Television Geography: Difference between revisions
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** They even visited a real gunshop and fired actual guns, which must have been near orgasmic for Japanese gun otaku unaccustomed to the real thing.
* ''[[Beyblade]]'' had a tournament in Sydney, Australia. Some characters decide that they want to have private conversation, so they meet ''five minutes later'' on top of Ayers Rock. To those outside Australia, to get from Sydney to Ayers Rock they would have to cross half the country.
* Pretty much any anime where the cast visits San Francisco will place it in the middle of a desert. ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'' at least makes it a cab ride away, while ''[[Lupin III]]'', despite remembering to include San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge, puts it within walking distance.
* Anime seems to have a lot of exceptions: [[Eden of the East]] has a very accurate landscape and [[Durarara!!]] is very accurate in its portrayal of Ikebukuro, down to the vending machines.
** [[Eden of the East]] is largely accurate but includes one baffling exception. In the first episode, Akira visits an apartment of his in Northwest D.C. Problem is the address they give is actually the location of the National Gallery of Art's Sculpture Garden.
** In the same episode the opening montage features Saki's photo montage of her visit to [[New York City]], one of those photos features the building One World Trade Center (nickname Freedom Tower). The story takes place in [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future|January of 2011]] and the tower is not set for completion until 2013.
* Naturally used and lampshaded (by [[Only Sane Man|Beauty]]) in ''[[Bobobo-Bo
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* In ''[[The Ultimates]] 2'', one panel showing a nice city landscape with an attractive domed building by a large river had a caption claiming its location to be part of EU headquarters in Brussels. Not only is the architecture of the city distinctly out of place (looking significantly more Mediterranean than the city itself) but more glaringly there is no visible river in Brussels! While a river does run through the city, it was built over in the 19th and early 20th century and runs underground for the length of the city.
** Possibly justified by the fact that ''The Ultimates'' takes place in an Alternate Universe.
* Averted by ''[[Scott Pilgrim]]'', in which most of the locale is recognizably Toronto.
* ''X'', a vigilanted super hero from [[Dark Horse Comics]]. A scene taking place at the Vietnam Memorial shows office-building skyscrapers in the background. Naturally, no such buildings are anywhere near the place, much less all the more important locales in D.C.
* Parodied and lampshaded in ''[[Sam and Max Freelance Police]]'', with locations (and [[Time Travel|time periods]]) looking only vaguely correct and with Max sarcastically pointing out the level of research taken in the drawings.
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== [[Film]] ==
* Hollywood movies in general tend to have palm trees popping up in the background of states where there quite obviously are no palm trees. Watch for it.
* Watching a [[Chase Scene]] filmed in a city you are familiar with? Be ready for [[Fridge Logic]]:
** "You can't get to X boulevard from Y street!"
** "How did they get from X boulevard to Z street without passing through B drive?"
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* Reviews of the low-budget ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]'' movie reveled in poking fun at the movie's depiction of Wisconsin. The land of cheese has a surprising number of cacti.
* In ''[[Field of Dreams]]'', Ray Kinsella's voice beckons him to travel to Boston and Chisholm, Minnesota, but aside from Huntington Avenue and Fenway Park, the entire movie was shot within a 50 mile radius of the Iowa farm that served as his home, conveniently within the rugged Driftless Area of the midwest, which filled in for the Appalachian Mountains.
* In the beginning of [[The Wild Stallion]], Miranda Cosgrove's character narrates that she grew up in Cleveland, with an aerial view of a city that is obviously Boston, with shots of the Back Bay, the New England Aquarium, and the Tobin Bridge.
* By contrast, [[Cedar Rapids]] was filmed in Ann Arbor, Michigan instead of the titular city.
* ''[[Leap Year]]'', apart from its appalling [[Oireland]] setting, uses atrocious geography. Anna's flight from Boston to Dublin is diverted to Wales due to weather, although London is a major international hub and a much more obvious place in which to divert the plane. Then, she gets a ferry from Wales to
* The [[Chase Scene]] is especially prone to
** In ''Bullitt''s chase scene, it seems like ''every'' time they take a right turn onto a downhill street, there's a beige Volkswagen Beetle parked on the right with its back to the camera, in the same spot every time...
** An interview about the first Bourne movie had someone [[Lampshade Hanging|noting]] that the famous car [[Chase Scene]] took a very unconventional route through Paris.
** '' [[Mission: Impossible]] II:'' Ethan Hunt gets a car and chases the girl, leaving the Spanish city of Seville and suddenly reaching some cliffs that might be anywhere but near Seville. Not the movie's only example of [[Did Not Do the Research]] about Spain.
* Much of the film ''[[
** MIT's administration actually banned the filming of movies on campus after the crew of ''[[Good Will Hunting]]'' displayed an annoying tendency to randomly close important parts of the school. Given that most of the school didn't have a particularly good opinion of the quality of ''21'', it's probably best for the moviemakers that they didn't try it.
* ''[[The Perfect Storm]]'' is based on a true story of fisherman from Gloucester, MA. The bar they frequent, The Crow's Nest, is shown right next to the pier on Harbor Loop. The actual Crow's Nest is about a half mile away, across the street from a wharf for a whale watch business.
** The movie ends with a scene at the real St. Ann's church. The priest and deacon on the alter were current to the movie's filming (1999), but weren't at the church when the film takes place (1991). Neither was the choir.
* ''[[
* ''[[Alien vs. Predator]]: Requiem'' is set in Gunnison, Colorado, a small mountain town of about 5,500 people. The establishing shot of the town is much, much larger than that, as they shot it in Canada at a town with 15x its population.
** Furthermore, Gunnison, Colorado is a semi-arid climate with sagebrush as the predominate vegetation, but ''Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem'' shows massive temperate rainforest trees with moss hanging from the branches. And the storm sewer system is vastly oversized. Humans, aliens, and even a dog use the sewer system like an underground tunnel. Unless it's a CDOT box culvert bridging a creek, the largest possible sewer pipe is maybe 12 or 18 inches in Gunnison.
* In a rare example of a film actually being shot in the location it's set in, ''[[Almost Famous]]'' was filmed in San Diego, California, and several recognizable local landmarks and businesses are visible throughout the
* ''Annapolis'', set at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, was rather obviously not filmed there.
* Wherever the remake of ''[[Assault
** It was filmed in Toronto. Details [http://torontoist.com/2009/07/reel_toronto_assault_on_precinct_13.php here.]
* Averted in ''[[Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever]]'', which was both filmed and set in Vancouver. It seems odd that the authorities in Canada would allow Americans to run around blowing crap up and treating the city as a shooting gallery, but those who saw ''Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever'' and were unimpressed would likely argue the authorities were pretending that none of this was happening and ignored it.
* ''Before Sunrise'': Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke manage to get ''everywhere'' in Vienna, despite only spending only one night there. Pretty amazing, if you consider that the location are spread out over the city and are visited in random order. It's even more amazing if you consider that all of this time they never get on a bus or take a taxi (except once - during the day).
* ''
* ''[[Brokeback Mountain]]'' caused residents of Riverton, Wyoming, to look out on the dry, arid scorched land (residents of that area beam with pride that the desolate alien planet in ''[[Starship Troopers]]'' was filmed there) and ponder where these lush mountain vistas were that kept popping up.
