Since the days of radio entertainment, the sound of crickets chirping has been used as an indication that a scene is taking place late at night. In comedy formats, the sound of crickets may be used to humorously indicate a dead silence when a response, such as laughter after a punch line, is expected.[15] Similarly, in online communication, writers may use the concept of "crickets chirping" in a rhetorical sense to signal that the writer believes that he or she has made a point that a hypothetical opponent cannot answer. The space that would have been occupied by the nonexistent answer is instead occupied by the symbolic word *crickets* or *chirp chirp* to symbolize this silence.
The Walt Disney Company has used a number of notable cricket characters in their animated movies. In the 1940s Pinocchio, Jiminy Cricket becomes the title character's conscience, and in Mulan, Cri-kee is carried in a cage as a symbol of luck, as in many Asian countries.
Chester Cricket is the main character in the children's book The Cricket In Times Square by George Selden, which was named a Newbery Honor Book in 1961.
The Crickets were the band of legendary rock and roll pioneer Buddy Holly. In Lubbock, Texas, Holly's home town, a baseball team in the Texas-Louisiana League were called the Lubbock Crickets. "Cricket" is also musician's slang for a harmonica. Van Morrison may be heard calling for the "cricket" in the studio version of "Bright Side of the Road", introducing the harmonica solo.
Cricket is the name of a US children's literary magazine founded in 1973. Advanced concepts in the stories and poems are explained by a cast of insect and other small creatures drawn in the margins. The lead of these cartoon characters is Cricket, the magazine's namesake.