Apocalypse Now is a Vietnam war movie made in 1979, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. It is based on Conrad’s book The Heart of Darkness. In Restless, Xander brings a video of Apocalypse Now for the Scoobies to watch. Later, Xander dreams of the scene in the movie of the encounter between Lieutenant Willard (Martin Sheen) and Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando) in which Principal Snyder plays the role of the Colonel. In Gingerbread, Snyder says, “I love the smell of desperate librarian in the morning” which is an adaptation of the famous line from the movie, when Lieutenant Colonel says, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning”.
A third Snyder-related reference to Apocalypse Now is in The Puppet Show. At the end of the episode, we get to see the dramatic scene that Buffy, Willow and Xander perform. One of Xander’s lines is: “Darkness! And horror of darkness.” At that moment, the camera cuts to Snyder sitting in the audience. The most memorable line of Conrad’s book belongs to Kurtz (the character that Snyder spoofed in Restless), who says, “The horror. The horror!”
The Angel episode Apocalypse Nowish is a clear reference to the book and film.