* ''[[
** Considering Bond's globetrotter nature, there are many more examples from the movies. In ''The Living Daylights'', he seems to teleport randomly around Vienna.
*** In about half of these scenes he's supposed to be in Bratislava at the time, making this especially funny to Austrians; also, there are no high mountains between Bratislava and Vienna.
** And in ''[[
* ''[[Charlie and
** Of course, the story was deliberately set in an ambiguous setting.
** The Tim Burton version isn't much better - we get a picture Bavarian [[Cliché Storm]] from the south of Germany. But the town mentioned lies in northern Germany which is very much not like Bavaria.
* The Dabney Coleman/Henry Thomas film ''
* Averted in ''The Collector'', which is set and filmed entirely within the confines of the city of Vancouver. And "'only'" Vancouver, none of the adjacent municipalities.
* ''[[Coronation Street]]'' featured a [[Chase Scene]] showing a car turning a corner in Salford and crashing into a canal in Ashton (about 8 miles or so apart).
* In ''[[The Departed]]'', [[The Mole]] texts the police to go to Sheffield, and they're shown choosing an exit off an elevated highway accordingly. Sheffield is ''a hundred and forty miles'' from Boston, in New England, where that still counts for a lot; to get there you go through ''two other metropolitan areas'' and then a good thirty miles out into the country.
* In ''[[Die Hard 2]]'', the action is set at Dulles Airport, near Washington DC, but the pay phones bear [[California Doubling|Pacific Bell logos]]. And the police are consistently identified as DC police even though Dulles is in Virginia. And the bad guys plan and execute an escape by snowmobile, and a long icicle is used effectively as a weapon. Washington area winter weather almost never supports snowmobile use in the suburbs, and is almost always mild until after the Christmas season.
** Additionally, the airport used in the movie looks nothing like the real Dulles Airport which has a [[wikipedia:Dulles Airport|very unusual architecture]]. That's because many of the exterior airport scenes were shot at Alpena Regional Airport, in Alpena, Michigan, on Lake Huron. Alpena was chosen in part because the producers needed a location with consistent, heavy snow, winter weather cold enough to use snow makers if necessary, and it's small enough that they could close several runways for shooting. The scenes in the baggage-claim drive-through were shot at Denver-Stapleton.
** Isn't the weather at least justified, as it was supposed to be one of the worst winter storms on record that particular terrorist-laden Christmas?
** In ''Live Free or Die Hard'', the main characters realize they have to run to DC. When they realize this, they are clearly on Light Street in Baltimore, MD. They manage this.
* ''[[
** Harry also is able to take the train directly from Forest Hills to Delores Park which is impossible in real life. You have to take a separate line.
* In ''Elizabeth: The Golden Age'', Elizabeth gives her inspiring Speech to the Troops at Tilbury (an infuriatingly bastardized version of the original, one of the better works of English oratory), and then retires to watch the Battle of Gravelines. Of course, this requires her to be able to see not only across the English Channel but in fact all of Kent. (We also have the little problem that the Speech to the Troops was given ''after'' the Battle of Gravelines, when they were still worried about an invasion force.)
* ''[[Enemy of the State]]'' was set in Washington DC, but filmed in both DC and Baltimore. Multiple scenes have characters walking from a location in one city to a location in the other city, even though they are about an hour's drive apart.
** To say nothing of the "Georgetown" Metro stop that found its way into that and several other movies.
* In ''[[Fantastic Four (
* ''[[Four Brothers]]'', about a quartet of young men who avenge their adoptive mother's murder, was mostly filmed in Hamilton, ON despite being set in Detroit, MI. Made worse by the fact that the two cities are only about three hours' driving time apart.
* The 2008 ''[[Get Smart (
* The terrible ''Godsend'' is repeatedly said to take place in a "small American town." Not only does it not remotely look like a "small town," the father drives past the rather unique-looking Roy Thompson Hall of Toronto.
* In ''[[The Graduate]]'' the protagonist is headed to Berkeley from LA over [[San Francisco|The Bay Bridge.]] Not only is it unnecessary since both of the major highways (101 & 5) going from LA to the San Francisco area could or would deposit him in the East Bay, but he's going across the bridge into San Francisco.
** I-5 goes through Sacramento, which is a two and a half hour drive from San Francisco. Definitely nowhere near the East Bay.
*** He would have switched to the 580, thence to the East Bay.
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* Possible aversion: the Chicago-area McAllister house in the ''[[Home Alone]]'' movies is an actual suburban house in Winnetka (a Chicago suburb).
** As it was written by [[John Hughes]] it's half aversion, half this trope. They never mention which Chicago Suburb the McAllisters live in, but you can be certain that it's the same fictional town - Shermer - that Hughes set all his Chicago-based films in.
** * A possible exception being ''[[Ferris Bueller's Day Off
* The VH1 [[Made for TV Movie]] ''Hysteria: The [[Def Leppard]] Story'' tried to double Sheffield with Canada. So drummer Rick Allen's famous car crash, which happened on the A57 in the Derbyshire Peak District, looks like it happened on the Icefields parkway. The very North-American yellow centre lines on the road are also a bit of a giveaway.
* Not a big, famous town such as L.A. or Vancouver, but when the criminals who are the subject of ''In Cold Blood'' (1967) are seen approaching the Clutter's home, they are crossing the railroad tracks in Holcomb, Kansas. The Clutters did live across the tracks, but the car in the scene is going north. The Clutters lived '''south''' of the tracks.
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* ''[[Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back]]'' has the animal testing facility/diamond heist scene set in Boulder, Colorado. The scene gets nearly everything wrong. Boulder is home to a [[Strawman U]] with an extremely active Anti-Animal Testing protest group and so the lab would never have been there in the first place. The setting appears to be the plains, but Boulder is at the feet of the Flatirons mountains. Finally, Jay and Silent Bob steal a monkey and leave with it on foot. The next scene shows them in Utah, which is 300+ miles away over the Rockies.
* [[Nicolas Cage]]'s ''[[Knowing]]'', set in Boston and New York, was filmed in Melbourne, Australia. One of the scenes was filmed on the steps of the state Parliament House. Imagine, Americans, a film set halfway around the world with a scene taking place outside your State Capitol.
** ''Knowing'' is theoretically set in the Lexington area, Massachusetts, but you can safely say that the film's director has never even seen pictures of Lexington. This is most evident on any scene set on a highway, where there are huge desolate areas with no trees, where Massachusetts has an overabundance of them near its highways.
* ''Lake View Terrace'' is very clearly ''not'' Lake View Terrace. It was actually filmed in Walnut, about 40 miles away. Especially jarring for the fact that any production company based in Southern California would know that Walnut cannot pass for Lake View Terrace.
* The ''[[Left Behind]]'' movie was filmed in Toronto, setting the city hall as UN headquarters, but that's not the bad part. You want to hear what's just ridiculous? The flags out front were from all the Canadian provinces and territories.
* The building destroyed at the beginning of ''[[Lethal Weapon 3]]'', a movie series set in Los Angeles, is obviously the old Orlando City Hall, with the new City Hall, the Suntrust Tower (the tallest building in the city) and other notable Orlando landmarks featured in the background. Made even better by the fact that the cop who says "Bravo" is Bill Frederick... Orlando's mayor at the time.
