PERFECTION, WRETCHED, NORMAL, AND NOWHERE:
A REGIONAL GEOGRAPHY OF AMERICAN TELEVISION SETTINGS
support that midwestern television fathers offer best—commiseration. Critics loved God, the
Devil, and Bob, but some religious groups cried blasphemy. Supporters pointed out that the show
was not a critique of Christianity, but rather a modern twist on the Biblical story of Job.
Nevertheless, a number of affiliates refused to air the show, and NBC caved, pulling the show in
less than a month.
Perhaps the darkest of all of Michigan‘s entries was the ultraviolent action drama Blade,
which premiered on cable‘s Spike TV in 2006. Blade was an intimidating black vampire who
had learned to control his thirst for blood by injecting himself with an artificial serum. Now a
force for good, and a deadly one at that, Blade made it his mission to seek out and destroy evil
vampires, prowling ―the dark, mean streets of Detroit looking for evidence of the latest vampire
schemes to ravage the city‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 153). Despite being based on a popular
movie series of the same name, television‘s Blade drew a meager audience, even for cable, and
was cancelled after three months.
A similar fate befell NBC‘s 1999 entry Freaks and Geeks, which told the story of two
groups of students at a Michigan high school in 1980. Freaks and Geeks was a difficult show to
classify. While the show was primarily a comedy, its hour-long format, lack of canned laughter,
and often serious undertones placed it outside the world of conventional sitcoms. It was also
geographically ambiguous. The town in which the show was set was never named or even
identified by general location. The very first lines in the script for Freaks and Geeks‘s pilot
episode, however, established the show as somehow thoroughly midwestern:
William McKinley High School: Michigan. We are on the football
field of a medium-sized high school in a semi-rural part of
Michigan. Flatlands. Roads stretch into subdivisions one way and
green fields the other (Cohen 2004: 7).
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From there, viewers were introduced to the two title groups. What distinguished freaks
from the geeks was their place in the school‘s social hierarchy. The freaks were rebels. They
slacked off, drank, smoked pot, and willfully rejected cultural conventions. Geeks, on the other
hand, were at the bottom of the student pecking order whether they liked it or not. They were
scrawny, nerdy, and bullied. The lead geek was freshman Sam Weir, who worshipped
cheerleader Cindy Sanders almost as much as he did comedian Steve Martin, whose poster
adorned his bedroom wall. Sam‘s buddies included wisecracking Neal Schweiber, a borscht-belt
comedian in a fourteen-year-old‘s body, and spaced-out Bill Haverchuck, who wore braces and
coke-bottle glasses. The freaks included burnout Daniel Desario, smartass Ken Miller, good-
hearted Nick Andropolis, and sharp-tongued Kim Kelly. At the heart of the show was Sam‘s
older sister, Lindsay, herself a geek and champion ―mathlete,‖ who increasingly found herself
drawn into the circle of freaks.
Freaks and Geeks didn‘t take home many industry awards, and was a ratings flop, lasting
just five months. It has, however, become a cult classic in its DVD afterlife, largely due to the
subsequent popularity of stars James Franco, Seth Rogen, and Jason Segal, and the later
theatrical film success of series creator Judd Apatow. Critics adored the show, applauding the
realism of its characters, who were neither one-dimensional nor unbelievably complex, and for
capturing the spirit of the times. In the words of critic Fred Kovey, Freaks and Geeks was a
―subtle and sublimely amusing look at life in the eighties that downplays the kitsch and instead
offers a realistic look at high school in the Reagan years‖ (Kovey 2010b: 1).
Just as Freaks and Geeks captured the zeitgeist of the 1980s without resorting to
cartoonish nostalgia, it captured the ortgeist of the small-town Midwest without resorting to
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worn regional stereotypes. The young characters on the show were smart and worldly, as tuned
into youth pop culture and counterculture as any of their coastal, big-city counterparts. That said,
the viewer got the sense that all of the kids (Lindsay in particular) felt the limitations of life in
their little hometown. The more buffoonish midwestern stereotypes were reserved for the show‘s
adults, especially for Sam and Lindsay‘s father, Harold Weir. A modest, straight-laced owner of
a sporting-goods store, Harold was a loving father and a good man, but also hell-bent on keeping
Sam and Lindsay on a tight leash. When Lindsay brought one of the freaks home, Harold was
beside himself, later exclaiming to his wife, ―Next thing you know she‘ll be Patty Hearst! She‘ll
have a gun to our heads!‖ (Tucker 2005: 128). For Fred Kovey, the omnipresence of parents was
the key difference between the lives of these small-town Michigan teenagers and those of their
Southern California counterparts:
Unlike most programs aimed hard at a teenage audience, Freaks
and Geeks makes parents visible: they are everywhere. Just when
the kids are about to have the type of improbable adventures that
litter Popular (as they did Beverly Hills 90210 before it went all
Melrose Place), an authority figure steps in and ruins the fun . . . .
Sounds like high school in real life—frustrating and a little bit
boring. Meanwhile, the gang on Popular is off to a show and then
back across town to hang out in a friend's mansion where mom and
dad never seem to be home. Their only limits are the ones they
impose on themselves, that is, they live the teenage fantasy. No
wonder teenagers who love Popular find Freaks and Geeks
unappealing (Kovery 2010c: 1).
WISCONSIN
If the Midwest of the popular imagination can be characterized as a region that awakens
nostalgia for a time when hard-working, guileless, and upright citizens lived relatively
uneventful lives in small towns and modest cities, then no state‘s television landscape is more
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thoroughly midwestern than that of Wisconsin. Of the state‘s thirteen entries, only three have
been set in Milwaukee, the state‘s metropolitan area. Of those, two were set in the 1950s, and
they could hardly be considered urbane. Wisconsin‘s ten remaining entries took place elsewhere,
either in midsized cities such as Racine and Madison, small towns like Port Washington and
Rome, or in fictional locales with such quaint names as Waterford Falls and Point Place. With
few exceptions, television‘s Wisconsinites are not detectives, surgeons, artists, entertainers,
business magnates, or high-powered attorneys. They work in hardware stores, breweries,
factories, and beauty shops, or as mechanics, contractors, teachers, and nurses. Nearly all of the
state‘s entries have been sitcoms, sparing Wisconsin the grittiness of programs like ER, the
pettiness and greed of programs like Dallas, and, with the exception of its lone dramatic entry,
the piles of corpses from programs such as the CSI franchise. Of course, comedies can be as
caustic as any drama, but not in Wisconsin. The state‘s sitcoms have tended to be devoid of the
snarky attitude that characterized Seinfeld and Murphy Brown, the cynicism of All in the Family
or Roseanne, and the indelicacies of shows like Three‟s Company or Night Court. Television‘s
Wisconsinites are decent, respectable, and genuine, and tend to demonstrate a positive outlook. It
is fitting that the state‘s most successful show was called Happy Days.
Originally the story of a group of high school kids living in Milwaukee, Happy Days
began as a half-hearted attempt on the part of ABC to cash in on the nostalgia for the 1950s that
swept through America in the 1970s. Happy Days debuted in January of 1974 as a midseason
replacement for the struggling Temperatures Rising. To the network‘s surprise, Happy Days
evolved into a smash hit. It was television‘s most-watched show during the 1976-1977 season,
spent three years in the Nielsen top three, and all but two of its eleven seasons in the top thirty.
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The show‘s initial success was aided by the presence of Ron Howard, who had endeared himself
to American audiences as Opie Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show, and as star of the 1973
theatrical blockbuster American Graffiti, which had played no small part in sparking the
nostalgia craze. Howard played Richie Cunningham, a character he originated in a skit called
―Love and Happy Days‖ on the anthology series Love, American Style. Also seen on the series
were Richie‘s pals, Ralph Malph and Warren ―Potsie‖ Weber, and the Cunningham family,
headed by dad, Howard, who operated Cunningham Hardware, and mom, Marion. Richie had an
older brother, who was eventually written out of the series, and a kid sister, Joanie. While not
attending Jefferson High, Richie, Potsie, and Ralph hung out at Arnold‘s Drive-in, sipping malts
and listening to a jukebox filled with the records of Fats Domino, Connie Francis, Bill Haley,
Johnnie Ray, and Kay Starr.
Whenever Richie found himself in a dilemma—which was often—he would turn to his
parents or, just as frequently, Arthur Fonzarelli, for advice. Fonzarelli, also known as ―Fonzie‖
or ―The Fonz,‖ was the supercool and streetwise dropout who could make all the girls in
Milwaukee wilt. He rode a motorcycle, wore a leather jacket, and held court at Arnold‘s, where
the men‘s room was known as his ―office.‖ The Fonz, played by Henry Winkler, was initially a
minor character. He had been added to the cast by series creator Garry Marshall to ―lessen the
show‘s middle-American gooeyness,‖ but when the character quickly became a television
sensation, Happy Days increasingly focused on the close friendship of the two opposites—
straight-laced Richie and rebellious Fonzie (Lewis and Stempel 1996: 254).
Happy Days regularly, almost relentlessly, reinforced the notion that the Midwest was a
safe, clean, morally righteous region. To be fair, the show, particularly in its early years, was not
as pure as the driven snow. Although the details were always muted, evidence abounded that
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Fonzie was not a sexual novice. Richie was, of course, and much of the comedy revolved around
his attempts to deal with roiling hormones. He went to a stag party, visited a strip club, and, in a
rare show of rebellion, mounted an organized resistance movement against a plan to build a
freeway through the local make-out spot, Inspiration Point. And when Howard decided to build a
bomb shelter, Richie pondered not the threat of a nuclear holocaust, but what a great place it
would be to take a girl. Still, the show was fairly tame, presenting, in the words of television
historian Lisa Anne Lewis, a ―saccharine perspective on American youth culture of the 1950s:‖
With rock and roll confined to the jukebox of Al‘s Diner, the kids
worried over first loves, homecoming parades, and the occasional
innocuous rumble. The Cunninghams represented the middle class
family values of the era. Minor skirmishes erupted between parents
and children, but dinner together was never missed . . . . There was
no inkling of the ―generation gap‖ discourse which was beginning
to differentiate youth from their parents in the 1950s, and which
was still active in the mid-1970s when the show was created
(Lewis 2010: 1).
A cast change on Happy Days led to a common event on midwestern television shows,
when the character with the most promise is forced to leave their hometown to fulfill his or her
ambitions. From the beginning, wrote Lewis, the audience knew that Richie would ―someday
outgrow Milwaukee‖ and that ―Fonzie had fewer choices, and was the type to stay behind‖
(Lewis 2010: 1). That is precisely what happened. When Ron Howard left Happy Days at the end
of the show‘s seventh season, his character was written out as having joined the army after
graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Happy Days was now Fonzie‘s show,
but remained strongly connected to popular notions about its setting. Although Fonzie was
rebellious and extremely cool—two traits that don‘t exactly conform to regional stereotypes—he
was still, in many ways, a midwestern archetype. Despite his defiant attitude, the Fonz was
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always a font of moral righteousness. In many ways, his character paralleled that of Mr.
Cunningham, as he was ―as likely to dispense careful, family-oriented wisdom, as to suggest
rebellion of the slightest sort‖ (Lewis 2010: 1). Fonzie also reflected midwestern industriousness
and upward mobility. As the seasons passed, he went to night school, became co-owner of
Arnold‘s Drive-in and Bronco‘s Garage, the shop teacher at Jefferson, and, eventually, the Dean
of Boys at George S. Patton Vocational High School. The Fonz never lost that supercool edge,
but for a character who had started the series as a dropout and street tough, he had certainly
gained an air of respectability.
By the time Happy Days ended its long run in 1984, it had, likewise, become a prominent
element in American society, its position cemented when Fonzie‘s leather jacket was enshrined
at the Smithsonian. It also became a cultural institution in Milwaukee. Despite the fact that the
show had never done any filming in the city—even the exteriors for Arnold‘s and the
Cunningham home were shot in California—Milwaukee embraced Happy Days as its own. In
1983, the cast of Happy Days visited Milwaukee, and actor Tom Bosley, who played Howard
Cunningham, was presented with the key to the city before a crowd of 150,000. Fifteen years
later, Henry Winkler was on hand when the city dedicated a life-size bronze statue of the Fonz
along the Milwaukee River.
Of course, Happy Days was only part of the 1950s Milwaukee television universe. One of
its early episodes featured a pair of working-class girls named Laverne De Fazio and Shirley
Feeney, and in 1976 they got their own spin-off. Laverne and Shirley were roommates and best
friends, and much of the comedy was derived from their contrasting personalities. Shirley was
quiet, naïve, and almost childlike, while Laverne was loud, boisterous, and aggressive. Also seen
were their goofball neighbors, Lenny Kosnowski and Andrew ―Squiggy‖ Squiggman, who, like
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Fonzie, sported the 1950s greaser look, but with none of the cool. Another friend, Carmine ―The
Big Ragu‖ Ragusa, was a singer who had the hots for Shirley.
Laverne & Shirley proved to be as popular as Happy Days. It debuted in second place in
the Nielsen ratings, just behind its parent program, and then climbed into the top spot the next
two seasons, giving Milwaukee the highest-rated show on television for three straight years. Its
success, however, was shorter-lived. When it moved from the safe harbor behind Happy Days on
Tuesday nights to Thursdays in the fall of 1979, ratings plummeted. In 1980, the setting was
shifted to Burbank, California, and the show returned to its old turf on Tuesday nights. One or
both of these moves helped, and the show returned to the Nielsen top thirty for its remaining
three seasons.
Laverne & Shirley bottled the same nostalgic wholesomeness as Happy Days, but its
aesthetic was even more deeply rooted in the 1950s, with producer Garry Marshall explaining
that he deliberately created the show to replicate the same kinds of madcap misadventures that
had befallen Lucy and Ethel on I Love Lucy. While Happy Days occasionally examined serious
themes, Laverne & Shirley was steadfastly slapstick, and some critics derided it as ―TV junk
food‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 770). The plots were, without question, a bit on the light side—
the girls discovering a ring of German spies out to steal the secret formula for Shotz beer;
planning their high school reunion; trying to be fashion models; and falling in love with the
fireman who came to put out a small blaze in their bedroom. In the words of Rick Mitz, the
message of Laverne & Shirley was that ―there is no message here. Relax. Have a good time.
Watch us. It was entertainment for entertainment‘s sake‖ (Mitz 1988: 297).
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Laverne & Shirley contained themes common to a number of midwestern programs. As
Marshall indicated, the show was decidedly blue collar. The girls worked as bottle cappers at
Schotz Brewery (a fictional spoof of actual Milwaukee breweries), where Lenny and Squiggy
were also employed as truck drivers. When not at work or in their apartments, the gang hung out
at the Pizza Bowl, a combination pizza parlor, beer bar, and bowling alley owned by Laverne‘s
loud-mouthed, but kind-hearted, widower father, Frank. The show‘s working-class aura was
epitomized in a brief exchange between Laverne and Stanley, a man Laverne had a crush on. She
had intentionally dropped her bracelet to get his attention, and when Stanley picked it up he
noticed it was adorned with small metal cows:
LAVERNE: Yeah, it‘s a souvenir from the Chicago stockyards.
STANLEY: I didn‘t know they had a gift shop.
LAVERNE: It‘s right behind where they slaughter the cows—you
really gotta look for it (Mitz 1988: 295).
As mentioned, Garry Marshall had intentionally patterned the show after I Love Lucy to
set it apart from the wave of ―relevance‖ sitcoms in the early 1970s. According to Marshall, the
attitudes and actions of the characters were intended to have the same effect:
The other ladies on sitcoms are classy—they‘re well-off, smart,
and they dress well. Laverne and Shirley are not classy. They‘re
blue-collar workers who went to work right after high school.
They‘re decent people (Mitz 1988: 300).
Fundamental decency was another of the show‘s hallmarks. Like the characters of Happy
Days and many other midwestern shows, Laverne and Shirley were relentlessly wholesome. In a
way, the protagonists were in a state of arrested pubescence. Laverne adorned all of her clothing
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with large cursive ―L‖s and the strongest beverage she would usually drink was her trademark
milk and Pepsi. Posters of teen idols adorned Shirley‘s walls, and her closest confidant was an
enormous stuffed animal named Boo-Boo Kitty. And while they might have been a little man-
hungry, Laverne and Shirley always ―took offense whenever their virtue was brought into
question‖ (Lichter, Lichter, and Rothman 1991: 29).
The most prominent feature of Laverne & Shirley was its relentlessly optimistic outlook.
Like Mary Richards in Minneapolis, Laverne and Shirley were independent women bent on
making something of themselves. Even though they had little education and less money, the girls
were determined to succeed, a determination spelled out in the show‘s optimistic theme song,
―Making Our Dreams Come True,‖ which boomed the lines, ―There is nothing we won‘t try,
never heard the word impossible, this time, there‘s no stopping us, we‘re gonna do it!‖ For
television historian Dawn Michelle Nill, those lines neatly summarized the outlook of the two
protagonists:
With the advantage of two decades of hindsight, Laverne and
Shirley painted a picture of the 1950s from the single, independent
woman‘s point of view. The plots of the episodes reflected
concerns about holding a factory job, making it as an independent
woman, and dealing with friends and relatives in the process of
developing a life of one's own. Many plots revolved around the
girls dating this man or that, or pondering the ideal men they
would like to have met: sensitive, handsome doctors. If on the
surface the characters appeared to be longing to fulfill the
stereotypical 1950s role of woman, their true actions and attitudes
cast them as two of television's first liberated women. They
thought for themselves and made things happen in their social
circles. Together they fought for causes, from workers‘ rights at
the bottling plant to animal rights at the pound. They helped each
other and they helped their friends (Nill 2010: 1).
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Although Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley were never intended to serve as hard-
hitting examinations of life in the 1950s, they do suggest much about what television producers
thought about life in the Midwest. Rick Mitz, for example, argued that ―Happy Days was pieced
together to appeal to the big, glutted, beer-filled potbelly of Middle America‖ (Mitz 1988: 323):
Shows like Happy Days . . . were not created to appeal to
everyone. In fact, they were designed to appeal to the minority of
U. S. TV watchers, those people who watch seven to ten hours of
programs a day. In the industry these people are referred to as ―the
heavy-viewing center,‖ ―the wad,‖ and ―Billy and Mary Six-Pack.‖
An NBC programmer said it best: ―Most TV watchers are like a
kid with candy, who eats and eats. They‘re nice people. They have
good jobs. But they don‘t want to think. Dummies, I call them‖
(Mitz 1988: 265).
Whatever the virtues of their viewers or producers, Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley
were unquestionably popular, and remain Wisconsin‘s two most successful television entries.
Since their debut, eleven more programs have been set in the state. Three managed to last more
than one season, including the sitcoms Step by Step and That „70s Show, and the state‘s lone
dramatic entry, Picket Fences. No Wisconsin program, however, has managed to crack the
Nielsen top thirty since Happy Days checked in at the twenty-eighth position during the 1982-
1983 season.
Step by Step, which premiered in 1991 and aired for seven seasons, was essentially a
retread of The Brady Bunch. The series began when a pair of Wisconsinites, contractor Frank
Lambert and beautician Carol Foster, met on separate vacations in Jamaica, fell madly in love,
and flew home to merge their families—Frank‘s three kids and Carol‘s three kids—together. It
was a bright, happy sitcom, in the vein of most other programs that aired on ABC‘s lightweight
Friday night schedule. Stories revolved around the pains of dealing with new stepparents and
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stepsiblings, and the standard-issue array of crises associated with growing up. Step by Step
played on some familiar midwestern themes. It was set in a small town—in this case, Port
Washington, Wisconsin—and featured a pair of leads who were unquestionably blue collar. The
show‘s defining element, however, was its profound and pervasive atmosphere of
wholesomeness. This might have surprised some viewers, given that the show‘s two stars,
Patrick Duffy of Dallas and Suzanne Somers of Three‟s Company, made their mark in a pair of
shows whose preoccupations were, respectively, avarice and sex. It would not have been a
surprise, however, to anyone who pays attention to production credits. Step by Step was created
by Thomas L. Miller and Robert L. Boyett, the same team who created the equally clean-cut
sitcoms Family Matters, Full House, and Perfect Strangers. Writing for Entertainment Weekly,
critic Ken Tucker (who gave Step by Step a ―C‖ on a ratings scale that mimicked the A to F
academic scale) summarized the show‘s character, popularity, and intended audience in a 1991
review:
It‘s exactly what you might expect: a sitcom as well-executed and
weightless as everything else produced by what ABC calls ―the hit
comedy workshop‖ of creators Thomas L. Miller and Robert L.
Boyett . . . . The kids squabble, but fairly amiably, and Duffy
shows an unexpectedly goofy side of his personality that is
charming. Somers is Somers, beaming out a smile so wide it
threatens to split her face in half . . . . You‘ll see my Step by Step
grade below, but you should also know that the youngsters in my
house, who have made ABC‘s Friday-night slate of Miller-Boyett
sitcoms a devout ritual, give the series a strong B+. It pains me to
write that, but fair is fair (Tucker 1991b: 1).
Wisconsin‘s most recent success was That „70s Show, a sitcom that debuted in 1998 and
ran for eight years. While the show‘s sunny disposition invites some comparison to Step by Step,
That „70s Show was clearly channeling the spirit of Happy Days. The most direct correlation is
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spatial and temporal, with both shows set in Wisconsin, twenty years in the past. Point Place,
which served as backdrop for That „70s Show, is fictional, although users of the Internet Movie
Database cite evidence that it is near Kenosha. It was the story of a high school kid, Eric
Forman, and his friends, which included Michael Kelso, a likable yet self-absorbed buffoon;
Jackie Burkhardt, Kelso‘s equally self-absorbed rich girlfriend; Donna Pinciotti, a sarcastic,
pretty, and tomboyish redhead who lived next door; Steve Hyde, a scruffy and brusque rebel; and
Fez, an impressionable and thickly accented foreign-exchange student whose place of origin and
real name were never revealed. As was the case with Richie and the Cunninghams, much of the
action focused on Eric and took place around the Forman home. Eric‘s cranky but endearing
father, Red, worked at an auto parts factory, while his sweet and bubbly mother, Kitty, was a
nurse.
Parallels between these two Wisconsin nostalgia shows were sometimes striking. On
Happy Days, for example, the rebellious Fonzie, whose father had abandoned him, moved in
with the Cunninghams and learned the ways of a loving nuclear family. On That „70s Show, the
rebellious Hyde, whose father had abandoned him, moved in with the Formans and learned the
ways of a loving, if someone sharper-tongued, nuclear family. Such obvious parallels were given
a sly acknowledgment in one episode, when Marion Ross, who had played Richie Cunningham‘s
mother on Happy Days, showed up to play Eric Forman‘s grandmother.
There were also some significant differences between the two shows. Bill Haley and Fats
Domino were replaced by Alice Cooper and Cheap Trick, ducktails and leather jackets by long
hair and platform shoes, and sipping malts at Arnold‘s by smoking pot in the Forman basement.
Likewise, innuendo was replaced with overtly sexual references, and the boundless economic
optimism of the fifties gave way to grim economic realities. The factory where Red worked shut
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down, forcing him to work at Price Mart, a large discount store that was threatening to put the
appliance store run by Donna‘s dad, Bob, out of business. Despite these differences, however,
Happy Days and That „70s Show were kindred spirits, sharing a consistent, and thoroughly
midwestern, set of moral values, as noted by critic Fred Kovey:
Episode after episode, the central joke of That „70s Show is that the
kids who should be enjoying their post-sixties cultural freedom
spend all their time hanging out in the basement of the squarest
household on the block. Granted, part of the attraction is that they
can smoke pot when no one‘s home, but mostly, the show
suggests, they just crave the staid, structured atmosphere that is
missing in their broken, ―modern‖ families . . . . That „70s Show
has faith in the central truth . . . that there is nothing so bad that
family, real or surrogate, can‘t get you through it. It‘s a point that
is made over and over. This past season, Hyde . . . found himself in
dire straits after his mother ran off and left the already fatherless
adolescent totally alone. Even though they were low on cash due to
factory scalebacks, the Formans did the right thing and took the
boy in . . . . It was totally in character for the Formans, as always a
beacon of sense and solidity in the chaos around them (Kovey
2010a: 1).
Some of Wisconsin‘s other sitcom entries featured themes familiar to midwestern
programs, but none were around long enough to leave much of an impression. While Happy
Days, Laverne & Shirley, Step by Step, and That „70s Show aired for a combined thirty seasons,
Wisconsin‘s eight remaining sitcoms lasted, collectively, less than two. The first of these lesser
entries was 1978‘s The Waverly Wonders, a comedy featuring former NFL quarterback Joe
Namath as a retired pro basketball player who returned to his small fictional hometown of
Eastfield, Wisconsin, to coach the title basketball team, which hadn‘t had a victory in three
years. The kids of Waverly Wonders may have been terrible at basketball, but they were, in
typical Wisconsin fashion, very polite, including John Tate, a player who was so painfully shy
that he wouldn‘t even take a shot. The blue-collar aesthetic of Wisconsin‘s more successful
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sitcoms was resurrected in the short-lived 1995 entry George Wendt Show, in which the portly
Cheers alum played the host of a Car Talk-like radio show that was broadcast from his repair
shop in Madison. The similarly amiable 1990 entry American Dreamer was the story of Tom
Nash, who was trying to break off a piece of Wisconsin‘s serenity and graciousness for himself.
Tom had been a successful international television news correspondent, but when his wife died,
he moved with his two teenage kids to a small town to write a thoughtful newspaper column
about life in the wilds of Middle America. His editor tried to to convince Tom to come back to
Chicago and cover hard news, to which Tom replied, ―Why do you torture yourself by coming
up here once a week? You know the fresh air and the general decency of the people upset you‖
(Brooks and Marsh 2007: 47).
That these comic retreads depicting Wisconsinites as earthy and decent people were
failures should not suggest that viewers were looking for shows set in the state that were edgy or
critical of their setting. Programs that attempted to do so fared just as poorly. The outlandish
1987 sitcom Women in Prison was a case in point. Set at the fictional Bass Women‘s Prison, the
show‘s title said it all, as did its gaudy theme song, which included the lines, ―So misunderstood,
now you‘re missing a life that was so good . . . . While other girls make dates, you make license
plates . . . . you‘re in JAIL!‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,534). The 1988 sitcom Raising Miranda
had a similarly unappealing premise, telling the story of a Racine construction contractor whose
wife had left him to raise their fifteen-year-old daughter alone. 1995‘s A Whole New Ballgame, a
backstage look at a local television newscast, was a thinly veiled rip off of WKRP in Cincinnati,
and had the distinction of being the only television program set in contemporary Milwaukee. It
was also unique for Wisconsin in that its central character, a self-centered, misogynistic former
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baseball player named Brett Sooner, was almost entirely unlikable. Not surprisingly, none of
these shows lasted a full season.
Viewers have rejected not only all Wisconsin-based shows with disagreeable premises
and characters, but also those that belittle life in the state‘s small towns. 1990‘s nightly
syndicated My Talk Show, a strange sitcom/talk show hybrid, bore a striking resemblance to
Ohio‘s Fernwood 2-Night as it examined a bizarre small town through the lens of a bush-league
talk show. Set in fictional Derby, Wisconsin, My Talk Show was hosted by fictional Jennifer
Bass, whose living room doubled as the set for the show, complete with bleachers for a live
audience. Some of the guests were real—mostly C-list celebrities like Jerry Mathers and Mr. T—
while others were actors who played Derby‘s eccentric citizens, including Anne Marie, the
pompous star of the local dinner theater, and Marty, Jennifer‘s insufferable brother-in-law,
whose trailer was permanently parked in Jennifer‘s driveway. My Talk Show never found an
audience, and was out of production in three months. 2003‘s A Minute With Stan Hooper was a
fish-out-of-water variation on the same theme, and had an even shorter run. A fictionalized
hybrid of Andy Rooney and Charles Kuralt, Stan Hooper was a New York television journalist
who specialized in folksy segments about small-town America. As the series began, Stan and his
wife decided to go native, moving to fictional Waterford Falls, Wisconsin, where Stan
encountered the expected array of small town oddballs. The plots of the program‘s thirteen
episodes were essentially interchangeable with those of Green Acres or Newhart, with Stan
Hooper‘s distinguishing feature being that it almost certainly set a record for frequency of jokes
about cheese.
Wisconsin‘s lone dramatic entry was also set in a quirky little town. Picket Fences, which
debuted in 1992 and ran for four seasons, took place in Rome, Wisconsin. There really is a Rome
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in Wisconsin, and still photographs from there were featured in the show‘s opening credits.
Jimmy Brock, his wife, Jill, and their three children, Kimberly, Matthew, and Zach, were the
central characters, supported by a large cast of eccentric townsfolk and equally strange visitors.
Given Rome‘s similarity to the little towns of Twin Peaks and Northern Exposure, Picket Fences
was certainly part of a 1990s trend, but Picket Fences was a difficult show to pigeonhole. Jimmy
was the town sheriff, and many episodes revolved around his job, making Picket Fences
something of a police show. Jill was the town doctor, and many of the episodes revolved around
her job, making Picket Fences something a medical drama. The familial relationships of the
Brocks were also central to the show, as were power struggles among the town‘s residents and
the cases that came before Rome‘s crotchety old Judge Henry Bone. The show was, alternately, a
family drama, soap opera, and legal drama, leading critics to compare it to everything from L. A.
Law to Murder, She Wrote to The Waltons to Dallas.
Whatever Picket Fences‘s genre, it was, above all, strange, lending to Wisconsin an eerie
motif also common to television‘s version of Washington, Maine, and Kansas. Plot
developments on Picket Fences included, but were certainly not limited to, the lethal poisoning
of the Tin Man from Rome‘s community-theater production of The Wizard of Oz; a schoolgirl
who brought a severed hand to show-and-tell; a circus midget‘s attempt to save an elephant from
animal cruelty; a serial bather who broke into people‘s home to use their bathtubs; and a murder
victim who had been stuffed into her dishwasher with her cherished collectible plates. A teacher
at the elementary school was a transsexual, the town coroner had a genital fixation, the town
priest had a shoe fetish, the mayor spontaneously combusted, and Jimmy discovered that a
nearby farm was using cows as surrogate mothers for human fetuses.
