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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. [[Everybody Owns a Ford|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 [[Our Founder|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 Guest]]s, 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.
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** Greendale of ''[[Sabrina the Teenage Witch (Comic Book)|Sabrina the Teenage Witch]]''.
* Smallville, childhood hometown of [[Superman]]/hometown of the [[Silver Age]] [[Superboy]]. Less so in ''[[Smallville]]'' the series.
* Blue Valley. Home of Wally West before and during his Kid Flash days before he became [[The Flash]] and relocated to Keystone City.
== [[Film]]
* Bedford Falls, New York in ''[[It's a Wonderful Life]]''.
* The resort-island of Amity, New York in ''[[Jaws (film)|Jaws]]''.
* Hill Valley, California in the ''[[Back to the Future (film)|Back to The Future]]'' films.
* The unnamed town featured in ''[[E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial|ET the Extraterrestrial]]''.
* Cuesta Verde, California in ''[[Poltergeist (film series)||Poltergeist]]''.
* Parodied, Justified, Lampshaded, then [[Zig-Zagging Trope|played with till it can't play no more]] in ''[[Pleasantville]]''. Basically, the trope was a basketball, and ''Pleasantville'' was the [[wikipedia:Harlem Globetrotters|Harlem Globetrotters]].
* Parodied in the ''[[Rocky and Bullwinkle]]'' movie, where the protagonists pass three ''identical'' small towns during their cross-country trip. Naturally, the characters [[Lampshade]] this.
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** 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
* Mayberry, North Carolina of ''[[The Andy Griffith Show]]'' and ''Mayberry, R.F.D.'' (and referenced in ''[[Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.]]''); stated to be 60 miles from Raleigh, NC.
* Mayfield of ''[[Leave It to Beaver]].''
* Cicely, Alaska of ''[[Northern Exposure]].''
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* Stars Hollow, Connecticut of ''[[Gilmore Girls]]'' fame is definitely this, however, it's somewhat a subversion of the actual trope, in that IS perfectly normal.
* Haven, Maine is not to be found anywhere in Maine except in the series ''[[Haven]]'' (and a couple of [[Stephen King]] novels), but there is a North Haven in Maine.
** There's also Cabot Cove, Maine in ''[[Murder, She Wrote]]''; and Crabapple Cove, Maine in ''[[
* ''[[Warehouse 13]]'' is located in an Unincorporated Unnamed Settlement, in South Dakota, known as Univille.
* Pickford in ''[[Phil of the Future]]''.
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* 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
* Subverted in ''[[Earthworm Jim (animation)|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 ''[[
* Peach Creek of ''[[Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy|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]]''.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:
[[Category:Small Towns]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Settings]]
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