* Parts of the Sci-Fi Channel Original Movie ''Locust'' take place in Southern Indiana/Kentucky, and one scene features the main characters driving from Kentucky to Indiana. They pass a "Welcome to Indiana!" sign by the side of the road with trees and dirt and such. Go check out a map of the Indiana/Kentucky border to see why that wouldn't work. (Hint: the Ohio River defines the entire Indiana/Kentucky border). That's not even mentioning the scenes taking place in southern Indiana showing perfectly flat, level ground despite the huge number of thousand-foot hills in that area.
** Looking at a map of Indiana, there is one location in the southwest part of the state near Evansville where the Indiana/Kentucky border is north of the Ohio River on solid ground. 200 years ago it followed the river, but the river changed paths and the border stuck, so a land crossing between the two states does exist. Still, that does not account for the issue with the hills in Southern Indiana.
* The 1961 film ''The Long Ships'' takes place in Scandinavia and North Africa, but was entirely filmed in Yugoslavia, which, needless to say, looks very little like either location.
* The ballpark used for the Cleveland Indians' home stadium in ''[[Major League]]'' was actually County Stadium in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The filmmakers had to shoot there to work around Bob Uecker's schedule (since they cast the real-life Brewers broadcaster as the fictional Indians broadcaster Harry Doyle), and they thus also recast the Milwaukee TV station with its real life logo on the outfield scoreboard as a Cleveland station.
** And Major League II used Camden Yards and Memorial Stadium in Baltimore and Comiskey Park in Chicago.
* By the same token, much of the scenes in the 1994 remake of ''Angels in the Outfield'' were shot at Oakland's Alameda Coliseum rather than the Angels' home field of Anaheim Stadium.
* The first ''[[Men in Black (
* When the Griswolds set out from Chicago in ''
** Some tall palm trees, and maybe even mountains, can be seen in the background of the early scenes at the car dealership as well. Oops.
* Another [[Nicolas Cage]] example, from ''[[National Treasure]] 2: Book of Secrets''. In the car chase in [[London Town]], the cars cross Westminster Bridge north to south, engage in a chase in what is clearly the City of London, which is north of the Thames - you can see the street signs, then cross Southwark Bridge ''again north to south''.
* In ''[[No Way Out]]'', there's the (nonexistent) Georgetown Metro stop, with the DC Metro being portrayed by the Baltimore Metro.
* Exactly whose mega-mansion was depicted in ''[[Out of Sight]]''?
* As with the TV show ''Inspector Morse'', films set in Oxford (England) tend to frequently play fast and loose with
** Morse has, for instance, stepped from a cobbled street in the town centre to a park two miles away.
** The Isis (the Oxford stretch of the River Thames) gets similar treatment in the rowing film ''True Blue'', when the climactic race scene jumps randomly back and forward on the river, changing directions occasionally and at one point teleporting to Marlow, 25 miles away in a straight line and much further if you follow the river. Given they seem to have filmed (most of) the race on the fairly short stretch of river that it was supposed to be set on, it must be down to odd dramatic editing choices rather than any lack of care on the director's part.
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** Not to mention the fact that Tesla's Lab was in a very flat, comparably treeless portion of town as compared to the steep sloped, heavy woodlands depicted.
* The indie movie ''A Problem with Fear'' is supposedly set in the Calgary subway. Calgary doesn't have a subway, and if it did the ads in the subway would likely not be in French, as they were in the movie. One wonders why they didn't just set the damn thing in Montreal.
* It's terribly obvious they filmed ''[[Resident Evil: Apocalypse
** [http://torontoist.com/2008/10/reel_toronto_resident_evil_apocalypse/ This]{{Dead link}} takes the entire thing apart.
{{quote|
** In one scene, ''Resident Evil 2'' seems to place Raccoon City in somewhat central New Jersey. Oddly enough, they realistically portrayed an evil pharmaceutical company having a research office, in the middle of nowhere NJ, yet relatively near a larger city. Johnson and Johnson, Sanofi-Aventis, Novartis, Pfizer, Merck, Wyeth, Hoffman-LaRoche, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Schering-Plough all have locations in NJ that somewhat parallel this. No zombies yet though...
* The 1976 [[Robin Hood]] film ''Robin and Marian'' was filmed in Pamplona, Spain, which, needless to say, looks nothing at all like Nottinghamshire.
** Much later, ''[[Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves]]'' manages to walk the 170 miles from Hadrian's Wall to Nottingham in a day.
* The [[Jackie Chan]] movie ''Rumble in the Bronx'', filmed in Vancouver, makes little attempt to hide that fact. [[The Mountains of Illinois|The snow-capped coast mountains]] are visible in many scenes, as are various Vancouver landmarks.
* In ''[[
** Dialog between characters establishes the movie is set in New York City.
* ''[[Sleepless in Seattle]]'' showed everyone, including Seattlites, that Seattle has a subway. Underground bus tunnels, yes. Subway, no.
* Part of ''[[Spider-Man (
** Scenes from ''[[Spider-Man (
* At the end of ''[[Splash]]'', [[Tom Hanks]] and his mermaid girlfriend jump off a wharf in New York City, swim a few hundred feet to get away from some scuba-clad pursuers, then stop to smooch against a glorious background of pristine tropical branch corals.
* ''[[Star Trek IV:
* ''Taking Lives'' is set in Montreal, which you can tell from the establishing shot of... the [http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chateau_Frontenac Château Frontenac]. Oh, dear.
* The [[Tom Hanks]] vehicle ''Turner and Hooch'' includes a conversation scene that repeatedly switches back and forth between two camera
* ''
* There is an [[Alfred Hitchcock]] thriller in which the American protagonist comes to Stockholm to receive a Nobel Prize. In one scene he falls off the Symphonic Hall into Lake Malaren, which in fact is about a kilometre away from that building. Also, the seasons are wrong: the Nobel Prizes are awarded in early December when Lake Malaren is about +4 degrees Celsius. If you fall into it, the cold will paralyze you in seconds.
** The movie is called "The Prize" and is well worth watching even if it has some minor mistakes. (Also, it was directed by Mark Robson rather than Hitchcock.)
* The dramatic US Robotics tower in the ''[[I, Robot (
* The horse/motorcycle chase in ''[[True Lies]]'' for the first time, as Ahnuld and his horse teleported from Georgetown to the distinctive atrium lobby of the Crystal City Hilton, which is across the Potomac in Virginia near the Pentagon, and doesn't have a condo with a pool across from it. The establishing shot outside the building matched the exterior at least, except that they matted in at least twenty extra stories.
* ''[[The Rock]]'': towards the climax of the movie, a nerve gas missile is fired from [[The Alcatraz|the titular island]], programmed to hit the Oakland Coliseum Stadium. Seconds later, when the missile is shown approaching its target, the stadium shown is actually Candlestick Park in San Francisco; it's most obvious when you consider the stadium's red seats, and that Candlestick is neighbored by the water and hills shown in the movie while the now-named McAfee Stadium is surrounded by flat dry land next to a basketball arena and a freeway.
