Synopsis

Fresh out of college, Joe moves to New York and takes over a run-down apartment that is secretly home to thousands of singing, dancing cockroaches. As developers threaten the building and Joe struggles to find work and romance, his unlikely insect roommates become loyal allies, helping him fight back against the forces trying to destroy his new home.

Factoids & Trivia

• The film expanded John Payson's 1992 short Joe's Apt., which aired on MTV as filler between programs and commercials.

• Joe's Apartment was the first feature released under the MTV Films banner.

• The cockroaches were created through a combination of computer animation, puppetry, stop-motion work, and live insects rather than through a single effects technique.

• Blue Sky Studios provided computer animation for the film. It was the studio's first feature-film involvement before it became widely known for animated movies such as Ice Age.

• Billy West's performance as Ralph Roach marked his first role in a theatrically released film.

• The movie was released by Warner Bros. on July 26, 1996. Made on an estimated $13 million budget, it earned roughly $4.6 million in theaters.

• The end credits include a visual gag in which the cockroaches form the MTV logo before crawling away.

• For network television broadcasts, the name of Joe's band was changed from "SHIT" to "POO."