a panicked Lily flees, only to discover the garden she'd worked on has been burned to the ground. During a fight with his roommates over his spoiled romantic evening, the building suffers the same fate as the garden. A mutual truce between the hapless and now homeless roommates leads the cockroaches to "call in favors from every roach, rat and pigeon in New York City" to try to make amends to Joe. Overnight, the roaches scour New York to gather materials to convert the entire area into a garden and take care of all the necessary paperwork to ensure harmony reigns over all. Cast Jerry O'Connell as Joe (AKA Joe F. Grotowski) Megan Ward as Lily Dougherty Jim Turner as Walter Shit Sandra Denton as Blank Robert Vaughn as Senator Dougherty Don Ho as Alberto Bianco Jim Sterling as Jesus Bianco Shiek Mahmud-Bey as Vladimir Bianco David Huddleston as P.I. Smith Vincent Pastore as Apartment broker Paul Bartel as NEA scout Richard "Moby" Hall as Club DJ Graham Dewar as Pizza delivery guy Nick Zedd as customer Solange Monnier as customer Cockroach voices Rockapella as The Roach Chorus Billy West as Ralph Reginald Hudlin as Rodney Jim Turner BD Wong Jim Sterling Dave Chappelle Tim Blake Nelson Godfrey Rick Aviles Corey Burton Bam Bam Bigelow Production John Payson originally created the short film Joe's Apt. in 1992, which aired on MTV as filler in-between commercial breaks. Payson said he was inspired by a 1987 short film called Those Damn Roaches and the 1987 Japanese film Twilight of the Cockroaches, the latter crossing hand-drawn animation and live action. After the short received a CableACE Award, MTV executives were impressed enough to discuss producing a feature adaptation with Payson. In 1993, MTV made a deal with Geffen Pictures during development to produce films based on the network's properties and release them through Warner Bros. While Joe's Apartment was put into production with a $13 million budget, a feature film adaptation of Beavis and Butt-Head was also put into development. Joe's Apartment was the first feature film Blue Sky Studios was involved in, having produced company logos and animated commercials before. Under Chris Wedge's supervision, Blue Sky produced computer-animated sequences of the cockroaches. The film also blended them with scenes of puppetry, real cockroaches, and stop-motion animation (including the TV roach porn). Executives at 20th Century Fox were impressed enough with Joe's Apartment