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While the above themes are hardly the things one might expect from the home state of
Richie Cunningham, Picket Fences did contain some thoroughly midwestern elements. A
number of the region‘s television programs have used their settings as a sort of American
microcosm—as a laboratory for examining American cultural values—but none more palpably
than Picket Fences. The show addressed some serious contemporary issues, including date rape,
abortion, birth control, religion, sexual freedoms, racial prejudice, and euthanasia. Ann Donahue,
one of the show‘s writers, felt that these moral explorations were at the heart of the program,
calling Picket Fences a ―First Amendment Show:‖
What you‘ll find time and time again is that the episodes deal with
everybody‘s right to their space, their religion, their death, their
life. Everybody‘s always saying, ―I want to do this,‖ which is what
we do in America. Everybody says, ―Well, that‘s fine until it‘s in
my back yard or against my beliefs or . . .‖—fill in the blank . . . .
That‘s where the drama and humor come from (Thompson 1996:
171).
And as far as Picket Fences seemed from the ―Middle American gooeyness‖ of Happy
Days, the moral uprightness of the Cunninghams was not entirely lacking in the citizens of
Rome. Critic Robert J. Thompson argued that ―in spite of all this quirkiness and relevance,
Picket Fences remains strikingly sincere and without irony,‖ adding that ―characters seem to
listen to reason in the show, and most of the people in the town seem to be struggling to do the
right thing‖ (Thompson 1996: 173).
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CONCLUSION
Wisconsin‘s television landscape has been steeped in positive midwestern stereotypes.
Although its programs have varied in tone, the universal message has been that the state is
populated by hard-working, sincere, and upright working-class and middle-class families. Most
of them lived in small cities or towns, the rest in a nostalgic, small-town version of 1950s
Milwaukee. Two of Wisconsin‘s earliest and most popular shows, Happy Days and Laverne &
Shirley, were a mixture of nuclear-family serenity and working-class optimism, and depicted
Milwaukee as a place where even the most rebellious character—Arthur Fonzarelli—was a font
of altruistic wisdom and a model of industriousness. Such warm and sincere messages were
reinforced in a contemporary, small-town setting on the cheerful, wholesome, and long-running
family sitcom Step by Step, and were also evident in the state‘s less sanguine entries. Despite its
acerbic language and slacker characters, That „70s Show was ultimately a wholesomely nostalgic
show that celebrated family love and loyalty to friends, and despite the darkly comical tragedies
that forever plagued their little town, the characters of Picket Fences remained remarkably
optimistic and sincere.
Across the lake, Michigan was similarly stocked with working-class and middle-class
families, traditional values, and pleasant neighborhoods. Michigan‘s archetypal television man
was a likable, well-meaning, blue-collar gearhead, the most popular of which was Tim Taylor of
the cheerful family sitcom, Home Improvement. What Tim lacked in sophistication, he made up
for in earthy sincerity, and the entire program was one long exercise in politeness and
understanding. Michigan‘s television landscape has been slightly more urbanized than
Wisconsin‘s, and the population slightly more ethnically diverse. Detroit was the setting for the
long-running sitcom Martin, about an African-American radio and television show host. The
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material on Martin was much more abrasive than that of Home Improvement, but in keeping with
the overall tone of the state, the mood was generally carefree. Michigan television has, for the
most part, been devoid of poverty or crime. Although allusions exist to the mean streets of
Detroit and other urban settings, such landscapes were rarely seen.
Indiana has, somewhat surprisingly, had a much higher dose of urban struggle. Very few
of the state‘s programs have been set in small towns, and the rate of crime and violence in the
state‘s television cities has been relatively high. Programs focusing on such images have been
balanced by a few shows featuring young urban professionals, albeit those with decidedly blue-
collar sensibilities, but the unifying trait of most of Indiana‘s programs has been a lack of
success. The state‘s only truly popular show was One Day at a Time, the first successful
television program to realistically examine the life of working single mother, and one of the first
to take a hard look at the often troubled life of the modern teenager. One of television‘s first
―dramadies,‖ One Day at a Time put its Indianapolis characters through a long series of trials and
tragedies, but it could hardly be considered a condemning take on its setting. If anything, the
show was an affirmation of midwestern values, with the industrious Ann Romano always rising
above her modest and tumultuous lot in life. More important, the show struck a much gentler and
loving chord than other Norman Lear ―relevance‖ comedies of the era. Television‘s other famous
Hoosier, Cheers‘s Woody Boyd, was a lighthearted take on the same story. This naïve Indiana
farm kid, while not exactly a paragon of intelligence and sophistication, had nevertheless risen
above what sounded like an incredibly tragic childhood to achieve his goals, and was always
depicted as being far more cheerful, optimistic, honest, and loyal than his urban, east-coast
counterparts.
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Woody Boyd‘s Hanover, Indiana, could easily have served as a sister city to most of
Ohio‘s fictional small towns, the most famous of which were Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and
Fernwood 2-Night‘s Fernwood, 3rd Rock from the Sun‘s Rutherford, and Ed‘s Stuckeyville.
These and other Ohio small-town programs were, like the stories from Woody‘s unseen Indiana
hometown, both a celebration and a condemnation of small-town midwestern values. The
characters from these towns were usually earnest, if a bit provincial, and the settings were
thoroughly ordinary. A comic approach running through all of these programs was the ―Ohio-as-
straight-man‖ technique, with the banality and mediocrity of the setting contrasted with often
bizarre events, but the ultimate message was that Ohio was a physical manifestation of
mainstream America—that it was, for better or worse, America‘s spiritual center.
Surprisingly few programs have been set in Ohio‘s largest cities—Cleveland, Cincinnati,
and Columbus—but each of these cities hosted one popular situation comedy. WKRP in
Cincinnati sent mixed messages about its setting. Although the show‘s Cincinnati was generally
unsophisticated and tradition-bound, it was also depicted as a modern, thriving metropolis filled
with warm, genuine, and friendly characters. The Drew Carey Show‘s take on Cleveland was
similar. The young, single friends on the show were far less successful and chic than their New
York and California counterparts, but Drew Carey‘s take on Cleveland was almost entirely
affectionate, featuring friendly, self-effacing, and unpretentious characters. Columbus‘s middle
class family sitcom Family Ties was an even more positive spin on life in the modern Midwest,
and with its examination of the new 1980s generation gap, no show put Ohio closer to the
spiritual center of America. Although the show gave viewers a weekly dose of tension and
conflict, its ultimate message was that there was nothing that family love could not overcome.
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Another element of Ohio‘s television landscape that reinforced its image as the
wholesome, friendly, ordinary heart of America was the fact that it never hosted a successful
drama of any kind. That has not been the case in Illinois, where Chicago has set the industry
standard for urban squalor. Depictions of the Windy City have varied widely from program to
program, but have been awash in crime, poverty, violence, and corruption. Fortunately for
Chicago‘s television residents, there has also been no shortage of tough, aloof, and icily
dedicated lawmen in the city, beginning with M Squad‘s Frank Ballinger and The
Untouchables‘s Eliot Ness.
Chicago‘s seediness was also on display during the very long and successful run of the
emergency room drama ER. Although the crime, violence, and tragedy of a typical Chicago day
were not regularly displayed for the viewer, the bloody aftermath of such events was. The
emergency room of County General often resembled the triage unit of M*A*S*H, and the
hospital itself occasionally resembled a war zone. On the upside, ER provided Chicago‘s
television landscape with a long parade of successful, dedicated, and very skilled, if somewhat
weary and unlucky, professionals. Successful programs that have chronicled the work life of
white collar professionals, other than those in law enforcement, have actually been relatively rare
among Chicago‘s entries. Along with ER and its medical colleague, Chicago Hope, a prominent
exception to this rule was The Bob Newhart Show, which presented the work and home life of
psychologist Bob Hartley. Hartley and his wife lived in a luxury high rise in a Chicago that was,
for a change, depicted as being stylish, clean and upscale. They were successful and intelligent,
but had no children. This childless trait was typical of Chicago‘s television landscape in the
1990s and 2000s, when it was absolutely littered with programs about young, successful,
childless urban professionals. Strangely, however, nearly all of them failed. It is possibly a
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coincidence, but certainly a peculiar one, that while some similar programs set in California and
New York did exceptionally well, none of the sitcoms featuring young, handsome, glamorous,
urban professionals in Chicago have clicked with viewers.
It is possible that viewers simply did not expect Chicagoans to have Hollywood values.
While cops Eliot Ness and Frank Ballinger certainly possessed a large measure of cool, the term
―young and glamorous‖ would never be used to describe either of them. The same can be said of
many, but not all, of ER‘s doctors and nurses, and it certainly applies to Bob Hartley. Much of
the comedy on Bob Newhart was derived from what Victoria Johnson (2008) called Bob‘s
―square white midwesternness,‖ and many of Chicago‘s television icons match Noel Murray‘s
(2008) description of M Squad—―as square as an LP jacket, and just about as old-fashioned.‖
This old-fashioned stolidness was evident in a rash of successful Chicago sitcoms chronicling
suburban, nuclear families. Those shows, such as Webster, The Hogan Family, and Family
Matters in the 1980s and Still Standing and According to Jim in the 2000s, were so squeaky-
clean that they made Family Ties look like a Peckinpah film.
A lack of glamor might be the defining trait of the Illinois television landscape, but it has
not always been manifested in such a straight-laced way. Just as often, Chicago has rejected
glamor in the manner expected of the hog-butchering, stormy, brawling, big-shouldered city
described by Carl Sandburg. In its earliest television entries, Chicago was a city of erudite quiz
shows and symphonies, but it was just as often a city of polkas, stock car races, cattle drives, and
meat carving demonstrations. The folksy, informal style of Chicago programs hosted by Studs
Terkel, Don McNeill, and, most notably, Dave Garroway, provided a sharp contrast to the often
slick productions from New York and Los Angeles. Years later, Chicagoan Bob Newhart would
make self-deprecating humor and the rejection of pomposity central to his landmark sitcom. At
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the same time, Good Times offered television‘s first serious look at life in a black ghetto. A few
years later, Married with Children would break from television convention and offer a comical
portrait of a cash-strapped, dysfunctional, sleazy, working-class family. It would be Roseanne,
the acerbic take on working class, small-town family life, and the one successful Illinois program
set outside of the Chicago area, that would best capture the fundamental spirit of the state‘s
television landscape—a spirit described by Victoria Johnson as ―ordinary, real, truthful‖ and
resolutely ―non-yuppie and non-upscale.‖
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TABLE 5. DEFINING PROGRAMS AND COMMON TRAITS: THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI MIDWEST
State Defining Programs Key Program
Elements
Other Common
Traits
Iowa M*A*S*H (Radar
O‘Reilly)
A shy, quiet, and
unassuming,
unsophisticated but
also honest,
hardworking and
dependable farm kid
Idealism; family love;
small towns; farms;
mainstream America;
sanctuary;
industriousness;
independence;
loyalty; honesty
Kansas Gunsmoke A strong, fearless,
sympathetic and
philosophical
masculine lead
civilizing a wild and
lawless frontier;
geographic and
emotional isolation;
populism;
conservative values
Small towns and
farms; isolation;
boredom; the
transition from
Midwest to West;
―hicks, rubes and
yokels‖; loving
families; traditional
values; loneliness and
terror
Smallville Intelligent, complex,
yet earthy and honest
small-town folks;
agriculture
Minnesota The Mary Tyler
Moore Show
The prototypical show
about a modern,
independent woman;
Minneapolis as a big,
intimidating, thriving,
modern metropolis;
lack of ethnic
diversity; small-town
squareness; excessive
politeness;
―Presbyterian
militancy‖; likable
characters
Polite, likable, self-
deprecating
characters; almost
total lack of crime,
poverty, degradation,
and violence
Little House on the
Prairie
―An oasis of gentle
homilies, solid family
values, and sweet
social harmony‖
Coach Friendly, escapist
atmosphere; earthy,
likable characters
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Missouri Ozark Jubilee A warm, folksy,
sincere, cheerful aura;
hillbillies ―moaning
and wailing‖
Modern urban
sophistication meets
old-fashioned, small-
town virtues; a
mixture of seedy
urban centers,
pleasant suburbs,
small towns, and rural
backwaters. Mixture
of syrupy optimism
and bitter realism;
mainstream America;
stubbornness, earthy
wit, and rejection of
all things effete and
snobbish; young,
urban African
Americans
Grace Under Fire The professional and
family life of a
sarcastic, blue-collar,
single mom; small-
town life that was not
nostalgic or
sentimental; wit and
sophistication;
industriousness
The Beverly Hillbillies
(The Clampetts)
Simple, uneducated,
unsophisticated
hillbillies; charming,
unpretentious,
egalitarian people
Nebraska Heartland The story of an ―an
old and crusty but
lovable small-town
bigot‖
Modern and urban
meets old-fashioned
and rural; Middle
American values
North Dakota and
South Dakota
Father Murphy A righteous man
standing up to a tide
of corruption and evil
A wild and lawless
frontier; a quirky
contemporary town
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CHAPTER 5 - THE MIDWEST, PART 2: THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI MIDWEST
The Trans-Mississippi Midwest, which here will include the whole of Minnesota, has
accounted for about 2.6% of the American television landscape. Programs set in Iowa, Nebraska,
and the Dakotas have not fared particularly well, with these states‘ fifteen shows collectively
accounting for 0.32% of the country‘s television images. Minnesota‘s eight programs have
included a number of hit shows, and that state alone has represented 0.51% of America‘s
television landscape. Missouri, the most populous of these seven states, has also landed the most
programs—eighteen—and those shows have accounted for 0.83% of the country‘s television
images. Kansas has served as the setting for fewer shows than Missouri—fourteen—but its
overall share of the American television landscape has been slightly larger, at 0.95%. That is
due, in large part, to the fact that it was the home of television‘s longest-running drama.
MISSOURI
Speaking for the residents of his home state, author and self-styled geographer William
Least Heat-Moon wrote that ―A Missourian gets used to Southerners thinking him a Yankee, a
Northerner considering him a cracker, a Westerner sneering at his effete Easternness, and the
Easterner taking him for a cowhand‖ (Heat-Moon 1982: 28). While it is unlikely that Heat-Moon
was thinking specifically of TV shows when he made that statement, it is wholly appropriate to
Missouri‘s television landscape. To the east of Missouri is Illinois, where the television
landscape was shaped by the urbanity of The Bob Newhart Show, the rust-belt aesthetic of Good
Times, Married with Children, and Roseanne, the middle-class suburbs of sunny family sitcoms
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like Webster and According to Jim, and the gritty urban realism of The Untouchables and ER. To
the north is thoroughly midwestern Iowa, birthplace of Radar O‘Reilly and James T. Kirk.
Kansas, to the west is a collection of lonesome small towns, while, to the south, Arkansas and
Tennessee feature the sleepy southern town of Evening Shade and the mighty engine of country
music and cornpone comedy in Nashville. Missouri‘s television programs have dabbled in all of
these themes and genres, but the state‘s television landscape has not been dominated by any of
them. Missouri is home to both modern urban sophistication and old-fashioned, small-town
virtues. It has also showcased America‘s seedy urban underbelly and its rural, redneck
backwaters. Of the states eighteen entries, ten have been set in St. Louis or Kansas City, while
eight have either been set in fictional small towns, or originated from the smaller cities of Joplin
and Springfield.
Missouri‘s early television landscape was, in fact, dominated by Springfield. In the
1950s, it was one of the few serious challengers to Nashville‘s status as a country music capital,
and Springfield took an early lead when it came to television. Premiering on network television
nine months before the Grand Ole Opry was Springfield‘s Ozark Jubilee. This country variety
showcase aired on ABC from January of 1955 through the fall of 1960, also using the titles
Country Music Jubilee and Jubilee U.S.A. Hosted by Opry veteran Red Foley, regulars on the
show included top names in country music, such as Webb Pierce and Porter Waggoner. The
program also showcased amateur talent, including a portion called the ―Junior Jubilee.‖ One such
person was a ―sweet-as-peaches little 11-year-old girl with a booming voice‖ named Brenda Lee,
who became a Jubilee favorite and later a force on the country and pop charts (Brooks and
Marsh 2007: 1,042).
Springfield produced two similar network programs around the same time, including
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ABC‘s Talent Varieties, which aired for three months in 1955, and NBC‘s Five Star Jubilee,
which aired for five months in 1961. While none of those entries were a smash in the ratings,
their numbers were steady, leading Ozark Jubilee coproducer Si Siman to claim—accurately, in
terms of audience draw—that:
Springfield, Missouri, was the third highest origination point for
national television—third only to New York and Hollywood. More
than Chicago. More than Washington, D. C . . . . We were able to
convince ABC that ―country‖ was a lot more popular than people
realized (Johnson 2008: 68).
All three Springfield entries were a mixed blessing for Missouri‘s television image.
Certainly they gave the state a warm, folksy aura, characteristics exemplified by the cheerful and
sincere persona of Red Foley. Each week, the viewer was greeted by barbershop quartets, square
dancers, and even 4-H Club award winners. A few hymns were sprinkled in, often performed
before a backdrop of an old country church, and Red Foley concluded each episode with a brief
sermon. According to critic Victoria E. Johnson, this conclusion presented the show‘s sharpest
geographic message:
These gospel segments explicitly reinforce the Heartland
community‘s . . . steadfast adherence to pre-modern values of
family, church, and hometown in the face of rapid postwar change
. . . . Each week‘s closing credits explicitly positioned the ―heart of
the Ozarks‖ at the geographic center of America and, conceptually,
as the bed-rock of postwar society from which all good things
radiate outward—as a residually place-bound corrective to the
anxiety, materialism, self-involvement, and distance from ―real
folk‖ perceived to be ever-more prevalent in modern life (Johnson
2008: 70).
At the same time, programs like Ozark Jubilee almost certainly inspired symptoms of
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what essayist and Missouri native Calvin Trillin has identified as ―rubophobia,‖ which is ―not
fear of rubes, but fear of being taken for a rube‖ (Kendall 1986: 14). Missourians of this ilk
likely bristled at Springfield‘s early television offerings, for their tone was far from
cosmopolitan. Such rustic elements as The Oklahoma Wranglers, The Country Rhythm Boys,
and the Tall Timber Trio certainly did not generate much respect from the television
establishment. Although NBC‘s Five Star Jubilee was a national offering, the network decided
not to broadcast it in the New York market, citing the show‘s ―primarily rural appeal‖ (Brooks
and Marsh 2007: 479). In their summary of the lavishly produced crossover program The Johnny
Cash Show, Brooks and Marsh contrasted it with Ozark Jubilee, which they describe as being
―strictly for the sticks‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 713). Critics of the 1950s agreed, appearing to
be almost baffled by Jubilee‘s success. One critic bemoaned the program‘s ―supreme lack of
show-business knowledge,‖ while Time magazine, which characterized the program as
―hillbillies . . . moaning and wailing,‖ asked, in befuddlement, ―Why is it so successful?‖ TV
Guide‘s report on the Ozark Jubilee, even when chronicling the show‘s success, came across as a
smug insult:
Ever wonder which show attracts the widest family circle to the
TV set each week? Wal, now, it‘s that li‘l ole Ozark Jubilee that
you don‘t hear so much about but that sure does pack in the
country-music fans on Saturday night . . . . According to the
American Research Bureau, Jubilee has 28 percent more people
per set watching than the average of all evening shows. In other
words, it appeals to Grampaw and all the tads, too (Johnson 2008:
68).
Despite its success, ABC suddenly pulled Ozark Jubilee off the air in 1960, ostensibly
because the network had purchased rights to broadcast a series of prize fights that would air in
Jubilee‘s place on Saturday nights. In reality, the show ended because Red Foley had been
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indicted on charges of tax evasion, something ―hardly consonant with the down-home sincerity
he projected on the show‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,042). Foley was acquitted in 1961, and
would go on to be featured on the ABC sitcom Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, but Springfield‘s
days as a center for national television production were over.
Missouri‘s only other entry from the 1950s set a far different tone from Jubilee. Down-
home atmosphere and country music were traded in for hot jazz and the mean streets of
Prohibition-era Kansas City on Pete Kelly‟s Blues. The title character was a trumpeter and band
leader at a Cherry Street speakeasy in the 1920s. The show followed Pete, his piano-playing pal
Fred, and a blues singer named Savannah Brown as they stumbled into various scrapes, including
murders and kidnappings. Based on a 1951 radio show and 1955 film, both starring Jack Webb,
the television version featured William Reynolds as Pete Kelly, and lasted for five months in
1959.
With the exception of the short-lived Five Star Jubilee, Missouri was off the air during
the tumultuous 1960s. The state returned with three programs in the 1970s, each possessing
standard themes for midwestern programs. The first was the 1974 drama Lucas Tanner, which
featured future Good Morning America host David Hartman as the title character, a former major
league pitcher and sportswriter who had just lost his wife and young son in a car accident. As it
often does on television, the Midwest offered a fresh start to Tanner, who took a job as an
English teacher at Harry S. Truman High School in the St. Louis suburb of Webster Groves. As
is also frequently the case, the native Midwesterners proved to be stubbornly tradition-bound,
and most of the teachers at Truman High were resistant to Tanner‘s unorthodox teaching style.
Tanner‘s students were grateful, however, and it was that gratitude that kept Lucas from giving
up. NBC, hoping to tap into antiestablishment zeitgeist among younger viewers, touted the show
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in a 1974 TV Guide advertisement with the line, ―Once he pitched in the majors, now he throws
curves at the establishment—and his students love him for it!‖ The show never caught on,
however, and Lucas Tanner was sent to the showers after one season.
Kansas City‘s lone 1970s entry played on the familiar regional theme of nostalgia. The
sitcom Apple Pie was, as its name suggested, a sugary slice of Americana. Set in 1933, it was the
story of Ginger-Nell Hollyhock, a middle-aged hairdresser who cured her loneliness by
recruiting a family via a classified ad in the newspaper. A husband, daughter, son, and even a
doddering old grandpa all came to live with her in this way, just ―for the laughs‖ (Brooks and
Marsh 2007: 73). Apple Pie was off the air after two weeks in 1978.
Missouri‘s third entry of the decade was 1979‘s The Baxters. This title clan lived in
suburban St. Louis, and was about as middle-class and Middle American as a family could get.
Fred Baxter sold insurance, and had a wife Mary, a housekeeper, and three children—Naomi,
Jonah, and Rachel. Many of the region‘s shows have examined contemporary American social
issues, but none quite so literally as The Baxters. The first half of each episode was played out as
a standard sitcom, with the family facing some sort of moral quandary such as whether or not
Grandmother Baxter should go to a nursing home or what to think about the fact that Jonah‘s
teacher was gay. The issue was never resolved, however. Instead, during the second half of the
show, cameras would go to a studio audience, who would discuss what they thought the Baxters
should do. A separate audience and moderator existed in each television market, and, in some
cities, viewers could call in and offer their thoughts.
The Baxters began as a local program in Boston in 1977, the project of a divinity student
for his Sunday morning public affairs show. It attracted a cult following and was produced for
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nationwide syndication during the 1979-1980 season. The show was not especially successful,
but was given another shot during the 1980-1981 season. Although produced in Hollywood and
then Toronto, the St. Louis setting certainly suggests that this city was perceived to be a
representative sample of mainstream America.
Three more Missouri-based programs made their debuts in the 1980s, none of them with
much success. The sitcom Making the Grade, which aired for six weeks in 1982, featured the
dedicated and idealistic teachers of Franklin High, an overcrowded, gang-infested, inner city St.
Louis school. Kansas City was the setting for The Popcorn Kid for a month in 1987. This was a
contemporary sitcom about a group of high school kids who worked at a revival movie house
called The Majestic.
Another Missouri sitcom of the 1980s arrived on the coattails of M*A*S*H, one of
television‘s most iconic programs. For a decade, viewers had been entranced by life at a mobile
army hospital during the Korean War. The program introduced Americans to a large cast of
memorable characters, many of whom represented a broad spectrum of midwestern archetypes.
There was Henry Blake, a gentle goofball from Illinois; Radar O‘Reilly, a naïve Iowa farm boy;
Maxwell Klinger, a flamboyant Steel Belt ethnic type from Toledo, Ohio; and Ft. Wayne,
Indiana‘s Frank Burns, an avaricious and ultimately spineless automaton who appeared to have
stepped right out a Sinclair Lewis novel. When Blake, the 4077th‘s commanding officer, was
killed at the end of the show‘s third season, viewers were introduced to his replacement, Colonel
Sherman T. Potter of Missouri. Potter was regular army, having served since World War I, and
was, when compared to the flighty Blake, a strict disciplinarian. He was also genuine, honest,
and loyal, serving as a sort of father figure to the doctors and nurses of the 4077th. Despite
having spent most of his television life in Korea, Potter was certainly one of television‘s most
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famous fictional Missourians. With his stubbornness, earthy wit, and rejection of all things effete
and snobbish, most residents likely considered him a positive reflection of their state, and he
probably also reminded many viewers of a pair of famous non-fictional Missourians: Harry S
Truman and Mark Twain. In fact, the Potter character was given connections to both of them.
Like Twain, he hailed from Hannibal, and in one episode Potter claimed to have served in the
army with President Truman.
Sherman Potter returned to civilian life, and to Missouri, in the 1983 M*A*S*H sequel
AfterMASH. Joined by fellow 4077th colleagues Max Klinger and Father Francis Mulcahy, Potter
assumed command of the Pershing Veterans Hospital in the fictional town of River Bend. Like
its predecessor, AfterMASH blended comedy with earnest appraisals of the ―human wreckage
created by war,‖ and for a time it was nearly as successful (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 24).
AfterMASH was ranked fifteenth in the Nielsen ratings during its premiere season, making it the
first Missouri-based show to rank in the Nielsen top thirty. The next season, however, the show
was moved from Tuesday nights where it ran up against NBC‘s action series, The A-Team.
Ratings plummeted, and AfterMASH was cancelled a few weeks into its second year.
Before 1993, no Missouri-based show had lasted as long as two seasons. This changed
with the arrival of a pair of popular sitcoms. The first, St. Louis-based The John Larroquette
Show, was one of the bleakest portrayals of urban life ever to be seen on a midwestern sitcom.
The protagonist, John Hemingway, seemed respectable at first—a cultured and well-educated
man who collected Thomas Pynchon first editions. Unfortunately, John had battled alcohol for
years, losing his wife and career in the process. Supporting characters included the kind and
sophisticated Carly Watkins, who also was a prostitute, and an intelligent, socially-conscious
young black man named Dexter Wilson who seethed with anger. Unable to find employment
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anywhere else, John had taken a job as the graveyard shift manager of the Crossroads, the
―world‘s seediest bus terminal,‖ located in an incredibly dangerous part of St. Louis (Brooks and
Marsh 2007: 762). Dexter ran the diner at the Crossroads while Carly ―worked‖ the lounge. Also
seen were Mahalia, John‘s brash assistant; Gene, a big, gruff custodian; lackluster police officers
Adam Hampton and Eve Eggers; and Oscar, the station‘s resident bum.
When compared to other 1993 sitcoms like Coach, Full House, Home Improvement,
Family Matters, and even Seinfeld and Murphy Brown, The John Larroquette Show was
exceptionally grim. In addition to John‘s on-going battle with the bottle, the Crossroads was
witness to numerous robberies, a hostage crisis, a runaway teen, a baby abandoned in the
station‘s dumpster, and even the appearance of a neo-Nazi named Steve Hitler. In the first
episode, John hung a sign, stolen from an amusement park, that said it all: ―This is a Dark Ride‖
(Tucker 2005: 84).
John Larroquette developed a devout following, but the show described by TV Guide as
―sitcom noir‖ struggled to find a large audience. In the third season NBC launched a television
version of gentrification to broaden the show‘s appeal. The crew of the Crossroads was moved to
the day shift, Carly gave up her career and married a millionaire, and Oscar the bum got a job at
the station‘s newsstand. These changes not only failed to attract new viewers, but also alienated
old ones, and The John Larroquette Show was cancelled midway through its fourth season. That
was, nevertheless, a fairly long run by Missouri standards, and for those who tuned in it certainly
marked a dramatic shift away from the folksy atmosphere of Colonel Sherman Potter and Red
Foley.
The shift in tone seen in John Larroquette‘s St. Louis was but also present in that show‘s
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more successful contemporary, 1993‘s Grace Under Fire. Grace was also part of a broader
movement that was reshaping sitcoms in the early 1990s. Like Jerry Seinfeld, Ellen DeGeneres,
Tim Allen, and Roseanne Barr, comedian Brett Butler brought material from her stand-up act to
the small screen. She is often compared to Barr—both were cynical, uncompromising, and
independent—and the spirit of Grace Under Fire very much resembled that of Roseanne. Both
were set in small towns in the hinterland of a large city, and both focused on the home and work
lives of a blue-collar antiheroine. Butler played Grace Kelly, a divorced single mother who
worked at an oil refinery in fictional Victory, Missouri, near St. Louis. At the job, where she was
an affirmative-action hire—or, as she put it, ―quota babe‖—Grace was adept at taking grief from
her gruff, mostly male coworkers, and even better at dishing it out. At home, Grace was a
recovering alcoholic, and struggled to make ends meet while raising her three kids—Quentin,
Libby, and Patrick. Also seen were Grace‘s friends, Nadine, Wade, and Russell, all of whom had
similarly troubled lives.
