Koyaanisqatsi - Influence

Influence

The music from Koyaanisqatsi has been used throughout popular culture ever since the film's release. The film's title song was featured in two episodes of the TV series Scrubs. The first time was in "My New God" when the Janitor gave the "evil eye" to J.D. The second time was in "My Chopped Liver" when the Janitor gave the "evil eye" to Carla accompanied by Todd, Laverne & Ted.

The song appears in Season Six of the CW series Gilmore Girls, in the episode "We've Got Magic to Do." Kirk performs an interpretive dance as the song appears in the background. The chanted "koyaanisqatsi" lyric from the film's title song was parodied in P. D. Q. Bach's "Prelude to Einstein on the Fritz", replaced with the lyric "coy hotsy-totsy". The word "koyaaniqatsi" was used in the Dan Brown novel Angels & Demons to describe the view of Rome from a helicopter.

• The Madonna video for "Ray of Light" visually resembles Koyaanisqatsi.
• The first public Grand Theft Auto IV gameplay trailer featured the Pruit Igoe theme, and was presented in a similar fashion. Pruit Igoe was also featured in the game on the ambient music radio station, The Journey.
• The film adaptation of Watchmen features the songs Prophecies and Pruitt Igoe during the scenes of Dr. Manhattan talking about his origins, and was also used in one of the trailers for the film. Both songs are featured on the film's soundtrack, albeit mixed together (without the chanting "Koyaanisqatsi" words), as the title reads "Pruit Igoe & Prophecies". Although the track starts with "Prophecies", "Pruit Igoe" is credited first. The track is performed by The Philip Glass Ensemble.
• Mystery Science Theater 3000 references the movie in their sendup of Parts: The Clonus Horror as there is an organ passage and they solemnly sing the title track for a second. They also reference it briefly in their riffs of Catalina Caper, Space Travelers and The Human Duplicators.
• The theme of the 1987 video game Delta is heavily based on the theme from Koyaanisqatsi.
• The music video for the Grace Jones song "Pull Up to the Bumper" uses some of the time-lapse footage from the The Grid sequence.
• In Season 11 Simpsons episode "Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder" Homer is shown sleeping for two days in a time-lapse scene and music imitating Philip Glass' score.
• In the Season 21 Simpsons episode "Stealing First Base", Homer takes Bart to see an Itchy and Scratchy film called Koyaanis-Scratchy: Death Out of Balance, which parodies and is named after Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance.
• The first Enigma (musical project) record is highly reminiscent of "Koyaanisqatsi".
• The instrumental piece "Struggle For Pleasure" by Wim Mertens is highly reminiscent of the Koyaanisqatsi soundtrack. Mertens met Glass when he organized a concert for the latter in Belgium.
• The Strokes video for "Hard to Explain" contains several images from Koyaanisqatsi.
• Cunninlynguists track "The Distance" on their album Strange Journey Volume One samples Koyannisqatsi throughout the song.
• In the Season 22 Simpsons episode "The Real Housewives of Fat Tony", Otto Mann attempts to watch the DVD of Koyaanisqatsi after taking hallucinogenic mushrooms.