"]]

* ''ComicBook/{{Ms Marvel}}'': PlayedForLaughs. During an actual world ending event, a man can be sign with a sign saying "I told u the END was NIGH!! please buy my Mixtape" [sic]. After the world [[ComicBook/{{SecretWars}} does end and is subsequently reconstructed]], graffiti can be spotted reading "The end was nay."

** ''VideoGame/MassEffect'': Manuel, a delusional research assistant at the Eden Prime dig site, correctly foreshadows the Reaper's coming. He's rewarded with a [[TalkToTheFist punch to the face]], courtesy of a renegade Shepard.

Compare with TheCassandra, JustBeforeTheEnd, and HarbingerOfImpendingDoom. Not to be confused with SignsOfTheEndTimes, AStormIsComing, or VaguenessIsComing, none of which involve sandwich boards. May overlap with SignOfTheApocalypse, the StockPhrase joking that something unexpected signals the end of the world. When the media does this it's YouCanPanicNow.

* Seen in the miniseries of ''Series/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'', before the Earth is destroyed. When he realizes the end actually IS nigh, he abandons his sign.

* Ford Prefect portends this at the start of ''Radio/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy,'' without really telling anyone how--that a Vogon constructor fleet was on its way to demolish the Earth to make room for a hyperspace bypass. Ford eventually tells Arthur when the lead ship arrives.

* A GenericGraffiti version in ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater''. A bit of [[http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4xcq5muSp1qzayxbo1_1280.jpg graffiti]] written on the wall, when Jim enters a chapel reads: "The end is EXTREMELY FUCKING nigh." It's right too, as everyone in the chapel is dead except for the Infected.

* The card Doomsayer in ''VideoGame/{{Hearthstone}}'', which proclaims "The end is coming!" on entering the playfield and [[KillEmAll destroys everything on the board]] if allowed to survive to the next turn. He says, "I knew it!" when he dies. If prevented from dying with a silencing effect and then buffed to be able to attack, his attack dialogue is, [[DevelopersForesight "Did I miss it?"]]
** In Whispers of the Old Gods we have doomsayer's triumphant return in the form of validated doomsayer. Because the expansion is about the hour of twilight,[[note]]The day that the old gods awaken and claim the planet as their own, corrupting everything in their path[[/note]] he get the literal last laugh.
--->'''Validated Doomsayer:''' I was right all along!

See also TheCassandra, JustBeforeTheEnd and HarbingerOfImpendingDoom. Not to be confused with SignsOfTheEndTimes, VaguenessIsComing or AStormIsComing, which don't involve sandwich boards. May overlap with SignOfTheApocalypse, the StockPhrase joking that something unexpected signals the end of the world. When the media does this it's YouCanPanicNow.

[[quoteright:330:[[WesternAnimation/CloudyWithAChanceOfMeatballs https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cwacom_endisnigh.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:330:Guess which one wins.[[note]]Neither.[[/note]]]]

An obligatory trope for any depiction of TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt or the threat thereof is a scene of some [[CrazyHomelessPeople crazy-looking hobo]] (usually shown [[BeggarWithASignboard holding or wearing a sign]]), a street preacher (typically brandishing a [[Literature/TheBible Bible]]), or a common guy [[MadOracle believing himself to be a prophet]] (more times than not, wearing a [[CheapCostume bedsheet draped over as a makeshift robe]]) declaring that we should all repent because the world is coming to an end. Ha! [[CassandraTruth As if that will ever happen!]]

[[caption-width-right:330:Guess which one wins.]]

* Harold Camping's Judgement Day Predictions. There were six of them, total.
* The 2012 phenomenon.
* [[MillenniumBug Y2K.]]

* The DefectiveDetective PlayerCharacter of ''VideoGame/DiscoElysium'' can, after awakening with amnesia and a horrible gangover wrecked hotel room, begin preaching that the age of Armageddon is night. [[ProperlyParanoid They have a point]]: Revachol is a powder keg of [[ANaziByAnyOtherName fascists]], [[DirtyCommies crooked communists]], [[SociopathicSoldier psychopathic]] PrivateMilitaryContractors, [[ObstructiveBureaucrat an uncaring foreign-controlled government]], desperate poverty, and [[spoiler:a currently miniscule, but inexorably growing ''[[CosmicHorrorReveal hole in the fabric of spacetime]]'']]. Perfectly sane and sober individuals will wryly agree that, yes, something very big ''is'' likely to go down very soon, and it doesn't take a supernatural sense to figure it out.

* A guy like this is featured in one of the early issues of ''ComicBook/{{Buffy|the Vampire Slayer}} Season Eight''.

* A long running trope in magazine comics - always a guy in a robe with the sign saying the end is near. Best one is the man running down the street screaming "10 ... 9 ... 8 ..."

* ''ComicStrip/TheFamilyCircus'': After encountering a guy with a sign that says "The world will end tomorrow," Billy asks his mom if he still has to do his homework.

* In ''Film/GodToldMeTo'', some Christians interpret the outbreak of religious violence this way, and take to the streets waving signs that urge people to repent.

** The Season One finale of ''Series/{{Arrow}}'' has a variation where everyone is running like hell while waving the requisite doomsaying signs, because they've been told an EarthquakeMachine is about to level the Glades. [[TooDumbToLive Why anyone would waste time]] making up a sign under those circumstances is not explained.