* ''[[
* ''[[Trainspotting]]'' is the Scottish city of Edinburgh, right? Then what can explain the scene where Renton and Diane come out of the nightclub and it is revealed to be the very distinctive exterior of the Volcano... which is ''Glasgow,'' a good fifty miles from Edinburgh?
* People from Bayonne, New Jersey, had a lot of fun in the remake of ''[[The War of the Worlds (novel)|The War of the Worlds]]'' starring [[Tom Cruise]]. The house in the beginning of the movie is in downtown Bayonne, right underneath the Bayonne Bridge. However, during the alien landing, Tom Cruise walks over to a church that is actually in Newark in under a minute. Beyond the miles of distance required to walk there, Cruise would also have to either swim across Newark Bay or dodge highway traffic across the NJ Turnpike bridge.
** Also at the beginning, when the lightning strikes the ground to activate the tripods, it's seen hitting a spot that seems to be just off Route 440 in Jersey City (admittedly, not too far from Bayonne but definitely a few miles from where Tom Cruise's house and nowhere near quick walking distance)...and yet, Cruise and his neighbors are able to quickly walk out and observe the site, mere blocks away into downtown Bayonne.
* ''[[Indiana Jones and
** While this may be, the scenes aren't set at Yale University but at the (seems to be) fictional Marshall College, so they are completely incorrect anyway
* While ''[[The Blues Brothers]]'' mostly averts this, with most of the exteriors actually being shot in Chicago, the Palace Hotel, supposedly in Wisconsin, has an Ohio flag flying in front of it.
** Also, the unfinished highway ramp in the [[Chase Scene]] at the end is in Milwaukee, which doesn't seem so bad until you realize that they landed in Chicago.
*** The fact that the Nazi car following them ran off the end of the ramp and ended up falling nearly from orbit puts such magical travel times entirely within the scope of the film. They're on a mission from God, after all.
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* ''Wildflowers'' features a full, dense forest that characters run and hide in, in the heart of North Beach, which is one of the most urban neighborhoods in the city. The forest appears to be either Golden Gate Park or one of the other parks close to the beach, which are essentially on the opposite side of town.
* ''Sid And Nancy'' features the characters leaving San Francisco to go to the San Francisco International Airport (which is south of the city) by going across the San Mateo bridge, which is even further south of the airport and which leads to the other side of the Bay from where the airport is. If you are already in the city you don't cross any bridges to get to the airport.
* Averted in ''[[Ghostbusters]]'' as explained in [[James Rolfe]]'s [
* In the film ''Driving Lessons'', [[Rupert Grint]] and Julie Walters drive to Edinburgh, arriving on a scenic road down a hillside... which is in the centre of the city and can only be reached once you're already in the city. This is after they've driven ''south'' past a recognisable nuclear power station to get there, and following this, you see them going up alleyways and out of entirely different alleyways on the opposite side of the castle. It's a bit disorientating.
* Baltimore tourists are often told that the ''[[Step Up]]'' movies were filmed at the famous Baltimore School for the Arts, probably because the school in the film is based on that. In fact, they were filmed at a local middle school.
* The beginning of ''[[
* ''[[The Dark Knight Saga]]'' may count if only peripherally, as it takes place in fictional Gotham but was filmed in Chicago. Bruce seems to teleport all over the city, the most outrageous example of which has him leaving his penthouse, with a view that shows it's in the same building as the downtown post office, racing across western Chicago and the loop, in a desperate attempt to get to someone who was, at the time, in a building filmed in the first floor of the very same post office. He could have gone down a flight of stairs.
** Averted in the [[Hong Kong]] scene where Batman glides from one building to the other and the distance seems accurate.
** A minor plot hole emerges in ''The Dark Knight'' as a result. In ''Begins'', Gotham is shown to have very wide rivers and a Manhattan-esque central island. In ''Knight'', Joker makes his threat not to cross the bridges and tunnels (necessitating the ferries), but the shot used is the Chicago river - only a few hundred feet wide and easily swimmable. Indeed, the ferries shown would be long enough to use as a bridge.
* ''[[
* In the climax of Guy Richie's ''[[Sherlock Holmes (
* In ''
* ''[[Legally Blonde]] 2'' takes place in Washington, D.C. Not a single scene was filmed there. Luckily for the filmmakers, plenty of states have state capitols that look very similar to the US capitol. They chose [[wikipedia:Illinois State Capitol|Illinois']] and [[wikipedia:Utah State Capitol|Utah's,]] then hung around Salt Lake City to film other scenes in the Energy Solutions Arena's offices.
* ''[[Rocky II]]'': During the opening credits, an ambulance takes Rocky from the (now-demolished) Spectrum over a Delaware River bridge (which would take you to New Jersey), into downtown Philadelphia, around City Hall ''twice'', and to Pennsylvania Hospital. The actual route would be a straight shot 20 blocks up Broad Street, six blocks down Locust, and one block over. Even then, you'd pass several closer hospitals.
* ''Blow Out'': John Lithgow drags Nancy Allen onto a subway-surface trolley car at the 15th Street underground station. Cut to them climbing to street level at Penn's Landing, 15 blocks away. The subway-surface lines terminate at 13th Street. There is no underground station of any kind at Penn's Landing.
* In ''Next'' the main character enters a building on Fremont Street, Las Vegas and then exits the building onto the main strip.
* ''[[
* The ''[[King Kong]]'' rip-off A.P.E. was set in South Korea. For some reason, despite being filmed in Korea and being co-financed by a Korean film company, they did few establishing shots of Seoul. Instead, two characters simply sit in the backseat of a car and describe Seoul landmarks as they come (the main train/subway station, city hall, the capitol, etc.) In order to see all of these landmarks, they would spend a couple hours driving in different directions.
* The ''[[Green Lantern (
* In ''[[The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension]]'' has a number of these scattered throughout. For instance, palm trees are visible in front of what is alleged to be the New Brunswick, NJ police headquarters. And Grovers Mills,
* ''[[The Descent (
* ''[[Jingle All the Way]]'' is set in the [[Twin Cities]], but occasionally can't decide ''which'' of the two cities it's in. In one scene, the action jumps from Rice Park (in downtown St. Paul) to background shots of downtown Minneapolis (about 9 miles away).
* In ''[[The X Files Fight the Future]]'', they try and convince the audience that downtown LA is downtown Dallas, and that north Texas is both undeveloped and desert, whereas in reality it's developed and grassland.
* In ''[[Scary Movie 4]]'' the characters come across video footage of Detroit before and after the alien attack (setting up a joke that nothing really had changed). Unfortunately the city in the footage was actually San Diego (with CGI blast damage added). San Diego and Detroit look nothing at all alike.
* In ''[[Escape From
== [[Literature]] ==
* ''[[Left Behind]]'' describes Turkey as being in ''Western Europe''. [http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2008/05/09/lb-speakerphone/ Slacktivist's page] includes a handy map to demonstrate that is not, in fact, the case.
* Kafka's unfinished book "Amerika" features some serious geographical
* ''[[Twilight (
** The story acts like Forks is every cliche about England having way to much rain and clouds in just one town all the time. Its more likely slightly overcast some of the time.
*** Then there's the infamous honeymoon on the "west coast of Brazil"...
** In the first movie, which was filmed in Oregon, the scene at the river is clearly on the wrong side of the state borders.
