United Nations in Popular Culture - in Novels and TV

In Novels and TV

• United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (UNIT) in Doctor Who - later redesignated 'Unified Intelligence Taskforce' because of UN objections to the use of 'United Nations'.
• United Nations International Critical Response and Tactical Team (UNICRATT) in the novel Sahara by Clive Cussler
• In the Seafort Saga by David Feintuch the United Nations is the government of Earth and its colonies, and exercises control through the United Nations Naval Service.
• In the television series seaQuest DSV, following the growing colonization of the world's oceans, the world is brought into conflict over underwater territories which eventually leads to the collapse of the United Nations. The United Earth Oceans is formed to take its place
• The United Nations appears as the governing body of Earth in The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, with its military arm being the United Nations Exploratory Force.
• Also in Larry Niven's Known Space universe, the UN is the government of Earth, and is involved in a long-standing cold war with the independent Asteroid Belt, which nearly turns into hot war in "A World of Ptavvs". The Amalgamated Regional Militia began as a UN agency, and by the time of the books has become the de facto government of Earth.
• In Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, network president Jordan McDeere purchases the rights to a television show entitled Nations, to be set behind the scene in the United Nations.
• In the 1969 movie of the week Gidget Grows Up, "Gidget" Lawrence moves to New York and becomes a tour guide at the United Nations.
• One of the novels in the Choose Your Own Adventure book series is called UN Adventure, where the reader is a Model United Nations delegate that could be tasked to handle diplomatic assignments. One of them is verifying the existence of nuclear weapons inside the fictional former Soviet republic of Arkistan.
• In Arthur C. Clarke's 1953 novel "Childhood's End" a major character is Rikki Stormgren, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, a native of Finland who is chosen by the mysterious alien "Overlords", who took over the Earth, as their only liaison with the human race (Rikki).
• Similarly, in the 1983 science fiction miniseries V, the UN Secretary-General (in this case depicted as Swedish) makes first contact with the aliens known as the Visitors inside their transport, which lands on the UN headquarters' rooftop.
• The World Council takes the place of the UN in the Centurions.
• A recurring phrase in the CHERUB series of books is "Why don't you write a letter to the United Nations?", upon someone claiming unfair treatment or a breach of the rules of a training exercise.
• In the science fiction series Space: Above and Beyond, the colonization of deep space and the War against an alien race called the Chigs are done under a United Nations banner.
• The UN plays a prominent role in the eighth season of the Emmy Award- winning hit drama/thriller television series 24 when terrorists carry out a political assassination plot targeting a Middle Eastern leader who is signing a peace treaty at the UN Headquarters with the President of the United States.
• The United Nations serves as the setting for most of the second half of The Terrible Secret of Turtle Bay, the pilot episode of the animated series The Venture Bros.
• The Australian series Answered by Fire is about 1999 East Timor conflicts and the United Nations Mission in East Timor.
• The British series Warriors is about the British forces part of the United Nations Protection Force during the Yugoslav Wars.
• In Isaac Asimov's "Shah Guido G.", the United Nations becomes a tyrannical and oppressive world government, with a dynasty of hereditary Secretaries-General, the title shortened to "Sekjen", acting as global absolute monarchs and ruling the Earth from a levitating island called Atlantis. The one under whose rule this tyranny is ended is Sekjen Guido Garshthavastra.
• Poul Anderson's "The Psychotechnic League" starts in the aftermath of a devastating nuclear war in 1958 (a future date at the time of writing). The United Nations is re-founded at a conference in Rio De Janeiro and sets to work to transform itself into an effective world government, so as to prevent a recurrence of war. This is violently opposed by nationalists in various countries, and all over the world politics polarize into "pro-UN" vs. "anti-UN" parties. The UN creates a special corps of "Un-Men", the name having the double connotation of their being "UN Men" and of having superhuman powers. The UN is the very clear and unequivocal "good guy" of the series, reflecting Anderson's Liberal views at the time.
• On the animated show Animaniacs, the Warners sing a song about the U.N. to the tune of Down By the Riverside, referencing the building's location on the shore of the East River.
• In the Left Behind series of novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, based on the Christian eschatological viewpoint of the end of the world, a major villain is the Romanian UN Secretary General Nicolae Carpathia who turns out to be, quite literally, the Antichrist.
• The plot of Philip K. Dick's Martian Time-Slip (1964), taking place in a human colony on Mars, is set in motion by a character trying to stake a claim to the seemingly worthless Franklin D. Roosevelt mountain range after receiving an insider tip that the United Nations plans to build a huge apartment complex there. The complex would be called "AM-WEB", a contraction of the German phrase "Alle Menschen werden Brüder" (All men become brothers) from Schiller's An die Freude (Ode to Joy).