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"London, England" Syndrome: Difference between revisions

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"London, England" Syndrome (view source)

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== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade (Film)|Indiana Jones and Thethe Last Crusade]]'' has an important sequence set in Venice, Italy.
* Parodied in ''[[Team America: World Police]]'': Every time the location changed, there would be a subtitle that stated the place's name and its distance in miles from AMERICA!.
{{quote| '''Joe''': Cairo... [[Captain Obvious|that's in Egypt]]."}}
** A similar, but more extreme, parody occurs in the Canadian radio series [[As It Happens]] - something of a mixture of [[Sixty Minutes]] and [[The Daily Show]], with a small bit of [[A Prairie Home Companion]] thrown in - which, regardless of the context, when discussing locations in the British Isles will always give the name of the location, and its exact distance from Reading.
* Subverted in the movie ''[[Paris Texas|Paris, Texas]].'' A man is going around with a photograph telling people it is of Paris, even though it is clear that the photo shows a desert landscape.
** Incidentally, the real Paris, Texas looks nothing like what is shown in the photo. ''Paris, Texas'' the movie is shot in the deserts of West Texas, which is all rugged desert, while [[wikipedia:Paris, Texas|Paris, Texas]] the city is in East Texas, which is mostly grass plains and forest.
* Country-based example from ''[[Transformers (Filmfilm)|Transformers]]'': "Qatar, The Middle East".
** That may be more of an assumption that [[Viewers are Morons]] than any other issue.
** Combined perhaps with Creators Are Morons, since the same movie also gives us the caption "[[The Pentagon]], [[Did Not Do the Research|Washington D.C.]]"<ref>The Pentagon is actually located in Arlington County, Virginia--over the Potomac river from D.C.</ref>
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** His dad explains the naming misconceptions involved in a simple immigration:
{{quote| '''Gino:''' Nobody told us there was two America: the real one, United State, and the fake one, Canada. Then, to make matter even worse, there's two Canada: the real one, Ontario, and the fake one, Quebec. }}
* ''[[The Naked Gun (Film)|Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear]]'' opens on a pan of Washington, D.C., then focuses onto the White House when a helpful "The White House" pops up on screen, followed several seconds later by "Washington, D.C."
 
== [[Literature]] ==
* ''[[The Bourne Series (Literaturenovel)|The Bourne Ultimatum]]'': Conklin has to point out he wants Vienna, Virginia instead of Vienna, Austria.
* The [[Dan Brown]] novel ''[[Angels and Demons]]'' did a similar joke with Geneva.
* Most of those "solve-the-mystery" books (including ''[[Encyclopedia Brown (Literature)|Encyclopedia Brown]]'', of course) have at least one where the key to solving the mystery is knowing that there are apparently cities named Athens, Jerusalem, Palestine or Paris in Texas. It's always one of those four, and more importantly, ''it's always in Texas.''
** To be more general, the discovery that [[There Is Another]] place where something happens is a staple of [[No Man of Woman Born]] stories.
* In ''[[American Gods (Literature)|American Gods]]'' the main character spends some time in Cairo, Illinois, and meets some [[Physical God|beings from the other Cairo]].
* A plot point in one of [[Agatha Christie (Creator)|Agatha Christie]]'s [[Tommy and Tuppence (Literature)|Tommy and Tuppence]] stories is that there are two towns in England called Maldon; one in Surrey and one in Sussex. The characters know of Maldon, Surrey, so don't bother reading the "Maldon, Su..." address on a telegram properly, Only later does Tuppence realize that the telegraph office only give the county if they need to specify between two places with the same name. (The ''real'' town of Maldon is in Essex, however.)
* In Cordwainer Smith's "Instrumentality" series, one of the most important cities on Earth is "Meeyameefla," obviously meant to be Miami, Fla. - note that FL is the more common abbreviation of Florida since ZIP codes were introduced.
** But thanks to [[Lou Reed]], to a lot of people it's always going to be "Miami, F-L-A".
* In James Blish's classic ''Cities In Flight'' series, Earth's cities, fitted with antigravity generators and spacedrives, roam the Galaxy looking for work. Nevertheless, they still use names like "Chicago, Illinois" or "Scranton, Pennsylvania". This even becomes a plot point when one character spots the error in a city's name and realizes it's actually an alien battlestation.
* In [[Piers Anthony]]'s THE MACROSCOPE, an amateur astrologer, on being told that the subject was born in Philadelphia, feels the need to ask "Pennsylvania or Mississippi?"
* In the ''[[Bunnicula (Literature)|Bunnicula]]'' book ''Return to Howliday Inn'', one dog is happy to hear that his owner is in London, probably sipping tea with the Queen and everything. He is then informed that London is a town just over the border of the next state.
* In the [[Tom Holt]] novel ''Here Comes The Sun'', a trainee [[Painting the Frost Onon Windows|weather spirit]] manages to get the Nile to flood Memphis, Tennessee.
 
== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
* When ''[[Torchwood (TV)|Torchwood]]'' (previously set almost exclusively in [[Aliens in Cardiff|Cardiff]]) became a joint production involving the American [[Starz]] network as well as BBC Wales, the setting of the fourth series ''[[Torchwood Miracle Day (TV)|Torchwood: Miracle Day]]'' was expanded to span both the UK and US, and the trope was applied to both American and British locations.
* In an ''[[All in The Family]]''' episode, Archie loses his Christmas bonus after he messes up a shipment meant for London, Ontario.
* In ''[[In the Heat of Thethe Night]]'', Sidney Poitier's character Virgil Tibbs is questioned as to where he resides:
{{quote| '''Tibbs:''' ''Philadelphia.''<br />
'''Police Chief Gillespie:''' ''Philadelphia, Mississippi?''<br />
'''Tibbs:''' ''Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.'' }}
* [[Inverted Trope|Inverted]] on ''[[One Life to Live]]'', blue-blooded matriarch Vicki (then Davidson) decides she needs to go on a trip to find herself and get her head together. When she calls her family, she tells them she's in Paris. Instead of clarifying, she deliberately lets them think she's in the famous Paris, rather than working as a diner waitress in Paris, Texas.
* In a ''[[3rd Rock Fromfrom the Sun|3rd Rock From The Sun]]'' episode, the Big Giant Head threatened to send Dick to Mars if he failed at something:
{{quote| '''Dick''': Oh, well, Mars isn't too bad.<br />
'''Big Giant Head''': Not ''that'' Mars!<br />
'''Dick''': [[Big No|Nooo!]] }}
* The mystery show ''[[Eerie Indiana|Eerie, Indiana]]''.
* ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' is rather bad at this. Not to mention a teleported character being described as "Somewhere in Africa" (which, to be charitable, ''might'' have been intended to reflect his own confusion), and another [[Title In]] informing us that Peter is in Cork, ''Ireland'', there is a whole subplot set in Odessa, Ukraine - apparently just for the sake of a joke, since [[Contrived Coincidence|Noah is from Odessa, Texas]].
* ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000|MST3K]]'' mocked this once when a caption said "Illinois, USA". As opposed to Illinois, Mongolia.
* Played with in ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'' in the Cycling Tour episode when any time a city is mentioned it cuts away to Eric Idle in a military uniform standing in front of a map and pointing out the city's distance from 3 unrelated cities around Europe. By the third or fourth time he's eventually told to shut up by the characters in the sketch.
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* Averted in ''[[Jericho]]''; going on the title alone you'd have no idea it took place in the United States, let alone Kansas.
* Mentioned in an episode of ''[[Full House]]'' when Jesse's grandfather suddenly passes away during a visit. His body is being flown back home for the funeral, and Jesse tells the others that he needs to make sure the airline sends him to Athens, Greece, instead of Athens, Georgia.
* Averted in ''[[The Man Fromfrom UNCLEU.N.C.L.E.]]'', which regularly used scene-setting "Somewhere In (Insert Place Here") captions.
* [[Picket Fences]] had an episode that dealt with [[The Pope]] going to Rome. Not Rome in Italy but Rome, Wisconsin (the setting for the show).
* The 'gives the name of their State as well as their small town name for context' is poked fun at in ''[[Harry and Paul]]'' with the eccentric American tourist couple Ronald and Pam who always introduce themselves a being from Badiddlyboing, Odawidaho.
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== [[Western Animation]] ==
* ''[[The Simpsons]]'' parodied this. Apu tells of his vacation plans to see Paris... in fact, several Parises, including Hilton, Texas, and France. They also revel in its avoidance when discussing Springfield and which state it is (or isn't) in. By the way, assuming it were a real American town, it could be any of 28 Springfields in 24 states ([[Department of Redundancy Department|Wisconsin has five]]).
* In one episode of ''[[Where Onon Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?]]?'', the detectives figure out they need to head to a river that's between Cairo and Memphis. When they arrive at the Nile, they find out they should have gone to the Mississippi.
 
== [[Real Life]] ==
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** Kansas City is the best-known U.S. example, being a fairly large city that straddles the Kansas-Missouri border. There is both a Kansas City, KS and a Kansas City, MO, right next to each other. And the one in Missouri is ''larger''.
*** If you say Kansas City without a modifier, it is almost always assumed that you mean Kansas City, Missouri. Which can be useful if you wish to mislead someone...there's a reason it's called the [[Kansas City Shuffle]], after all.
** This is not a uniquely American phenomenon. In Japan there are several prefectures that share their names with their capital cities. Osaka, Kyoto and Fukuoka (the last of which is a clue to the location of the [[Excel Saga (Animeanime)|Excel Saga]] anime) to name some. Tokyo used to be like this as well before they merged the Tokyo (city) government with the Tokyo (prefecture) government to form the modern Tokyo Metropolis.
*** Although in Japanese, it's easy to distinguish because the names are given endings to denote location. Cities are [Name]-shi and prefectures are [Name]-ken. Important locations such as Tokyo and Kyoto actually get their own unique suffixes, making it even harder to confuse the areas.
*** In Taiwan, here's also New Taipei City, formerly known as Taipei County, not to be confused with the capital of the Republic of China, Taipei, one of two enclaves of New Taipei.
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* Hamilton, Ontario and Hamilton, New Zealand often have similar cultural events, causing Google confusion.
* Speaking of New Zealand, it is host to the towns of both Palmerston and Palmerston North, which is much more widely known and much bigger (Palmerston North has a population of roughly 81,000, Palmerston has a population of about 2,000)
* When [[Burma Shave (Advertising)|Burma Shave]] put up joke signs promising "[http://www.snopes.com/business/market/mars.asp Free! Free! A trip to Mars / For 900 / Empty jars!]", they weren't actually expecting someone to take them up on it. When store owner Arliss French shipped in 900 jars he'd gotten customers to donate, the company gave him and his wife a vacation in Moers (pronounced "Mars"), Germany.
* In Russia and the former [[Soviet Union]], there are several cities that have nearly identical names. A few of these have changed since [[The Great Politics Mess-Up]] due to [[Insert New City Name Here]].
** Novgorod (sometimes called "Velikiy (Great)" Novgorod) and Nizhny Novgorod.
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