History Main / CockroachesWillRuleTheEarth

* In ''Film/MenInBlack'', the big bad is essentially a giant space cockroach who wants to ensure earth's destruction and start a war with the Arquillians by stealing the galaxy from the Arquillian prince. He considers his kind superior to and more evolved than humans, willing to kill them over swatting an Earth bug.

* ''Series/TheStand'': Glen Bateman talks to a roach while in a jail cell musing on the mistakes humanity has made that led to them being nearly wiped out by the superflu and siding with Randall Flagg. He remarks that humans could learn a thing or two from the roaches, and that the roach will likely be around long after Bateman' own impending death. [[spoiler:Then Randall Flagg crushes it underfoot. Both mocking Bateman and underscoring that not even ''roaches'' are safe from Flagg.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/RockAndRule'' has an intro narration that, After The End, the dogs, cats and rats ascended to mastery of the ravaged Earth, and have rebuilt their new civilization atop the debris of the old, making it a WorldOfFunnyAnimals.

-->''You can kill a couple of us off and then think it was goodbye?''\\
''But you never get us all, it‘s pointless to even try''\\
''Oh no not I! We will survive!''\\
''As long as there’s not a nuclear war, we'll be here by your side''\\
''And if there ever is one, we won’t be the ones to die''\\
''We will survive, we will survive!''

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'': In the episode "Wanda's Day Off!", Timmy wishes he knew what a cockroach was thinking about. When Cosmo [[TooDumbToLive grants the cockroach intelligence and the ability to speak]], it immediately stands up on its hind legs and yells "WORLD DOMINATION!" Throughout the rest of the episode, the cockroaches organize, gather weapons, and proceed to TakeOverTheWorld. Cosmo can't stop them since the roaches cannot be killed by magic. The situation is resolved when Wanda comes back and un-wishes the whole mess by sending the roaches to Fairy World (more specifically, the spa resort where she was poorly treated).

* ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'': In "Hereafter, Part II", Superman finds himself stranded on a future Earth, thousands of years [[AfterTheEnd after an apocalyptic event]] caused by ComicBook/VandalSavage (the only other person alive) and with a race of intelligent giant cockroaches as their enemies.
* ''WesternAnimation/PeaceOnEarth'': Made in 1939 (just before World War II would be set off), and is set after a fatal global war in which humans have gone extinct, as told by a kindly old squirrel (voiced by Mel Blanc) to his grandchildren in which the animals of the earth build a new civilization following this self inflicted omnicide. This was also remade in 1955 as ''WesternAnimation/GoodWillToMen'' and modified with an anti-nuclear warfare message.

* [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] in ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls1998'' when TheProfessor lectures the girls on the importance of respecting nature when they try to kill a roach that got indoors, and hypothesizes that their immunity to radiation would eventually lead to [[InsectoidAliens bug people]] inheriting the Earth. Soon after, StarterVillain Roach Coach attempts to make this a reality and TakeOverTheWorld.

This trope was frequent during the Cold War, when people feared that TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt was near, and it was also discovered that cockroaches have much higher radiation resistance than human beings. Unfortunately for popular culture, it turns out that while cockroaches have higher resistance to a sudden lethal burst, they are just as subject to harm from long-term fallout as most life. Further, as pointed out in ''Series/LifeAfterPeople'', cockroaches are tropical to semi-tropical insects: their current extensive range is a consequence of humans heating their homes and businesses. With no humans -- and more to the point, no artificial heating -- around, cockroach populations would plummet fairly swiftly in temperate and colder areas once winter sets in. Worth noting here is that a nuclear war severe enough to wipe out humanity would also result in severe worldwide nuclear winter, making it a particularly devastating apocalypse for any heat-loving creature.

This trope was frequent during the Cold War, when people feared that TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt was near, and it was also discovered that cockroaches have much higher radiation resistance than human beings. Unfortunately for popular culture, it turns out that cockroaches have higher resistance to a sudden lethal burst, but are as subject to long-term fallout as most life. Further, as pointed out in ''Series/LifeAfterPeople'', cockroaches are tropical to semi-tropical insects: their current extensive range is a consequence of humans heating their homes and businesses. With no humans -- and more to the point, no artificial heating -- around, cockroach populations would plummet fairly swiftly in temperate and colder areas once winter sets in. Worth noting here is that a nuclear war severe enough to wipe out humanity would also result in severe worldwide nuclear winter, making it a particularly devastating apocalypse for any heat-loving creature.

* ''Franchise/{{Splatoon}}'': In the backstory, humans rendered themselves and every other mammal extinct via global warming. A small contingency of humans fled the calamity on the surface by seeking refuge in a flooded, underground cavern full of squids, octopuses, jellyfish, and other sea creatures. The humans filled the roof of the cave with screens made of a special crystal that would reflect their hopes and dreams - in this case, to see the sky again - while they worked on an escape plan. Unfortunately, this ended in a failure so catastrophic it wiped out their small pocket of civilization, destroying some of the screens and causing the crystal shards to drop into the water below. Absorbing humanity's dreams through the crystals, the sea creatures crawled their way onto land and began to evolve into more humanoid forms, eventually becoming Inklings, Octarians, etc. and starting their own civilizations.