* Sherlock Holmes is a regular offender. Conan Doyle was a Scot with little knowledge of London, and it shows; it's quite impossible to establish the location of 221b Baker Street because Conan Doyle had no accurate knowledge of the area and simply made it up, and many of Holmes' journeys around London are no better. The "opium den" in Limehouse is clearly taken from generic period fiction.
** Holmes also visits Cambridgeshire in "The Missing Three-Quarter" and walks in an afternoon between three villages which would represent a round trip of about forty miles; this is a rare example as most of his country locations are fictional places with generic orcharacter-based names like "Musgrave Hall", or like ''Hound of the Baskervilles'' based in locations whose names were well-known but with little actual details
*** the only accurate part of Holmes' journeys are his train trips, because Conan Doyle could presumably read Bradshaw ( a very popular railway guide of the time ) as well as anyone else
* [[Rosemary Edgehill]] is atrocious on New York layout. In one of her "Twelve Treasures" fantasies, she puts the Arms & Armor collection in the basement (?) of the "Museum of Natural History"... and moves THAT to Museum Mile, when it is on the West Side.
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== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* Happens occasionally on ''[[Bones]]'', which is set in DC but filmed in California. This leads to such geographical wackiness as the team visiting a racetrack in the middle of what appears to be a desert...in Virginia.
** The pilot episode of ''[[Bones]]'' - the very first establishing shot, in fact - shows an airplane coming down in Dulles Airport. The caption tells you that this is "Dulles International Airport, Washington, DC," and it shows a domed building (possibly the Jefferson Memorial, but it didn't look quite right) in the background, along with other clear signs of a large city. First of all, Dulles is not even in DC; it's in, well, Dulles, VA, which is almost on the edge of the DC area. It's not a particularly metropolitan area either, with plenty of open space around. Also, being near the ''edge'' of the DC area, there is no way you could see the Jefferson Memorial (or any other major DC landmark) from the airport. No, try driving another hour or so from there, depending on traffic of course. Now, the airport actually just outside DC would be Reagan National, but even from there, the most you could see is the top of the Washington Monument.
* Metropolis, which is supposed to be near ''[[Smallville]]'' in this setting, has a dock.
* The guys' apartment in ''[[The Big Bang Theory]]'' is supposed to be in the South Lake apartments, where you can see a pristine view of the Downtown Pasadena skyline. Though the angle is correct, that view would be blocked out by much taller office buildings.
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** There's also a fantasy sequence in which Sheldon imagines himself as the Flash, running all the way to the Grand Canyon from his apartment to scream in frustration. When leaving Pasadena, he runs across the Colorado Street Bridge, which is on the ''western'' edge of town. The Grand Canyon is in Arizona, ''east'' of California. (To be fair, the Flash doesn't necessarily need to take the most direct route, and there aren't really any identifiable landmarks on Pasadena's eastern boundary.)
* ''[[Everybody Loves Raymond]]'', set in Lynbrook, NY has an episode where Deborah wants to sell Girl Scout cookies in front of the busiest place in Lynbrook, a pizzeria, but is banned from doing so. However, the closest Pizzeria to Fowler Ave (which looks nothing like its TV counterpart) has a Coldstone and a movie theater within 500 feet of it, both of which are far busier than the pizzeria.
* In ''
* Occurs to excess in ''[[
** The most blatant
*** Not quite so They Just Didn't Care. While the northeast corner of Iowa is not exactly "mountainous", it's not normally what you'd think when you think of Iowa. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driftless_Area. Ironically, this same geological area extends partly into [[The Mountains of Illinois|Illinois]].
** In the first episode of Season 2, President Palmer and his son are shown fishing in a large, empty lake in the middle of a pristine tranquil meadow at the foot of a snowcapped mountain. A subtitle reveals that they are in 'Lake Oswego, Oregon'. Lake Oswego is an affluent suburb just outside of Portland, the lake itself is surrounded by dozens of multi-million dollar houses, and there isn't a snowcapped mountain for a good 85 miles.
** Another jarring one, from Season 3, has Jack travelling c. 70 miles in about 15 minutes. In a helicopter, which isn't capable of that speed.
** How about when the terrorists ship their bio-weapon into the (non-existent) large scale cargo port at Alexandria, VA? Or when the frogmen gain access to The White House via the Potomac River?
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* An episode of the new ''[[Bionic Woman]]'' had a meeting arranged to take place at a sulphur plant on the waterfront...which would be instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever been in downtown Vancouver and looked across the harbour at North Vancouver.
* In one episode of the Rebus series, John Rebus's car stalls out and starts smoking on a hill overlooking central Edinburgh. One cut later, and he deposits it somewhere west of Forth Bridge, roughly in the area of East Shore Wood, having apparently limped bloody ''miles'' in a smoking car. If the shot hadn't blatantly included the Forth Bridge and the Forth Rail Bridge (the position of the former beyond the latter makes his location very clear) then the scene wouldn't be so ridiculous in hindsight.
* The frequent presence of lush greenery and vegetation, and moderately frequent rain, in desert Las Vegas on ''[[CSI]]'' ([[California Doubling|filming in LA]], also a desert but heavily watered) is often a source of amused derision by show fans. Also, Geoff Duncan has written two articles on the geographical inaccuracy of two outside jobs, one in [https://web.archive.org/web/20060511095241/http://www.teevee.org/archive/weblog/2003/11/10/102730.html "Jackpot"] and another in [https://web.archive.org/web/20060511183116/http://www.teevee.org/archive/weblog/2004/09/24/095909.html the 2004 season premiere].
** Actually, most of Los Angeles has Cool-summer Mediterranean climate, with some parts of the county(Pasadena, etc) getting well over 20 inches of rain per year due to the rain shadow.
** There's a third unlikely/impossible "outside job" where the team travel to the Nevada town of Sparks (which is, in reality, adjacent to Reno, not Las Vegas). Not only is it in a different county and therefore outside of their jurisdiction... it's also eight hours away.
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* ''[[Dead Like Me]]'' is nominally set in Seattle, but they never made any effort to disguise the fact that it was actually Vancouver. They often would do beautiful pans across the city and its landmarks.
* Lampshaded in ''[[Due South]]'', which is set in Chicago but filmed in Toronto. When they did an episode set in Toronto... they filmed it in Chicago. That's fair, isn't it?
* In an episode of ''[[The Facts of Life]]'', set in Peekskill, New York, Mrs. Garrett brings in the
* Averted in ''[[
* The substitution of Vancouver for an unnamed city in the US Northwest (presumably Seattle) is so common that the term "Seacouver" is the setting's unofficial name. ''[[The Sentinel (TV series)|The Sentinel]]'' and ''[[Highlander the Series]]'' are examples.
* ''[[Frasier]]'' - No building in Seattle has the view seen from Frasier's window. The shot was taken from the top of a cliff and was chosen so the Space Needle could be prominently seen from the window.
* In the pre-air pilot of ''[[Fringe]]'', two characters visit a sprawling, isolated storage facility in "Back Bay, Massachusetts." Back Bay is actually a high-end neighborhood in Boston, mainly full of rich people and expensive shops, with a significant lack of storage facilities of any kind. The version of the pilot that eventually aired changed the title card to Chelsea, which is more believable, but the previous scene still has a character claiming that the "Back Bay police" reported suspicious activity in the area.