Grace Under Fire was unique in its geographic outlook, and that uniqueness was rooted
in Brett Butler‘s personal geography. Born in Montgomery, Alabama, Butler and her five sisters
were raised by their ―bohemian and extremely literate‖ mother in Atlanta. Butler credited her
mother, who named Brett for the heroine of Hemingway‘s The Sun Also Rises, for instilling in
her both a love of literature and an appreciation for dark comedy. Butler‘s life was also quite
troubled. Her alcoholic father abandoned the family when she was four, and at age nineteen,
Butler herself married a physically abusive alcoholic. She left the marriage after three years,
moved to Houston, and started doing stand-up comedy that mirrored her upbringing. ―I come
from a family where the humor was really dark,‖ said Butler, ―a house headed by interesting,
intelligent, bohemian, minimally agnostic parents in the middle of the Bible Belt, where girls
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were either good or bad, where when I got married at age 20, everyone said ‗Sugar, you‘re
finally settling down‘‖ (De Vries 1994: 2). Butler drew comparison to the likes of Richard Pryor
and Lenny Bruce for her fresh, intelligent jokes about ―trailer parks, gun racks, pickup trucks,
and the SOB-type men who love them‖ (Schwarzbaum 1994b: 1). ―Here I was, this Southern
white chick, but I realized that my humor was like urban minority comics,‖ said Butler, ―the
humor of the oppressed‖ (De Vries 1994: 2).
Butler‘s comic formula was carried intact to her television program. Her Missouri
community both sustained and shattered the worst stereotypes about working-class, small-town
life. The entrenched flaws were represented by Jimmy Kelly, whom Grace described as her
―knuckle-dragging, cousin-loving, beer-sucking redneck‖ of an exhusband (Brooks and Marsh
2007: 555). On the other hand, Victory was also home to witty, sophisticated people like Grace
and her friends. And although Grace‘s life was not easy by any means, she was not a fatalist.
Like Ann Romano of One Day at a Time, she was a model of midwestern industriousness. Grace
attended night school and, toward the end of the show‘s run, had moved into the ranks of white-
collar professionals, working at an advertising agency in St. Louis.
Critics lauded the show, with one calling it ―hip, smart, funny and oddly populist all at
once‖ (De Vries 1994: 2). For a time, Grace Under Fire was actually more popular than
Roseanne, and was Missouri‘s first genuine hit. Grace ranked fifth in the Nielsen ratings during
its first season, easily the highest-rated new show that year, and climbed to the fourth spot the
following year. Ratings remained good during the 1995-1996 season, when the show was ranked
thirteenth, but began to sink rapidly the following year. Attributed by some, fairly or unfairly, to
behind-the-scenes turmoil created by its demanding star, Grace Under Fire quickly
disintegrated, and was cancelled midway through its fifth season in 1998.
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The two Missouri shows that followed John Larroquette and Grace Under Fire in 1994
swung the landscape of the state back to the sunny side of the street. The premise of the sitcom
On Our Own certainly sounded bleak. It was the story of the Jerrico family—seven middle class
kids in St. Louis, aged eighteen months to twenty years—who had been orphaned by a car
accident. The oldest, Josh, did his best to hold the family together, but when agents from Family
Services came around, they announced that the younger kids faced foster care if a more mature
adult could not be found. Josh, and the show‘s producers, were apparently familiar with the
recent Robin Williams theatrical hit Mrs. Doubtfire, so he donned a dress and wig and became
Aunt Jelcinda, the Jerricos‘ new guardian. This ―slapstick warmth-com‖ lasted just one season,
and is most notable for being the first Missouri-based program to feature a predominantly black
cast (Brooks 2007: 1,015). Appearing the same year was Someone Like Me, which told the story
of Gaby Stepjak, a precocious eleven-year-old St. Louis girl, her calculating teenage sister, her
―doting all-American‖ mom, her sincere stepdad, and her best friend, Jane (Brooks and Marsh
2007: 1,269). This cheery sitcom never caught on, and was cancelled after just seven weeks.
The modest wave of Missouri-based sitcoms of the 1990s concluded with Malcolm &
Eddie, which debuted in 1996. This was the story of two young black men in contemporary
Kansas City. Serious, driven Malcolm was an aspiring sports journalist, while happy-go-lucky
Eddie operated an auto repair shop and towing service. The show mixed several familiar sitcom
concepts. In the spirit of The Odd Couple, Malcolm and Eddie shared little in common beyond
a run-down apartment above Kelly‘s Sports Bar. They were often seen hanging out at the bar
with its crew of zany characters, a la Cheers, and they were almost constantly ensnared in a
series of Eddie‘s hair-brained schemes, a la I Love Lucy.
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Perhaps the most notable thing about Malcolm & Eddie, from a geographic perspective,
is that it featured a predominantly black cast. Black sitcoms set in the Midwest are not an
absolute rarity, but most have been set in either Detroit or Chicago. The presence of Kansas
City‘s Malcolm & Eddie and St. Louis‘s On Our Own and The John Larroquette Show (which
had a number of African-American supporting characters) makes the television landscape of
Missouri something of an ethnic anomaly, particularly when compared to other states in the
trans-Mississippi Midwest. Malcolm & Eddie also reflected another, more general, trend in
television. Like a number of black sitcoms, the show appeared on the viewer-starved UPN
network. As noted earlier, the UPN and WB networks often relied on African-American
audiences to sustain viewership in the late 1990s just as FOX had done in the early 1990s. As
much as any other show, Malcolm & Eddie exposed the large racial divide in American
audiences. In 1997, Jet magazine reported that Malcolm & Eddie ranked sixth among black
television households. The next year, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that of the 175
programs to appear on the six major networks, Malcolm & Eddie ranked dead last.
Racial issues were exposed not just in terms of the show‘s audience, but also in its
reviews. It can be argued that Malcolm and Eddie were positive role models. As the series
progressed, they eventually bought the building in which they lived, expanding Eddie‘s towing
business and converting the sports bar into a jazz club called the Fifty/Fifty. The series stars,
Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Eddie Griffin were both, in fact, nominated for NAACP Image
Awards in 2001, a good indicator that African-Americans found role models in the show. To
some critics, however, Malcolm & Eddie was little more than a 1990s update of Amos & Andy,
pitting, in the words of Robin R. Means Coleman, ―the more normal character against the
popular, focal buffoon character,‖ with Malcolm being the ―responsible, tempered
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businessperson,‖ and Eddie representing ―dancing, shucking and jiving‖ stereotype. Malcolm &
Eddie, said Means Coleman, ―ensured that the coon stereotype would have a secure place in the
1990s.‖ Critic Robert Bianco concurred, writing that ―any behavior that borders on the
intellectual is mocked; any sign of ‗uppity‘ aspiration is mocked. On Malcolm, a man is ridiculed
for reading poetry—and he‘s a fat man, which is supposed to make it twice as funny‖ (Means
Coleman 1998: 128). Whatever the show‘s cultural merits, it was popular enough among its
primarily African-American audience to remain on the air for four years, making it the last
Missouri-based sitcom to enjoy a measure of success.
Three more Missouri entries appeared in the mid-2000s, and all marked a shift away from
the state‘s metropolitan areas. Among them was the formulaic sitcom Free Ride, which was the
story of Nate Stahlings. Having graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara,
Nate moved into his parent‘s garage in fictional Johnson City, Missouri, while he tried to figure
out what to do next. Viewers didn‘t much care what Nate did, and the show was cancelled after
six weeks. Premiering the same year was Missouri‘s lone documentary/reality entry, Trick My
Truck, which was shot on location at 4-State Trucks in Joplin. Described by Brooks and Marsh
as a ―down-home version of MTV‘s Pimp My Ride,‖ this program featured a team of tractor-
trailer mechanics who took a run-of-the-mill rig and, with the help of the trucker‘s family,
surprised him or her with a customized dream ride (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1425).
Trick My Truck was not quite as rustic as Brooks and Marsh suggest, but it did appear on
Country Music Television, a clear indication that the intended viewers were the children and
grandchildren of the audience that had made shows like Ozark Jubilee popular. And despite its
gruff persona, the ultimate message of the show was every bit as wholesome as anything offered
up on The Waltons. The majority of the ambushed truckers were decent, humble people who had
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fallen on hard times—a former Marine who was taking on extra miles to raise money after his
daughter was diagnosed with cancer; a woman who had gotten into trucking when it was still
considered a man‘s world, but whose rig was on the ropes; and countless families who simply
wanted to reward their truckers for years of selfless hard work. All of this made Trick My Truck
a sort of homily about the meek inheriting the earth, or, at the very least, a pretty nice truck.
The 2004 drama Jack and Bobby had a similarly moralistic message. Set in a small,
contemporary Missouri town, it told the story of a gregarious sixteen-year-old named Jack
McCallister, his ―bookish, asthmatic‖ little brother, Bobby, and their single mom, Grace, a
history professor at nearby Plains State University whose frank attitude and strident liberalism
often rubbed some of her colleagues, friends, and family the wrong way (Brooks 2007: 682). The
show was a coming-of-age drama with a catch—Bobby was the future President of the United
States. Jack and Bobby cast small-town Missouri as a state awash in persistently positive
Heartland virtues, as indicated by the not-too-subtle name of the fictional town in which the
show was set—Hart. The significance of show‘s setting was not lost on critic Lee Siegel:
Though the boys have famous Kennedy names, there really isn‘t
anything Kennedy-like about them. They‘re of modest means . . . .
If anything, they‘re more like Harry Truman. The show, in fact, is
set in Missouri, where the boys attend ―Truman High‖—the
names ―Jack‖ and ―Bobby‖ just add a little allure (Siegel 2007:
299).
Like Truman, Bobby McCallister‘s character was inexorably tied to his Missouri
upbringing. Although he was not flawless, the show cast him in undeniably favorable light.
Using an unusual format, viewers each week were shown interviews from the year 2049, during
the final days of Bobby‘s presidency, in which his future friends and colleagues spoke of various
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aspects of his character. Each episode focused on a particular character trait, such as honesty or
leadership, and then showed how events in Bobby‘s youth helped shape that particular trait.
Jack and Bobby was never able to build a large audience, even by the standards of the
fledgling WB network. In part, this was because of the WB‘s inexplicable decision to run the
show on Wednesday nights opposite The West Wing, a program that almost certainly drew the
same audience at which Jack and Bobby was aimed. The show held on for one season, but was
not renewed the following year.
An odd element of the television geography of Missouri is that some of the most popular
characters associated with the state have been, in one way or another, disconnected from its
physical landscape. That disconnection likely came as a tremendous relief to Missouri‘s
rubophobes, because each these characters and settings implied that the state was absolutely
chock-full of hillbillies and hayseeds. One of television‘s most famous backwaters was
Hooterville, the backdrop for the wildly popular 1960s sitcoms Petticoat Junction and Green
Acres. According to the producer of these two series, Paul Henning, Hooterville was inspired by
Eldon, Missouri, the hometown of his wife‘s grandparents. The exact location of Hooterville,
however, was never actually identified on the show. A similar situation occurred in the long-
running 1980s sitcom Mama‟s Family. This was the story of a family of rubes and their sharp-
tongued, beer-swilling matriarch, and the setting was Raytown, which is also the name of a
Kansas City suburb. Although a few sharp-eyed fans have cited subtle references from the
program that place it in Missouri, the precise location of Raytown was never made explicit on
the show itself.
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Of less consolation to Missouri‘s rubophobes was the sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies. As
its title suggests, the setting here was California, but the title hillbillies, the Clampett family,
were obviously from out of town. And unlike the ambiguous geography of Hooterville and
Raytown, context made it clear that the Clampetts were Missourians. To make matters worse for
Missouri rubophobes, the hillbilly stereotypes were poured on thick.
The premise for the show was simple enough that it could be summarized in a theme
song—one that is permanently etched into the memory of millions of Americans. Jed Clampett
was a poor Ozarks mountaineer who, through a stroke of sheer luck, discovered vast oil deposits
on his land. After a company made Jed a generous offer, his cousin Pearl convinced the family to
move to California so that they could enoy a better life. So they loaded up his old rattletrap,
Grapes of Wrath-vintage truck (a converted 1921 Oldsmobile roadster), and moved to Beverly
Hills. Along for the ride were Jed‘s handsome, exuberant, but profoundly stupid nephew, Jethro
Bodine; Jed‘s beautiful, sweet-natured, animal-loving, tomboy daughter, Elly May; and Jed‘s
wiry firecracker of a mother-in-law, Daisy ―Granny‖ Moses. Once moved into an opulent
Beverly Hills mansion, the Clampetts entrusted their wealth to Milburn Drysdale, the avaricious
banker who lived next door. Drysdale ran himself ragged trying to keep the Clampetts‘ business.
Looking out for the Clampetts was Drysdale‘s secretary and moral compass, the stuffy but
friendly Jane Hathaway.
From the start, The Beverly Hillbillies was a smashing success. Its debut episode, which
aired in September of 1962, was watched by half of all American television households. It was
television‘s top-rated show by the end of its first month on the air, and remained there for it first
two seasons. The show was in the Nielsen top thirty during all but the last of its nine seasons,
and was in the top ten for five of those years. To this day, The Beverly Hillbillies holds the
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record for the highest-rated individual half-hour episode of any television series, and eight of its
episodes rank in the top fifty. It was also an enormous success internationally, leading one
British critic to comment, ―More people in the world know The Beverly Hillbillies, it is safe to
assert, than know President Johnson or even the Pope‖ (Harkins 1990: 190). The show‘s theme
song, performed by bluegrass legends Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, was a number-one hit on the
country charts, and the show had a long and successful life in syndicated reruns after it left the
air in 1971.
The Beverly Hillbillies was laden with tired Ozarks stereotypes, particularly in the
characters of Jethro, Elly May, and Granny, who were carbon copies of L‟il Abner characters
Abner, Daisy May, and Mammy. Each week, the show highlighted another element of the
Clampetts backwardness. When an IRS agent showed up, Granny greeted him with a shotgun. It
was revealed that it had been years since Jed listened to the radio, read a newspaper, or saw a
movie. Jehtro tried to join the military, and so he went off to an amusement park called
Marineland, mistaking it for a base. Granny mistook an ostrich for a giant chicken and a
kangaroo for a giant rabbit. Granny watched television and, thinking that the soap opera was real,
set off to rescue the actor who was in trouble. When Granny saw actors in Union uniforms she
thought the Civil War had resumed and so donned her Confederate duds.
Television critics, according to historian Tim Hollis, ―simply could not think of enough
derogatory things to say about The Beverly Hillbillies‖ (Hollis 2008: 183). Variety magazine
wrote that ―at no time . . . does it give the viewer credit for even a smattering of intelligence . . .
even the hillbillies should take umbrage‖ (Harkins 2004: 190). Historian Paul Cullum wrote that
―the show became in certain quarters something of a public embarrassment . . . emblematic of
the nation‘s having slipped another notch into pandering anti-intellectualism—a pervasive
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‗bubbling crude‘ which stained all in its wake‖ (Cullum 2010: 1). Writing nearly three decades
after The Beverly Hillbillies left the air, critic Sam Frank lamented the show‘s enduring
popularity, saying that ―we will never be rid of these moronic bumpkins‖ (Frank 1999: 204).
Despite all of these unkind words, the show‘s immense popularity suggests that it had at
least some redeeming qualities. It was lowbrow humor, to be sure, but it was also, in the words
of Anthony Harkins, ―well crafted and genuinely funny.‖ Harkins cited critic Gilbert Seldes who,
although dismayed by the show‘s ―encouragement to ignorance,‖ wrote that ―the single simple,
and to some people outrageous, fact is that The Beverly Hillbillies is funny‖ (Harkins 2004: 191).
The lead characters were also appealing. The Beverly Hillbillies was obviously not out to
shatter hillbilly stereotypes, but it did dispense with some of the more unpleasant ones. ―The
word ‗hillbillies,‘‖ said Filmways Television president Al Simon, ―brought to mind the picture of
dirty, unkempt people wearing long beards, inhabiting dilapidated shacks with outhouses out
back.‖ In the wake of the show, asserted Simon, ―the word has a new meaning all over America.
Now, it denotes charming, delightful, wonderful, clean, wholesome people.‖ Anthony Harkins
outlined some of the ways that The Beverly Hillbillies rewrote the stereotype:
Long flowing beards and outhouses never appeared on the show
nor did family feuds or shootouts with law enforcement agents.
And although moonshining remained a common trope,
drunkenness of the hillbilly characters did not. The Clampett clan
dressed in jeans, linen blouses, and plaid shirts, but except for
Jed‘s signature tattered slouch hat, their attire was clean and
untorn. The alluring physiques of Elly May and Jethro played on
the standard conceptions of the innate sexuality of mountaineers
and lines about Elly May‘s voluptuous body peppered the early
episodes, but both characters were consistently portrayed as either
impossibly sexually incompetent or naïve. Likewise, potential
threat and violence remained latent in all the characters (Harkins
2004: 191-192).
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It is also noteworthy that, while The Beverly Hillbillies avoided some of the negative
hillbilly stereotypes, it always embraced the positive ones. The Clampetts, particularly Jed, came
off as friendly, independent, and sensible. They were also proud of their culture, refusing to shed
regional language, diet, and dress, or even to get rid of that rattling old truck. The one character
who occasionally tried to assimilate with modern California culture was Jethro, and he was
always made to look like a buffoon when he did. Perhaps the most endearing trait of the
Clampetts was their egalitarian view of the world. While nearly everyone else looked down on
them, they refused to return the favor. ―The way I look at it,‖ said Jed in one episode, ―ain‘t
nobody got a right to be ashamed of nobody else. Good Lord made us all‖ he said, ―and if we‘s
good enough for Him we sure ought to be good enough for each other‖ (Harkins 2004: 195).
Something often lost in the critical response to The Beverly Hillbillies was the matter of
who the show was ridiculing. Despite constant cracks at the Clampett‘s backwardness, in the
end, the characters who wound up in the show‘s satirical crosshairs were Milburn Drysdale and
his fellow Californians. Tim Hollis argued that this may have been, at least subconsciously, the
real reason for the harsh critical backlash against the show. ―Although the critics might not have
consciously realized it,‖ wrote Hollis, ―what they truly found irritating about the show may have
been the fact that for the first time the hillbilly characters were portrayed as imminently
likable—much more so than their pseudosophisticated southern California neighbors‖ (Hollis
2008: 183). The character of Granny was the most pointed in her assessment of California,
calling Beverly Hills ―the laziest, greasiest, unfriendliest mess o‘ people I ever laid my eyes on!‖
Like Holls, Harkins argues that the real message behind The Beverly Hillbillies was not about the
Ozarks at all, but about modern urban America:
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Whereas her Ozark neighbors prized her skills as a cook,
housekeeper, distiller, herbalist, and meteorologist, in Beverly
Hills, Granny is considered at best eccentric, and at worst, a
menace. And well she should be, for she is the character who most
often exposes the vapidness and uselessness of the lifestyles in
Beverly Hills, and by extension, of much of comfortably affluent
American society . . . . In stark contrast to Jed‘s loyalty, honesty,
and integrity and Granny‘s tenaciousness, the world beyond the
Clampett household is peopled almost exclusively by money-
grubbers, snobs, con artists, and sycophants. The show‘s main
antagonist, Jed‘s banker Milburn Drysdale . . . is a man so miserly
and so desperate to keep the Clampetts as his main depositors that
he is willing to go to any lengths to keep them happy, no matter
how much he must humiliate and degrade himself to do so . . . .
His wife Margaret . . . a vain and petty snob, is a hypochondriac
who dotes on her poodle and considers the Clampetts uncouth
barbarians who humiliate her in the eyes of high society. . . .The
program therefore presents modern America, at least superficially,
as venal, boorish, materialistic, and, ultimately, ethically and
spiritually hollow (Harkins 2004: 194-196).
The man to thank (or blame) for The Beverly Hillbillies was Paul Henning, a native of
Independence, Missouri. Henning had been a singer and actor at radio station KMBC in Kansas
City before moving on to a writing career in Hollywood. There, he had a hand in nearly every
important rural comedy to appear on American television for three decades. He was a writer for
The Real McCoys and The Andy Griffith Show, and created the successful 1950s sitcom The Bob
Cummings Show. Cummings was also a native Missourian, and his character, Bob Collins, a cool
bachelor photographer, would occasionally fly back to his hometown of Joplin to visit his
cracker-barrel grandpa, Josh. Henning‘s most memorable creations, however, were entirely
homespun, including Green Acres, Petticoat Junction, and, of course, The Beverly Hillbillies.
Initially, the precise location of the Clampett spread was vague—somewhere in the
Ozarks—but it was later defined as being near Silver Dollar City, a hillbilly-themed amusement
park in Branson, Missouri. That area still bears the imprint of Henning and the Clampetts.
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Visitors driving into Branson pass through the Ruth and Paul Henning State Conservation Area,
and the beat-up Clampett truck is on permanent display at the College of the Ozarks in nearby
Point Lookout. According to Henning, his affection for the Ozarks began in childhood, when he
attended a Boy Scout camp in Noel, Missouri, which is located in the southwest corner of the
state. ―I just sort of fell in love with the whole picture down there,‖ said Henning, ―and the
people were so kind and gracious. It was a wonderful experience.‖ Henning began pondering a
sitcom about Ozarkers in the 1950s, but had a problem in finding a way to both feature Ozark
characters and ―to escape the week-to-week depressive setting of the backwoods thing‖ (Harkins
2004: 188). Eventually, the idea of hillbillies in Beverly Hills came to Henning, and the rest, of
course, is history.
That Henning found the Ozarks to be both ―wonderful‖ and ―depressive‖ says much
about the geographic message of The Beverly Hillbillies. The Ozarks of the show was poor and
backward, but also alluring in its simplicity. In the pilot episode, for example, when Jed was
contemplating whether or not he should move to California, he asked his cousin Pearl for advice.
Their exchange made the show‘s message about the Ozarks clear:
PEARL: Jed, how can you even ask? Look around you! You‘re
eight miles from the nearest neighbor! You‘re overrun with
skunks, possums, coons and bobcats! You got kerosense lamps for
light, a wood stove to cook on winter and summer, you‘re drinking
homemade moonshine, washin‘ with homemade lye soap, and your
bathroom is fifty feet from the house! And you ask should you
move!
JED: Yeah, I guess you‘re right. A man‘d be a dang fool to leave all
this! (Harkins 2004: 195).
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IOWA
Iowa has served as the setting for seven programs—three dramas and four comedies—
and none stuck around for a full year. The state‘s first dramatic entry, Apple‟s Way, made its
debut in February of 1974 and lasted for eleven months. It told the story of George Apple, an
architect who, having grown weary of the rat race of Los Angeles, relocated his wife and four
children to his hometown in Iowa, which had been founded by his ancestors. A devoutly
religious man, George was idealistic, compassionate, and involved in community causes, even
though most local people thought he was a nut. His city-bred children had some difficulty
adjusting, but they eventually came to appreciate the town. Created by Earl Hamner, Jr., Apple‟s
Way featured the same sorts of homilies about family and community that had made Hamner‘s
The Waltons such a success.
Another family drama, 1983‘s Two Marriages, was set in a tidy, tranquil suburb of an
unnamed Iowa city, and chronicled two middle-class families. Like its comic contemporary,
Family Ties, the show used the Midwest as a backdrop for examining changing social
conventions. Ann Daley was a construction engineer, while her husband Jim worked on a dairy
farm. They had one young child of their own, and two from previous marriages: Jim‘s eleven-
year-old Vietnamese-American daughter and Ann‘s rebellious teenage son. Living across the
well-kept lawn were the Armstrongs. Art was a surgeon, and he and his wife, Nancy, a
homemaker, had two kids—one a wise and sensitive teenager, the other carefree. The show
centered on the contrasts between the modern Daley family and the more conventional
Armstrongs, and particularly on Nancy‘s envy of Ann‘s liberated lifestyle, but not for long. Two
Marriages was cancelled after eight months.
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In the 2006 thriller Runaway, Iowa once again provided sanctuary for a coastal resident,
but in a much more urgent sense. Paul Rader was a Maryland attorney who had been falsely
accused of murder. Pursued by the law and the real killer, he fled with his wife and children to
Bridgewater, Iowa, where they took assumed names. Paul worked as a waiter at a local diner
while he continued to search for the truth. Whether or not the Rader family learned the same kind
of life-affirming midwestern lessons as did the Apples must remain a matter of speculation, since
Runaway was cancelled after just three episodes.
The first of Iowa‘s four sitcoms was Nancy, which debuted in 1970. It was the story of
the daughter of the President of the United States, who fell in love with an Iowa veterinarian
named Adam. Their prying relatives, the press, and the secret service made romance a little
difficult, but they eventually married and settled in his small hometown. The only people who
left them alone were television viewers, and Nancy was cancelled after about four months.
Similarly, the short-lived sitcom Julie, which premiered in 1993, featured Julie Andrews as a
New York television star who fell in love with an Iowan named Sam who was, of course, also a
veterinarian. Julie settled down in the serenity of Sioux City to help him raise his two kids, but
also moved production of her hit variety show to Iowa. Whether the fictional Julie‘s show
succeeded is anyone‘s guess, for the real Julie‘s show was cancelled after six weeks.
Double Trouble, which debuted in 1984, was the story of two teenage twin girls who
were (what else?) a study in contrasts. Allison was the responsible one, Kate the troublemaker.
Art, their widowed father, owned a gym and dance studio in their hometown of Des Moines.
Apparently Iowa could not contain these two, and the show relocated to New York City after its
first season. The sitcom Drexell‟s Class, which debuted in 1991, concerned a fifth grade teacher
in fictional Cedar Bluffs. Otis Drexell was not an especially likable fellow, particularly by Iowa
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standards, being angry and manipulative. Ratings were dismal, and the show was overhauled
quickly, with the focus shifted to Drexell‘s home life. These changes were not enough to attract
new viewers, and Drexell‟s Class was cancelled after ten months.
Given the dismal track record of Iowa‘s seven entries, it is likely that all of them have
been forgotten by all but the most avid fans. This is not to suggest, however, that television has
not shaped the perception that the general audience has of Iowans. Although neither was ever
seen in his native environment, two of television‘s best-known characters, Corporal Walter
Eugene ―Radar‖ O‘Reilly and Captain James Tiberius Kirk, hailed from the Hawkeye State. In
terms of personality, the two could not have been more different from one another, but they both
possessed character traits that are squarely in tune with the midwestern archetype. Radar
O‘Reilly, the company clerk for the 4077th M*A*S*H, appeared on the Korean War comedy for
seven years—a longer run than all Iowa-based programs combined. Radar grew up on a farm
outside Ottumwa, and made frequent references to the loved ones he left behind, including his
mother Edna, his Uncle Ed, his dog Ranger, and his cow Betsy. Radar, in the words of James
Kelly, ―reflected the image that many people have of Midwesterners:‖
―Radar‖ O‘Reilly . . . was timid, quiet, and unassuming, but also
honest and dependable with a strong work ethic. He was shy . . . .
His favorite drink was Grape Nehi, implying he was unfamiliar
with the sophisticated alcoholic drinks of cities. Although he was
liked by almost everyone, he often complained to other characters
on the show about their lack of respect for him and his occupation
. . . . His affection for his mother and the family farm were links to
a traditional rural society and family life. Although the TV show
ostensibly takes place during the Korean War, the attitudes and
behavior of the other characters . . . were more typical of the recent
Vietnam War era. The character of Radar, in contrast, seemed truly
associated with an earlier time, in the 1950s and the Korean War
era (Kelly 2007: 119).
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Before the timid Iowa corporal, there was the dashing Iowa captain, James T. Kirk of the
starship U. S. S. Enterprise. Kirk, it almost goes without saying, was the protagonist of Star Trek,
a mildly successful 1960s science fiction series that would go on to become the stuff of
television legend. During the 1966-1967 season, Star Trek‘s first and highest-rated year, the
show was ranked fifty-second on the Nielsen charts. It was ultimately cancelled by NBC after
three viewer-starved years. Then came an unprecedented afterlife. The show became a cult
classic in syndication, and eventually spawned five television spin-offs, eleven feature films, and
countless fan conventions.
Buried somewhere in the original series was a mention that Captain Kirk was from Iowa,
a device, according to Michael Martone, that allowed the viewer to ―fill in the attendant
mythology of values that this shorthand would lend to a character, to the character‘s character—
hardworking, honest, independent, loyal. All of it‖ (Martone 2000: 9). That Kirk‘s Iowa heritage
would have some currency on a show set in deep space in the twenty-third century says much
about the impact place image can have on television, and what has happened in real-life
Riverside, Iowa, says much about the impact that television can have on a place‘s image.
Riverside, a town of just under a thousand people on the north bank of the English River
in southeastern Iowa claims to be the future birthplace of James T. Kirk. The original series
never actually mentioned the name of Kirk‘s hometown, but in 1983, enterprising Riverside city
councilman Steve Miller wrote a letter to the franchise‘s producers claiming to be one of Kirk‘s
ancestors and requesting that Riverside be officially designated as Kirk‘s birthplace. His request
was granted, and Riverside became part of the official Star Trek canon when it was mentioned in
a subsequent film. An official site for the birth was selected, and a marker was placed there to
commemorate the future event. Each June, busloads of Trekkies, many dressed as their favorite
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characters, descend upon the town for Trek Fest, which includes a parade, street dance, beer
garden, carnival rides, trivia contest and, of course, screenings of Star Trek episodes. Attendees
can swap Trek memorabilia and buy local souvenirs, including ―Kirk Dirt‖—a vial of soil
scooped from the birthplace. Plans were made to erect a statue of Kirk in a town park, but the
town could not raise enough money to buy permission to use actor William Shatner‘s likeness, so
they settled for a twenty-foot replica of the Enterprise. Signs that welcome visitors to Riverside,
which used to say ―Riverside—where the best begins,‖ now read ―Riverside—where the Trek
begins‖—much ado about an event that is not scheduled to occur until March 22, 2228 (Martone
2000: 9).
