The Old Country: Difference between revisions

So, you want to introduce a European immigrant to your North American-based show. You want the character to get up to lots of [[Fish Out of Water]] fun as his crazy traditions clash with modern American life, marvel at the amazing wealth of Americans and contrast it with the poverty of his homeland, and provide incisive [[Whoopi Epiphany Speech|Whoopi Epiphany Speeches]]es about how different life was back in his one-tractor peasant town, all while talking in an outrageous accent. So, their homeland needs to be poor, backward, simple, oppressive, rustic and pastoral, with crazy traditions and, of course, a distinctive accent.

* The titular character in ''Borgel'' by [[Daniel Pinkwater]] claims to be from [[The Old Country]] (more recently, he lived in The Old Apartment in The Old Building in The Old Neighborhood). His Old Country is in [[Another Dimension]] instead of Europe, but otherwise is very much a parody of this trope; everyone there is so poor they all sleep in ditches and use dead skunks for clothing, they speak a language that sounds like someone preparing to spit, and Borgel has a number of stories from there which are generally total nonsense.

* ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'' and ''[[Scrubs]]'' have both featured doctors, struggling with their [[Worthless Foreign Degree|Worthless Foreign Degrees]]s, who merely came from the old country.