Four angels — Charlie (Charles Durning), Earl (Scatman Crothers), Gonzales (Castulo Guerra), and Ruth (Beatrice Straight) — have been in charge of Heaven for the last 25 years. They are playing a golf match in Heaven when their game is interrupted by God (voiced by Gene Hackman), who has returned to the office and does not like what he sees down on Earth. God wants to order up another flood and start all over again (despite his promise in the rainbow that he never would again), but the four angels persuade him to reconsider, reasoning that, if a typical Earth man can reform, it would prove that all mankind is capable of it.