MINNESOTA
Minnesota has served as the backdrop for just eight televisions series, but three of them
proved to be popular and durable, particularly the state‘s first entry. The Mary Tyler Moore
Show, which debuted in 1970, was not only Minnesota‘s signature program, but also a show that
redefined the American television landscape, particularly in its portrayal of modern women, the
modern workplace, and life in the urban Midwest. It was the story of Mary Richards, who had
just been dumped by the long-time fiancé she had helped support while he was in medical
school. Determined to start life anew, Mary left her small hometown of Roseburg, Minnesota,
and headed for Minneapolis, where she got a job working in the newsroom of WJM-TV, the
lowest-rated television station in the Twin Cities. She moved into an apartment in a quaint old
Victorian home, where her neighbor was a loud, aggressive, man-hungry New Yorker named
Rhoda Morgenstern. Her new boss was Lou Grant, the ill-tempered, hard-drinking news director
whose crusty exterior masked a soft heart. Sex-crazed Sue Ann Nivens did the station‘s ―Happy
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Homemaker‖ segments, and Murray Slaughter was the station‘s head writer. Murray was Mary‘s
chief ally, and generally cheerful and friendly, but he could also be incredibly caustic,
particularly when dealing with WJM‘s anchorman, Ted Baxter. Ted, whose dressing room was
filled with celebrity photos—all of himself—was one of the most pompous, self-aggrandizing
characters in television history, once explaining to a reporter that he went into television because
―God told him he was too handsome for radio‖ (Alley and Brown 1989: 122). Ted was also a
moron, whose idiocy was a constant source of frustration and amusement to his co-workers. In
the words of Murray, ―You‘re Ted. Does it ever bother you that you‘re Ted?‖ (Javna 1988: 80).
Mary Tyler Moore was groundbreaking television, both in content and style. It looked
very different from most of the sitcoms that had preceded it. Plot was always secondary to
character, with the show relying on verbal sparring rather than whacky situations to get its
laughs, and the characters themselves were layered, dynamic people who changed as the
relationships among them developed. Most important, the show was smart, described by Brooks
and Marsh as ―one of the most literate, realistic, and enduring situation comedies of the 1970s‖
(Brooks and Marsh 2007: 863).
The most noteworthy aspect of Mary Tyler Moore was the simple fact that it focused on
an independent, single, career woman. Single women had been featured on television before, of
course, but they had generally fallen into one of two categories—young women looking for Mr.
Right, or more mature women who were single either by widowhood or, in some rare cases, by
divorce. Mary was in her early thirties, but neither widowed nor divorced. She was single
because she chose to be. It wasn‘t that Mary was opposed to marriage, but she was not desperate
or solely dedicated to the search for the ideal mate. In fact, although Mary did date throughout
the series, she never had a steady boyfriend. Even more remarkable for its time, the show
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implied that Mary occasionally spent the night with a man. ―We never made a point of it,‖ said
series cocreator Jim Brooks, ―but in our eyes Mary was not a virgin. She wasn‘t a man-hungry
animal like Rhoda, but very definitely she had an active, fully rounded sex life‖ (Alley and
Brown 1989: 7-8). The show was sly about this point, but it did lead to a few memorable
moments, as when Mary was visiting her parents, and her mother said to her father ―don‘t forget
to take your pill,‖ to which Mary, absently, replied, ―I won‘t‖ (Javna 1988: 80).
While Mary was certainly no radical, she represented to many the very model of a
progressive 1970s woman. She possessed the kind of political and social values that, in the
words of one critic, made her ―recoil at anti-Semitism, stand firm for a free press, believe in
racial equality, respect gay rights, believe in equal pay for women, favor gun control, and
endorse the new freedom in sexual mores (Alley and Brown 1989: 92). While Mary Tyler Moore
was rarely an overtly political program, it contained a message that had never been delivered in
primetime television—that a woman‘s success was not defined by her ability to land a husband.
When Mary‘s ne‘er-do-well fiancé eventually showed in Minneapolis, asking her to return to
him, Mary told him goodbye. When he told her to take care of herself, she quietly replied, ―I
think I just did‖ (Mitz 1988: 215).
In terms of America‘s television geography, the most groundbreaking thing about The
Mary Tyler Moore Show was its setting in the Midwest. In the more than two decades of
primetime network programming that preceded Mary Tyler Moore, only a few sitcoms had been
located there, and most of them, such as My Three Sons, had only vaguely midwestern settings.
In fact, prior to 1970, just two midwestern sitcoms actually mentioned the states in which they
were located—Kansas‘s The Phil Silvers Show and Illinois‘s Those Endearing Young Charms.
The latter was the only show to be set in an urban area—Chicago—and it lasted less than two
407
months. That Mary Tyler Moore and its modernist message was set in Minneapolis, rather than
New York, Boston, Los Angeles, or San Francisco, was nothing short of astounding. Recalling
his initial pitch of the show to CBS, Grant Tinker, Moore‘s husband and coproducer, stated that
―all I had to start them off . . . was the premise of Mary being single and thirty and living in
Minneapolis—which on the face of it is a pretty dull thought!‖ (Johnson 2008: 128). The
selection of such a seemingly dowdy backdrop was cause for some concern, as noted by Victoria
E. Johnson:
Although broadcast history lore states that the creators of The
Mary Tyler Moore Show were greeted with consternation upon
proposing that their series would feature a single woman over the
age of thirty, less often mentioned is another relatively
controversial element of their pitch—that the program would be set
in the middle of America, specifically, in Minneapolis.
Minneapolis was a location that, in 1970, did not immediately call
to mind the image central to the show and to its hoped-for new
audience demographic of hip, young, urban professionals—much
less the glamour of a celebrity such as Mary Tyler Moore (Johnson
2008: 112).
According to Mary Tyler Moore herself, Minneapolis was chosen because it was a setting
―that hadn‘t been seen to death on television already . . . full of life and young people and old
people; fat, skinny, tall, thin‖ (Johnson 2008: 134). James L. Brooks, however, suggested that he
and co-creator Allan Burns had a different, and far simpler, motivation. They wanted a program
that used, almost exclusively, just two settings—Mary‘s apartment and the WJM newsroom—
and they needed an excuse to keep the characters indoors. ―Early on we thought of Seattle
because of the constant rain there,‖ said Brooks, but they eventually decided on Minneapolis,
because it was a place where ―the major industry is snow removal‖ (Alley and Brown 1989: 6).
408
A quiet reference to that fact may have been contained in the address of Mary‘s apartment—119
North Weatherly.
If residents of the Twin Cities were hoping for a program to portray their city as a
thriving, modern metropolis, they could scarcely have done better than Mary Tyler Moore. It was
not that everything said was laudatory, for the show certainly took a few digs at the city,
particularly at its apparent lack of cultural variety, as noted by Victoria E. Johnson:
Notably not ―worldly‖ in its portrayal, Minneapolis is frequently
the butt of the show‘s gentle joking about its lack of diversity.
Examples across the series include throwaway lines from Ted
Baxter‘s WJM newscasts, such as ―And that‘s a look at the Filipino
community in the Twin Cities. And weren‘t they three of the nicest
people you‘d ever want to meet?‖ Or, noting that a ―field trip‖
would be required ―to see hippies,‖ that the Mexican population of
Minneapolis is ―one,‖ and that the only Japanese restaurant within
driving distance of the Twin Cities is ―Chef LeRoy‘s Teriyaki‖
(Johnson 2008: 137).
These few jabs aside, the show made it abundantly clear that Mary Richards did not go to
Minneapolis with a sense of resignation, but rather went filled with ambition. That fact, along
with a characterization of the city as stylish, big, and even intimidating, was reinforced for
viewers each week in an opening title sequence that ―truly reveled in the . . . dynamism of city
life‖ (Johnson 2008: 133). In that sequence, a somewhat anxious Mary was seen driving down
the interstate in her Ford Mustang, looking out upon spectacular urban views at dusk. She was
seen walking through neighborhoods, down snowy, tree-lined sidewalks, along the river, and
then through the bustling downtown, gazing up in awe. All the while the theme song implored,
―How will you make it on your own? This world is awfully big. Girl this time you‘re all alone,
but it‘s time you started living‖ (Johnson 2008: 132). The title sequence was punctuated with a
409
shot of Mary walking through downtown Minneapolis‘s crowded Nicollet Mall. As the theme
song concluded with the line, ―You might just make it after all,‖ a smiling Mary cheerfully
tossed her hat into the air, a symbolic gesture traditionally associated with commencement
ceremonies. Mary had graduated to the big city.
The last line of the Mary Tyler Moore theme song—―you might just make it after all‖—
says much about an element of the show that made it so believable. Mary did not arrive in
Minneapolis tailor-made for her new role as a modern, independent woman. She did indeed
make it, but it took time. It is noteworthy that, after a few seasons the final line of the song was
changed to ―you‘re gonna make it after all,‖ but it did take some adjustments (Johnson 2003:
133). She was in the city now, but Mary was still very much a country mouse, and early on the
show highlighted Mary‘s small-town squareness, with Mary stating in one episode, ―I‘m an
experienced woman. I‘ve been around . . . . Well, all right, I might not have been around, but
I‘ve been . . . nearby‖ (West and Bergund 2005: 51).
In some ways, Mary was cast from the same mold as Radar O‘Reilly of M*A*S*H and
Woody Boyd of Cheers—symbols of small-town midwestern wholesomeness and naiveté,
forced to come to grips with the realities of modern life. ―She was partly,‖ said James L. Brooks,
―a quivering chick—as the term used to be employed—too open and trusting, a sort of Norman
Rockwell creation‖ (Alley and Brown 1989: 7). One of the clearest geographic messages of the
show was the contrast between Mary and her new neighbor. Rhoda Morgenstern, a Jewish New
Yorker, was a native of ―neighborhoods you‘re afraid to walk alone in‖ (Johnson 2008: 135).
She was aggressive, self-assured, brash, and quite comfortable discussing risqué matters. Mary,
on the other hand, was passive, quiet, and exceptionally polite, a former homecoming queen and
straight-A student who wore flannel pajamas to bed. It was Rhoda, as much as anyone, who
410
pushed Mary to embrace her new freedom. On one episode, Mary was nervously contemplating
whether or not it was all right to date a friend‘s exhusband, to which Rhoda replied, ―Not only do
I think it‘s all right, the whole world thinks it‘s all right. Lawrence Welk thinks it‘s all right!‖
(Johnson 2008: 135-136).
At work, Mary‘s gentleness, humility, and sense of propriety were contrasted with
Murray‘s cynicism, Ted‘s vanity, and Sue Ann‘s bottomless appetite for sex. Her main
counterpoint, however, was her grumpy, boozing boss, a man everyone else called ―Lou,‖ but
who Mary always called ―Mr. Grant.‖ Although the two became close friends, hard-edged Lou
and soft-hearted Mary were often at odds, and their first meeting said much about both
characters. As Lou was interviewing Mary for the job at WJM, he pulled a whiskey bottle and
pair of highball glasses out of his desk drawer and offered Mary a drink. She politely, and
properly, declined, but Lou was insistent. A hesitant Mary requested a Brandy Alexander, to
which Lou responded by quietly returning the bottle to his desk and suggesting coffee. He then
asked Mary about her religion, prompting the following exchange:
MARY: Mr. Grant, I don‘t know quite how to say this, but you‘re
not allowed to ask that when someone is applying for a job. It‘s
against the law.
LOU: Wanna call a cop?
MARY: No.
LOU: Good. Would you think I was violating your civil rights if I
asked you if you‘re married?
MARY: Presbyterian.
The scene revealed to viewers the ―quivering chick‖ side of Mary‘s character. Her small-town
squareness was highlighted in her choice of beverage and in her pained politeness, and she
411
revealed that she was not entirely comfortable discussing the fact that she was not married. Later
in the scene, however, Mary revealed her strength, telling Lou ―You‘ve been asking a lot of very
personal questions that don‘t have a thing to do with my qualifications‖ (Alley and Brown, 1989:
9).
In the same episode, Mary met Rhoda, whose first words to Mary were, ―Hello. Get out
of my apartment.‖ Rhoda, it seemed, had had her eye on this particular set of rooms for months,
but the landlady, Phyllis, gave it to Mary instead. Rhoda assailed both Phyllis and Mary, and
Mary remained polite and quiet through most of the scene. But when she had taken enough of
Rhoda‘s abuse, she stood up for herself, just as she had to Mr. Grant. She let Rhoda know that
she was no pushover, and that she was capable of pushing back. This was a character trait that
Mary Tyler Moore‘s writers referred to as Mary‘s ―Presbyterian militancy.‖ According to the
show‘s creators, such a militant was someone who ―could certainly ‗push back‘ when the
situation demanded it, even though she might be reluctant to do so‖ (Alley and Brown 1989: 7).
Mary‘s politeness may have been her most quintessentially midwestern trait. On one
episode, Lou asked Mary to fire someone at the station, to which she replied, ―I‘m very bad at
firing people Mr. Grant. Once I had to move rather than fire a housekeeper‖ (Javna 1985: 162).
Not only was Mary nice, but she insisted that everyone else be nice, too. On another episode,
WJM hired a resident critic, Professor Carl Heller, who prided himself on hating everything.
When Mary could stand it no more, she reminded him that ―we are supposed to appeal to the
public, you know, not just to the intellectual elite. Just being negative isn‘t really constructive‖
(Johnson 2008: 140).
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One of the show‘s recurring themes involved shattering a character‘s façade—revealing
the sensitive beings behind Lou‘s gruffness and Murray‘s cynicism or the frightened, approval-
craving child cowering beneath Ted‘s vast ego—and Mary was no exception. Her Presbyterian
militancy occasionally got the best of her, and she found herself unable to live up to her own
high ideals. Perhaps the best example of this technique was found on what many consider to be
Mary Tyler Moore‘s best episode, ―Chuckles Bites the Dust.‖ The show began with Ted
announcing the death of a beloved local clown. It seemed that he had been marching in a parade,
dressed as a peanut, and was trampled to death by a circus elephant. In the newsroom, Lou
solemnly entered his office:
LOU: Lucky more people weren‘t hurt. Lucky that elephant didn‘t
go after anybody else.
MURRAY: That‘s right. After all, you know how hard it is to stop
after just one peanut.
MARY: Why is everybody being so callous about this? The man is
dead. And it seems to me that Mr. Grant and I are the only ones in
this whole place who are showing any reverence.
As soon as she said this, Lou came out of his office, doubled over in hysterical laughter from
Murray‘s joke. Mary was horrified, and Lou tried to explain, saying ―It‘s a release, Mary. People
need that when dealing with tragedy. Everybody does it.‖ An indignant Mary replied, ―I don‘t.‖
The scene repeated itself the next day at Chuckles‘s funeral:
LOU: I wonder which ones are the other clowns.
MURRAY: You‘ll know soon. They‘re all going to jump out of a
little hearse.
MARY: Murray—enough is enough. This is a funeral. Somebody
has died. It‘s not something to make jokes about. We came here to
show respect—not to laugh.
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When the minister began to deliver the eulogy, everyone in the room, including Lou and Murray,
became very solemn and dignified. All went well until Reverend Burke mentioned Chuckles‘s
Aunt Yoo-Hoo, when Mary, unexpectedly, was forced to stifle a laugh. The Reverend continued:
REVEREND BURKE: Mr. Fee-Fi-Fo would always pick himself up,
dust himself off, and say: ―I hurt my foo-foo.‖
(Mary again stifles a laugh; the others in the row glare at her.)
REVEREND BURKE: From time to time we all fall down and hurt
our foo-foos.
(Mary tries to hide her hysteria. The other people in the chapel
turn to look at her.)
REVEREND BURKE: And what did Chuckles ask in return? Not
much—in his own words: ―A little song, a little dance, a little
seltzer down your pants.‖
(Mary bursts into embarrassing laughter. Everyone turns to look,
including the minister.)
REVEREND BURKE: Excuse me, young lady . . . yes, you . . . .
Would you stand up, please? (Mary reluctantly rises.) You feel
like laughing, don‘t you? (Mary gestures futilely.) Don‘t try to stop
yourself. Go ahead, laugh out loud. Don‘t you see? Nothing could
have made Chuckles happier. He lived to make people laugh. He
found tears offensive, deeply offensive. He hated to see people cry.
Go ahead, my dear—laugh.
(Mary bursts into tears.) (Mitz 1988: 218).
Years later, a few episodes of New York‘s Seinfeld offered up equally funny scenes set at
wakes or funerals, with the characters acting in a similarly inappropriate way. The joke there,
however, was that they were behaving exactly as the viewer expected them to behave. In the case
of Chuckles‘s funeral, the scene worked because Mary‘s behavior conflicted so profoundly with
her midwestern sense of decorum. It is, indeed, difficult to imagine such a scene working as well
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on any of Mary Tyler Moore‘s New York-based contemporaries. A similar lapse would not have
been quite as funny if it had happened to Archie Bunker, Maude Findlay, or George Jefferson.
If there was a central geographic theme to The Mary Tyler Moore Show, it was, quite
simply, that Minnesotans are nice people. Brooks and Marsh noted that, ―unlike the efforts
generated by producer Norman Lear, typified by All in the Family and Maude, there was never
an attempt to humiliate or ridicule‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 863). James L. Brooks put it
succinctly: ―Mary believed that people should be open and loving toward one another‖ (Alley
and Brown 1989: 8). Of course, a program with a theme song called ―Love is All Around‖ could
not be expected to have a mean-spirited protagonist, but it was not just Mary who was nice.
Brooks and Marsh also noted of Lou Grant that, ―underneath that harsh exterior beat the heart of
a pussycat.‖ They described Murray as a man who ―had a positive outlook no matter what
happened, and was a good friend to all‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 863).
Then again, there was Ted, whose arrogance and occasional cruelty hardly seemed
consistent with the show‘s warm and friendly Minnesota aura. Fans of the show would note,
however, that it was frequently suggested that Ted was actually from California. A running gag
was Ted‘s tendency to lapse into autobiography, and the story always began the same way: ―It all
started in a 5000 watt radio station in Fresno, California . . .‖ (Javna 1985: 162).
And even if Ted happened to hail from Minnesota originally, there was no denying that
the setting of The Mary Tyler Moor Show lent it an appealing atmosphere that helped propel its
success, as noted by critic John Javna:
We . . . responded to the Mary Tyler Moore Show‘s authentically
mid-western orientation. The characters lacked the pseudo-
sophisticated veneer that mars so many Hollywood products. They
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were real human beings, and real viewers were delighted to watch
them (Javna 1985: 160)
The Mary Tyler Moore Show never quite rivaled the ratings of other smash hit sitcoms on
CBS‘s legendary Saturday night schedule in the 1970s—shows like All in the Family, M*A*S*H,
and The Jeffersons—but it still did well during its seven-year run. It peaked in seventh place on
the Nielsen charts during the 1972-1973 season, was in the top twenty-five for all but its final
season, and received a record-smashing twenty-seven Emmy awards. Mary Tyler Moore, Ed
Asner (Lou), and Valerie Harper (Rhoda) each received three Emmys, Ted Knight (Ted) and
Betty White (Sue Ann) won two, and Cloris Leachman (Phyllis) one. The show received five
Emmys for writing, and took home the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series in 1975, 1976,
and 1977. The Mary Tyler Moore Show also spawned three successful spin-offs (Lou Grant,
Phyllis, and Rhoda); launched MTM Enterprises (which would produce some of the most
critically-acclaimed programs of the 1970s and 1980s); and its writing alumni would go on to
create other iconic shows, including The Cosby Show, Cheers, and The Simpsons.
Residents of the Twin Cities all appear to have fully embraced The Mary Tyler Moore
Show; all, that is, except for a humanities professor at the University of Minnesota. She owned
the Victorian home on Kenwood Parkway that supplied the exterior shots of Mary Richards‘s
apartment during the show‘s first few seasons. Initially excited to have her home featured on the
show, the professor soon grew weary of the fans who gathered outside the home and, in some
cases, even came up to ring the doorbell. When an MTM camera crew returned to film a fresh
round of establishing shots, she refused to cooperate. When the crew decided to film anyway, the
professor draped banners from Mary‘s window that read ―Impeach Nixon‖ (Javna 1988: 80).
Soon after, Mary Richards moved to a new apartment in a downtown high rise. The camera
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crews had been effectively repelled, but not the fans. Nearly three decades after the show left the
air, one source reported that over thirty tour busses a day continued to cruise past Mary
Richards‘s old apartment (Johnson 2008).
The continuing affection that Minnesotans feel for The Mary Tyler Moore Show was
illustrated in 2002, when a statue recreating Mary Richards‘s iconic hat toss was unveiled in
downtown Minneapolis. The dedication drew live global coverage from CNN, thousands of well-
wishers, and Moore herself, who noted that she felt a connection to Minneapolis ―more than I do
to my real hometown of Brooklyn‖ (Johnson 2008: 144). The event was a strong indicator of the
importance of popular media in shaping a city‘s sense of itself, a sentiment indicated by
journalist and Minnesota native Jerry Haines:
To many people who grew up there, the state could be summarized
as taciturn Lutheran elders and Spam casserole. To the nation at
large we were known mostly for cold weather. We were
indistinguishable from Iowa and the Dakotas . . . . Then Sir Tyrone
Guthrie founded a world-renowned theater there, Mary Tyler
Moore set her TV program there, the Twins went to the World
Series, and Garrison Keillor built a national radio program around
us . . . . Formerly merely cold, now we were cool, sophisticated,
enviable (Johnson 2008: 145).
Some of the key elements of The Mary Tyler Moore Show could be found in nearly every
Minnesota-based program that followed it. Television‘s version of Minnesota is almost entirely
devoid of the crime, poverty, degradation, and violence. Its people for the most part, are
incredibly sincere and kind, none more so than Mary Richards herself. As the show‘s theme song
suggests, love was all around, and this remarkable atmosphere of kindness and understanding has
continued.
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Mary Tyler Moore was followed by another Minnesota-based hit, the historical family
drama Little House on the Prairie, which premiered in 1974. Based on the popular series of
novels by Laura Ingalls Wilder, it told the story the Ingalls family, homesteaders who had moved
from Kansas to a farm near the small, growing community of Walnut Grove in the late 1870s.
The family was headed by Charles Ingalls and his wife, Caroline, who had three daughters. Life
was hard, and the Ingalls battled the elements and struggled to wrestle a living out of the
untamed land. But, just as it would be for Mary Richards a century later, love was all around.
Instead of an American frontier filled with stories of greed, anger, and violence, Little House on
the Prairie featured no cowboys and Indians, no wild saloons, and practically no violence. A sort
of flatlander version of The Waltons, the family and community of Little House provided a
weekly dose of life lessons, washed down with gallons of sugary dialogue. In the first episode,
for example, little Laura said, warmly, that ―Home is the nicest word there is‖ (Robinson 2003:
138). The viewing audience gobbled it up. The show ran for nine heart-warming, tear-jerking
years and ranked in the Nielsen top thirty for all but its second season, peaking in the seventh
spot during year four.
Little House was certainly a departure from much of the rest of the television landscape at
the time. Marc Robinson noted that, ―amidst the screech of police car tires and howls of laughter
emanating from most other TV shows of the seventies, Little House on the Prairie was an oasis
of gentle homilies, solid family values, and sweet social harmony‖ (Robinson 2003: 138).
Historian James Stuart Olson has suggested that its success had as much to do with what was
happening in America during the 1970s as it did with its portrayal of America a century before:
During the 1970s, Little House on the Prairie possessed enduring
qualities that seemed to have disappeared in 1970s America. Such
problems as the energy crisis, inflation, unemployment, and
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foreign policy impotence afflicted the United States, and many
Americans found comfort and peace in the simple homilies and
rural, small-town familiarity of Little House. When television
critics of the 1990s called for more ―family viewing,‖ they had
Little House on the Prairie in mind (Olson 1999: 233).
Another historical family drama, the strikingly similar The New Land, premiered three
days after Little House on the Prairie. Here the family was the Larsens, young Scandinavian
immigrants who fought an equally tough battle to tame the land near fictional Solna, Minnesota,
in the 1850s. Ultimately, though, the Larsens could not overcome their head-to-head
competition, All in the Family, and the show was cancelled after just six weeks.
All of Minnesota‘s subsequent entries were comedies, and the first was by far the most
successful. Premiering in 1989, Coach was the story of Hayden Fox, head football coach for
Minnesota State University‘s Screaming Eagles. Most of the episodes split time between
Hayden‘s office, where, along with assistants Luther Van Dam and Dauber Dybinski, he
desperately searched for ways to improve the Screaming Eagle‘s dismal record, and his home, a
spectacularly masculine lodge built near a lake outside of town. Hayden had an on-again, off-
again romance with Christine Armstrong, whom he eventually married, and he was trying to
reconnect with Kelly, his daughter from a previous marriage who was now a freshman at
Minnesota State.
Unlike Mary Tyler Moore, which mainly got its laughs from the witty banter among the
principal characters, Coach‘s comic philosophy owed its inspiration to the broader sitcoms of the
1950s, such as The Honeymooners. Like Ralph Kramden, Hayden Fox was constantly seeing his
best-laid plans go awry and, like Alice Kramden, Christine Armstrong often found herself calmly
cleaning up the shattered pieces of her less sensible counterpart‘s schemes. Luther and Dauber
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shared the position of Ed Norton, the loony sidekick who could, without much effort, make a bad
situation for their pal much, much worse.
Philosophical approaches aside, Coach did share some things with Mary Tyler Moore,
including the presence of Jerry Van Dyke, who played Luther. Van Dyke had made a few guest
appearances on Mary Tyler Moore and, not coincidentally, had played the brother-in-law of
Moore‘s Laura Petry on The Dick Van Dyke Show. Another connection was Christine Armstrong
who, like Mary Richards, was a smart, independent woman who just happened to work for a
Minneapolis television station (no word on whether or not it was WJM).
The more distinct connection between the two shows, however, was the disposition of the
characters. As a football coach, it was not surprising that Hayden Fox was capable of some Ted
Baxter-like vanity, but he was much closer in spirit to Lou Grant. Like Lou, Hayden was
completely immersed in his work, short-tempered, full of bluster, and tough-shelled. Also like
Lou, deep down inside Hayden was a pussycat. He was a faithful friend to Luther and Dauber,
loyal and kind to Christine, and a doting father to Kelly. Luther and Dauber, in a sense,
combined Mary Richards‘s kindness and sincerity with Ted Baxter‘s stupidity, but in a broader
sense they were more closely connected to fellow midwestern characters Woody Boyd and
Radar O‘Reilly; a pair of lovable and cheerful, if somewhat slow-witted and naïve supporting
characters. In short, it was a likable cast. In the Minnesota of Coach, love was, once again, all
around. As critic Ken Tucker said of Coach, ―it‘s comfort television, the kind of thing people
watch simply to be with characters they like‖ (Tucker 1996a: 1).
Tucker also noted in the same review that he didn‘t much care for the show, and the
critical response to Coach was always lukewarm. In its seven seasons, Coach received just two
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Emmy Awards, compared to The Mary Tyler Moore Show‘s twenty-seven. In terms of the
ratings, however, Coach was actually the more successful show. Coach ranked eighteenth on the
Nielsen charts after its first full season, remained there during its second, and then climbed into
the top ten for three straight seasons, peaking in sixth place. In the show‘s sixth season, Coach‘s
ratings sagged and the show‘s producers shook things up by having Hayden land a job in pro
football. Most of the characters were shipped off to Florida in 1995, where Coach expired after
two more seasons.
Like Mary Tyler Moore, Coach was filmed in Hollywood, but it also used authentic
midwestern exterior shots. There was no real Minnesota State University when the show
premiered, although Mankato State University did adopt that name in 1999. Exteriors for the
show were actually shot at the University of Iowa, the alma mater of series creator Barry Kemp.
Kemp insisted that Hayden Fox was a wholly fictional creation, but college football fans
probably couldn‘t help but notice that the protagonist‘s name bore more than a passing
resemblance to that of long-time Hawkeyes head football coach Hayden Fry.
The departure of Coach Fox and his staff for Orlando in 1995 marked the beginning of
the end for successful sitcoms set in Minnesota. Mary Tyler Moore and Coach combined for
thirteen years in the state, but all four of Minnesota‘s subsequent comedies combined for less
than one. 1995‘s If Not For You, a workplace comedy set at Gopher Records, a Minneapolis
recording studio, lasted just four weeks. The Louie Show, about a psychotherapist in Duluth,
premiered the following January and lasted two months. Then came The Tom Show, a family and
workplace comedy set in Minneapolis, which premiered in 1997 and lasted just under seven
months. The state‘s final entry to date was Let‟s Bowl, a goofy parody of local bowling shows
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that began airing in 1997 on a local Minneapolis television station. It was eventually broadcast
for ten weeks on cable‘s Comedy Central in 2001.
Like Coach, these subsequent shows all bore the Mary Richards stamp, with If Not for
You recreating the workplace ―family‖ of WMJ and The Tom Show taking on the familiar
backdrop of a local Twin Cities television station. The most distinct connection, however, was
the continuing characterization of Minnesotans as genuinely nice people. Tom of The Tom Show
was a gregarious lug and loving father. On The Louie Show, comedian Louie Anderson played a
psychotherapist whose bluntness often got him into hot water. Nevertheless, Louie was, as
described by Brooks and Marsh, ―such an endearing guy with a wonderful, self-deprecating
sense of humor that almost nobody could remain upset with him for long‖ (Brooks and Marsh
2007: 814). Even Let‟s Bowl was an exercise in politeness. The two contestants, who were
brought on the show because they had had some minor disagreement, bowled against one
another for such dubious prizes as a quarter-ton of sausage, a used snowmobile, or a trip to
Duluth. The grand prize, however, was something Mary Richards would have thoroughly
approved—an apology.
