We’ve all heard it, in movies or tv: There’s a dramatic silence, and we hear the chirping of crickets. When was the first time this effect was used?
I hope you have better luck than I did.
20 hours and counting:
chirp
I don’t have the answer, and I hope this isn’t a highjack but in city scenerios, isn’t it the buzzing neon sign?
Cue the crickets! and
Okay, now stick the fork back into the socket…
Bugs Bunny!
Show Biz Bugs, from 1957, is the earliest firm example of the trope I could find, yes–it’s the one with Bugs and Daffy competing on stage, and Daffy invariably gets crickets (at least until BOOM). I can’t help but think it was an established joke they were referencing, though. Perhaps it arose in Vaudeville originally? It may even have originated from earlier, more dramatically intentioned uses of cricket sounds to indicate silence or emptiness. I found a reference to a musical piece from the 1850s (G.F. Root’s The Haymakers) using simulated cricket sounds to suggest “distance”, but it’s probably unrelated.
All I can say for certain is that between Buddy Holly’s band and that bloody British sport, it’s a difficult thing to search for online.
One of my favorite Simpsons bits: When Mr. Burns is trying to get recognition and gives a million dollar check to Homer to take to the children’s hospital, then he sits back and waits, and waits, and waits, finally day turns into night and you hear the cricket sounds thru his open office window, so Burns presses a button on his desk labeled CRICKET POISON and you hear a gas escape and little high-pitched coughing sounds!