Every State A Show

January 16, 2011 4:20 PM

America by TV Shows. America by movies.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul (48 comments total)

Also: US sitcom map, NYC Sitcom map, and a whole series of Pop Culture Charts. As far as anyone can tell, this started with a Reddit post that got picked up by the Huffington Post.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 4:26 PM on January 16, 2011

Questioning why Fargo is appropriate for Minnesota means you haven't watched Fargo.
posted by billypilgrim at 4:31 PM on January 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

Taxi Driver for the entire state on New York?

That's just wrong. First of all, there ought to be a New York City category, separate from the State. That way, Sleepy Hollow can and should be placed on the 'Upstate New York' list, just as Godfather I, half of Godfather II and all of the awful Godfather III can take place in NYC, free from the leagues of poor and hungry debarking at Ellis Island.

Here's a handy list from Wikipedia, just to get people started. Upstate NY and The City are distinctly separate States of mind -- sort of like DC, MD and VA.
posted by vhsiv at 4:39 PM on January 16, 2011 [2 favorites]

Oh, Roseanne. It was nice growing up with an even vaguely recognizable family on TV.
posted by Pope Guilty at 4:40 PM on January 16, 2011

Evil Dead was a TV show?
posted by leotrotsky at 4:40 PM on January 16, 2011 [2 favorites]

Robocop was shot in Houston. Red Dawn was shot in New Mexico. I know that's not where they're technically set, I'm just sayin'.

Waynes World for Delaware made me laugh, though.
posted by Navelgazer at 4:41 PM on January 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

California needs at least three, because Los Angeles, San Francisco and Fresno/Modesto do not exist in the same universe. (Especially obvious here on the Central Coast, almost the same distance from all three, where cultures aren't so much colliding as bouncing off each other).
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:46 PM on January 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

I imagine lots of states could use a separate list for movies set in their largest city versus movies set in the state abroad. For Kentucky, you could have a movie for Eastern Kentucky (Matewan*), a movie for horsey Kentucky (Secretariat) and for Louisville, you could do The Insider. Honorable mention for Kentucky would be Fire Down Below (Steven Segal!) and Stripes (filmed a few miles from where I grew up and starring Bill Murray!). Oh, and also Bond's Goldfinger, wherein the titular villain seeks to steal the gold from Ft. Knox.

* - Yes, I know it's not in Kentucky, but it's VERY close and a similar milieu.
posted by Slothrop at 4:47 PM on January 16, 2011

The Office for Pennsylvania? Mr. Belvedere totally got robbed.
posted by octothorpe at 4:48 PM on January 16, 2011

Robocop was supposed to be a future Detroit, but I actually think The Crow has a better feel for what Detroit's decay is like. The movie doesn't explicitly reference Detroit, but the comic's writer lived in Detroit and was clearly referencing the city in the comics.
posted by Slothrop at 4:48 PM on January 16, 2011

I'm glad it put in DC. I hate it when DC is left out. But I think they should have made a separate map for comedies and for drama. They shouldn't mix those up. Also, they shouldn't mix up reality tv shows in it either. Something about that just seems lazy.
posted by anniecat at 4:52 PM on January 16, 2011

They forgot my favorite Rhode Island-based sitcom, "The Hieronymus Bosch Show."
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 at 4:53 PM on January 16, 2011 [2 favorites]

Uh, Parks and Recreation takes place in Indiana. Eerie, IN probably didn't last very long and isn't as well known. Hurrumph.
posted by anniecat at 4:54 PM on January 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

And, oh my God, so many really good shows took place in Illinois and they picked Hill Street Blues. Grumble grumble.
posted by anniecat at 4:58 PM on January 16, 2011

Hill Street Blues wasn't set in Chicago or anywhere specifically. The cars all said "Metro Police" and it was intended to be a generic midwestern city although Bochco based the name on Pittsburgh's Hill District.
posted by octothorpe at 5:05 PM on January 16, 2011

Did not understand why Jesus Camp deserved two states, nor why (as one commenter pointed out) Delaware got Wayne's World. Because of one mention in the movie?

Fast Times at Ridgemont High for California seemed apt though.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 5:29 PM on January 16, 2011

Ohio='Gummo'? WTF?
posted by crosten at 5:33 PM on January 16, 2011

Why are Twin Peaks, Bonanza, Murder She Wrote, Dallas and Big Love on the U.S. sitcom map?
posted by plastic_animals at 5:39 PM on January 16, 2011

Wouldn't Fight Club be a better choice for Delaware?
posted by octothorpe at 5:51 PM on January 16, 2011 [3 favorites]

All I can say is, "The River's Edge" really captured what it was like (including, yes, murder) at the junior high school I attended in a mid-sized Canadian city in the mid-80s.
posted by KokuRyu at 5:57 PM on January 16, 2011

Well, based on the movie map, Louisiana is the most badass state in the union.
posted by brundlefly at 6:41 PM on January 16, 2011

I'm kinda surprised that they didn't list the entire Twilight series for Washington State.
posted by spinifex23 at 6:43 PM on January 16, 2011

Double
posted by Gary at 6:47 PM on January 16, 2011

Wayne and Garth lived in Aurora, IL. DE is a nonsensical place to list them.
posted by paisley henosis at 6:48 PM on January 16, 2011

This again?
posted by ethnomethodologist at 7:09 PM on January 16, 2011

RoboCop was filmed in Dallas, not Houston. The Big D looked like the City of the Future in the 1980s. Amusing factoid: OCP's headquarters is Dallas City Hall, designed by I.M. Pei.
posted by raysmj at 7:10 PM on January 16, 2011

Why is Minnesota's sitcom not The Mary Tyler Moore show? I mean, maybe it doesn't represent the whole state, but we have a freakin' statue of her in downtown Mipples.