** Also, the show frequently uses title cards that claim shots are taking place at Harvard University. In fact, the show has moved production so many time that perhaps as many as five other universities have doubled for Harvard: none of these buildings resemble anything like the architecture found anywhere on Harvard's campus. During the majority of the first season, when the series was filmed in New York, Yale doubled for Harvard! This also explains why the appearance of the outside of the building where the lab is located has changed over time.
** In one episode of the second season, Olivia and Peter go to visit a woman at her house in "Beacon Hill, Massachusetts". In a mistake much like the Back Bay one above, we are shown an evergreen-filled suburban neighborhood of well-detached houses. In reality, Beacon Hill is another high-end Boston neighborhood that is made up entirely of old brick townhouses on narrow, hilly cobblestone streets.
** And in Season 1 episode 5, "Power Hungry", supposedly takes place entirely in the medium-sized city of Worcester, Massachusetts. I happen to be from a suburb of Hartford, Connecticut, which is somewhat smaller but has a distinct skyline with more skyscrapers than many other cities in New England. The beautiful aerial establishing shot labeled "Worcester, Massachusetts" is actually of Hartford! Presumably this is because, even though Worcester is the third-largest New England city, it's very much lacking in a city-scape skyline.
** An early episode also has a prospective Pattern event ostensibly happen in South Station, but is filmed in a claustrophobic building that doesn't remotely resemble the high-vaulted and open South Station. On top of that "The Box" has a scene take place in Kent Street Station, underground. Except Kent Street is on the C line, ''above ground,'' and isn't a station so much as, well, a stop.
* ''[[Happy Days]]'' frequently displayed palm trees in what was supposed to be Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
** I think you're thinking of ''[[Laverne and Shirley]]'', which moved to California in its later seasons. And of course the iconic episode where Fonzie [[Jump the Shark|did something that changed everything]]. (He did end up moving to a "singles community" in the final episode with a vaguely Polynesian theme and ''fake'' palm
* The original ''[[Hawaii Five-O]]'' averts this (somewhat) by being mostly filmed in Hawaii. (Exception: "The Singapore File," where Hawaii played Singapore - although the two-part "Once Upon A Time" and the two-hour episodes "Nine Dragons" and "The Year Of The Horse," respectively set mainly in California, Hong Kong and Singapore, averted this trope.) The reboot not so much, despite also being filmed in Hawaii.
** Like rushing on to Ford Island to get to a ship docked in Honolulu Harbor.
** Someone in a SUV gets attacked near Hilton Hawaiian Village after passing Aloha Tower on the way to Hickam AFB.
** A chase sequence featuring an escaped convict shows him driving towards the airport, taking the airport exit off H-1 (which would put him about 2 minutes away from the check-in lobby, not including time to park the car), then turning around at a roadblock on a four-lane road that clearly isn't anywhere near the airport (probably in Leeward Oahu, along Kualakai Parkway), followed by him traveling along the H-3 freeway. The convict then somehow manages to exit the freeway in the middle of Halawa Valley (something impossible to do between Halawa Interchange and the Harano tunnels, short of pulling to the side of the road and jumping off the viaduct), and hijacks a Makani Kai tour helicopter even though said company is located [
** Two words: Waikiki Bay.
** [http://www.lexbrodies.com/ Lex Brodie] appears to have relocated their Honolulu store from Queen St. to Ala Wai Blvd.
** The McGarrett house is in the middle of Ala Moana Beach Park.
* Pretty much everything on ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' is filmed in or near [[California Doubling|Los Angeles]], including the fictional town of Costa Verde.
* ''[[Little House
* ''[[
* An episode of ''[[Mantracker]]'' "Jim and Nichola" is filmed in Carcross, Yukon, Canada; but while the highly detailed zero-in GPS map is clean and linear, the actual scenery and locale are decidedly not so. The episode jumps back and forth between Montana Mountain and the south-east side of Carcross, to the dunes and desert and beach on the other side with absolutely no linear travel whatsoever, and there is no sign of the town itself, though they would've been absolutely forced to cross one of the bridges there or likely drown in the powerful currents of either Windy Arm or Bennett Lake. Additionally, the GPS map itself is nearly 100% inaccurate, and none of the focus spots matches any of the locations actually filmed.
* ''Midnight Man'' - not only is Westminster tube station not served by the Northern line, the Jubilee line platforms there have glass barriers for safety. It's clearly the closed Charing Cross Jubilee platforms being used.
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** To be fair, [[Rule of Cool|it's a much nicer train station]].
** Another episode referenced the San Bruno train station, which on screen was next to a hilly wooded area where they found a body. You probably couldn't really hide a body near the San Bruno train station, since there's a densely built neighborhood about 50 feet away from the train tracks... on flat ground... with no ''palm trees''.
* One episode of the US version of ''[[The Office]]'' had the cast visit Lake Scranton for a beach party. There is no beach or sandy shore at Lake Scranton, which is [
* Spoofed in ''[[Police Squad!]]'', where the Roman Colosseum and Leaning Tower of Pisa are back-projected during a trip to "Little Italy."
* ''[[Power Rangers]]'' has been filmed for the last several years in [[
** The 15th season went even further in their mistakes as the Rangers were constantly visiting other countries in their quest. They visit the Florida Everglades which, unlike the real place, has a very noticeable mountain range in the background.
*** On another occasion they visit Stonehenge in Britain. The field in which it's set is supposed to be flat, with a fence surrounding the structure itself and two roads very close by. Neither the roads nor the fence can be seen in the episode and the field is fairly hilly.
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* An old ''[[Seven Days]]'' episode had Parker chasing the [[Villain of the Week]] through Washington, DC. Specifically, from the White House ([http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=State+Pl+NW&daddr=Capitol+Circle+NE&hl=en&geocode=Fd2GUQIdtoNo-w%3BFTRpUQIdCPNo-w&mra=ls&dirflg=w&sll=38.890448,-77.013237&sspn=0.007065,0.013819&ie=UTF8&z=14 across the street] from the Capitol!), past the Washington Monument, down the steps of the Jefferson Memorial, and back to the White House, where he collapses out of breath. You would be, too, if you'd just run 5 miles in 12 seconds.
* In the first episode of ''[[Shoebox Zoo]]'' (little-known BBC kids' programme), the protagonist and her father leave a small independent cinema (The Dominion, a real cinema in Edinburgh, Scotland) and in the very next shot are walking down Cockburn Street two and a half miles away.
* ''[[Simon and Simon]]'', set in San Diego, but mostly filmed in Los Angeles, aside from a few inserts here and there. And they did things like taking Balboa Avenue (which does exist in S.D.) to reach Balboa Park (which also exists, but Balboa Avenue does not go to it, or past it, or anywhere near it). Oops.
* ''[[Sliders]]''
** In the premiere, Quinn leaves his Midwestern-looking neighborhood (you don't see many brick houses in California, for a reason) and jogs across Golden Gate Park to the Berkeley campus. Meanwhile Rembrandt, needing to get to Candlestick
*** In fairness to the show, however, production was shifted to Hollywood from season three onwards. Cue [[California Doubling]] (though most of the show still had them basically in California).
