The Mountains of Illinois: Difference between revisions

[[File:illinois topo3 6652.jpg|frame|[[The Man Your Man Could Smell Like|Look at the map.]] Now back to the legend. Now back at the map. Now back to the legend. Sadly, the map isn't [[Double Meaning|the legend]].]]

 

 

But Illinois doesn't have mountains... [[Late to the Punchline|Oh.]]

 

{{examples}}

* Promotional material for ''[[World Masterpiece Theater|Rascal the Raccoon]]'' often featured mountains in the background. Wisconsin isn't as flat as Illinois, but it does not have that kind of mountains.

* ''[[Miami Guns]]'' parodies Japanese cop show cliches, and is set in ostensibly-Miami. Various episodes have villains illegally drift racing through the mountains of Florida (max. elevation 346 feet).

{{quote|The Japanese DigiDestined accompany Willis back to Manhattan. He is then seen phoning his mother, and informs her that he's "back on the island." And yet, in the background, are... mountains (see screenshot [on the linked page]). Yep, good ol' mountainous Manhattan.}}

 

* During the ''[[X-Men|Magneto War]]'' crossover, Magneto met up with the Acolytes in an alpine-looking location, which the caption box says is "the Netherlands". Given that the word "Netherlands" means "lowlands", this is a ''[[All the Tropes Wiki Drinking Game|particularly]]'' [[Egregious]] example.

* An early issue of ''[[Alpha Flight]]'' showed mountains in the distance in Winnipeg, Manitoba, which is located in the Red River Valley, one of the flattest areas on Earth. The nearest mountains are nearly 900 miles (1400 km) west, in Alberta.

 

 

* ''[[Detroit 1-8-7]]'' is likely to have this, what with being filmed in Atlanta.

* One episode of ''[[Sister, Sister]]'' had the twins trapped in a mountain cabin by an avalanche while on a skiing trip to Mt. Brighton, Michigan. While Mt. Brighton certainly does exist, and it is a ski resort, it is merely a prominent hill with one side altered for skiing. There are no cabins, no avalanches, no forest rangers (also seen in the episode), and absolutely no way to get lost while on Mt. Brighton- you can see the whole thing from the parking lot. The only mountains in Michigan are in the ''Upper Peninsula,'' hundreds of miles away.

* There's at least one shot from ''[[Bewitched]]'' showing mountains in the background. While the show took place in suburban Connecticut (for the most part), it was mostly shot in southern California.

* The miniseries of ''[[The Stand]]'' had a case of The Mountains of Indiana, during the scene where Trash Can Man blows up the refinery that's supposedly in north central Indiana, yet there are tall mountains clearly visible in the background.

 

== Music ==

* [[Sufjan Stevens]]' ''The Avalanche: Outtakes and Extras from the "Illinois" Album''. His press releases for the album joked about the Prairie State's lack of real avalanches, and said that the name was meant to suggest "musical debris". The title track from the album is apparently about a Chevy Avalanche.

* No less than Giacomo Puccini erred when he had his lovers dying in "the deserts of Louisiana" in his opera ''Manon Lescaut''. Admittedly he had meant it to be set near New Orleans, and justifiably was thinking of nearby Texas, but the name still doesn't quite work.

 

== Video Games ==

* In the first ''[[Call of Duty]]'' game there's a mission where you have to blow up the Eder Dam. The background is hilarious to any German; the Alpine peaks definitely don't look much like Hesse.

** In the expansion United Offensive, a mission takes place "somewhere in Holland" (presumably near Rotterdam, since that was what the plane you were in was bombing before it was shot down), yet features hills and even some rocky cliffs (there are no cliffs in the Netherlands, and the only hills are in the southeast, about 150 kilometers from Rotterdam).

 

== Web Original ==

* According to [http://www.mountainzone.com/mountains/highest-peaks.asp?s=IL Mountain Zone.com]: "Illinois features many high mountain peaks and summits, topped by the highpoints of Charles Mound, Benton Mound, and Mound Sumner." The entry for ''every'' state begins with "(State) features many high mountain peaks and summits..."

 

== Western Animation ==

* Several episodes of ''[[Family Guy]]'' (set in Rhode Island but, of course, written in L.A.) feature a rugged, mountainous landscape forested with pine trees. Rhode Island does have some hills, but not very large or jagged ones. Its highest point is 812 feet. Also, New England has many pine trees, but the native tree, the Eastern White Pine, looks rather distinct from the bushier Ponderosa of the West.

* In ''[[Asterix|Asterix Conquers America]]'', the Gauls climb a sheer cliff face on the east coast of North America. Good luck finding one in real life. Of course, the series has never made any pretense at being historically accurate, so why should it take geography any more seriously?

 

== Real Life ==

* Surrounding the Mississippi River in Northeast Iowa, Southeastern Minnesota, Southwestern Wisconsin, and a tiny part of northwestern Illinois, is a region known as the Driftless Area, which is unusually rugged compared to the surrounding areas. This has the reputation of being very hilly and mountainous, but the primary geographic characteristics of the Driftless Area are Valleys and carved river beds. most roads that go through the Driftless Area slant way downhill upon entering it.

* Estonia's highest natural point, a large hill, is jokingly called "Big Egg Mountain" by its residents. The rest of the country is otherwise fairly flat.

** Similarly inverted with Montana, which has two-thirds of its land area in the high plains.

* Southern Illinois has the [http://www.backpackcamp.com/GardenOfTheGods.html Garden of the Gods] as one of the closest things to a mountain in the state. Mind you, they don't look like most mountains, so it's still a [[Critical Research Failure]].

* There are tall mountains depicted in the background of the seal on the state [[w:flag of Nebraska|flag of Nebraska]]. The seal dates from before statehood, when the territory was larger than the state's current borders and did overlap with the Rockies ranges.