Joe's Apartment (1996)

A nice guy has just moved to New York and discovers that he must share his run-down apartment with a couple thousand singing, dancing cockroaches.

Director:

John Payson

Writers:

John Payson (short film), John Payson (screenplay)

Stars:

Jerry O'Connell, Megan Ward, Billy West

2 wins.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jerry O'Connell	...	Joe
Megan Ward	...	Lily Dougherty
Billy West	...	Ralph Roach (voice)
Reginald Hudlin	...	Rodney Roach (voice)
Jim Turner	...	Walter Shit / Voice of Cockroach
Pepa	...	Blank (as Sandra Denton)
Robert Vaughn	...	Senator Dougherty
Don Ho	...	Alberto Bianco
Jim Sterling	...	Jesus Bianco / Voice of Cockroach
Shiek Mahmud-Bey	...	Vladimir Bianco
David Huddleston	...	P.I. Smith
Frank Bello	...	Stick-Up Man #1
Lord Kayson	...	Stick-Up Man #2
Alex Molina	...	Stick-Up Man #3
Wayman Ezell	...	Apartment Broker #1

Storyline

Joe comes from Iowa to New York and, being short of money, wants to find an apartment with very low rent. His quest is successful, but he must share the residence with some 50,000 cockroaches. The insects turn out to be Joe's best friends.

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Plot Keywords:

close up of eye | close up of eyes | close up of lips | close up of mouth | new york | 

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Taglines:

MTV's 1st Movie!

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Genres:

Comedy | Fantasy | Musical | Sci-Fi

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for crude humor and a brief drug reference

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English Spanish

Release Date:

26 July 1996 (USA)

Also Known As:

Joes lya

Filming Locations:

New York City, New York, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$13,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$1,854,000, 28 July 1996, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$4,611,624, 8 September 1996

Company Credits

Production Co:

Geffen Pictures, MTV Films, MTV Networks

Technical Specs

Runtime:

80 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The first ever feature film produced by MTV Networks.

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Goofs

An African elephant, identifiable by its long ears, passes through town and Joe collects its dung. Later, flowers grow on the dung and he presents them to Lily, who says that the flowers only grow on the dung of elephants native to southeast Asia. Lily claims to have written her senior thesis on this species of flower, so it is unlikely that she has misidentified them or that she is mistaken about where they grow.

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Quotes

Rodney Roach: Ralphie! I'm surprised at you! Does this mean you're giving up?
Ralph Roach: Give up? Give up? What are you saying to me? How come us roaches have been able to outlast the dinosaurs? How do we survive poison and persecution? How do we keep on crawling, in the face of overwhelming odds? I'll tell you how: because WE NEVER GIVE UP! A true cockroach never gives up. They can stomp us, they can pop us, but they'll never ever stop us. Someday the great H-bomb is gonna drop, and we'll have the whole planet to ...

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Crazy Credits

Filmed entirely in New York City except for one scene we had to go to Newark for.

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Connections

Referenced in Infected (2008)

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Soundtracks

86
Written by Billie Joe Armstrong, Tre Cool (as Frank Wright) & Mike Dirnt (as Michael Pritchard)
Performed by Green Day
Courtesy of Reprise Records

User Reviews

Singing and dancing cockroaches. Is that ingenuity or what? Ha, ha!

This movie is pretty funny. What it lacks in intelligence, it makes up for in fun.

Joe(O'Connell)has just to New York City and into his first apartment. The only problem: it's infested with thousands of talking cockroaches. They all seem to be a pain in Joe's butt, but the roaches come in more useful for him than he thought.

This movie is no classic, of course I don't think any of MTV's movies will be considered classics. But they are really funny(also see Beavis and Butt-Head Do America and Dead Man On Campus).

It's a hilarious and fun little flick, even for people who don't like bugs. 8/10