* In ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' (filmed in Vancouver) episode "Memento Mori", Cameron Mitchell is on a highway presumably in Colorado (as that's where Cheyenne Mountain is). The roadsign says "Surrey", and there's no Surrey in Colorado.
** In fact, every time SG-1 does scenes outside the base and not in generic wilderness invokes this trope. To a Colorado Springs (the city at the foot of Cheyenne Mountain) native, the gas station shots from season 6 episode "Sight Unseen," and to a lesser extent, the whole of season 8 episode "Affinity," shatter the suspension of disbelief. The shots of the Cheyenne Mountain Complex entrance, however, are spot on, (being actual footage of the location).
*** The problem with their use of actual footage is that the same truck seems to enter the complex every day for ten years.
** Lampshaded repeatedly both on SG-1 and [[Stargate Atlantis|Atlantis]] when characters will point out that all of the planets they visit seem to look an awful lot like Canada. Both shows film in and around Vancouver.
*** [[Word of God]] is that they tried to put a Canadian reference into each episode, because so much of it was filmed in Canada.
* The "oceanside" amusement park in the [[Title Sequence]] of ''[[Step
** Just so that you'd understand - an amusement park (and especially its wooden roller coaster) built that close to an ocean or body of water like that would have a very hard time staying in existence against Mother Nature and plain old Laws of Physics - sandy beaches aren't exactly the most stable type of land to build ''roller coasters'' on, and said roller coaster and quite likely large portions of the park itself would be in danger of being washed away, regardless of whether the area is hurricane-prone or not. That said, there ''are'' amusement parks that ''are'' built close to bodies of water such as [http://www.lakesideamusementpark.com/ Lakeside Amusement Park] in Denver, Colorado or the famous Coney Island Amusement Park in New York, New York; the former is built near a mundane man-made lake (as its name implies) and both are built on solid, paved ground.
*** And Coney Island features a [[wikipedia:The Cyclone|wooden roller coaster]] that's been around since 1927.
*** Not to mention the famous Pleasure Beaches at Blackpool and Southport in the UK. They aren't actually on the beach, but they're very close to it.
*** The [[wikipedia:Giant Dipper|Giant Dipper]] wooden roller coaster has been on the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk in California since 1924, and an identically named wooden coaster has been on Mission Beach in San Diego, California since 1925.
* ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'' often has the brothers Winchester driving from place to place in a ridiculously short space of time - including, in one episode, Dean getting from Kansas to Colorado and back in a couple of hours.
** Well, the two states ''do'' border each other, so it's more a question of where ''in'' Colorado and Kansas they're traveling between.
** There was a great one in Season Five where the boys manage to go from Elk Creek, Nebraska to Alliance, Nebraska and back in the space of an afternoon. It's about an eight-hour drive one-way (six if you're heavy on the gas and light on the rest-stops.)
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* The first 5 seasons of ''[[The X-Files]]'' were filmed in Vancouver. On David Duchovny's insistence, they relocated to Los Angeles. At least a few fans complained that the new, sunny location didn't have the same gloomy atmosphere as its more northern predecessor.
** One episode of ''[[The X-Files]]'' features a train rolling through an area of jagged hills, scrub brush, and very little green vegetation of any sort. In Iowa, of all places, where basically the entire state is green because if there's available land, somebody's planted corn or soybeans on top of it.
** The episode "Chimera" is set in Vermont in early April. The establishing shot opens onto an Easter picnic. The grass is a vivid bright green, and the children are running around in short-sleeved shirts and jeans or shorts, as are their parents. This is hilarious for any Vermont native (any New England native) because the temperature in Vermont in early April hovers in the mid-30's and there is usually still a good amount of snow on the ground. And even if there isn't snow, the grass is certainly not green. It's called "mud season" for a reason. This seems so ironic, too, for the episode, since other
** The season 2 episode "Die Hand Die Verletzt" is set in New Hampshire, with many shots filmed in the woods. There is only one problem. Seasons 1-5 were filmed in Vancouver, which has a temperate rainforest feel, while New England has a temperate broadleaf/mixed forest. In other words, those who live in New England can easily spot that most of the trees and ferns simply do not grow in New Hampshire.
* The ''McCloud'' episode "Night of the Shark" was set (and filmed) in Sydney, Australia (unlike the later "London Bridges," which despite involving London wasn't shot there). One scene shows McCloud dashing across the Sydney Harbour Bridge into the city centre. Except that he is going across the bridge in the wrong direction and would actually be heading away from the city.
* An episode of ''[[Psych]]'' opens with Shawn telling Chief Vick that's he's going skiing, and she asks where he'd ski in the middle of summer; cut to Whistler, just over a hundred kilometers from Vancouver, with typical summer lows around seven degrees (the resort is used for bikes in the summer). Most of the action takes place in the even warmer seaside Vancouver, because Shawn and Gus went there (again, roughly a hundred kilometers away) upon seeing a criminal instead of going to the Whistler police, for no obvious reason. Even so, everyone acts like it's below freezing for the entire episode, even during the day, when it would likely be around ''twenty''.
** Maybe they didn't realize that those temperatures were in Celsius? Maybe they just looked up the weather there and thought it was in Fahrenheit? 'Cause they acted like it was around 20 F.
*** Psych is filmed in Vancouver. So someone should have worked it out.
*** They knew. It was a [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshade]] on this trope.
* An episode of ''
* ''[[The Sopranos]]'' is actually quite good about their locations, as any [[Joisey]] troper can tell you. They do tend to play fast and loose with driving times, though.
* The opening to ''[[Newhart]]'' is not filmed in Vermont, but near Squam Lake, New Hampshire.
** Except for the exterior of the inn, which is actually in E. Middlebury, Vt, on the other side of the state from N.H.
* The US version of ''[[Queer
* A Season 1 episode of ''[[Warehouse 13]]'' had Peter and Myke travel to Chicago to investigate a series of unusual bank robberies. One outdoor scene showed streetcar tracks and a blue streetsign for York Av., Chicago, like most US cities, abandoned streetcars many years ago, and the streetsigns there are green, not blue. The shot is a dead giveaway for Toronto, where the series [[California Doubling|is filmed]].
** Several Season 2 establishing shots for Secret Service Headquarters are actually of the Colorado Supreme Court building in Denver, Colorado.
* In one episode of ''[[Murder, She Wrote]]'', a character is referred to as coming from a small town 20 miles east of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Twenty miles east of Sheboygan would put you deep in Lake Michigan; and no, there isn't even an inhabited island in the vicinity.
* Note to the makers of ''[[Rubicon]]'': The Acela train from New York to Washington, D.C. leaves from Penn Station, not Grand Central.
* ''[[Life Unexpected]]'': Good news: The producers got pretty much every detail about Portland (the show's setting) correct. [http://www.platypuscomix.net/fpo/history/luxsux.html Bad news]: That's pretty much where all the effort went.
* In ''[[Angels in America]]'', Joe's mother is standing outside a subway entrance with a sign identifying it as the Clark Street Station. There is a Clark Street Station, and the correct lines were shown ... but the real station has no entrances on the sidewalk. More blatantly, the dialogue suggested she was somewhere other than downtown Brooklyn, where Clark Street is.