KANSAS
Based on its settings alone, the contemporary television landscape of Kansas is
quintessentially midwestern. Of the state‘s six scripted programs with contemporary settings, just
one has taken place in a large city, while the rest have been set in or around fictional small towns
with names like Roseville, Smallville, and Jericho. Kansas is unique among its regional
counterparts in that its contemporary programs make frequent references to agriculture, and
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while none of these shows have been focused on the business of farming, three have taken the
novel approach of having the central character actually live on a farm. Moreover, these programs
have not, for the most part, belittled the residents of rural areas or small towns. In fact, the one
program that Kansans seemed to find the most objectionable—2003‘s Married to the Kellys—
was the one program set in Kansas City. This is not to suggest that all of the Kansas programs
depict modern life there as especially desirable. Some have projected a strong sense of
suffocating isolation or profound boredom, but they are rarely stinging indictments of Kansans
themselves.
Kansas also represents television‘s clearest transition from Midwest to West. The
Dakotas have been characterized primarily as western, with only one thematically midwestern
program based there. Minnesota, on the other hand, is seen on television as thoroughly
midwestern, with only one program, Little House on the Prairie, suggesting western themes. The
three other trans-Mississippi midwestern states—Missouri, Iowa, and Nebraska—have not been
the setting for any westerns. Kansas, in contrast, contains a relatively large, and roughly equal,
number of programs that fit thematically into both regions. Younger viewers, particularly those
who kept the teen drama Smallville on television for a number of years, would probably consider
the state to be midwestern. Among older viewers, however, Kansas is much more likely to be
identified as being purely a western locale.
When Kansas entered the television landscape in 1955, it did so with a bang—a literal
one—from the Colt revolver of U. S. Marshal Matt Dillon. Brooks and Marsh described the
scene:
The opening of the show said it all. There was Matt in a fast-draw
showdown in the main street of Dodge City. The other man fired a
fraction of a second faster, but missed completely, while Matt‘s
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aim was true. Matt could be beaten up, shot, and ambushed, but
that indomitable will would never be defeated (Brooks and Marsh
2007: 571).
Matt Dillon was the protagonist of Gunsmoke, which was not only the definitive
television western, but also one of the most durable and popular television programs in any
genre. The show ran for an astounding twenty seasons, a mark for a primetime scripted program
only recently matched by Law & Order and The Simpsons. Gunsmoke spent eighteen seasons in
the Nielsen top thirty, including thirteen in the top ten. It was the most popular show on
television for four consecutive seasons, a feat that has not been equaled by any other television
drama. Gunsmoke was not only television‘s most popular western, but one of the vanguards of
the genre. During the 1956-1957 season, it was one of only two westerns to register in the
Nielsen top thirty (the other, incidentally, was another Kansas entry, The Life and Legend of
Wyatt Earp). Two years later, fourteen westerns were in the top thirty. Seven of those programs
reached the top ten, including the 1958-1959 season‘s four highest-rated shows.
Set in the 1870s, Gunsmoke‘s cast of characters included Galen Adams, the town‘s kindly
physician, and Kitty Russell, a tough-minded but soft-hearted saloon keeper. Chester Goode was
the loyal, straight-arrow deputy, later replaced by the considerably scruffier, but equally faithful
Festus Hagen. The heart and soul of the show, however, was the tall, heroic, and soft-spoken
Matt Dillon, and most of the episodes revolved around Matt‘s efforts to maintain law and order
in the bustling frontier town of Dodge City.
Gunsmoke ushered in the era of the adult western, in which cheaply produced, youth-
oriented oaters like Hopalong Cassidy and The Lone Ranger were replaced by shows with higher
production values and far more complex characters, plots, and themes. On Gunsmoke, the horses
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still galloped and the lead still flew, but there were also careful examinations of interpersonal
relationships, explorations of civil rights and civil disobedience, and depictions of rapes and
lynchings. Each episode was a sort of morality play, exploring fundamental questions about the
nature of a civilized society.
If Matt Dillon was the embodiment of Kansas values—and for millions of television of
viewers for two decades, he almost certainly was—then Kansans could not have asked for a
better representative. Like most western heroes, he was strong and fearless, but he was also
philosophical and sympathetic. ―If violence was called for,‖ wrote one critic, ―it was applied
reluctantly. If compassion was the answer, it was available‖ (Newcomb 2010: 1). He was a
powerful civilizing force, and a warrior against irresponsibility and lawlessness. In one episode
he took a crooked farmer to task for not providing for his needy family, and in another, he
protected a sick Indian woman from the angry citizens of Dodge City, who wanted to refuse her
medical care. In another instance, described by Lichter, Lichter, and Rothman, Matt argued that
order should not be achieved without the appropriate application of the law;
Matt Dillon runs into an old friend named Murdoch, whom the
governor has ordered to hunt down and execute a violent gang of
outlaws. When Matt and Murdoch capture some of the gang, two
of them turn out to be young boys. Matt urges Murdoch to spare
the boys, who are too young to have been part of the gang when
the execution order was issued. Murdoch refuses, saying they‘re
guilty of something. Matt argues that you can‘t hang a man on a
John Doe warrant without proof, and scolds Murdoch for ―talking
a lot about hanging and very little about justice or due process of
the law‖ (Lichter, Lichter, and Rothman 1991: 212-213).
Another defining element of Matt Dillon‘s character was his lack of visible, emotional
connection to those around him. Such apparent detachment connected him to scores of
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midwestern and western television characters, from Chicago‘s Eliot Ness to Wyoming‘s
nameless Virginian. This ―loner‖ mentality is not uncommon among television lawmen, but the
fact that Gunsmoke ran for so long made the trait all the more noticeable in Matt Dillon. He was
an agreeable man and a loyal one, but he never developed an especially affectionate relationship
with anyone. Lichter, Lichter, and Rothman describe an episode in which Marshal Dillon, while
tracking down a gang of outlaws, ran across his exgirlfriend, Liola.
When Liola is wounded, Matt takes her into town for medical
treatment. While recuperating, she talks to Doc about the happier
times. In one scene she asks whether Matt is ―still married to the
badge.‖ Doc replies that he is, and Liola recalls wistfully that she
almost got Matt away from the badge. Doc admits that he was
sorry at the time that she failed. But now he believes the job has
been good for Matt, keeping him going despite the rigors involved.
It is clear that Matt wasn‘t cut out for domestic life; his life is his
work. No one, not even Miss Kitty, laments his lack of social life
or his total devotion to enforcing justice (Lichter, Lichter and
Rothman 1991: 128).
In addition to being an interesting study in regional psychology, Matt Dillon‘s character,
and Gunsmoke in general, displayed striking parallels to the political philosophy of Kansas.
Dillon‘s belief in racial amity mirrored that of many of Kansas‘s founders, and his dedication to
civic responsibility and tendency to fight for the little man echoed the state‘s traditionally
populist leanings. The central themes of Gunsmoke also reflect the values of modern Kansas,
which is to say those of the modern conservative. The show offered countless examples of the
importance of family, the power of religious devotion, the merits of traditional values, and the
virtues of limited government. The show‘s most explicit message concerned the importance of
rugged individualism, as manifested in Matt Dillon‘s fierce independent streak. According to
Steven D. Stark, on Gunsmoke, as it was on many other television westerns, ―the message was
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clear: It‘s not the law or big government which can make America a great place to live in, but the
basic decency of the good man‖ (Stark 1997: 88). In a way, the western genre was almost a
commercial for the modern conservative movement, as was evident in a 1953 speech by the
decade‘s most famous nonfictional Kansan, Dwight D. Eisenhower:
I was raised in a little town of which most of you have never heard.
But in the West it is a famous place. It is called Abilene, Kansas.
We had as our marshal for a long time a man named Wild Bill
Hickok. If you don‘t know anything about him, read your Westerns
more. Now that town had a code, and I was raised as a boy to prize
that code. It was: meet anyone face to face with whom you
disagree. You could not sneak up on him from behind, or do any
damage to him, without suffering the penalty of an outraged
citizenry. If you met him face to face and took the same risks he
did, you could get away with almost anything, as long as the bullet
was in the front (Eisenhower 1953: 1).
While Gunsmoke remains, without rival, Kansas‘s defining program, and by far its
longest-running entry, it was neither the only Kansas-based program to debut in the fall of 1955,
nor even the first. The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, which premiered four days before
Gunsmoke, was also a pioneer of the adult western genre. Wyatt Earp, like Gunsmoke, was as
much an examination of personal and societal relationships as it was an action showcase. The
series began with Earp taking a job as marshal of Ellsworth, Kansas. In the second season, he
took the same position in Dodge City (with no reference to Matt Dillon), joined by brothers
Virgil and Morgan, and the legendary Doc Holliday. Wyatt Earp was ranked eighteenth in the
Nielsen ratings during its second season, and moved into the top ten for the next two years. In the
fall of 1959, the setting shifted to Tombstone, Arizona.
Subsequent Kansas westerns followed the familiar theme of a noble man attempting to
tame a savage and lawless territory, but none managed to match the success of their
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predecessors. Wichita Town, The Road West, and Cimarron Strip each lasted for one season,
while Custer lasted just four months. Set in the years shortly after the Civil War, 1959‘s Wichita
Town featured Joel McCrea as cowboy Mike Dunbar, who took a job as U. S. Marshal and tried
to bring order to the lawless town. The Road West, which debuted in 1966, told the story of
Benjamin Pride, who moved his family from Ohio to Kansas shortly after the Civil War in an
attempt to carve a living out of the promising but often unforgiving land. Cimarron Strip ran the
following season, and was the story of U. S. Marshal Jim Crown, who patrolled the border
between Kansas and Indian Territory in the late 1800s. Kansas‘s last stand in the Western genre
was Custer, which had a short run in the fall of 1967. Set at Ft. Hays in 1868, the program
focused on Lt. Colonel George A. Custer‘s command of the 7th Cavalry Regiment, a motley crew
of outlaws, mavericks, ex-Confederates, and renegades, chronicling Custer‘s efforts to transform
the 7th into a force capable of protecting settlers from Crazy Horse‘s Sioux.
Custer‘s short run reflected the flagging popularity of television westerns in the late
1960s. As mentioned, fourteen westerns could be found in the Nielsen top thirty during the 1958-
1959 season. That number dropped to ten the following year, to six at the conclusion of the
1961-1962 season, and then to just three at the end of the 1967-1968 season. Two years later,
only two westerns—Gunsmoke and Bonanza—charted in the Nielsen top thirty, while in 1974,
not only was Gunsmoke the only western in the top thirty, it was the only western on television at
all.
The meteoric rise and slow erosion of the western genre‘s popularity is not anomalous in
the history of American television. Tastes change. The rise and fall of the variety show in the
1950s, the slapstick sitcom in the 1960s, the socially relevant comedy of the 1970s, the
primetime soap of the 1980s, and the reality show of the 2000s are all indicative of that fact. The
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collapse in the 1970s of once-mighty westerns like Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and The Virginian
might simply be a matter of the shows having run their course. Another theory, however,
suggests that the demise of the television western might have indicated a major shift in American
cultural attitudes. In the 1970s, according to Steven D. Stark, the political values represented by
the western fell out of favor on a television landscape that was now dominated by the likes of All
in the Family and M*A*S*H.
In the wake of the Kennedy assassination in 1963, and the
turbulence of the civil-rights movement and the counterculture, the
whole premise of the traditional Western began to seem suspect.
American values were in doubt. Loners began to be viewed as
questionable. Tombstone seemed to resemble a police state.
Rugged masculinity was out of favor . . . . The psychological and
gender revolutions of the past 30 years have made the emotionless
Western virtually obsolete. The same fate has met heroes in the
Western mold—including a taciturn Kansan from near Dodge City
named Bob Dole, whose persona would have fit right into the
Westerns of the 1950s, but fell flat in 1996 (Stark 1997: 90-91).
Still another factor in the fall of the television western might have been shifting
demographics. The television western‘s audience, more likely to be older and rural, was
unappealing to television advertisers. Or perhaps the confines of Dodge City, Tombstone, and
the Ponderosa Ranch simply seemed out of step with an increasingly metropolitan United States.
Isolation was, indeed, a strong theme of Gunsmoke. Horace Newcomb wrote that ―Dodge City
stands as an outpost of civilization, the edge of America . . . surrounded by the dangers of the
frontier . . . [and] always under threat from untamed forces (Newcomb 2010: 1). That sense of
isolation was not the exclusive property of Kansas‘s westerns, but was also dominant on all four
Kansas-based sitcoms. The three that appeared after the 1970s were all flops, the longest lasting
ten months, but Kansas‘s first sitcom entry was a bona fide hit.
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September 1955 was a big month for Kansas television. The only three Kansas-based
programs that would break into the Nielsen top thirty premiered that month: The Life and Legend
of Wyatt Earp on September 6, Gunsmoke on September 10, and a sitcom called You‟ll Never
Get Rich on September 20. Set at Fort Baxter, near Roseville, Kansas (both fictional), You‟ll
Never Get Rich featured Phil Silvers as Master Sergeant Ernie Bilko. He was head of the
company‘s motor pool, and the brains behind nearly all the camp‘s shadier activities. Most of the
episodes involved Bilko outsmarting his superior officers, running the base‘s gambling
operations, and cooking up various get-rich-quick schemes that, as the show‘s title suggested,
never quite worked out.
CBS did not appear to have particularly high hopes for You‟ll Never Get Rich, placing it
on Tuesday nights opposite Mr. Television himself, Milton Berle, and, oddly enough, against
Kansas‘s own Wyatt Earp. The show, nevertheless, finished its first two seasons in thirtieth and
twenty-second place, respectively—no small accomplishment given the competition. And
although it never achieved Gunsmoke-type ratings, it was, in many ways, a landmark show.
Despite its relatively short run, the program was nominated for seventeen Emmy awards,
winning eight, including three straight for best comedy series. It was one of the first television
programs to inspire a published collection of scripts, and one of the first to attain a sort of cult
status by way of a long life in rerun syndication. It was also, notably, the first television program
to regularly use African-American actors in ―generic‖ roles, meaning roles that were not
designed specifically for black actors. They were simply there as a matter of course.
Credit for the show‘s popularity must be given, in part, to its charismatically frenetic star.
This fact was acknowledged two months into the show‘s run, when it was renamed The Phil
Silvers Show. The show‘s popularity probably also stemmed from its examinations of the
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banality and frustration of everyday army life, with Bilko‘s schemes representing a sort of
fantasy for scores of servicemen. Even though Bilko and his men were supposedly in charge of
the motor pool, they were never seen working, at least not on cars. Bilko never broke military
rules, but he was artful in bending them. Likewise, he was never directly insubordinate, but
nevertheless constantly proving himself superior to his superiors, mainly by separating them
from their money. All of this doubtlessly resonated in living rooms occupied by a large number
of military veterans, as noted by television historian Douglas Gomery:
The show was a send up of Army life . . . and loved by ex-GIs of
World War II and the Korean conflict, a generation still close to its
own military experiences, and willing to laugh at them . . . .
Possibly the funniest [episode] was ―The Case of Harry Speakup,‖
in which a Bilko scheme backfires and he is forced to help induct a
chimpanzee into the Army. Only Bilko could run such a recruit
past Army doctors and psychiatrists, have him pass an IQ test and
receive a uniform, be formally sworn in as a private, and then
moments later honorably discharged. No bureaucracy has ever
been spoofed better than was the Cold War U. S. Army in this 26-
minute comic masterpiece (Gomery 2010: 1).
Although it was almost universally praised by critics, the runaway popularity of The Phil
Silvers Show faded quickly. The program‘s ratings fell during its third season, and it was
cancelled after its fourth. The likely reason for this fall from grace was a move from Tuesday to
Friday nights, but it also is worth noting that the show‘s downturn coincided with a shift in
setting. In 1958, Bilko‘s company was transferred from Kansas to California.
In television reference literature, the setting for a show is usually mentioned in passing
or, in some cases, not at all. In entries describing the Phil Silvers Show, however, the Kansas
setting is usually referenced almost immediately, and is mentioned as an integral part of the
show‘s set-up. Douglas Gomery has suggested that Bilko had plenty of time to dream up his
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various schemes because he was ―stuck in the wide open spaces of rural Kansas‖ (2010: 1).
Likewise, Brooks and Marsh wrote that Sgt. Bilko perpetrated his cons and schemes because he
had ―little to do in the wilds of Middle America‖ (2007: 1079). Rick Mitz described Ft. Baxter as
―a nearly forgotten outpost of the U. S. Army‖ (1988: 113), and John Javna called it ―a
backwater military base with no defined mission‖ (1985: 170). The middle-of-nowhere
characterization of Fort Baxter and Roseville, it appears, made the nefarious exploits of Bilko
seem comically harmless, and also helped to underscore the tedium and monotony of military
life.
As mentioned, despite its relatively short original run, The Phil Silvers Show became a
cult classic during its long afterlife in syndicated reruns. That has not been the case for any other
of Kansas‘s sitcoms. In 1974, a different sort of con man descended on Kansas in the mellow
sitcom Paper Moon, which featured the father-daughter team of Moses and Addie Pray travelling
about the state during the Great Depression selling Bibles and attempting to pull off various
money-making schemes. Paper Moon was based on an acclaimed 1973 film that had starred a
real-life father and daughter team, Ryan and Tatum O‘Neal. The television version lasted only
thirteen weeks, and has largely passed into obscurity, but it does contain a few interesting
footnotes. On the TV version, Moses was played by Christopher Connelly, who had played Ryan
O‘Neal‘s brother on Peyton Place, while Addie was played by a then-obscure young actress
named Jodie Foster. It is also notable for being the only Kansas-based program to actually film
on location in the state. Beyond that, little has been written about television‘s Paper Moon, but if
it attempted to evoke the same spirit as the film, which featured a bleak, black-and-white
landscape that brought to mind the home of Dorothy Gale on The Wizard of Oz, then the Kansas
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of Moses and Addie would not have been altogether different from that of Matt Dillon and Ernie
Bilko—vast, wild, and isolated.
The middle-of-nowhere theme continued in the short-lived 1994 sitcom Tom. Tom
Graham, an amusement-park-ride welder, lived in Kansas with his wife, appropriately named
Dorothy. Tom and Dorothy had five kids, which made for cramped living when Tom borrowed a
construction trailer and moved the whole brood to his family‘s derelict farm, which was located
next to the dump for a small town. Tom set about building his dream house, which for most of
the show‘s three-month run consisted of a rather large hole. Tom and Dorothy made the best of
life in the overcrowded trailer, but the kids were not enthusiastic, because ―they all felt isolated
out at the dump‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 290).
While the situation the characters on Tom found themselves in was not altogether
enticing, the portrayal of the characters themselves was reasonably positive. Ironically, the one
Kansas-based show that went to great lengths to portray Kansans as backward yokels was the
only one to have a contemporary, metropolitan setting. Originally titled Return to Kansas, the
2003 sitcom Married to the Kellys was a fish-out-of-water story about Tom Wagner, a novelist
from New York whose charming wife, Susan, persuaded him to move to suburban Kansas City
so that she could be closer to her nutty family, the title Kellys. The show was created by Tom
Hertz, and was inspired by his marriage to Overland Park native Susan Kelly. In an interview
with the Wichita Eagle, Hertz argued that, ―It‘s about family, not geography,‖ adding that ―about
twenty of the Kellys came to Los Angeles for the taping. They loved it‖ (Cutright 2003: 5C).
Whether or not the show was about geography, it wasn‘t lacking in geographic symbols,
and those symbols did not exactly portray modern, urban Kansas in flattering terms. Despite
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being in the affluent suburbs of a metropolitan area of more than two million people, an early
promotional photograph for Married to the Kellys showed the cast sitting in the bed of an ancient
Dodge pickup truck that was parked in a cornfield. The Kelly family enjoyed sitting out on their
porch, clad in flannel shirts, shucking corn. They consumed unholy amounts of pork and
paintings of cows adorned their walls.
―Almost everyone in the Kelly family,‖ wrote critic Linda Holmes, ―is strange and
unbalanced in that warm, funny, middle-America sort of way‖ (Holmes 2003: 1). Susan‘s
mother, Sandy, possessed a friendly exterior that masked a strong need for control. She had
collected dog figurines, one representing each member of the family, and a display on her wall
indicated which Kelly was currently in her dog house. Bill, Susan‘s big, earthy dad, did whatever
it took to keep his wife happy, while her brother Lewis was painfully shy, relating better to the
spiders he kept as pets than to the people around him. Susan‘s sister, Mary, was a shrill, know-it-
all graduate student who frequently reminded others that she was writing her dissertation, a fact
that made her ―almost a professor.‖ Chris was Mary‘s milquetoast husband, who viewed Tom as
a threat to his status as the favorite son-in-law. And then there was Uncle Dave, an obnoxious
right-wing banker who sported a mullet and a pinky ring, and who was not thrilled about a New
York Jew joining the family.
The possibility exists that the Kellys show was intended, like The Beverly Hillbillies, to
cut both ways—that is, to be as much a critique of New Yorker Tom as it was of the Kansas
Kellys. Indeed, the character of Tom was not especially likable. In the original pilot, when Susan
told him that, ―My parents think you are the coolest guy,‖ Tom snorted, ―In Kansas, I am‖
(Cutright 2003: 5C). Critic Scott D. Pierce, however, did not feel that the laughs on Married to
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the Kellys were directed at Tom, calling the show ―yet another Hollywood vision of middle
Americans as hicks, rubes and yokels:‖
There‘s that underlying message that people from New York City
are just so much smarter and sophisticated than the folks who
shuck corn and play parlor games . . . . And there‘s a scene in
Friday‘s pilot that‘s quite telling. As the Kellys sit down to dinner,
they begin to sing grace—a little song familiar to millions of
Americans who have attended summer camp of one sort or
another. And the audience laughs. Creator/executive producer Tom
Hertz, a New Yorker who based the show on his own wife‘s
Midwest family, insists that we‘re supposed to be laughing at the
character of Tom, who‘s visibly uncomfortable. But that‘s not the
way it plays out—the audience is laughing at this family that prays
before the meal (Pierce 2003: 1).
In her review of the show, Midwesterner Linda Holmes took the opportunity, albeit
facetiously, to clear up some of misconceptions about the region that Married to the Kellys might
have created:
We don‘t like our families any better than you do. Don‘t get me
wrong—we like them a lot of the time, but once we‘re adults, we
don‘t necessarily want to spend all our free time with them the way
Mrs. Kelly‘s kids do. If our moms did make one of those
―doghouse‖ displays in the kitchen, most of us also wouldn‘t think
it was really cool the way her kids do . . . . Sometimes, we don‘t
smile. We smile when it‘s called for, but there are times when we
don‘t. The entire cast of Married to the Kellys looks like it just
polished off a carton of Crest Whitestrips and a tanker of tequila
. . . . There‘s just not as much relentless whimsy as there is in the
Kellys‘ house (Holmes 2003: 1).
Critic Stephen Kelly suggested that the show‘s biggest problem was not geographic bias,
but the fact that it just wasn‘t that funny. ―The jokes are as flat as ten miles of Kansas highway,‖
wrote Kelly. ―Take this exchange between Tom and Mary, for instance:‖
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MARY: You did a good job of shucking that corn. If the writing
career falls through, you can always become a farmer.
TOM: Yeah, then you can come over and milk my cows (Kelly
2003d: 1).
Funny or not, many Kansans were not laughing when they began to see promotional
material from the show in 2003. The groundswell of discontent was so great that Kansas Travel
and Tourism Director Scott Allegrucci felt it necessary to urge calm in a message to the state‘s
various local convention and visitor bureaus and chambers of commerce:
We can be assured that Kansas will be the butt of some jokes . . . .
I suggest that any protest on the part of any entity in Kansas will
simply confirm the stereotypes that some fear the show will focus
on . . . . Even if the show is less than we might hope for, it is worth
more than we can ever pay [in publicity for the state]. This can
only be good for Kansas—even if the show is a dog . . . . All TV
shows are built upon stereotypes . . . and we should expect some
that do not reflect us or our values (Alm 2003: C3).
Allegrucci added that the mere fact a show was set in Kansas, ―confirms to me that there is
something attractive about the Midwest and small-town values, and that can only be good for
us.‖ Jeff Sheets, director of the Dickinson County Historical Society in Abilene, was not
convinced. ―It looked like The Beverly Hillbillies,‖ he said. ―I‘m hoping that‘s not the case.
We‘ve fought hard to get Kansas to be seen as a tourism destination, and this may be a slap in
the face.‖ David Flask, the former president of the South Central Kansas Tourism Region, was
not as alarmed. ―The show might be off the air in three months,‖ he said (Alm 2003: C3). In the
end, Flask was wrong. The show was off the air in ten months.
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While Married to the Kellys caused a firestorm of concern across the state, no one
seemed to notice Kansas‘s single reality entry. The Will appeared early in 2005, and featured ten
people, all relatives or acquaintances of seventy-three-year-old real estate developer Bill Long,
competing to see who would inherit his Kansas ranch. Viewers did not have much time to find
such a premise objectionable, as it was cancelled after just one episode.
While The Will was tying a record for the shortest run in television history, Kansas‘s first
contemporary drama was emerging as the state‘s longest-running program since Gunsmoke.
Smallville, which premiered in 2001, was the updated story of the early life of Clark Kent, the
alter ego of the legendary comic book, radio, film, and television superhero, Superman. In this
version, Kal-El arrived in a hail of kryptonite that fell on Smallville in 1989. He was adopted by
Jonathan and Martha Kent and, as the show began, was just entering high school. Smallville was,
in part, a teen soap opera. It dealt with Clark‘s alternating feelings of insecurity and optimism,
his friendships and romantic entanglements, and other coming-of-age themes. It was also a
supernatural action series, with many early episodes chronicling Clark‘s battles with
townspeople turned evil by the kryptonite that had coincided with his arrival.
Although Smallville was definitely a television version of Kansas that viewers had never
seen, it was thoroughly midwestern. To begin, the show made numerous references to
agriculture. Clark‘s adoptive parents were struggling to hang on to the family farm, while the
wealthy parents of Clark‘s best friend and future archenemy, Lex Luthor, owned the town‘s
fertilizer plant. And the character of Clark Kent was exactly what viewers expected from a
Kansas farm boy. For critic Mary Colgan, Clark as was an ―erstwhile boy scout,‖ and the
embodiment of ―corn-fed good boyness . . . wholesome, strapping, respectful to his parents, and
a gentleman with the ladies (Colgan 2003: 1). Clark‘s character was representative of the show‘s
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overall atmosphere. Smallville was milder than other youth-oriented action shows of its era, such
as Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Dark Angel, and far tamer than most recent teen soaps. The warm
family life exuded by the Kents often made the show feel more like The Waltons or 7th Heaven
than Dawson‟s Creek or Beverly Hills 90210.
That is not to say that Smallville was stereotypically Kansas-clean, or that the little town
was populated by simple country bumpkins. The characters were intelligent, complex, and, this
being a soap opera, conflicted. Some of the story lines revolved around very real dilemmas faced
by teenagers, particularly those growing up in small towns. There was Clark‘s classmate
Brendan, a student of limited ability, who was petrified about what Smallville held for him once
high school was over. There was also Chloe, a super-smart, overachieving editor of the high
school newspaper who couldn‘t wait to move away to college and start her real life.
Perhaps the strongest geographic message of the show, though, was found in the show‘s
third season, after Clark donned a ring made of red kryptonite and thereby unleashed his evil
side. The scene was described by critic Mary Colgan:
Season three opens with Clark wreaking havoc all over Metropolis
in fabulous super-villain fashion: driving hot cars, robbing banks,
and doing it all with a smile. In Smallville, good is located in the
country (i.e., Smallville), in plain, honest farm folks, and in
helping people. Evil is flashy and ritzy; it‘s the city (Metropolis),
power, riches, and corruption. So it‘s no surprise that when Clark
hides from his pain within his alter ego, he does so in Metropolis
(Colgan 2003: 1).
Smallville did contain jabs at the title town‘s smallness—its name, for example—and the
fact that its claim to fame was being the ―Creamed Corn Capital of the World.‖ That said,
viewers did not find life in Smallville to be too monotonous. Because it appeared on the viewer-
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starved WB network (and its later incarnation, the CW), Smallville was never a ratings
blockbuster. It was popular enough, however, to remain on air for a decade, and was particularly
liked by younger audiences. The median age of a Smallville viewer in 2003 was twenty-nine,
somewhat surprising for a show whose main character, at least in the early years, lived on a farm
in Kansas.
Young viewers were probably not watching Smallville for the agriculture, of course, but
for the hair-raising forces of darkness that Clark Kent faced on a weekly basis. His show was not
alone in that regard. In fact, Kansas soon became a primary destination for viewers looking to
have their spines tingled. Supernatural, a drama that debuted in 2005, was one such example.
While the show cannot really be counted as a Kansas entry—the setting changed from week to
week—the two protagonists were Kansas natives. The Winchester brothers, Dean and Sam,
travelled around the country battling a host of supernatural creatures. The first scene took place
in 1983, when Dean and Sam were young boys. Critic Mary Colgan described the action:
Skeletal, Halloween-ish shadows encroach on a cozy suburban
home. Inside, wholesomely named Mary and John tuck their two
boys into bed. Later, Mary is awakened by her crying infant. When
she enters the kids‘ room, lights buzz and flicker as she slowly
realizes that the figure by the crib is not her husband . . . . John
finds her stuck to the ceiling, terrified and dripping blood into the
crib, before flames engulf her. Her unfathomable death determines
her sons‘ futures (Colgan 2005: 1).
The setting for this cheery scene was Lawrence, Kansas, a location chosen, according to
series creator Eric Kripke, because of its close proximity to the tiny town of Stull. The Stull
Cemetery has become a legend among aficionados of the supernatural, and the fifth season of
Supernatural ended with Dean and Sam doing battle there with no less than old Lucifer himself.
