Film – Cicada Mania

Tatooine

I was chatting with John Cooley of Cicadas @ UCONN, and he suggested a list of cicadas heard in TV and Movies — so here it is. If you have any to add, leave them in the comments.

The scene in Star Wars (1977) where C3PO and R2-D2 are walking through the desert.

Around 9 minutes in. It’s less apparent in recent versions of the film, but you can hear it in older versions. Neotibicen tibicen cicadas can be heard in the background.

The scene in Captain Marvel (2019) where Captain Marvel is outside at dusk on the farm

Around 1 hour 11 minutes into the film. You’ll hear a mix of cicadas including a Neotibicen pruinosus and Neotibien linnei.

WandaVision on Disney+

I won’t say which episode, because the series is new, but a cicada prominently appears in at least 2 scenes in the series.

WandaVision

More to come… for now see the comments on Facebook.

I picked up a film on 16mm (what they showed to kids in school before VHS tapes were popular) called Cicada – The Insect Methuselah. I would love to see it, but I don’t have a 16mm projector (who does?) The film is presumably about 17/13 Year cicadas. I held the film up to a light, and it indeed features the Magicicada species.

The film was produced by the Moody Institute of Science in 1955, and I assume they still hold the copyright to the film. It is 12 minutes in length.

Update: Roy Troutman contacted us to let us know that this video footage can be found in another video: The Mystery of The Three Clocks, which you can watch here:

The most impressive thing about the video is the anatomical model of the cicada. I wish I had one (but I might have to go back to the 50’s to get one).