* ''Franchise/{{Splatoon}}'': In the backstory, humans rendered themselves and every other mammal extinct via global warming, and so eventually various sea creatures like squids, octopuses, jellyfish, etc. crawled their way onto land and went through a new process of evolution into more humanoid forms, becoming the Inklings, Octarians, etc. and starting their own civilizations.

* ''WesternAnimation/PeaceOnEarth'': Made in 1939 (just before World War II would be set off), and is set after a fatal global war war in which humans have gone extinct, as told by a kindly old squirrel (voiced by Mel Blanc) to his grandchildren in which the animals of the earth build a new civilization following this self inflicted omnicide. This was also remade in 1955 as ''WesternAnimation/GoodWillToMen'' and modified with an anti-nuclear warfare message.

* ''VideoGame/{{Splatoon}}'': In the backstory, humans rendered themselves and most other land animals extinct via global warming, and so eventually various sea creatures like squids, octopuses, jellyfish, etc. crawled their way onto land and went through a new process of evolution into more humanoid forms, becoming the Inklings, Octarians, etc. and eventually starting their own civilizations.

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Most major extinction events end up as this; the smallest life forms tend to survive easier and in some cases became dominant later. This is what happened to mammals after the extinction of dinosaurs, for example.
[[/folder]]

* Referenced in ''Literature/TheLastContinent'': the [[ItMakesSenseInContext God of Evolution]] has been designing an "ultimate life form," guaranteed to survive any disaster. Ponder Stibbons assumes it must be humanity and is revolted to learn that it is a cockroach.

-->You can kill a couple of us off and then think it was goodbye?\\
But you never get us all, it‘s pointless to even try\\
Oh no not I! We will survive!\\
As long as there’s not a nuclear war, we'll be here by your side\\
And if there ever is one, we won’t be the ones to die\\
We will survive, we will survive!

-->"Look, buddy, after the bombs drop it's just gonna be ''her'' and ''us'', and we don't want no trouble!"

* According to Creator/RobinWilliams, after humanity is gone Keith Richards will be the only thing living aside from cockroaches while reminiscing about how he smoked one of them.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' "Tomb Worlds", planets whose native sapient life wiped themselves out in a nuclear war, often host pre-sapient life that can be {{uplifted|Animal}}, enabling easier colonization of other Tomb Worlds. [[https://www.dropbox.com/s/50ucz2uhsuzsz9v/Earth%20Tomb.png?dl=0 Earth]] is special: if it spawns as a Tomb World (it is one of the four possibilities for Earth in the 50% that Sol spawns in a game where it isn't the seat of one of the starting empires), it will never host pre-sapient life at first look... because it will always have a unique anomaly that when surveyed reveals a species of pre-sapient insects[[note]]it ''is'' possible to encounter a Tomb World Earth without this unique trait, but the probability is much, much slimmer: WW2-era Earth can given time advance to the Atomic Age, and there has a small chance of nuclear war[[/note]].

* Discussed in ''Literature/TheLastContinent'': the [[ItMakesSenseInContext God of Evolution]] has been designing an "ultimate life form," guaranteed to survive any disaster. Ponder Stibbons assumes it must be humanity and is revolted to learn that it is a cockroach.

* ''Literature/ClassicSingaporeHorrorStories'' has a short titled "Cockroach" where the protagonist finds an undergeound civilization of giant, talking roaches (ruled by their man-sized albino king) who awaits an impending nuclear war between humans, so they will rule over what's left of humanity once the war is over.

* ''Literature/ClassicSingaporeHorrorStories'' has a short titled "Cockroach" where the protagobist finds an undergeound civilization of giant, talking roaches (ruled by their man-sized albino king) who awaits an impending nuclear war between humans, so they will rule over what's left of humanity once the war is over.

* Played with in ''Manga/{{Arachnid}}'', as an Organization of human assassins obssessed with the traits of bugs deliberately nukes Japan during WWII and later sets up a ZombieApocalypse so that they could depopulate the country and rule over its remains. In the sequel ''Manga/{{Blattodea}}'', named after the order cockroaches belong to, Chiyuri is an American-cockroach themed homeless girl who tries to thrive in the apocalypse and Megumi the house-roach rules over a prison that gathers the survivors.

[[folder: Comic Books]]

[[folder: Film -- Animated]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/WallE'' the only sign of animal life on the garbage-covered Earth is a seemingly indestructible cockroach.

[[folder: Film -- Live-Action]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

[[folder: Live-Action Television]]

* ''Series/CowboyBebop2021''. Faye Valentine likes a variation of RockPaperScissors called Foot-Cockroach-Atomic Bomb.

* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'': The killer of the week in the episode "A Daze of Wine and Roaches" was a FriendToBugs sous chef who impulsively murdered his restaurant's head chef to prevent the man from killing an exotic cockroach that had wandered into the kitchen. His MotiveRant includes this tidbit of trivia as an explanation of why roaches are awesome and worth protecting. Of course, Detective Danny Messer can only show disbelief about the man's priorities.
-->'''Danny:''' [''[[DisappointedByTheMotive In a "you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me" drawl]]''] So you killed a man… over a cockroach?
* ''Series/DoomPatrol2019'' has Ezekiel, the talking [[TheFundamentalist Christian zealot]] cockroach, who believes himself to be the destined ruler of the Earth once the apocalypse wipes out mankind.

* A variation of the "cockroaches and X" joke surfaced on ''Series/EastEnders'': at one point tough-skinned survivor Pat Butcher observed that after the apocalypse it would be just her and the scorpions. Cue [[Series/HarryHillsTVBurp Harry Hill]] musing that [[FridgeLogic if that were the case]] they would [[CrackPairing eventually have to mate]], leading to that week's mid-episode CurbStompBattle featuring a hybrid half-scorpion, half-Pat Butcher creature known as a [=ScorpiPat=].

[[folder: Music]]

* It's not clear who originally said ([[https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/they-always-said-cher-and-cockroaches-could-survive-the-end-of-the-world-lately-shes-not-so-sure-about-that/2018/11/26/3365acc4-eb70-11e8-8679-934a2b33be52_story.html back in the Nineties]], apparently) that after the apocalypse it would be just cockroaches and Music/{{Cher}}, but at one point Cher herself supposedly repeated the joke and commented: "Someone once said, 'The only thing that will be left after a nuclear holocaust is Cher and cockroaches.' I think that's funny, because, you know, I am a survivor. If I am anything, that's what I am."

[[folder: Stand Up Comedy ]]
* On pondering this trope, Irish comedian Jimeoin wondered if cockroaches had the same terror of sandals (often used to squash cockroaches) that people have of nuclear war, and imagined that cockroaches might write protest songs about them.
* Adam Ferrara joked about how his wife was so strict and controlling that he came home one day to find his household cockroaches running the vacuum cleaner and yelling "Wipe your feet!" at him:
-->"Look, buddy, after the bombs drop it's just gonna be ''her'' and ''us'', and we don't want no trouble!"
* According to Creator/RobinWilliams, after humanity is gone Keith Richards will be the only thing living aside from cockroaches while reminiscing about how he smoked one of them.

[[folder: Tabletop Games]]
* ''TabletopGame/{{Chrononauts}}'': One of the character cards is an intelligent cockroach from a timeline like this. In order to get "home", they have to [[MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight make sure the Cuban Missile Crisis escalates into]] WorldWarIII.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games]]

* In ''VideoGame/HatofulBoyfriend'', the story takes place in a world where humans were nearly wiped out by a mutation of the bird flu virus. In an attempt to stop the spread of the disease, the remaining humans created a new virus which was designed to kill the birds carrying the bird flu. However, instead of killing the birds, the new virus made the birds much more intelligent, and able to wage war on the humans. Though some humans still survived, the war resulted in birds becoming the new dominant life forms on earth.

[[folder: Webcomics]]
* The [[https://www.gocomics.com/breaking-cat-news/2019/12/08 December 8, 2019]] edition of Webcomic/BreakingCatNews recommends that cat owners should buy Christmas cacti instead of poinsettia, since they have attractive red flowers but are harmless to cats. They are also "virtually indestructible -- when the world ends, this will all be Christmas cacti and cockroaches." A graphic depicts the familiar mushroom cloud and cockroaches [[DancinInTheRuins dancing happily]] among the cacti.
* In ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'', Grace comes across a giant roach and [[https://www.egscomics.com/egsnp/fantasywasteland-03 notes]] that it's a staple of the post-apocalypse.

[[folder: Web Video]]
* Australian filmmaker David Johns and his friend Matt Eastwood posted [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4dYWhkSbTU this parody]] of ''Series/PlanetEarth'' on Youtube in which Creator/DavidAttenborough predicts the "bin chicken" (actually the Australian white ibis, which has a tendency to forage in rubbish bins) will inherit the Earth after pollution has killed off the human race: ''Planet Bin Chicken.''
* ''WebVideo/TierZoo'': Subverted in the video discussing what would happen if humans were nerfed. Cockroaches would be quickly forced to retreat to the tropics, as they would no longer have access to the heated houses they depend on to survive the winter in higher latitudes. Likewise, rats would also experience a sharp decline without access to human food stores or the ability to retreat into houses to avoid predators.

[[folder: Western Animation]]

[[folder: Real Life]]

* ''Series/CSINewYork'': The killer of the week in the episode "A Daze of Wine and Roaches" was a FriendToBugs sous chef who impulsively murdered his restaurant's head chef to prevent the man from killing an exotic cockroach that had wandered into the kitchen. His MotiveRant includes this tidbit of trivia as an explanation of why roaches are awesome and worth protecting. Of course, Detective Danny Messer can only show disbelief about the man's priorities.