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The isolation theme of Kansas‘s earlier entries and the supernatural theme of its later
ones are nicely compatible. Viewers who remember films such as Night of the Living Dead, The
Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and In Cold Blood know that when the action shifts to a darkened,
isolated farmhouse, things usually do not turn out well. The eerie isolation of a small Kansas
town was used to such effect in the 2006 drama Jericho, which aired for two seasons. Here, the
threats were not supernatural, but they were no less unsettling. Fictional Jericho was a normal
little town, and the principal characters were the sort with which viewers would be familiar:
mayor, sheriff, doctor, barkeep, teacher, grocery store owner, and farmer. All hell broke loose
when Jericho‘s residents heard reports that nuclear bombs were being detonated all over the
United States, a fact confirmed when they saw a mushroom cloud rise on the horizon in the
direction of Denver. Strangers began to drift into town. Some were refugees simply seeking
shelter, while others had more mysterious motives. A few were scavengers, blatantly raiding the
town of its scarce resources. Expeditions were organized to nearby towns in search of
information and supplies, but, like horror film characters in an abandoned farmhouse, Jericho
residents were largely cut off from the outside world, left to their own devices on the lonely
plains of western Kansas.
While it seems unlikely that the Jericho sort of motif—residents of an isolated town
constantly threatened with destruction—would ever become the basis for a children‘s cartoon,
that was the case on Courage the Cowardly Dog, which debuted in 1999 on the Cartoon Network
and ran for four years. Set in Nowhere, Kansas, which was depicted as a vast, empty plain, this
animated series was the story of a fat, pink mutt and his eccentric elderly owners, Muriel and
Eustace. Courage had reason to be cowardly. Nowhere was in a perpetual state of siege, not only
from the usual Kansas culprits, such as blizzards, tornadoes, droughts, and travelling con men,
440
but also from far more bizarre sources, including evil cats, mummies, zombies, killer rats and
goats, killer fungus and eggplants, alien chickens and squid, cannibal pigs, and weremoles.
As odd as it may sound, Courage carried with it a positive message and, stranger still, it
was one that was not profoundly different from that of Gunsmoke. Critic John G. Nettles wrote
that ―although Courage lives in a perpetual state of anxiety, his devotion to Muriel inevitably
wins out over his fears and Courage lives up to his name.‖ Nettles added that ―this may be the
best thing of many that the show has going for it, the persistent message that ‗courage‘ isn‘t
being fearless but rather doing the right thing despite one‘s fear.‖
In addition to its decidedly unique villains, the show also had its own visual style, in
which the animation was superimposed over real photographs. That technique may have
provided the show‘s most positive geographic message, at least for those who have, at one time
or another, been enchanted by the physical geography of the Great Plains. Nettles wrote that
―when the photo moon rises over the farmhouse and the surrounding plain of desolate
nothingness it is hyperreal and beautiful—a magnificent view from Nowhere‖ (Nettles 2010b:
1).
NEBRASKA
Unlike its Plains-Midwest neighbors, Kansas and the Dakotas, Nebraska has never served
as the setting for a western or, for that matter, a drama of any genre. All four of its entries have
had contemporary settings and a comic tone. They were also all doomed, none lasting more than
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three months, and all appearing as summer replacements—television‘s version of the clearance
rack. Nebraska did have the distinction of hosting one of the Midwest‘s few reality television
programs, although ―distinction‖ might not be the appropriate word for Tommy Lee Goes to
College, which lasted for six weeks in 2005. The title subject was the 42-year-old former
drummer for the rock band Mötley Crüe who, having missed college, set off for the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Although he never officially enrolled, he did attend classes, where the
students were awestruck and the professors less so. Tommy also formed his own fraternity,
auditioned for the marching band, took exams and, of course, partied. The show was certainly
never intended to be a hard-hitting look at college life, much less at Nebraska, but the backdrop
was probably not a random choice. Depositing the shaggy-haired, tattooed, and hard-living
California rock star into the wilds of the Midwest was almost certainly intended for comic effect,
with one critic noting that scenes were ―carefully selected to create a ‗fish out of water‘ saga‖
(Gibron 2005: 1).
Nebraska‘s three other entries have been sitcoms, and two of them did not exhibit any
sort of midwestern stereotype. Instead, they were so formulaic that they were interchangeable
with dozens of shows set throughout the United States. First Impressions, which ran for eight
weeks in the summer of 1988, was the story of Frank Dutton, a single father and owner of
―Media of Omaha,‖ a company that produced commercials. The supporting characters were
straight from central casting—Lindsay his cute nine-year-old daughter, Mrs. Madison the nosy
next-door neighbor, Dave his neurotic business partner, Donna his incredibly naïve receptionist,
and Raymond, his gambling-addicted sound engineer. Rachel Gunn, R. N., which ran for thirteen
weeks in the summer of 1992, was set in Nebraska‘s Little Innocence Hospital. It told the story
of the cynical, but dedicated, head nurse of the surgery ward. Working alongside Rachel was a
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typically zany and ethnically diverse cast of supporting characters, including a guileless and
eager young nurse, a Vietnam veteran, a squeamish black orderly, and a fat, angry dietician.
A third Nebraska sitcom, Heartland, made greater use or, arguably, misuse of its setting,
but did not meet with any more success, lasting just ten weeks in 1989. The show took place in
and around the farmhouse of Tom and Casey Stafford, but the focus was on B. L. McCutcheon,
Casey‘s father, who had been forced to move in after his own farm was repossessed by the bank.
In true T.V.-father-in-law fashion, B. L. couldn‘t stand Tom, but was partial to his three
grandchildren. These included Johnny, a television addict who dreamed of moving to sunny
southern California; Kim, an adopted Vietnamese daughter; and Gus, a lumbering farm boy
whose best friend was an enormous pet sow. B. L. was something of a Corn Belt version of
Archie Bunker, billed in promotional material by CBS as ―an old and crusty but lovable small-
town bigot who has something insulting to say about everyone‖ (Margulies 1989: 1). For better
or worse, Heartland was noteworthy for taking the rare step to actually set a midwestern
program on a farm, but it relied on tired midwestern jokes. In the words of New York Times critic
John J. O‘Connor:
B. L. can be trying when he sounds off about big-city folk,
including Jane Fonda, of course . . . . Moving away from
television's standard suburban setting for sitcoms, the series
manages to find a laugh or two in the most unlikely situations,
including attempts by a greedy banker to get the family farm for an
agricultural conglomerate. There is even a tornado (―God‘s way of
telling people not to live in trailer parks,‖ one family member
notes). Checking on the house the next morning, Tom announces,
―It‘s still here, but there‘s a dead witch under the house and
everything‘s in color‖ (O‘Connor 1989: 1).
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THE DAKOTAS
In terms of their television landscape, North and South Dakota are the least midwestern
of the Midwest‘s states, existing strictly as a remnant of the Old West or a figment of Canadian
imagination. The only program with a contemporary setting to use the Dakotas as a backdrop
was the adventure comedy My Secret Identity. Seventy-two episodes of the program were
produced in Canada for the CTV network from 1988 to 1991, with a concurrent release in
syndication in the United States. Set in Briarwood, North Dakota, the program concerned a
teenager who had developed superpowers after being exposed to radiation during an experiment
his next-door neighbor, a friendly but eccentric scientist, conducted. Episodes involved typical
events of a student‘s life, and the occasional need to thwart crime and disaster.
The remaining three entries for the Dakotas were actually set before either state entered
the Union, in the enormous Dakota Territory of the late 1800s. All three reflected the classic
Western theme of a righteous man standing up to corruption and evil, and the Dakota Territory
of television was certainly in dire need of heroes. The syndicated series Man Without a Gun
released the first of its fifty-two episodes in the fall of 1958. Set in the 1880s, it chronicled the
crusades of a newspaper editor, memorably named Rex Reason. As the title suggests, Reason
primarily used his newspaper as a means of achieving law and order, but ―a good fistfight now
and then helped things along‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 848). 1963‘s The Dakotas was a short-
lived and fairly typical oater about a U. S. Marshal and his deputies fighting crime in Bad Lands
and Black Hills of the late 1800s. The Dakotas‘ last Western entry was its most successful.
Featuring former football star and occasional flower pitchman Merlin Olsen, Father Murphy
debuted in the fall of 1981 and aired for just over a year. John Murphy was a drifter during the
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Black Hills mining boom of the 1870s. He happened upon the town of Jackson and rallied the
local people against the town boss, whose henchman promptly blew up the miners‘ camp. This
left Murphy to care for two dozen now-orphaned children. Posing as a priest, ―Father‖ Murphy
opened an orphanage, and then fended off evil territory officials, who were intent on sending the
children to a work camp.
CONCLUSION
North Dakota‘s single contemporary entry, My Secret Identity, was the story of the
eccentrics who populated a sleepy little town—a theme not unfamiliar to midwestern television
programs—but, for the most part, the Dakotas are the most thematically western of the
midwestern states. All of that area‘s remaining programs took place during the days of the Old
West, and shows like Father Murphy followed the familiar western theme of a courageous man
standing up to corruption and evil on a wild and lawless frontier. Nebraska, on the other hand,
has been the least western of the Plains states, with most of its shows chronicling contemporary
urban life. The one Nebraska-based program to exploit regional stereotypes was Heartland, a
comedy about a cantankerous old farmer and his family, but none of the state‘s programs were
successful, and their geographic legacy almost certainly forgotten by the majority of viewers.
The same can be said for shows set in Iowa. The state‘s mixture of comedies and dramas
explored familiar midwestern themes—small-town life, mainstream and traditional values, and a
population that was idealistic, industrious, and independent—but all of these programs were
flops. Iowa did, however, provide one of the Midwest‘s most memorable television characters,
M*A*S*H‘s Radar O‘Reilly. Like Cheers‘s Woody Boyd, Radar was an unassuming,
dependable, polite, and likable farm kid who often served to expose the cynicism of the more
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sophisticated characters around him. These same traits dominated the television landscape of
Iowa‘s northern neighbor, but unlike Iowa, Minnesota has been home to three very successful
programs. The tone and setting for these shows varied widely. The Mary Tyler Moore Show was
the prototypical program about a modern, independent woman, and it depicted Minneapolis as a
thriving, modern metropolis. Little House on the Prairie was the story of the sometimes harsh
realities of life on the frontier prairie, while Coach was a goofy, escapist comedy about the
family and work life of a harried college football coach. What unified all of these shows, though,
were the Radar O‘Reilly-like qualities of their characters. Almost every one of them was likable,
humble, a bit square, and excessively polite. Nearly all of Minnesota‘s lesser entries followed
suit, featuring nice characters living in pleasant environs that were completely devoid of crime,
poverty, and violence.
Missouri has broken ranks with many of its Trans-Mississippi Midwest counterparts. Its
television landscape has been more ethnically diverse, more urban, and more likely to feature
unsavory landscapes and characters. None of Missouri‘s northern or western neighbors have
featured the sort of urban seediness on display in The John Larroquette Show and, although it
was set in a small town, Grace Under Fire dispensed with the nostalgia, wholesomeness, and
sentimentality that characterized many of the region‘s programs. That said, Missouri‘s television
landscape has also had no shortage of old-fashioned values, small-town virtues, pleasant
families, syrupy optimism, and earthy wit. Three of Missouri‘s television icons—Red Foley, host
of Ozark Jubilee, Jed Clampett of The Beverly Hillbillies, and Sherman Potter of M*A*S*H—
had characteristics that were very much part of the Midwest‘s heartland ethos. They were warm,
friendly, and unpretentious, and rejected anything that could be considered effete or snobbish.
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If there is a dominant theme among Kansas‘s television entries, it is that of an admirable
character living in unenviable circumstances. This was true of the state‘s western entries,
particularly Gunsmoke, where the strong, fearless, and philosophical Matt Dillon battled violence
and prejudice in an isolated town on a wild frontier. The state‘s successful contemporary
programs also followed this theme. The goofy and likable Ernie Bilko battled boredom at a
forgotten outpost of the U. S. Army, and the intelligent and honest residents of Smallville, which
included no less than Superman himself, battled the forces of evil in their isolated little town.
With the exception of the objectionable yokelism of Married to the Kellys, all of Kansas‘s lesser
entries have followed suit. Most of the characters were likably earthy and respectable, but in
their little towns and on their farms, they suffered from isolation, boredom, and, on more than
one occasion, outright terror.
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TABLE 6. DEFINING PROGRAMS AND COMMON TRAITS: THE SOUTH
State Defining Programs Key Program
Elements
Other Common
Traits
Alabama Any Day Now Poverty; race and
racism; slow-paced
life; friendship; strong
women; the present
entrenched in the past
Arkansas Evening Shade A sleepy, tradition-
bound little town
populated by colorful,
witty, likeable
characters
Modern urban areas;
rural backwaters
Kentucky The Wonderful John
Acton
Good-natured, small-
town nostalgia
Rural nostalgia
Georgia The Dukes of Hazzard A small town and its
rural hinterland;
crooked politicians
and cops; charming,
unsophisticated,
uneducated, populist,
respectful heroes;
escapism; lack of a
middle class; country
ingenuity
Black vs. white, big
city vs. backwoods,
Old South vs. New
South; corrupt cops
and politicians;
populist resistance;
scantily clad tomboys;
African-Americans;
progressive,
sophisticated, and
generally white-collar
Atlanta; languid small
towns; the Civil
Rights movement; the
―Redneck revival‖
Designing Women Single, intelligent;
accomplished,
outspoken Atlanta
women; Old South
charm; black
character featured as a
matter of course
Matlock A respected, Harvard-
educated Atlanta
attorney; simple,
unassuming, country
ingenuity; black
character featured as a
matter of course
Profiler A strong female lead;
Atlanta as somewhat
dangerous, but
cosmopolitan city
448
Louisiana Frank‟s Place Successful African-
American
professional drawn to
New Orleans by its
―food, its music, its
social clubs, its jazzy
seductiveness‖; a
―romantic, almost
dream-like, aura‖
New Orleans as a
colorfully seedy,
cheerfully boozy,
free-living city
suffering from crime,
illicit sex, drugs,
violence, corruption;
modern cities
surrounded by
wilderness and
spooky swamps
Mississippi In the Heat of the
Night
Racial issues; the
transition from Old
South to New South;
conservative values;
slow pace of life;
violence and crime; a
high ―redneck factor‖;
a tight-knit
community
Isolated backwaters
North Carolina The Andy Griffith
Show
Leisurely paced life in
an ideal small town; a
―city-slickers idea of
heaven‖; warm and
sincere characters; a
tight-knit community;
the importance of
family; escapism;
simple townsfolk;
unsophisticated rural
hillbillies; small-town
ingenuity
Modern urban areas
mixed with small, out-
of-the-way towns;
gentle warmth;
nostalgia; tumultuous
life in a modern small
town
South Carolina American Gothic A charming small
town haunted by a
dark secret
Tennessee Hee Haw Country music;
goofball sense of
humor and
determinedly
unsophisticated
atmosphere; ―idea-
free, pure
entertainment‖
Country variety
programs; violent,
impoverished and
backward small towns
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Tennessee
(continued)
Nashville Now Country-themed talk
and variety program
Virginia The Waltons Wholesome rural
nostalgia; a loving
family; traditional
values; bittersweet
stories; dignity,
warmth, quiet
intelligence, and
simple wisdom;
splendid isolation
Bright, motivated
government
employees; optimism;
warm and loving
families
American Dad Middle class nuclear
family; suburban
conformity; parody of
neoconservatism and
right-wing paranoia;
family values
West Virginia Hawkins Prestigious lawyer
living in a small town;
earnest and intelligent
country folk
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CHAPTER 6 - THE SOUTH
At first glance, it appears that television has treated the South a little unfairly. It is home
to over 19% of the country‘s population, but has accounted for just 5.3% of the television
landscape, and even those numbers are deceiving. Tennessee has accounted for an impressive
2.54% of the American television landscape, or just under half of the medium‘s southern images.
Tennessee also has accomplished this with just twenty-five entries, indicating that a number of
the state‘s programs have enjoyed remarkably long lives. Still, many of those shows were
country music and variety programs, and the most successful of them aired in syndication or on
cable television, rather than on the major networks.
Many southern states have fared very poorly on television. West Virginia and South
Carolina each count only one entry, and neither lasted more than a year. Kentucky has served as
the setting for four programs, but they have been similarly short-lived. Alabama, Arkansas, and
Mississippi have each served as the backdrop for one somewhat successful program.
Collectively, however, these six states account for just thirteen total programs, which is fewer
than the total for Kansas alone. These same six states have collectively accounted for 0.54% of
the television landscape, which is less than the individual mark of Maryland. North Carolina has
a slightly more impressive history, having served as the setting for seven programs that account
for 0.39% of the country‘s television images, but that is mostly attributable to one very
successful show. Virginia has also notched seven television entries, and they have accounted for
0.47% of the American television landscape, but that is also largely because of the success of a
single show. Louisiana ranks third in terms of total programs with twelve, but few of these shows
have lasted long, and its share of the television landscape is equal to that of North Carolina, at
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0.39%. Georgia ranks second in the South, totaling sixteen programs, a few of which have been
fairly durable, and accounts for 0.97% of the country‘s television landscape. Absent Tennessee,
however, the South has accounted for just 2.76% of the American television landscape, which is
less than that of the District of Columbia alone.
KENTUCKY
Kentucky‘s television landscape has been fairly sparse, and that seems at least partially
due to the state‘s lack of large urban centers. Large metropolitan areas are disproportionately
represented on the American television landscape, and Louisville, the state‘s largest metro area,
ranks behind forty-one other American cities in terms of population. The Kentucky of television
is also not a modern urban one, but rather rooted in the past. None of its four programs have
survived beyond one season.
The first entry, The Wonderful John Acton, was set in 1919 in the small town of Ludlow
on the Ohio River and told the story of a county clerk who lived in the back room of his general
store. A warm reminiscence of small-town life, this program was similar in spirit to later shows
such as The Andy Griffith Show and The Waltons, but not nearly as successful, surviving just
three months in the summer of 1953. Kentucky‘s second entry, Young Dan‟l Boone, was an
adventure series of about the famous woodsman when he was in his twenties. A sort of
nineteenth-century backwoods Mod Squad, the show also featured Boone‘s sweetheart, Rebecca,
and a multicultural trio of sidekicks: a 12-year-old English boy, a Cherokee, and a runaway
slave. Viewers did not know what to do with the series, and it was cancelled after four weeks in
1977. Kentucky then was off the air for two decades before returning in 1998 with the short-
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lived soap opera Legacy. Set near Lexington in the 1880s, it was the story of the Logans, a
wealthy Irish family that owned a horse farm. The patriarch was Ned, a widower who had been
incapacitated after being shot. His eldest son, Sean, was secretly in love with Marina, the
family‘s black housekeeper. Clay, the hot-headed younger son added to the mix along with two
daughters, shy Alice and precocious Lexy. Much of the program‘s tension involved the rural
Winters clan that was bent on destroying the Logans. Legacy clearly was an attempt to revive the
spirit of filthy-rich-family soap operas, such Dallas and Dynasty, which had been so popular in
the 1980s. Big Oil was more interesting than Big Horse, apparently, and the show was cancelled
after about four months. Kentucky‘s final entry, and only contemporary one, was Cheerleader
Nation, a documentary series about the squad at Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School in
Lexington, and their successful quest for a fourth national championship. It aired on the Lifetime
Network for eight weeks in 2006.
WEST VIRGINIA
West Virginia‘s lone television entry—1973‘s Hawkins—did for the legal drama what
The Andy Griffith Show did for the sitcom. At the heart of both shows was the folksy charm of its
star—on Hawkins it was Hollywood icon Jimmy Stewart—and a similar geographic message.
Billy Jim Hawkins lived in a small town, but had built a national reputation as an expert on
murder cases. With his assistant, cousin R. J., he travelled the country clearing his clients and
helping to apprehend the real culprits. Television historian David Martindale‘s description of
Hawkins echoes statements made by others about Andy Griffith:
Perceived by many as just some local yokel—a slow-talking
country lawyer with an equally slow wit—he was in fact a crafty
criminal defense attorney, one so sharp he could have given Perry
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Mason a run for his money . . . . He was a hard man not to
admire—and impossible not to like . . . . Hawkins‘ forthrightness
and earnestness was continually played against the seediness of the
series‘ guest characters (Martindale 1991: 225).
The difference between Hawkins and Andy Griffith, of course, was longevity. Hawkins
lasted the duration of the 1973-1974 season, but was part of a rotating line-up with CBS Tuesday
Night Movies and, of all things, Shaft, so only nine episodes of the show aired.
TENNESSEE
Although a few southern states can boast entries that were more enduringly popular than
any of Tennessee‘s programs—North Carolina‘s The Andy Griffith Show and Virginia‘s The
Waltons, for example—no other southern state‘s television landscape can match Tennessee in
terms of sheer quantity. The Volunteer State has served as the backdrop for twenty-five
programs, which is nine more than its closest regional counterpart, Georgia; more than double
that of Louisiana; and greater than the total entries for Kentucky, West Virginia, Arkansas, North
Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi combined. This large volume is mostly
attributable to primetime programming that originated from Nashville, the heart of the nation‘s
country music industry. After the demise of national broadcasting from such cities as
Philadelphia and Chicago in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Nashville remained one of the few
places outside New York and California to produce primetime television programs. Nearly all of
them had a country flavor.
Tennessee‘s first national television program originated from the Mother Church of
country music, the Grand Ole Opry. A performance at the venerable Nashville theater had long
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been considered the pinnacle of any country musician‘s career, and live shows from the venue
had been broadcast on national radio since 1925. The Grand Ole Opry finally arrived on network
television in October 1955, when ABC aired hour-long simulcasts of the radio program once a
month. Oddly, despite featuring some of country music‘s icons, including Ernest Tubb, Hank
Snow, Chet Atkins, Marty Robbins, Roy Acuff, and June Carter, the ABC broadcast did not last
as long as ―lesser‖ country music entries such as Springfield, Missouri‘s Ozark Jubilee or
Cincinnati‘s Midwestern Hayride. ABC pulled the plug on the show in September 1956, ending
primetime television‘s flirtation with Nashville for more than a decade, and setting the stage for
the national networks‘ rather stormy relationship with the city‘s music industry.
Nashville‘s second entry, The Johnny Cash Show, premiered on ABC in the summer of
1969. Many of its performers were also from the country music field, including Cash himself, the
Carter Family, and the Statler Brothers, but the show also showcased talent spanning the musical
spectrum, including such guests as Louis Armstrong, Eric Clapton, Arlo Guthrie, Jose Feliciano,
Pete Seeger, and James Taylor. Eight days after the debut of Johnny Cash, CBS rolled out its
own Nashville-based variety program, which, unlike Johnny Cash, was purely, unabashedly,
and, some argued, offensively country-fried. The almost mythical story of Hee Haw‘s origin was
related by television insider Bob Shanks in his 1976 memoir The Cool Fire:
One friend of mine, Bernie Brillstein, an intelligent and jolly talent
manager and producer, had tried for months to sell a prestige series
he believed in. Zero. He was getting absolutely nowhere . . . . In
frustration, he grabbed up a copy of Variety to see what the hell
was selling. In the top ten shows he saw Beverly Hillbillies, Green
Acres, Glen Campbell, and Laugh-In. Consciously, maliciously
almost, he sat down and grafted all of these programs onto his one
giant nerve end of frustration. When he had it, he called CBS . . .
got an appointment, and in two minutes, sold the show (Shanks
1976: 153).
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The most substantial difference between The Johnny Cash Show and Hee Haw was the
goofball sense of humor and determinedly unsophisticated atmosphere of the latter. Sprinkled in
with the serious musical numbers were songs with titles like ―Who‘s Gonna Mow Your Grass?,‖
―Your Squaw‘s On the Warpath,‖ and ―Hobo Meditations.‖ The setting for the show was
Kornfield Kounty, a place that, in the words of one historian, ―made Hooterville look like Times
Square‖ (Hollis 2008: 221). The male comedians usually dressed in overalls, while voluptuous
female comics were usually poured into skimpy outfits inspired by Daisy Mae Scragg of Al
Capp‘s L‟il Abner comic strip. Like Laugh-In, there was a rapid-fire succession of one-liners,
blackouts, and sketches, but instead of the jokes being delivered from the windows of a
psychedelic ―joke wall,‖ or from a hipster cocktail party, Hee Haw‘s were delivered by actors
lounging about in rocking chairs, on haystacks, or in a cornfield. And while bad jokes on Laugh-
In merited a bucket of water, those telling duds on Hee Haw were smacked on the head with a
rubber chicken or on the backside with a fence plank.
Like the show‘s jokes, most of the comedians on Hee Haw were industry veterans,
including Opry mainstays Grandpa Jones, Minnie Pearl, Stringbean Akeman, and Archie
Campbell; Petticoat Junction veterans Gunilla Hutton and Jeannine Riley; and George Lindsay,
who brought the character of Goober Pyle intact from The Andy Griffith Show. Then there was
Kornfield Kounty‘s resident idiot, Alvin ―Junior‖ Samples. Samples, an obese, slow-talking,
good-ole boy from Cumming, Georgia, had been working at a sawmill when copies of him
spinning a wild fishing yarn began making rounds at country music stations. This recording,
entitled World‟s Biggest Whopper, made him a minor celebrity in country circles, and he was a
natural fit for Hee Haw‘s style of humor.
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If the gags on Hee Haw were considered by many to be cut-rate, the production was not.
The show was performed in the studios of Nashville‘s WTVF, which sent nearly seventy miles
of videotape to Los Angeles each season, where the Leviathan task of editing the show was
performed. While the tone of the show was laconic, its pace was frenetic. Whereas a typical
variety show contained about twenty distinct segments, an average episode of Hee Haw had
nearly 150. More important, the show‘s musical talent was no laughing matter. Like The Johnny
Cash Show, Hee Haw‘s musical guests included some of the legends of country music: Merle
Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Jerry Lee Lewis, Loretta Lynn, Charley Pride, and Conway Twitty.
Moreover, the show was hosted by Roy Clark and Buck Owens, both top-notch country
musicians in their own right.
Despite the show‘s impressive array of musical talent, television critics were, almost
without exception, absolutely horrified by Hee Haw. The show was described as ―tripe,‖
―degrading,‖ ―vile,‖ and ―awful,‖ with one critic claiming that ―CBS ought to be ashamed.‖ TV
Guide‘s Cleveland Amory called the show ―Outhouse Laugh-In,‖ the Houston Chronicle‘s Ann
Hodges wrote that it was ―possibly the worst show I‘ve ever seen,‖ and Cecil Smith of the Los
Angeles Times described Hee Haw as ―the most irrelevant, stupid and ghastly program in recent
history‖ (Andrews 1980: 46, 51).
For some, Hee Haw was not simply an artistic abomination, but a political and cultural
one as well. James Branscome, the director of the strip-mining watchdog group Save Our
Kentucky, believed that CBS, which aired The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, and Hee Haw
consecutively on Tuesday nights in 1970, was being every bit as exploitive and destructive as the
coal industry. He called the network‘s action ―the most effective effort ever exerted by a nation
to belittle, demean, and otherwise destroy a minority people within its boundaries.‖ Had another
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minority group been portrayed in a similar manner, he added, it would have provoked ―an
immediate public outcry‖ (Harkins 2004: 203). Part of the critical backlash directed at Hee Haw
likely stemmed from the show‘s origin as a replacement for the politically irreverent, and
recently cancelled, CBS variety show The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. One TV Guide
critic, for example, was disgusted that Hee Haw had ―come to life over the dead bodies of the
Smothers Brothers, who were always making those terrific jokes about racial tensions, the
Vietnam War, Congressional ethics, air pollution, and the military-industrial complex‖ (Hollis
2008: 224).
Hee Haw‘s rise to prominence during one of the most politically and economically
turbulent eras in recent history troubled or even baffled some critics. But at least one believed the
show‘s popularity was actually a product of its times. Neil Hickey described Hee Haw as a
―rapid rural romp of retrogressive rejoinders distilled into idea-free, pure entertainment for
America‘s tired brain‖ (Andrews 1980: 44). Hee Haw cohost Buck Owens seemed to agree,
commenting that: ―We try to entertain all ages. We‘re not a hip show. We stay away from inside
jokes as much as possible . . . . Anybody can grasp this material‖ (Andrews 1980: 50).
If nothing else, Hee Haw was a ratings success. The program was ranked twentieth in the
Nielsen rating in its rookie year, and climbed to number sixteen the next season. The Johnny
Cash Show was similarly popular. After beginning life as a summer replacement program in
1969, it ranked fifteenth on the Nielsen charts for the 1969-1970 season. Both shows, however,
were gone in 1971. This was not a result of declining ratings, but rather part of a corporate
decision now commonly referred to as television‘s ―rural purge.‖ In the late 1960s, CBS had
enjoyed enormous hits with a number of rural-themed comedies and variety shows, including
Gomer Pyle, U. S. M. C., Mayberry, R. F. D., The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Hee Haw,
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The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, and The Jim Nabors Hour (which featured the star of
Gomer Pyle and debuted shortly after that show‘s departure). It also had a stable of veteran
programs with strong audiences among rural, small-town, and older viewers, including The Red
Skelton Hour, The Ed Sullivan Show, My Three Sons, and Family Affair. ABC was less reliant on
such programming, but it did count The Johnny Cash Show and The Lawrence Welk Show among
its more dependable programs. At the conclusion of the 1970-1971 season, eleven of these
thirteen programs were cancelled, and by the end of the next year, all of them were gone.