Not one of those chintzy plaster jobs either. Bronze.


People like to hug it.
posted by louche mustachio at 7:16 PM on January 16, 2011

(OK, just saw the remix, never mind. But that should spring immediately to mind.)
posted by louche mustachio at 7:18 PM on January 16, 2011

We have Bob Newhart in bronze here in Chicago. I've sat on his knee. It was originally on Michigan Avenue, without the couch. Now it's at Navy Pier, which is not as good, IMO.
posted by crush-onastick at 7:30 PM on January 16, 2011

And, oh my God, so many really good shows took place in Illinois and they picked Hill Street Blues. Grumble grumble.

Hill Street Blues was a great show, and was one of the most influential dramas in the history of television.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:37 PM on January 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

They could have at least used a Woody Allen movie for New York. He does go out of the city after all.
posted by AndrewKemendo at 7:43 PM on January 16, 2011

Wayne and Garth lived in Aurora, IL. DE is a nonsensical place to list them.

Clearly you've never been magically whisked away there.
posted by lumensimus at 8:01 PM on January 16, 2011

Here's yet another to argue about: Food by State. Go for the trivialization, stay for the arguments about barbecue styles.
posted by me3dia at 8:49 PM on January 16, 2011

Jesus Camp for Missouri is just about right, but a newer map would have used Winter's Bone.
posted by sourwookie at 8:57 PM on January 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

RoboCop was filmed in Dallas, not Houston.

True enough it seems. I was thinking of Robocop 2.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:50 PM on January 16, 2011

Navelgazer: Robocop was shot in Houston. Red Dawn was shot in New Mexico.

And Psych is filmed in Santa Barbara, CA White Rock, British Columbia. I first heard about this, and thought, that's odd, but I'm sure they make it work somehow. Then I saw a few episodes, and the people in the background are bundled up in heavy coats, like it's cold or something. You know, like it were Canada.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:35 PM on January 16, 2011

oneswellfoop: California needs at least three, because Los Angeles, San Francisco and Fresno/Modesto do not exist in the same universe.

And then you have Eureka. I mean Eureka, California (the county seat of Humbolt County), not to be confused with the show Eureka, which is supposed to take place in Oregon, but, again, is filmed in Canada. At least the Pacific Northwest is adjacent to Canada. Unlike the beaches of SANTA BARBARA. Seriously, Canada for Psych?
posted by filthy light thief at 10:40 PM on January 16, 2011

And Psych is filmed in

Who cares where it was filmed? I loved the episode where they went to Twin Peaks Dual Spires!
posted by crossoverman at 3:30 AM on January 17, 2011

Disappointed that neither TV map represents Indiana with The Middle. That's about as close as a show has come to real-life Hoosierdom.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:56 AM on January 17, 2011

It's the Grand Ole Opry. Only someone not from Tennessee would ever call it the "Grand Old Opry."
posted by blucevalo at 8:43 AM on January 17, 2011

I'm an Upstate native and I'm a huge fan of the distinction between NYC and Upstate, but I'm also highly aware of the fact that most people have no idea what goes on Upstate and most people don't care. For that reason, I nominate Michael Clayton as a quintessential New York movie, because much of it takes place in that big city down south, but then there are also parts where there are grass and horses and suburban houses all the other things New York contains. (I think a few shots might contain snow, too.)

In the other thread on this topic, I suggested Nobody's Fool for an Upstate movie, but thinking more on it, I think Buffalo '66 is the wiser choice. Nobody's Fool could take place pretty much anywhere (except for the references to the Great Escape), but Buffalo '66 is as specifically weird as New York can be.

Also, Taxi Driver is a comically out of date impression of New York City. You might as well suggest Gangs of New York to represent the state. The 25th Hour, while still set in a certain time frame of the past, is a more relevant vision of what NYC is like.
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:03 AM on January 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

From the NYC sitcom map:

The untapped Williamsburg Hipster sitcom setting is plain to see.

There was a short-lived show called Love Monkey set in that universe. It was no better (and no worse) than tertiary syphilis, but part of it was shot at the old Galapagos location in W'burg, so there was that.

I seriously think that, in the future, a decent sitcom could emerge out of a nostalgia-goggled Williamsburg. A soft-pedaled Nathan Barley set in the McKibbin Lofts. Hmm.
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:09 AM on January 17, 2011

Isn't that basically what Bored to Death is?
posted by enn at 11:54 AM on January 17, 2011

Isn't that basically what Bored to Death is?

Oh, that's a good point. I haven't seen the show, so it's not big on my radar.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:56 AM on January 17, 2011

Also, some people thought Frasier was too elitist

In the language of boardgames, it's farce with a pasted-on stuffed shirt intellectual pseudery theme. And that makes it funnier.
posted by mippy at 8:51 AM on January 18, 2011

Uh, Parks and Recreation takes place in Indiana. Eerie, IN probably didn't last very long and isn't as well known.

Oh, you Americans. We had childhood friends with crushes on Omri Katz and can only see anything featuring Amy Poehler via Bittorrent.
posted by mippy at 8:53 AM on January 18, 2011

California needs at least three, because Los Angeles, San Francisco and Fresno/Modesto do not exist in the same universe.

Explain this to me - am I right in thinking that F/M is the tony part of the state, where the Bluth family might have lived?
posted by mippy at 8:56 AM on January 18, 2011

Explain this to me - am I right in thinking that F/M is the tony part of the state, where the Bluth family might have lived?

The Bluths lived in Orange County, which is what you're thinking of. Fresno/Modesta is in the middle of the State, Orange County is in the far south.
posted by Navelgazer at 11:14 AM on January 18, 2011