* ''VideoGame/EmpireEarth'''s units change appearances as you progress through time, the final prophet unit is a homeless-looking guy wearing only a sandwich board with "The End Is Near" written on it. In all eras, the prophet unit will also vocalize that the end is coming and other apocalyptic phrases (since their entire function is to unleash natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes and volcanoes).
* There is actually a game called ''VideoGame/TheEndIsNigh''. [[NintendoHard Get ready to die a lot.]]
* The villains in ''VideoGame/FarCry5'' are the members of a fanatical doomsday cult that believes the world is about to end and are launching a holy war to "cleanse" nonbelievers of their sins (through torture, drugs, and brainwashing).
* ''VideoGame/{{Flight}}'': After the Egyptian man receives the plane, he looks at the drawing of a man and a woman near a fire and misinterprets it as some kind of catastrophe, after which he writes "THE END IS NEAR." on it.

** ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' has a "Mad Prophet" who uses the trope name: "Repent! The end is nigh!" (Presumably, he doesn't know about the [[EldritchAbomination Reapers]] who are planning to destroy all civilization; he blames humans as a "blight" - "You, sir, are a blight! And you! And you!")

* In the "Enter the Metro" trailer for ''[[VideoGame/Metro2033 Metro Last Light]]'', a scraggly homeless man is standing in the middle of a street in Moscow preaching about the end of the world - then he laughs as the [[WorldWarIII air raid alarms sound and ICBMs launch in the background]].

* The rabbit community of ''Webcomic/CrossedClaws'' has Jered, an old rabbit raving about how cats in the fields are going to kill them all. Of course, while there ''is'' a cat out there, she's one of the most kindhearted characters in the comic. [[spoiler: Of course, her ''caretakers'' are another story...]]

* In ''Webcomic/LearningWithMangaFGO'', Jeanne mistakes Paul Bunyan riding on Babe the Blue Ox for the Rider of the Apocalypse and begin ranting about the end of the world with a plank sign on her.

* ''WebVideo/ThereWillBeBrawl'' has this guy in the form of Olimar.

* Red Chocobo's LetsPlay of ''VideoGame/PokemonEmerald'' has the cutest The End is [[strike: Ny]] Nigh [[http://lparchive.org/Pokemon-Emerald/Update%2058/raltsarmageddon.jpg ever]].

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'' - a guy is holding a sign like this early in the episode. When we get to the MonsterOfTheWeek part it reads "Told You So".
* ''WesternAnimation/StaticShock'' - In the episode "Child's Play", A street preacher voiced by Garrett Morris holds one of these signs, and sees a fountain turning a bubbling red as a sign that thirty years of doing this has finally paid off; He is notably upset when it turns out to be a prank with fruit-flavored soda mix. He turns up to the sky and asks plaintively why God is messing with his head.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Kaeloo}}'': In the episode "Let's Play Ecologists", when Stumpy hears about air pollution, he panics and hyperventilates. He then assumes that his being unable to breathe properly is a result of air pollution, and he starts screaming "We're all going to die! [[TitleDrop The end is nigh!]]"
* ''WesternAnimation/TheCrumpets'': In "Belief Relief", when Uncle Hurry is introducing his brother's family to [[ScamReligion Paymeism]] and Ma asks Hurry why her family should join, he warns that "the end of the world is nigh" and adds that "only true-blue Paymeists will be saved."

* Subverted in ''VideoGame/Psychonauts2'': A denizen of Strike City wears a sign saying the world is ''not'' going to be destroyed, despite overwhelming evidence pointing towards the opposite claim.

* ''TabletopGame/TheOthers'' features a series of hobos who parade around with these signs warning of the doom that comes, and indeed it is coming as the Sins of the Apocalypse are coming down to destroy Earth. Funny enough, said hobos are part of the problem as they're corrupted monsters.

* Ross Twedell of Cultaholic lapses into this when he recaps something some sort of ShockingSwerve in whatever pro wrestling show he's recapping...

* ''Series/{{Arrow}}''. The Season One finale has a variation where everyone is running like hell while waving the requisite doomsaying signs, because they've been told an EarthquakeMachine is about to level the Glades. Why anyone would waste time making up a sign under those circumstances is not explained.

* In ''Series/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths2019'', Creator/WilWheaton plays a doomsday preacher who carries such a sign, warning people that the end is near and that Supergirl cannot save them, when a dragon comes out of the sky and attacks him, only for Supergirl to suddenly zoom down and protect him from the dragon's flame breath.

* ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow''. In "The One Where We're Trapped on TV", the Fates have rewritten history so Earth is a ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour''-type dystopia.
-->'''CannedOrdersOverLoudspeaker:''' The Fates are always watching. Relinquish free will. The world is perfect.
-->'''Gary:''' ''(wearing sandwich board saying THE WORLD IS WRONG!)'' The world is wrong! Can't you people see? None of this is how it should be! ''(sees Mona)'' Do I know you? You look familiar. Do you recognize me? My name is Gary but most people call me Crazy Guy.
-->'''Mona:''' Stay away from me, you weirdo!
-->'''Gary:''' Yeah, they call me that too.

* ''Film/TwelveMonkeys'' has one who stops his ranting to address the main character whilst in [[TheNineties '96]]. It's implied that many doomsayers are actually time travelers scattered throughout history who have gone insane.