Although CBS is the network most often cited as responsible for the purge, it was
actually NBC that precipitated it. Long mired in second place behind the ―Tiffany Network,‖
NBC took the novel, even revolutionary approach of sharing its demographic research with
advertisers. NBC persuaded potential customers that its programming—shows like Laugh-In,
Julia, The Flip Wilson Show, and Adam-12—appealed to a younger, more urban audience that
was more susceptible to advertising. The programs on CBS, they contended, attracted older,
small-town and rural viewers; those who consumed less and were more likely to buy the same
products they had always purchased. When NBC‘s marketing strategy worked, this fact did not
go unnoticed at CBS:
New CBS president Bob Wood . . . realized that the network was
faring poorly with most big city viewers and saw that the audience
for the network‘s rural-based shows was now composed almost
exclusively of children, the elderly, older blue-collar workers, and
folks in rural and small-town locales—all told, the least desirable
viewer demographics for attracting advertisers . . . . According to a
perhaps apocryphal story Buddy Ebsen recounted years later,
network head William Paley‘s wife was greeted by her friends at a
posh New York restaurant as ―the wife of the owner of the hillbilly
network.‖ Thus, with Paley‘s full backing, Wood made a move
beginning in the spring of 1970 to purge every rural-based program
from the CBS lineup. As Green Acres‘s regular Pat Buttram
lamented: ―they cancelled everything with a tree—including
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Lassie.‖ By 1971, CBS had made the ―turn toward relevance‖ and
was broadcasting programs featuring young people with ―sixties
values‖ such as All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show,
and, a year later, M*A*S*H (Harkins 2007: 201-203).
Despite the purge, Kornfield Kounty refused to die. New episodes of Hee Haw were
produced and released in syndication and, although its success continued to baffle critics, the
program continued off the networks for two more decades. Hee Haw‘s popularity inspired two
more long-running syndicated country music programs in the early 1970s, both originating from
Opryland, U. S. A., in Nashville. That Good Ole Nashville Music was in production from 1970 to
1985, and Pop! Goes the Country ran from 1974 to 1982. Two shorter-lived syndicated Nashville
music programs also aired in 1976: twenty-six episodes of Opryland‘s Music Hall America and
fifty-two episodes of Dolly, hosted by emerging country star Dolly Parton.
NBC aired a knock-off of Hee Haw, called The Nashville Palace, during the 1981-1982
season, but the major networks mostly ignored the obvious appetite for country-themed
programs. Outsiders attempted to fill that void on March 7, 1983, by launching The Nashville
Network (TNN) on cable television. The new network‘s daytime line-up consisted mainly of
hunting, fishing, and racing programs, but its evening schedule was almost all country music.
The cornerstone was Nashville Now, a live, nightly talk and variety show hosted by Ralph
Emery. Brooks and Marsh record that ―everybody who was anybody in country music showed
up here, making the show almost as much of an institution in Nashville as the Grand Ole Opry
itself‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 962). Another early regular series was You Can Be a Star, a
talent contest for amateur country acts that ran from 1983 to 1989, and again during the 1991-
1992 season. Gospel Jubilee, TNN‘s southern gospel entry from Opryland, aired during the
1990-1991 season. Crook and Chase, a down-home country music talk show premiered in 1986.
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In 1993, upon the retirement of Ralph Emery and Nashville Now, Crook and Chase was
expanded and retitled Music City Tonight, running until 1996.
Another popular TNN program, Club Dance, was the network‘s answer to American
Bandstand and Dance Fever. Originating from Knoxville, the show was hosted by Shelly
Mangrum and ―fatherly Phil Campbell, the soda-pop bartender‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 263).
Cashing in on the country line-dancing fad, and featuring professional, amateur, young, and old
dancers alike, Club Dance aired from 1991 to 1999, producing a remarkable 1,848 episodes. The
Statler Brothers Show, which premiered in the fall of 1991, was a throwback to the days of Ed
Sullivan. It featured the title group and other country acts, plus a wide range of comedians,
jugglers, ventriloquists, and magicians. This show, despite its dusty format, became the biggest
hit on TNN and prompted the network to launch a second variety program, Prime Time Country,
in 1996. Both programs lasted until 1999.
The seemingly antiquated nature of TNN shows prompted one critic to quip, ―Vaudeville
never died, it just moved to Nashville‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1304). If there is a central
geographic message indicated by the success of such programming, it is that a large portion of
America‘s television audience had been alienated by the rural purge of 1971. In fact, Hee Haw‘s
long syndicated run and the very existence of TNN suggests a rejection, among some viewers, of
all things hip and urban. At the very least, this programming certainly created for the television
audience a lasting image of Tennessee as the home for all things down-home.
In 1997, TNN‘s Nashville-based owners sold the network to the Westinghouse
Corporation, which then purchased, of all things, CBS, putting that network‘s executives in
charge of TNN. As if it were settling an old score, CBS immediately dropped TNN‘s guitar logo
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and began a Shermanesque campaign to replace TNN‘s country music and rural lifestyle
programs with general interest movies and reruns. In April of 2000, Viacom, the owner of MTV,
purchased CBS and completed the transition. The Nashville Network‘s name was changed first
to ―The National Network,‖ and then, in 2003, to ―Spike TV.‖ It now featured testosterone-
soaked programs oriented toward young males.
With the lid of TNN‘s coffin finally nailed shut, the number of nationally broadcast
country programs dwindled significantly, although the country variety format was revived with
some success from 2003 through 2008. Nashville Star was the USA Network‘s answer to
American Idol, with amateur country musicians competing for a record contract, with the finals
taking place at Opryland.
In contrast to its long-running and successful array of country music variety programs,
Tennessee has served as the backdrop to just seven scripted programs, only one of which lasted
more than a year. Four of these programs still had a musical flair, including the first, a 1977
crime drama called Nashville 99 that featured Claude Akins as a veteran cop. Country music star
Jerry Reed played his sidekick, and other country musicians often appeared as themselves. The
show was not well-received, with one critic sarcastically calling it ―absolutely the finest police
series ever filmed on location in Nashville using country western singers as guest stars‖ (Collins
1988: 119). Audiences didn‘t think much of it either, and Nashville 99 was off-duty after just
four weeks. The sitcom Hee Haw Honeys premiered in 1978 and aired for twenty-six weeks.
This syndicated program featured five members the Hee Haw cast playing the role of operators
of a Nashville night club. It was a thinly veiled variety show, and not terribly different from its
parent program, featuring cornball humor and country music performances.
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Boone, a drama chronicling the life of a young singer, debuted in 1983. Set in 1953 in the
small town of Trinity, near Nashville, Boone was the story of Boone Sawyer, whose life bore
more than a passing resemblance to that of Elvis Presley. Boone wanted to be a rockabilly star—
something that neither the Grand Ole Opry nor his parents (who wanted him to be a minister)—
were ready for. Boone‘s best friends were Rome Hawley, a motorcycle thug, and Mr. Johnson, a
blind blues musician. The show was not especially successful, lasting just eleven months. Oddly
enough, neither was a series based on the real deal in 1990. Elvis, which was filmed on location
in Memphis, was a series of vignettes chronicling the rock god‘s life before stardom.
Only three Tennessee-based programs have strayed from the country music theme, and
none of them painted a particularly appealing portrait of the Volunteer State. The drama Walking
Tall, the story of rural sheriff, ran for five months in 1981. This program was based on the movie
series of the same name which, in turn, was based on the real life of Buford Pusser, the sheriff of
rural McNeal County. Pusser had taken on illegal gambling and prostitution in his county, using
a four-foot-long club he called ―The Pacifier‖ to keep scofflaws in line. The sitcom Filthy Rich
aired during the 1982-1983 season. A spoof of Dynasty and Dallas, the program was about the
family of Big Guy Beck, a land baron who, before dying and being cryogenically frozen,
recorded a long video will. Each week a new section of the will was played for the family, who
ranged from arrogant aristocrat to lowly rube, and who were forced to conform to Big Guy‘s odd
demands. Tennessee‘s last scripted entry to date was Christy, a historical drama, which
premiered in 1994 and aired for sixteen months. Set in rural Cutter Gap in 1912, Christy told the
story of the spirited nineteen-year-old title character who had left a comfortable life to teach at a
missionary school. Life in Cutter Gap was harsh, with blood feuds among local families, and an
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impoverished, mostly illiterate population who resented education and the ―more civilized
lifestyle‖ that Christy represented (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 253).
ARKANSAS
Arkansas has been the setting for three television programs, with the first and most
successful making its debut in 1990. Set in a small town of the same name, the sitcom Evening
Shade featured Burt Reynolds as Wood Newton, who had been a star high school running back
for the Evening Shade Mules. After a successful college and pro career, Wood returned home to
coach the Mules, who were in the midst of a fifty-seven game losing streak. Hanging out with
Wood at the Barbecue Villa were his wife Ava, the town‘s prosecuting attorney; her
curmudgeonly father, Evan Evans; and tart Aunt Frieda Evans. Also seen were the town stripper,
a cranky doctor, a wimpy math teacher, and the three Newton children.
Evening Shade had a somewhat brief, but successful run, ranking in the Nielsen top
twenty during the second and third of its four seasons. This success may have been propelled by
a certain air of authenticity. Even though Evening Shade did trot out a few familiar southern
characters (Evan and Frieda appeared to have strolled right out of a Tennessee Williams play)
and portrayed the town as tradition-bound, the show nevertheless largely avoided blatantly
pejorative southern stereotypes. It actually became a favorite of the critics. Los Angeles Times
critic Howard Rosenberg, for example, wrote that Evening Shade had ―roots, character and lusty
wit:‖
Besides being very funny, this series from Harry Thomason and
Linda Bloodworth-Thomason (Designing Women) has an
appealingly distinct tone and an honesty in its relationships that
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dramatically set it apart from most TV comedies. The characters
are richly eccentric, the writing sexy and tartly Southern and the
performances excellent (Rosenberg 1990: 1).
Although it does not have a football team, Evening Shade, Arkansas, really exists, a town
of about four hundred in the northeastern part of the state. Chosen by series coproducer and
Arkansas native Harry Thomason simply because ―it has a wonderful sound,‖ shots of the town
were used in the show‘s credits and in some establishing shots, with other exteriors filmed in
Little Rock and Fayetteville (Golden 1996: 100). The people of Evening Shade apparently had
no problems with the show, and actually invited Burt Reynolds to deliver the keynote address at
the town‘s high school commencement, which he did in 1991.
Arkansas‘s other two programs were of the unscripted variety, including 2002‘s ICU:
Arkansas Children‟s Hospital, a short-lived documentary series chronicling the work of pediatric
cardiologists in Little Rock. The subject matter of the state‘s third entry was not nearly as grim,
but, to some, far more horrifying. In 2003, the first installment of the reality series The Simple
Life stranded wealthy, self-indulgent, California party girls Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton in tiny
Altus, Arkansas, sans credit cards and cell phones. They lived on the farm of the Leding family,
who patiently endured the girls‘ pettiness, materialism, and, to put it politely, lack of sexual
restraint. To raise funds, the girls were forced to work at a fast-food restaurant, for a cattle
auctioneer, and on chicken and dairy farms. They also spent time getting drunk at a local pub and
dance club, organizing the Altus Springtime Gala, and getting to know the customs of the locals.
In essence, The Simple Life was The Beverly Hillbillies thrown in reverse, and it raised
the same fundamental geographic question—who, exactly, were viewers supposed to be laughing
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at—the simple folks of Altus, or the spoiled brats from California? Critic Terry Sawyer took the
latter view:
Democrats would do well to tape this show as evidence for any
future hearings about the estate tax, as suffering is here doled out
where suffering is due. If anyone should find herself on the ass end
of the boob tube, it should be the fake-n-bake party heiress whose
most recent barnacle on the hull of proper fame was a grainy
private porno featuring a sleazy former boyfriend . . . . Nicole
Richie and Paris Hilton have no discernible talents (I haven't seen
the video) and personalities as pleasant as a bout of dry heaving
. . . . The Simple Life introduces the girls during a ―typical‖ day:
they spend thousands of dollars without seeming to think. (Hilton
walks into one store to spend $1,500 on a bag for her dog,
confident that mommy‘s credit card is on file.) It was, in fact, a
cagey opening gambit: after watching these coddled vipers giddily
stuff their voids, I was eager to see the wealth teat ripped from
their mouths. For them, it‘s a kind of punishment; as one of
Hilton‘s friends observes, ―I‘d rather have no food for six weeks
than no cell phone‖ (Sawyer 2003: 1).
Critic Ken Tucker did not buy Sawyer‘s argument, but rather saw The Simple Life as one in a
long line of programs where the wealthy and entitled tread upon the meek, never learning a
single lesson:
It started out . . . as a concept that would level the Green Acres
playing field: Socialite brats Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie,
separated from their cash and credit cards . . . were dispatched to
rural America, there to be shaken out of their pampered
complacency by ordinary folks unimpressed with the pair‘s
notoriety . . . . Well, turns out the series devolved into a weekly
half hour that could have been called Let‟s Sneer at the Hicks.
Paris and Nicole imposed their condescending rudeness and sense
of privilege on everyone they met (Tucker 2005: 60).
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NORTH CAROLINA
Prior to 1960, only four programs had been set in the American South. Tennessee‘s
Grand Ole Opry, as just discussed, was joined by The Adventures of Jim Bowie and Yancy
Derringer, both based in Louisiana and essentially southern variations on the western. The only
scripted program set in the contemporary region had been the Louisiana detective drama
Bourbon Street Beat, which lasted just one season. All of this made the 1960 debut of North
Carolina‘s The Andy Griffith Show a truly transformative event for television geography. It was
North Carolina‘s first show, the South‘s first sitcom, and the first program set in the region to
gain widespread popularity. More than four decades after its departure, it not only must be
considered the most popular television program set in the South, but also warrants consideration
for being the most enduringly popular show in the history of the medium.
Part of the show‘s appeal—a large part, it appears—was its simple, homespun, gimmick-
free nature. Griffith played Andy Taylor, a widower who was the sheriff of a small North
Carolina town called Mayberry. Andy‘s deputy was his cousin, Barney Fife, a loyal sidekick and
good friend, and easily the most hyperactively hapless lawman in television history. Much of the
action took place at the town‘s combination sheriff‘s office, courthouse, and jail, but Andy
Griffith rarely functioned as a bona fide police show, since so little real crime ever happened in
Mayberry. Most of the episodes revolved around Andy‘s relationship with his young son Opie,
Andy and Barney‘s relationships with their girlfriends, and the relationships among the citizens
of Mayberry and the surrounding area.
Despite the show‘s slow-moving simplicity, or perhaps because of it, The Andy Griffith
Show was immediately popular. It ranked fourth on the Nielsen charts during its rookie season,
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and never placed lower than seventh during its eight-year run. When Griffith decided to call it
quits at the conclusion of the 1967-1968 season, his show had become the highest-rated program
on television, and it went on to have an incredibly successful afterlife in rerun syndication. Andy
Griffith has never really left the air, appearing daily, often more than once, on cable networks
and local stations throughout the country. A 1986 made-for-TV reunion movie, Return to
Mayberry, was the highest rated telefilm of that season. A stunning array of books have been
published regarding the show, from scholarly works to cookbooks based on Aunt Bee‘s dishes,
and the Andy Griffith Show Rerun Watchers Club counts more than 1,300 chapters from North
Carolina to Australia to Saudi Arabia to Germany.
Much of the show‘s enduring popularity is attributable to the show‘s writers, producers,
and especially its stars—Don Knotts alone recieved five Emmy awards for his portrayal of
Barney Fife—but this statement can be made for a number of successful series. All in the Family,
for example, received more awards and had much higher ratings during its original run than did
The Andy Griffith Show, but it does not enjoy the same sort of cult-like following today. The
indestructibility of Andy Griffith is, as noted by media historian Tim Hollis, almost mysterious:
Reams of paper have been used to write about The Andy Griffith
Show from every conceivable angle. It has been analyzed,
dissected, tested, sliced and diced, and still no one can seem to
pinpoint just why it was such a hit in its own day and quite
probably even more popular among television audiences today.
The high quality of the writing and acting certainly had much to do
with it, but that still does not explain TV buffs‘ almost fanatical
adulation of the program (Hollis 2008: 177-178).
While no single factor can explain this mystery, the leading candidate is its setting. Many
of Andy Griffith‘s sitcom contemporaries were also set in fictional cities and towns, but most of
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these backdrops were a sort of vaguely defined ―Anytown, U. S. A, ‖ such as the Hillsdale of
Dennis the Menace, Bryant Park of My Three Sons, Hilldale of The Donna Reed Show,
Springfield of Father Knows Best, and Mayfield of Leave it Beaver. None of these locales left
the same sort of impression—or, to use the geographer‘s terminology, created the same sense of
place—as did the little town of 1,200 in the hill country of North Carolina.
Each week, the essence of life in Mayberry was on display for viewers in the Andy
Griffith‘s opening credits. Andy and Opie, fishing poles in hand, walked along a brightly lit
country lane as the show‘s theme song—a whistled version of the tune ―Gone Fishin‘‖—played
in the background. As they came to the shore of Myer‘s Lake, Andy paused as Opie picked up a
rock and threw it into the water, and then the two went on their unhurried way. ―In 30 seconds,
that opening,‖ wrote critic Sam Frank, ―underscored the show‘s main relationship while
signaling to millions that it was relax-and-enjoy-yourself time (Frank 1999: 134).
The show‘s leisurely pace and idealized sense of place are most often cited by historians
and critics as being central to the show‘s appeal. As noted by television historian Richard Kelly,
―No show in the history of television . . . has so successfully mastered the art of nostalgia and
created an imaginative role model of an ideal society as The Andy Griffith Show‖ (Kelly 1987:
41). Critic John Javna described Mayberry as being ―a picture postcard of a small southern Main
Street, a slice of steaming apple pie, a little bit of Bret Harte come to life (Javna 1988: 146). Ed
Bark, writing for the Dallas Morning News, went so far as to suggest that the Andy Griffith‘s
sense of place was more important to the success of the show than were the laughs:
Not too many people found it hilariously funny . . . . It‘s more of a
warm show—maybe the first warm-edy—just a pleasant half hour
to watch. I didn‘t roll over laughing over Andy Griffith, but I
always felt good after watching an episode of it. It‘s a kind of
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small town America that will never find its way back into prime
time, but you can tell . . . that people still feel affection for the
place (Javna 1988: 47).
A common theme in critical assessments of the show‘s enduring popularity is a longing,
on the part of the viewer, for a bygone era. As critic Leigh H. Edwards put it, The Andy Griffith
Show ―captures America‘s yearning for lost innocence, for small-town safety and community,‖
but it is worth noting that this yearning was also important to the show‘s initial success (Edwards
2005b: 1). In Mayberry, there was no civil unrest, race riots, emerging counterculture, student
demonstrations, Kennedy assassination, or Vietnam War. According to historian Anthony
Harkins, the most striking break that Andy Griffith made from the real world was Mayberry‘s
relationship to the American South of the 1960s:
[Andy Griffith] presented positive portrayals of southern small-
town life and rural folk that explicitly offset news coverage that
consistently presented real-life southerners as villains. As a nearly
pacifist small-town sheriff who refuses to wear a gun and who
forces his trigger-happy deputy to keep his single bullet for his
own revolver in his shirt pocket, Andy Griffith‘s character offered
a studied contrast to racist violent southern sheriffs such as Jim
Clark of Selma, Alabama, and ―Bull‖ Connor of Birmingham, who
were widely portrayed in early 1960s news media as the
personification of southern white ―massive resistance‖ to the Civil
Rights movement (Harkins 2004: 197).
There is no denying that Mayberry was something of a fantasy land. It was not only a
departure from the reality of 1960s America, but also an escape from the hard realities of life in
any time and place. In Mayberry, as noted by Richard Kelly, there was no ―violence, serious
disease, believable death, hatred, lust, or any of the other ills of most societies‖ (Kelly 1987: 42).
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It would be unfair, however, to characterize The Andy Griffith Show as pure treacle. What the
show lacked in socially relevant plots and weighty themes, it made up for in complex characters.
Critic Ken Tucker argued that ―the genius of this gentle sitcom was the way its fantasy surface—
placid life in the never-world of Mayberry, North Carolina—belied the realistic emotions roiling
inside every character‖ (Tucker 2005: 96). To put it another way, while the Andy Griffith Show
avoided some of the basic realities of its time and place, the characters and the town they
inhabited seemed thoroughly real. Andy Taylor was, without doubt, a great dad and a great
sheriff, but unlike many of his omniscient, infallible television counterparts in both occupations,
he made mistakes along the way. Likewise, unlike the protagonists of Leave it to Beaver or
Dennis the Menace, Opie was neither a blank slate nor a precocious hellion, but a sensitive,
thoughtful kid who learned that life‘s lessons were not always simple, and who often questioned
the moral relativity of the adult world around him. And then there was Barney, whose officious
bluster made him, more often than not, the butt of nearly every joke in Mayberry. Behind that
thin lawman veneer, however, was a bubbling mass of insecurities that made him an immensely
likable character, one who nobody in Mayberry or the viewing audience really wanted to see get
hurt. In that regard, he was a sort of antagonistic protagonist, and a very different comic foil than
existed on most other television sitcoms.
Perhaps the most revolutionary thing about Andy Griffith was the degree to which it
developed its own geography. Leading the way for later television towns like Northern
Exposure‘s Cicely and The Simpsons‘s Springfield, the secondary characters were rarely one-
dimensional, one-shot figures who passed through an episode simply to move the plot along, but
fully developed, recurring characters who were integral in shaping Mayberry‘s sense of place.
There was Andy‘s Aunt Bee, who served as a housekeeper and as something of a foster mother
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for both of the Taylor boys. On the rare occasion that the Mayberry jail had a long-term
occupant, they could count on Aunt Bee bringing a home-cooked meal right to their cell. The
most frequent short-term occupant was Otis Campbell, the amiable, unrepentant town drunk.
Otis checked in every Saturday night to sleep it off, and would let himself out the next morning,
using the key that hung on a hook next to his personal cell. Working down at Wally‘s Garage
was Gomer Pyle, a good-natured rube who set the standard for later, similar characters such as
Woody Boyd and Radar O‘Reilly. Like his cousin, Goober, Gomer was so completely ingenuous
that he made Barney look worldly. Another Mayberry mainstay was the slow-moving, kindly
barber, Floyd Lawson, who while not dreaming of opening a three-chair shop in Mount Pilot,
was busy mistakenly attributing all manner of famous quotes and sayings to Calvin Coolidge.
Also seen were Ellie Walker, the town pharmacist and Andy‘s love interest in early episodes;
Clara Edwards, Bee‘s fussy friend; Helen Crump, Opie‘s teacher and Andy‘s later love interest;
Thelma Lou, Barney‘s long-suffering girlfriend; and scores of other recurring characters who
helped flesh out the Mayberry universe.
At the center of that universe, of course, was Andy Taylor. As mentioned, in an era when
southerners, particularly southern lawmen, were often the featured villains on the evening news,
the region‘s inhabitants could not have found a more likable fictional character to repair their
tattered image each week on television. Although he was not flawless, and certainly not urbane,
he was sagacious, friendly, and respectable. In the words of critic Michael Douglas, Andy Taylor
was ―a bright humanist with a badge who enforces the law by bringing out the best in
everybody‖ (Javna 1988: 46).
Andy was a World War II veteran, an expert woodsman and, in the tradition of To Kill a
Mockingbird‘s Atticus Finch, a man who didn‘t much care for guns, despite being a crack shot.
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As mentioned, he usually refused to carry a weapon because he didn‘t want to earn respect by
threat of violence. Instead, he resolved Mayberry‘s frequent minor crises through diplomacy,
drawing on his gift for storytelling to give townspeople the means to solve their own problems.
As noted by Richmond Times Dispatch television critic Douglas Durden:
One of the attractions was that Andy was so nice all the time. So
understanding. And he could solve problems without being too
intrusive. He controlled everything but never imposed himself on a
situation. He never made the characters feel that he was controlling
everything. His relationship with Mayberry was like a fantasy of
what a perfect father should be (Javna 1988: 47).
While Andy was not protecting Mayberry‘s citizens from themselves, he was warding off
unscrupulous city-slickers who passed through the town and saw it as an easy mark. Unlike the
Clampetts of The Beverly Hillbillies, who unwittingly undid would-be predators with their own
naïveté, Andy was no bumpkin. In one episode, for example, a pair of bank robbers cracked the
vault of the Mayberry bank, only to find Andy waiting calmly inside. The combination, it
seemed, had been lost years ago, necessitating the installation of a back door. Andy thanked
them for finally getting the vault open before hauling them off to the jail. In this way, Andy was
something of a small-town version of Lt. Columbo, a cunning crime fighter who was constantly
being underestimated by his adversaries.
As often as not, the city-slickers who passed through Mayberry were victims of their own
arrogance. Mayberry was first introduced to the television world on an episode of The Danny
Thomas Show, in which Danny, while passing through the little town, was pulled over by Andy
Taylor for running a stop sign. Danny, believing he was being shaken down by a crooked small-
town cop, demanded to see the Justice of the Peace who, as it turned out, was also Andy Taylor.
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Danny was found guilty, refused to pay the fine, and was locked up in a cell. Over the course of
the episode, Danny came to respect Andy and, in the end, agreed to pay the fine. That basic
plot—where an insolent out-of-towner is undone by the folksy wisdom of Andy and eventually
sees the error of his or her ways—was used time and again, and underscored one of the show‘s
fundamental geographic themes. That theme was that small towns were nothing to sneer at, and
that city folks needed to be reminded, from time to time, that sophistication and wisdom are not
the same thing.
The Andy Griffith Show was, without doubt, a ringing endorsement of small-town life. It
provided a contrast to other depictions of small towns, exemplified by the Sinclair Lewis novel
Main Street, in which local residents were belittled for not realizing just how pathetic their little
town really was. It is notable that Barney Fife was the one person in Mayberry who constantly
resented the town‘s small stature. He modeled himself after the hard-bitten, glamorous urban
crime fighters he saw in the movies, called his gun ―baby,‖ and prayed for a major crime or some
other calamity to befall Mayberry. And, on those rare occasions when the little town offered him
a chance to be a real lawman, he always screwed up. When he wasn‘t nearly shooting himself in
the foot with his one bullet or accidentally locking himself in a jail cell, he was arresting the
wrong person or frenetically overreacting to a minor event, as in the episode when he put almost
the entire town in jail. In one way or another, the viewer was constantly reminded that Barney
would be much better off if, like Andy, he simply accepted and embraced the nature of his little
town, rather than rejecting it.
Another important geographic element of the program was its treatment of the folk who
populated the hills around Mayberry. While Andy Griffith was a show that ―generally celebrated
the simple pleasures and tribulations of small-town life,‖ it did utilize some common, and often
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negative, ―hillbilly‖ stereotypes (Harkins 2004: 181). Seen most often during the show‘s first
four years, these hillbillies were mostly portrayed as simple-minded country people who took
cash for supplying the town with illegal moonshine, but who otherwise rejected modern life, as
in an episode where farmer Rafe Hollister refused to be given a tetanus shot. At worst, they were
portrayed as ―incompetently violent rubes,‖ who engaged in senseless family feuds precipitated
by some long-forgotten incident (Harkins 2004: 182). Among the more frequent characters seen
crawling out of this anachronistic world were Briscoe Darling and his family. According to
Harkins, the Darlings were a mixture of negative and positive hillbilly stereotypes, walking a
fine line between parody and authenticity:
Briscoe Darling . . . and his family represent the footloose musical
mountaineer . . . . Symbols of an outmoded but authentic mountain
culture, the Darlings are superstitious, undereducated, slow-talking
or mute (a running gag was that none of the four Darling boys ever
said a word except when singing), and comfortably self-sufficient.
But their primary function on the show was to provide musical
entertainment. In actuality, the Darling sons were the Missouri
Ozarks string band the Dillards, who wrote many of the songs they
performed on the program. Music is central to the Darlings‘ way of
life, a point driven home by family patriarch Briscoe. ―You got
time to breathe, you got time for music,‖ he tells Andy in one
episode. Although clearly presented as comical throwbacks, this is
not a demeaning portrait . . . but one that celebrates genuine
indigenous folk music. The Darlings mention many laughably
titled songs such as ―Never Hit Your Grandma with a Big Stick,‖
but the songs they actually played were either songs the Dillards
had composed or traditional southern folk tunes like ―Boil Them
Cabbage Down‖ and ―There is a Time for Love and Laughter.‖
The family always seems somewhat ill at ease during their periodic
visits to Mayberry and even pose a potential threat to the townsfolk
(Briscoe kidnaps Aunt Bee in one episode and brings her back to
his cabin in an effort to convince her to marry him). But Sheriff
Taylor appreciates their authentic mountain mannerisms and
culture, and the feeling is mutual. ―That haircut of yourn may be
city-style,‖ Briscoe warmly tells Taylor, ―but your heart was
shaped in a bowl‖ (Harkins 2004: 182).
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Briscoe Darling was played by Denver Pyle, a veteran of numerous TV westerns, who
would revive his characterization of a slow-talking, philosophical southern patriarch as Uncle
Jesse on The Dukes of Hazzard. The most memorable of Mayberry‘s hillbillies, however, was
portrayed by New York native Howard Morris, who had first risen to fame as a regular on Sid
Caesar‘s landmark comedy program Your Show of Shows. Known for his frenzied physical
comedy and tremendous range of vocal characterizations, Morris did a memorable turn on Andy
Griffith as Ernest T. Bass, a screeching, rock-throwing lunatic who, according to Harkins,
exemplified some of the darker hillbilly stereotypes:
If the Darlings represent the slightly reckless musical
mountaineers, Ernest T. Bass symbolizes the deranged mountain
man, so wild that even his fellow hill folk consider him a threat
. . . . Bass is a half-savage who has a simian-like gait and shrieks
like a chimpanzee. His trademark is throwing rocks and bricks
through windows . . . . Although he continually tries to fit into
society and social institutions—different episodes portray his effort
to join the army, to mingle at a formal reception, and to gain a
primary-school education—his every encounter with civilization
inevitably proves disastrous and each episode closes with Sheriff
Taylor hastening him back to the mountains hoping he will not
return. Although Bass is ostensibly a comedic character, potential
violence always underlies his eccentricity, and the distance
between his characterization and the outwardly vicious . . .
mountain savages of Deliverance is not that great (Harkins 2004:
183-184).
