Everytown, America

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Ain't that America?

Where most Steven Spielberg films take place.

Basically, if an American film or TV show doesn't take place in a famous big city, it will be set in some version of Everytown, America. Everytown, America is a usually fictional town or small city containing pastel suburbs, a single elementary/High School (depending how old the main characters are) with the same name as the town, and a main street or town square of some kind. Everyone drives a Chevy and has a fondness for apple pie. Most people will be friendly except for the Pointy-Haired Boss, the Alpha Bitch or the Jerk Jock. Anyone worse than that will be an invader from some big city or The Government.

Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here (or at least it didn't until the aliens/vampires/witches/whatever showed up). The town's history, if discussed at all, will probably be very simple (usually it will have been named after whoever founded it—there might be a statue of him) and everyone living there will be familiar with the story. The characters may become routinely involved in city affairs, which will usually consist of convincing the city council not to tear down some historic building or to clean up the local park so all the children can happily play there.

For such an average place, Everytown seems to become a City of Adventure surprisingly often, and occasionally masks a Town with a Dark Secret. If featured in a TV series fond of Special Guests, celebrities may visit the town a disproportionate number of times.

To be fair, there are a lot of towns like this in the U.S.A., but it also taps into a very powerful vein of nostalgia about what kind of town many Americans wish they lived in.

Examples of Everytown, America include:

Comic Books

Film

Literature

  • In Bill Bryson's The Lost Continent, he goes off across America in search of the quintessential small town (an idea he most likely got from the famous Universal Studios backlot). He starts out thinking the best examples will be in the Midwest, but discovers they're mostly in New England and the Deep South.
    • He eventually decides that he'll just have to start picking out his favorite bits of the towns he's passed through and create his own ideal Everytown, America, which he dubs Amalgam.

Live-Action TV

Radio

  • Lake Wobegon, Minnesota in A Prairie Home Companion, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.
  • Unnamed home town of Fibber McGee and Molly, and the Great Gildersleeve. Both also did films and Fibber McGee and Molly did a TV series.
  • And many many radio series were set in such a town: Lum and Abner (probably more rural than this trope); George Burns and Gracie Allen; Life of Riley; Father Knows Best; Our Miss Brooks; and many.

Theatre

  • Angel's Roost, Washington in The Golden Apple. It lies in the shadow of Mount Olympus, but that's only significant as a Mythology Gag (though the state of Washington really does have a mountain named that).
  • Bomont, Texas in the stage musical of Footloose.

Video Games

  • Onett, from Videogame/Earthbound is the quintessential '80s Amer- er, Eaglandian town, replete with school, burger joint, arcade, City Hall and gang of street toughs. And a meteor, but we don't talk about the meteor. See also Twoson and Threed for variations on the theme, but Onett plays it to the hilt.
  • Podunk, from Mother is a prototype of Onett.
  • Secret of Evermore also starts in the town of Podunk. It's a popular name.
  • Grand Theft Auto II takes place in Anywhere City. Unlike the cities in the first game, Anywhere City doesn't resemble any real city in particular.

Web Comics

Web Original

Western Animation

  • Springfield of The Simpsons.
  • Elwood City of Arthur.
  • Walkerville of The Magic School Bus.
  • Radiator Springs in Cars.
  • Played surprisingly straight in South Park. Only occasionally does anyone wonder why so much seems to happen in an otherwise anonymous Colorado town, and no explanation is ever given.
  • Middleton, home of Kim Possible, besides appearing to be a hotbed of science labs and the odd Supervillain Lair. Part of a tri-city area including Lowerton and Upperton, and a case of Where the Hell Is Springfield?.
  • The show Hey Arnold! takes place in the fictional American city of Hillwood.
  • The Fairly OddParents is set in Dimmsdale, California. An average American town filled with weirdness, in part because of Timmy Turner and his fairies.
  • Subverted in Earthworm Jim. Terlawk, New Jersey has a crappy strip mall and a couple of old guys sitting on a porch predicting rain with their kneecaps, but every week they sit and not only watch the alien invasion, but explain that one or the other of them may have caused it. Also, they live next door to a giant earthworm in an alien power suit.
  • Frostbite Falls, Minnesota, even after Rocky and Bullwinkle got famous.
  • Peach Creek of Ed, Edd n Eddy. The craziness that ensues there is usually from the Eds' antics.
  • Hazelnut of Pepper Ann.
  • Quahog, Rhode Island of Family Guy.
  • Langley Falls, Virginia, in American Dad.
  • Arlen, Texas, from King of the Hill.

Other

  • Main Street, U.S.A at the various Disney theme parks.
  • A recurring motif in the art of Norman Rockwell.