* In a season 1 episode of ''[[Haven]]'', there is a wide panning shot of Haven Harbor in '''Maine'''. A big ol' Canadian flag can be seen flapping in the breeze (since it's really Nova Scotia).
** It is possible to see Canadian flags flying in Maine, especially as you get closer to Canada.
* In NBC's made for TV movie ''Atomic Train'', we see several shots of what is supposedly the Denver skyline, populated by such logos as, Canada Trust or the Bank of Nova Scotia.
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* Boston-area residents were amused when car chases in ''[[Spenser|Spenser: For Hire]]'' frequently took a corner at high speed and suddenly found themselves on a street on the other side of the city. Averted in certain episodes, when locations were correctly identified as used as most locals would. One example would be what was supposed to be a romantic picnic near an old stone grist mill while staying at a nearby hotel; the mill is in Sudbury and is attached to the Wayside Inn- a popular spot for weddings and other romantic getaways.
* ''[[Criminal Minds]]'' episode "Exit Wounds" supposedly takes place in Franklin, Alaska. The fishing ships in the opening would imply that Franklin is on the ocean. However, Franklin is on a creek, '''hundreds''' of miles away from the ocean, and more importantly, is [[Ghost Town|uninhabited]]. The closest town, Chicken, had a grand total population of 17 in the year 2000. They also mention a Lake Lafayette, and in a state with over three million lakes, there are none named Lafayette. Most TV shows and movies [[Did Not Do the Research|do not to do research]] when it comes to Alaska, much less do they ever film there.
** Taking place all over the US but being filmed in LA gives Criminal Minds this problem quite often. In ''Roadkill'' they even invented a whole highway.
* ''
* Even live sporting events aren't immune from
** What made it even funnier is that it wasn't the first time that Minneapolis substituted for
* ''[[The Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries]]'': the episode "Voodoo Doll" is just ''painful''. Despite having a stock footage opening shot of the real Bourbon Street in New Orleans during Mardi Gras...the Hollywood backlot not only didn't bother to make buildings that looked like New Orleans, but the ep also refers to addresses that don't exist and has the Hardys wandering through a wide, spacious, bury-them-below-ground cemetery...never mind that cemeteries in NOLA in the Quarter are all bury-them-above-ground due to the high water table and jammed-packed.
* ''[[Dog the Bounty Hunter]]'' seems to have suffered as of late this trope. For example, during Baby Lyssa's arrest episode, it appears that Leland and Beth are going in opposite directions from where they're intending to go on the H-1 Freeway via the dialogue. And when they went to Maui to apprehend a fugitive, they seem to be on streets that are blocks away from their intended locations.
* ''[[Arrow]]'': "Starling City" is portrayed using [[Stock Footage]] of upwards of half a dozen different real cities, with occasional digital manipulation for things like putting the Queen Industries logo on a building. This makes it possible to go from, for example, Center City Philadelphia to a Baltimore slum in a matter of blocks.
== Music ==
* Canadian folk song "This Land of Ours" contains the line: "I have walked on the sand of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland." The Grand Banks are a site where ocean currents converge and are especially good for ''fishing''; you may well have walked on the sand there, but it would have required SCUBA gear and significant weights.
* [[Billy Joel]]'s song "The Ballad of Billy The Kid" includes the lines "And his daring life of crime/Made him a legend in his time/East and west of the Rio Grande." Years later, Joel shamefacedly admitted bungling his
* The first verse of "Don't Stop Believin'" by [[Journey (band)|Journey]] includes the line "Born and raised in south Detroit". Thanks to a bend in the Detroit River, there is no south Detroit - that land area is called Windsor, and it's in [[Canada]].
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* The ''[[Twilight 2000]]'' adventure module "The Black Madonna" is supposedly set in Czestochowa in Poland.
** Though, to be fair, apparently some writers did ''go'' to Krakow. In the middle of Cold War. To write a gamebook. Twenty years of post-Communist development and a conspicuous lack of [[World War III]] later, [[Shown Their Work|the geography and some of the descriptions are still recognisable.]]
* The ''[[
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* ''[[Resistance|Resistance 2]]'' has a secret military bunker on [[San Francisco|Angel Island]] when you exit the bunker The Bay Bridge has suspiciously been painted red.
** Then again, the series is set in an [[Alternate Universe]], with the point of divergence from ours being around the 1900s (the bridge's construction began in 1933)
* In a mild subversion, the Shibuya featured in ''[[
* ''[[Parasite Eve]]'' takes place in all sorts of New York landmarks, such as Central Park and the Museum of National History. While the general feel of the places are surprisingly accurate, they play merry hell with the layout, obviously in an attempt to RPG-ize it.
** Chinatown doesn't look anything at all like Manhattan's Chinatown, or any other in NYC. Then there's the three East River crossings all looking like copypasted Brooklyn Bridges. For added hilarity, there's subway trains running across them, when in reality the Brooklyn Bridge is the only one of the three which ''doesn't'' have subway tracks, due to the bridge's age.
* In ''[[Prototype (
* There is an arcade game showing a scene of a helicopter flying through massive skyscrapers and listing the location as "Green Bay, Wisconsin". The tallest building in Green Bay is the 10-story St. Vincent's Hospital, as seen in this picture of the [
* Beautifully averted in ''[[Grand Theft Auto IV]]'', which managed to capture the essence of New York City and most of its neighborhoods perfectly, to the point that some New Yorkers, when traveling around the city, will recognize areas from rampaging through them in ''GTAIV''.
** The trope's played straight in the stand-ins for the outer boroughs. While the landmarks themselves are portrayed accurately, and the look and feel of the neighborhoods is correct (enough that it made this NYC native troper homesick), there's a ''lot'' of almost ''[[
* ''[[Pokémon Black and White]]'''s map based on New York. The [[Mons]]...not so much. These include bison and a weird thing that is supposed to be based on the Nazca lines but looks like a mobile.
** Similarly, the original games had a map based on Tokyo and the [[Mons]] included the platypus-like Psyduck and the Rafflesia-like Vileplume, among other not-Japanese natives.
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== [[Western Animation]] ==
* [[Lampshade
* Not exactly geography, but in one episode of ''[[
* Averted in ''[[The Simpsons]]'', which takes great care to get geography down accurately when they visit a major city and to include proper landmarks; for instance, having been released from prison in Tokyo, they are seen to walk away from the Tokyo Police Headquarters (a very distinctive building).
** [[Where the Hell Is Springfield?|Of course, the layout of Springfield itself changes so much the place can't ''possibly'' have a definite map at this point.]]
** And Springfield is somehow in a state that borders on Ohio, Nevada, Maine, and Kentucky, all at once.
*** All at one point too with
*** Which was a [[Shout-Out]] [[Brick Joke]] to an earlier episode ([[wikipedia:Itchy
{{quote|
'''Homer''': ''[[Man Child|(petulantly)]]'' "No." }}
** It appears to be in eastern North America, since the log went through Yellowstone to get to San Francisco. (How this would happen with the Continental Divide is beyond the reach of this wiki.) And it's on a coast. We also know that it has both 636 (an area code for Missouri) and 939 (an area code for Puerto Rico) area codes.
* Danville on ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'' is within driving distance of Mt. Rushmore for a day trip, yet is also on the ocean.
== [[Real Life]] ==
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