#john payson

Joe’s Apartment John Payson. 1996

Yankee Stadium 1 E 161 St, The Bronx, NY 10451, USA See in map

Joe’s Apartment John Payson. 1996

Ending 295 Madison Ave #37th, New York, NY 10017, USA See in map

Joe’s Apt. short film (1989) plus trailer for Joe’s Apartment movie (1996)

Twilight of the Cockroaches later influenced MTV’s short Joe’s Apartment and later movie version - both directed by John Payson. Joe’s Apartment’s roaches here also have a perspective on human relationships and similar camera angles and techniques, except here it is played more for laughs and set in even grimer New York City. Since I can’t really see talking about Joe’s Apartment on this blog later, I’d mention it now.

It’s further worth mentioning that the Joe’s Apartment movie was Blue Sky Studios’ first theatrical film project. Their work on the movie led to the studio being bought by 20th Century Fox and of course now Blue Sky is a prominent animation studio known for Ice Age and The Peanuts Movie. Blue Sky’s animation is prominent in the musical sequences with the roaches, though the movie also uses stop-motion, puppetry, and real scattering roaches filmed at high speed.