The Darlings and Ernest T. Bass appeared in numerous episodes during Andy Griffith‘s
early years, particularly, and probably not coincidentally, in 1963 and 1964, when The Beverly
Hillbillies was the highest-rated show on television. They disappeared after October 1966. Still,
before, after, and even during this ―hillbilly surge,‖ the streets of Mayberry remained the primary
focus. It was always much more of a small-town show than a rural one.
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As mentioned, Andy Griffith‘s assessment of southern small-town life was unceasingly
positive. Its central geographic message was that life there moved very slowly. Scenes took place
at the All Souls Church, where Andy and Barney sang in the choir; in the woods around Myer‘s
Lake; at Andy‘s lodge, at the courthouse and barbershop; on the sidewalks where old men played
checkers or dominoes; or on the front porch of Andy‘s house, where he and Barney were often
seen recovering from one of Aunt Bee‘s enormous suppers. The style of the show, in the words
of television historian Jerry Haggins, was ―strikingly distinct, employing a relaxed, almost
lethargic tone‖ (Haggins 2010: 1). Physical evidence of that languid pace could be found in the
show‘s scripts, which usually ran about thirty pages, as compared to those of a fast-paced sitcom
like The Phil Silvers Show, which averaged forty-five pages. The major plot points of a typical
episode were often book-ended, or even interrupted, by casual conversations between the
characters, as when Barney discussed his most recent major purchase:
BARNEY: The last big buy I made was my mom‘s and dad‘s
anniversary present.
ANDY: What‘d ya get ‗em?
BARNEY: A septic tank.
ANDY: For their anniversary?
BARNEY: They‘re awful hard people to buy for. Besides, it was
something they can use. They were really thrilled. It had two tons
of concrete in it. All steel reinforced.
ANDY: You‘re a fine son, Barn.
BARNEY: I try. (Mitz 1988: 145).
Perhaps the single best description of the town‘s pace came from Andy Taylor himself, when he
was asked in an episode for a description of Mayberry:
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There‘s not much to tell. It‘s just a little town. We hang around, get
up in the morning and go to work and come home. For
entertainment, we have television and movies, and we take rides in
the car out of town on Sunday. We have our local baseball team,
and we fish, and we have creeks we swim in. Evenings we sit
around on the porch and visit, watch the children playing under the
streetlights. (Javna 1988: 47).
The place that became the model for millions about small-town southern life was actually
located on a studio back lot in Culver City, California. Exteriors were filmed in Franklin Canyon,
with Franklin Lake, a Los Angeles reservoir, serving as the famous fishing hole from the
opening credits. Mayberry was modeled, in part, after Andy Griffith‘s hometown, Mount Airy,
North Carolina, which is located near the Virginia border, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge
Mountains, about 142 miles from Raleigh. Mayberry was situated in approximately the same
place, located, depending on the episode, fifty-five, sixty, or a hundred miles from Raleigh. A
few of Mayberry‘s establishments, such as the Snappy Lunch and the Grand Theatre, share
names with real Mount Airy institutions. The larger part of Mayberry‘s geography was, of
course, shaped in the minds of the show‘s writers and viewers. It is important to note that The
Andy Griffith Show was not actually created by Griffith himself, but by New Yorker Sheldon
Leonard who, in the words of critic Ken Tucker, ―must have dreamed up the Southern town of
Mayberry as a city-slicker‘s idea of heaven‖ (Tucker 2005: 118-119).
The notion that Mayberry was the real star of Andy Griffith is supported by its
continuance on CBS‘s Monday night line-up for three years after Griffith‘s 1968 departure.
Mayberry R .F. D. featured much of the original cast and a new lead character, Sam Jones. Sam,
like Andy, was a widower with a young son. He had just moved to Mayberry, and was elected to
the town council despite having no particular interest in, or qualifications for the job. This new
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position allowed him to serve much the same purpose as Andy, a focus for the interactions of
Mayberry‘s residents. This rather contrived scenario worked, for the show ranked fourth in the
Nielsen ratings during its first two seasons. Although it slipped in its third year, it was still
ranked fifteenth when it was cancelled as part of CBS‘s great rural purge of 1971.
With Mayberry R. F. D.‘s cancellation, North Carolina disappeared from the television
landscape for more than twenty years, and would have to wait three decades for a show that
lasted more than a single season. Between 1994 and 2002, four programs—two comedies and
two dramas—were set in the state. The comedies were set in urban areas, and both chronicled the
lives of African-American families. My Brother and Me, which aired for three months in 1994
on cable‘s Nickelodeon network, was the story of an eight-year-old boy named Dee Dee who
lived with his family in suburban Charlotte. His mother, Jennifer, was a driver‘s education
instructor and his father, Roger, a sportswriter. Dee Dee idolized his cool older brother in this
good-natured sitcom but battled with his self-centered sister. Goode Behavior, which aired
during the 1996-1997 season, featured Sherman Hemsley as Willie, a scheming excon who had
been sent to prison for insider trading. He was paroled on the condition that he live with his son,
the conceited Franklin, who was dean of humanities at Chapel Hill‘s fictional Henshaw State
University. Barbara was Franklin‘s wife, a television news anchor, and Bianca their materialistic
daughter.
North Carolina‘s first two dramas channeled the spirit of Mayberry, at least to some
degree. The Road Home, which aired for seven weeks in 1994, was a heartwarming story about
Jack and Alison Mason and their four kids. In the premiere, they were a Detroit family on
summer vacation in Alison‘s hometown in coastal North Carolina when they discovered that her
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brother was having trouble keeping up the family‘s shrimping business and that her mother was
in failing health. In true television drama fashion, they decided to stick around and help out.
The good-natured drama State of Grace, which aired during the 2001-2002 season, was
the story of two twelve-year-old girls who met at an upscale Catholic school, St. Christina‘s in
the Pines. Set in a small town near Asheville in 1965, the two primary characters were Hannah
Rayburn, the new girl whose family had just arrived from Chicago to start a furniture factory,
and gregarious Grace McKee, who took Hannah under her wing. Much of the show revolved
around the girls‘ contrasting families. Grace‘s home life had wealth and glamor, but was
somewhat desolate. Her parents were divorced and her mother often away, leaving Grace in the
care of the family‘s maid and chauffer. Hannah‘s Jewish family, on the other hand, was very
close, loving and uproarious, but also intense, nervous, and smothering. Most of the stories
involved lessons about cultural differences and the usual coming-of-age fare. State of Grace
tackled some serious themes, most notably the anti-Semitism that the Rayburns often
encountered, but, in general, the show possessed the same gentle warmth that had characterized
The Andy Griffith Show.
North Carolina‘s third drama, One Tree Hill, was not so warm and hardly gentle. Filmed
in Wilmington, the old stomping grounds of the WB network‘s Massachusetts-based teen soap,
Dawson‟s Creek, One Tree Hill debuted in 2003 as a testosterone-drenched replacement for
Dawson and the gang. In spirit it was a world away from Mayberry. Dan Scott had been a
basketball star in his hometown of Tree Hill, North Carolina, and his high-school sweetheart,
Karen Roe, had gotten pregnant their senior year and gave birth to a son, Lucas. Dan had
abandoned her and gone to college where he married Deb, and they had a son, Nathan. As the
series began, Dan‘s basketball career was over and he returned to Tree Hill to open a car
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dealership. Spoiled Nathan became the star of the high school basketball team, while sullen
Lucas, who had been raised by a single mom, played street ball on his own. Eventually he joined
the team, sparking quite a competition, on the court and off, between the two half-brothers. In
addition to plenty of basketball, the show contained the usual soap-opera elements: love
triangles, divorce, heart attacks, drinking problems, bankruptcy, casual sex, rehab, near-death
experiences, obsessed stalkers, suicide attempts, and teen pregnancy.
One Tree Hill continued to run through 2010, making it North Carolina‘s longest-running
program since Andy Griffith. Appearing on the WB (now CW) network, the show has never put
up stellar numbers, and it is highly unlikely that One Tree Hill will ever inspire the same kind
zealotry that has kept Mayberry on the air for more a half century. Its longevity, however, is still
geographically significant. The show‘s audience is young, and obviously devoted, and their
attachment to the program indicates an increasing willingness to accept a new vision of the
small-town South.
SOUTH CAROLINA
As mentioned, Maine‘s television landscape played on the state‘s reputation of quiet
charm by soaking all of that quaintness in pools of blood, and the same was the case in South
Carolina‘s lone television entry, American Gothic. The town of Trinity certainly seemed idyllic,
with beautiful antebellum homes, ornate lawns, a charming downtown, and moonlight-and-
magnolias atmosphere, but it had a dark side, specifically in the form of the town sheriff.
Whereas Mayberry‘s Sheriff Andy Taylor had used his easy-going wit to maintain law and order,
Trinity‘s Sheriff Lucas Buck waxed demonic, committing murders or inducing others to do the
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same. The principal plot involved his attempts to get closer to ten-year-old Caleb, who did not
know Lucas was his father or that Lucas had raped his mother. Lucas killed Caleb‘s older sister
and, as the series approached its end, eventually tried to kill Caleb as well. Viewers preferred
Mayberry, and American Gothic expired after running for the duration of the 1995-1996 season.
LOUISIANA
Viewers in most southern states had to wait some time to see themselves represented on
American television. North Carolina and Virginia first appeared in the 1960s; Georgia and West
Virginia in the 1970s; Mississippi in the 1980s; and Alabama, Arkansas, and South Carolina in
the 1990s. Kentucky and Tennessee each had one short-lived program in the 1950s, but it was
Louisiana that led the way, serving as a setting to three programs in that decade. Altogether,
Louisiana has had twelve television entries, a respectable number by regional standards, but none
of them were particularly successful. No Louisiana-based program has ever appeared in the
Nielsen top thirty, and only one network program set in the state has lasted more than one
season. For those who did watch, they found a state characterized by colorful, free-living people,
with a fair amount of crime, violence, corruption, and an occasional swamp creature mixed in.
The state‘s first program, The Adventures of Jim Bowie, debuted in 1956 and aired for
two years. Set in 1830s Louisiana, it was a sort of ―southern western,‖ as was its counterpart,
Yancy Derringer, which premiered in 1958 and ran for just under a year. The title character of
Yancy Derringer had all the ingredients of a conventional western hero. He was an ex-
Confederate soldier, a dedicated crime fighter, a gambler and ladies‘ man, and he even had his
own Native American sidekick, a Pawnee named Pahoo. The show took place shortly after the
Civil War, and its characterization of New Orleans as a wide-open city was not terribly different
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from most other programs that have been set there. Jim Bowie featured the adventures of the title
frontiersman and plantation owner with a number of other legendary characters from the early
West thrown in: Johnny Appleseed, John James Audubon, Davy Crockett, Sam Houston, and
Andrew Jackson. Several episodes were wilderness adventures, but many also took place in New
Orleans, and let the viewer know that, even in the 1830s, the Crescent City was already
colorfully corrupt. Lichter, Lichter, and Rothman described one such episode:
As the story opens, Bowie is telling one Senator Holcomb about
the campaigning he did for both Holcomb and Jackson. Holcomb
responds that, ―such loyalty should not go unrewarded.‖ He tells
Bowie that Jackson has ―a very deep sense of gratitude. So deep, in
fact, that his enemies label his devotion to his friends as the spoils
system.‖ He then offers Bowie the office of Collector for the Port
of New Orleans in exchange for procuring a favorite racehorse for
the President. Holcomb‘s pitch presses all the right buttons. ―Think
of the prestige, my boy, not to mention the fortune for a man of
your talents.‖ This last is accompanied by a knowing look . . . . To
get the money he needs, Bowie casts his lot with his friend Sam
Houston, who is portrayed here as a local politician. In the end,
however, Houston double-crosses him, steals the horse, and rides
off to give it to the President himself (Lichter, Licther, and
Rothman 1991: 263).
That New Orleans, a city of middling size, would appear on television so early and so
often suggests that Americans have had a genuine interest in the city, or at least that television
producers thought this was so. The track record of the city‘s entries seems to suggest the latter.
Every drama set in New Orleans has had a shorter run than the one before. Bourbon Street Beat
premiered in 1959 and lasted slightly less than a year. Longstreet debuted in 1971 and lasted
eleven months. It was followed in 1996 by The Big Easy, which lasted nine months. Orleans ran
for three months in 1997, and Thief lasted just six weeks in 2006. All five of these programs
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were contemporary crime dramas, and all five followed the lead of Jim Bowie and Yancy
Derringer in portraying the Crescent City as being both colorful and shady.
Bourbon Street Beat was one of a rash of ABC programs of the late 1950s and early
1960s to chronicle the lives of debonair young detectives, but it was by far the least successful
among them. In an unusual twist, two of the program‘s main characters actually survived
cancellation. Bourbon Street detective Rex Randolph headed to Los Angeles to join 77 Sunset
Strip, while his partner, Kenny Madison, moved to Miami and Surfside Six. In the years
following Rex and Kenny‘s departure, New Orleans‘s crime dramas became increasingly
colorful and seedy. The title character of Longstreet was a highly successful insurance
investigator who worked the streets of New Orleans for the Great Pacific Casualty Insurance
Company. The twist was that Mike Longstreet was blind. Adding color was a lively cast of
supporting characters, including Mike‘s braille teacher and Girl Friday, Nikki Bell; his Kung Fu
instructor Li Tsung (played by Bruce Lee); and his German shepherd guide dog, Pax.
The Big Easy was the story of colorful ladies‘ man and police detective Remy McSwain.
The only-in-New-Orleans supporting characters on the program included a jazz musician and
street informant named Smiley Dupree, and the improbably named assistant district attorney,
Lightnin‘ Hawkins. In true New Orleans fashion, Remy was ―always ready to bend the law to get
things done—as was everyone else in the Crescent City, apparently‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007:
139). The equally sleazy crime drama Orleans was the story of a New Orleans judge named
Luther Charbonnet. Storylines revolved around the personal lives of Luther and his three
children, set against a backdrop rife with sex, murder, drugs, and organized crime. Luther was
having an affair with Rosalee, a young black defense attorney, while his son, a young prosecutor
named Jesse, was having an affair with his cousin Rene. Daughter Paulette was a riverboat
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casino manager with a shadowy past, and son Claude, a detective for the New Orleans police,
was trying to rid his department of corruption. The coup de grace of Crescent City crime was
Thief, an exceptionally violent series about a New Orleans-based crew of expert thieves and their
high-profile targets. The crew of Thief included Elmo, who was trying to raise money for his
impoverished family, drug addict Izzy, and Jack, the Pentecostal cracker who believed that God
was helping him steal. The primary antagonists of Thief were Vincent Chan, an assassin for the
Chinese mafia, and John Hayes, a corrupt New Orleans cop.
Two reality programs found their way to the post-Katrina New Orleans of 2006, both
featuring activities consistent with action on the city‘s previous television entries. Celebrity
Poker Showdown, where celebrities played Texas Hold ‗Em for charity, relocated from Las
Vegas to Harrah‘s in New Orleans for its final season. This program had a cheerfully boozy
atmosphere, with eliminated players making wisecracks from the garishly decorated ―Losers
Lounge.‖ New Orleans‘s second reality entry traced its roots to Coyote Ugly, a country bar in
New York City, notorious for raucous late nights and scantily clad, bar-dancing cowgirls. In
2000, Coyote Ugly inspired a movie of the same name, and the movie, in turn, inspired
numerous franchises of Coyote Ugly across the country. In The Ultimate Coyote Ugly Search,
ten women competed for employment (and $25,000) at the newest Coyote Ugly in New Orleans.
Only two of Louisiana‘s entries have been set outside of New Orleans. Although their
formulas varied somewhat from the standard fare, they did possess the same kind of sinister,
shadowy flavor. Louisiana‘s longest-running series, and one of its most unusual, was set in the
swamps near Houma. Swamp Thing, which aired in seventy-two installments from 1990 to 1993,
was a campy cable television version of the cult-classic comic book and movie series. As the
series began, an environmental disaster caused by evil Dr. Anton Arcane had transformed likable
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Dr. Alec Holland into a creature ―resembling a large stick of broccoli‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007:
1342). Episodes involved the noble Swamp Thing‘s efforts to protect the local wetlands and its
residents from the schemes of the greedy Dr. Arcane.
The Riches also appeared on basic cable, with nineteen episodes airing in 2006 and 2007.
It was the story of the Malloys, a family of Roma (Gypsies) who travelled about swindling
unsuspecting citizens. Wayne was the imaginative, charismatic father, and Dahlia his unstable,
drug-addicted wife who had just gotten out of jail. Their three children, Cael, Sam, and Di Di,
were all accomplished grifters. In the premiere, Dahlia‘s violent brother, Dale, the head of the
clan, declared that Di Di must marry her idiot cousin, prompting Wayne and Dahlia to steal the
clan‘s money and flee in their beat-up RV. While driving they were involved in a car accident
that killed a young couple, the Riches. The Malloys promptly stole the Riches‘ identity and
settled into a posh life in a gated community near Baton Rouge.
Out of Louisiana‘s twelve entries, just one was a sitcom, but it was not of the
conventional sort. In the 2000s, sitcoms that dispensed with the traditional laugh track and three-
wall set had become commonplace. Had Frank‟s Place appeared in the 2000s, it might have had
a longer lifespan, but viewers were not sure what to make of it in 1987. Adored by the creative
community, Frank‟s Place was nominated for nine Emmy awards, winning three, and also won
the prestigious Humanitas Prize given to programs that ―affirm human dignity and probe the
meaning of life‖ (Bogle 2001: 325). With a largely black cast, the show did well among African-
American households, but finished its first season ranked sixty-second on the Nielsen charts, and
was cancelled after airing for a little more than a year.
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Frank‟s Place was the story of Frank Parrish, a former history professor who left his
native New England for New Orleans after inheriting a Creole restaurant, the Chez Louisiane,
from his estranged father. Flavored with Dixieland music, episodes focused on Frank‘s
adjustments to the unusual city, his eccentric restaurant staff, and the equally eccentric
customers, which included a con-man minister and the owners of the neighborhood funeral
parlor. Critics applauded the show for its depiction of an educated, middle-class, black man who
managed to maintain connections to his cultural roots, and for its forthright examinations of
racial issues between blacks and whites and within the African-American community. Frank‟s
Place did not shy away from tough topics, tackling cancer, suicide, drug abuse, and drunk
driving, but the show was also quite funny. Even better was its remarkable portrayal of New
Orleans. On Frank‟s Place, life in New Orleans was balanced—sometimes rough, even grim, but
also romantic and almost dream-like at times. In the words of critic Donald Bogle, Frank soon
found himself ―as intrigued as we are by the city‘s rich culture: its food, its music, its social
clubs, its jazzy seductiveness.‖
In many respects, Frank‟s Place was a mood piece, a dream play,
its tone set at each week‘s opening with the voice of Louis
Armstrong on the soundtrack singing ‗Do You Know What It
Means to Miss New Orleans?‘ This melancholic, evocative song
conjures up the New Orleans of our imagination: a city of lights
and color, magic and Mardi Gras, mystery and romance . . . .
Frank‟s Place had a misty, hazy look making it seem all the more
like a story filtered through memory and dreams (Bogle 2001:
323).
ALABAMA
Alabama has been the setting for just two television entries, and neither appeared on a
major network. The first, Any Day Now, aired on cable‘s Lifetime network from 1998 to 2002.
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Set in Birmingham, this languid drama was the story of the friendship of Mary Elizabeth (M. E.)
O‘Brien and Rene Jackson. M. E. was white and from the wrong side of the tracks, while Rene
was black and the daughter of a respected civil rights lawyer. M. E. had become pregnant at a
young age by her boyfriend Colliar, a miserable slug who was even lower on the socio-economic
ladder than M. E. They remained in Birmingham, where their life was plagued by tragedy.
Colliar never amounted to much, the first of their three children had drowned, and their teenage
daughter was in constant trouble. Nevertheless, M. E. was able to get a book published and was
offered a teaching position at a local college. Rene had left Birmingham to become a successful
lawyer in Washington, D. C., but returned home after her father‘s death to carry on his work. The
two friends reconnected, with the action alternating between the trials of their present-day life
and coming-of-age stories from their childhood in the 1960s.
Any Day Now‘s presence on Lifetime guaranteed a relatively small audience, but, for
what it‘s worth, it was for a time the network‘s highest-rated drama, and it was generally well-
received by critics. They lauded the show‘s frank examination of racial issues, and its featuring a
pair of mature female protagonists. In that regard, Any Day Now was certainly different from
most other television programs of its era. That said, its geographic message was nothing new, but
simply a reinforcement of the geographic message of countless books and films, and even a few
television shows, most notably Georgia‘s I‟ll Fly Away. Whether it was M. E.‘s wrong-side-of-
the-tracks upbringing, her racist parents, and her lazy husband, or the fact that Rene was yet
another black character who returned to the South as a sacrifice for the Cause, Any Day Now did
not go out of its way to shatter common images of the region. Whether or not these images are
accurate is another matter, but the Alabama of Any Day Now is exactly the sort of Alabama that
viewers could have expected—a place where everything moves slowly, where racial tension is
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strong, and where life, like the relationship of M. E. and Rene, is firmly rooted in the
remembrance of days past.
If there was one familiar Alabama stereotype that Any Day Now missed, it was the state‘s
all-consuming passion for football, but MTV covered that in 2006 with Two-a-Days, a
documentary series about a high school team, the players‘ families and girlfriends, and the
determined, tough-as-nails coach. The program was filmed in Hoover, Alabama, home of the
Buccaneers who were seeking their fourth state championship. One player summed up the
town‘s attitude toward the sport: ―Football has pretty much been my whole life‖ (Brooks and
Marsh 2007: 1,445).
VIRGINIA
Virginia‘s two earliest entries were period pieces, the first a Civil War drama that aired,
perhaps appropriately, in 1961, the 100th anniversary of the commonwealth‘s secession from the
Union. The Americans told the story of the Canfield brothers from Harpers Ferry whose loyalties
were divided during the Civil War. The reckless and stubborn younger brother, Jeff, decided to
fight for the Confederacy, while older brother Jeff swam across the Potomac to side with the
Union. The two brothers were shown, on alternating weeks, fighting for their respective sides.
The Americans was not high drama, but a sort of southern western, described by Variety as a
―wholly fictional and unbelievable sequence of events that could just as easily have come out of
a Bonanza or an Outlaws‖ (Mehling 1962: 69). Viewers were not terribly impressed either, and
Virginia‘s first entry was off the air after just nine months.
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Virginia‘s second entry, which came along a decade later, lasted for nine years. Set in
rural (and fictional) Jefferson County during the Great Depression, The Waltons was the story of
John and Olivia Walton and their seven children. The very definition of a wholesome television
family, the Waltons were, despite their humble means, loving, close and loyal. John and his
father, Zeb, ran a lumber mill on Walton‘s Mountain, located in the Blue Ridge region of
western Virginia. The stories were related by John‘s eldest son, John Boy, an aspiring novelist.
―Moralistic homilies abounded,‖ wrote Brooks and Marsh, adding that ―there was no sex, no
violence—just a warm family drama‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,484).
To say that The Waltons was a surprise hit would an understatement. To begin, it was
something of an anomaly when it arrived on the CBS fall schedule in 1972. Of the thirty highest-
rated shows from the previous season, eight were sitcoms, headed by the likes of All in the
Family, Sanford & Son, and Mary Tyler Moore. Another seven were police or detective
programs, such as Hawaii 5-0, Ironside, and Adam 12. Most of the rest were either modern urban
dramas (Marcus Welby, Medical Center, Room 222) or variety/comedy series with established
stars (Flip Wilson, Rowan and Martin, Carol Burnett, and Sonny and Cher). A warm, wholesome
family drama certainly did not appear to be in high demand, much less one set in rural Virginia
of the 1930s. To find a program like The Waltons on CBS was especially surprising, given that
the network had, only a year before, eliminated most rural programs from its schedule.
The Waltons, according to television historian Anthony Harkins, had ―escaped the
network‘s general purge of all things country because it had the strong backing of CBS founder
and chairman William Paley, who saw it as a ‗prestige‘ program‖ (Harkins 2004: 205). Still, it
did not appear that the network had high hopes for the program, placed as it was on Thursday
night opposite two big hits, ABC‘s The Mod Squad and NBC‘s The Flip Wilson Show. During
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the 1971-1972 season, The Mod Squad was ranked twenty-first in the Nielsen ratings, and had
been ranked in the top thirty during each of its first four seasons. Even more daunting, The Flip
Wilson Show had been ranked in the second spot in each of its two seasons, trailing only Marcus
Welby and then All in the Family. To the surprise of everybody, The Waltons managed to pull off
the upset. When the dust settled after the 1972-1973 season, The Waltons had premiered at a
respectable nineteenth. Flip Wilson had dropped from second to twelfth, and The Mod Squad had
been cancelled. After the 1973-1974 season, The Waltons had rocketed to second place, and The
Flip Wilson Show was off the air. While it was never a blockbuster in large cities, The Waltons,
according to Brooks and Marsh, ―struck a chord in middle and rural America that guaranteed a
long and prosperous run‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,484).
The Waltons was based on Earl Hamner Jr.‘s 1961 novel Spencer‟s Mountain, which had
inspired a 1963 theatrical film of the same name starring Henry Fonda. The book was also
adapted for a CBS television movie called The Homecoming, which became the basis for the
television series. Hamner, who served as coexecutive producer and story editor for The Waltons,
was one of eight children brought up during the Depression in Schuyler, Virginia, a small
community about thirty miles from Charlottesville. It was clear that he, the real-life John Boy,
loved his hometown. His production notes reveal an intention to create a realistic series, avoiding
both the ―excessive sentimentality‖ of previous nostalgic programs such as Mama, and pejorative
hillbilly stereotypes. ―That the Waltons are poor should be obvious,‖ wrote Hamner, ―but there
should be no hint of squalor or debased living conditions usually associated with poverty‖
(Wilson 2010: 1).
Whether or not the show was realistic, Hamner did succeed in creating one of television‘s
most endearing portraits of the South. The Waltons, as noted by television historian Pamela
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Wilson, stood in stark contrast to the gritty urban streets and dysfunctional families of New York
and California that dominated much of the rest of the television landscape at the time:
The Walton family was portrayed as a cohesive and nearly self-
sufficient social world. The family members operated as a team,
full of collective wisdom and insight, yet always finding narrative
(and physical) space for their individuality. In addition to the
continuing narrative development of each regular character and of
the family dynamics over the course of the series, each episode
frequently dealt with a conflict or tension introduced by an outsider
who happened into the community, bringing their own problems
which were potentially disruptive influences upon the harmony and
equilibrium of the Walton‘s Mountain community. The narrative
of each episode worked through the resolution of these tensions
within the household, as well as the healing or spiritual uplift
achieved by the outsider characters as they assimilated the values
of the family and learned their lessons of love and morality
(Wilson 2010: 1).
Each week, The Waltons offered emotional, often bittersweet stories, but the central geographic
message was that this little mountain community was an environment of dignity, warmth, quiet
intelligence, and simple wisdom.
Along with its runaway popularity, The Waltons was a critical success, receiving
generally positive reviews and, over the course of its run, a dozen Emmy awards. It was not,
however, without its critics. Some people contended that The Waltons did not look hard enough
at rural poverty, and argued that it was ―too sweet, sappily sentimental, and exploitative of
viewers‘ emotions.‖ One critic wrote that its ―homey wisdom and Sunday school platitudes have
been known to make me gag,‖ while another complained about its ―intolerable wistfulness,‖ and
still another labeled the Waltons an ―obviously corny, totally unreal family‖ (Wilson 2010: 1).
Today, some detractors remember the show as straightforward, right-wing, family-values
propaganda, which is a quite a stretch, but that notion was solidified in 1991 when Pat
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Robertson‘s Christian Coalition obtained exclusive syndication rights for the series. Subsequent
television retrospectives have tended to dismiss the show, with one work referring to it as the
―sentimental saga about a barefoot-but-happy hick family‖ (Lewis and Stempel 1996: 229).
Another was even more severe, saying of the show‘s success that ―one man‘s white trash is a
network‘s treasure‖ (West 2005: 22).
Critic Ken Tucker, not known for his sentimentality, asserted that such assessments were
unfair. He acknowledged that The Waltons was ―lost in many people‘s memories as a
sentimental, preachy show,‖ but argued that it ―achieved what it set out to do: make lyrically
idealized a group of lives lived in splendid isolation, with the promise of escape to a bigger
world for those who yearned for it.‖ More important, Tucker dismissed the notion that The
Waltons was nostalgic drivel, noting that in its own wholesome way, the show tackled very real,
timeless issues. He cited a 1976 episode called ―The Quilting‖ as the ―exemplar of everything
good about The Waltons:‖
The theme is all about letting people make their own decisions.
The chief plot point turns around a quilting party to be held for
eldest daughter Mary Ellen; her mother and grandmother accept
this tradition as part of life, since it serves as a ―coming-out party‖
for the budding seventeen-year-old, the signal that boys can come
a-courtin‘ for her. But Mary Ellen is intent on going to nursing
school and leading an independent life; she wants no part of
quilting—a not-so-subtle metaphor for the fabric of family life—
gets angry and runs away. Grandma and Mama Walton think Mary
Ellen is just being teenage-typical stubborn, but the clan‘s wise
father, John Walton . . . takes the young woman‘s reservations
seriously, and thinks Mary Ellen should decide for herself what to
do . . . . Mary Ellen gets a fine, spitting speech about how she
resents the quilting for the way it will ―put me on the market for
marriage . . . . I am not a piece of merchandise!‖ . . . . Interestingly,
it‘s John-Boy, who himself wants to leave the mountain to launch
his own career, who argues with her that the quilting isn‘t a slave
contract but ―it‘s a gift . . . to remind you of people who were fond
of you when you were growing up‖ (Tucker 2005: 240-242).
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Having stunned Flip Wilson and The Mod Squad in 1972, The Waltons went on to anchor
CBS‘s Thursday night line-up until 1981. Thursdays at 8:00 Eastern is a tough television
neighborhood, however, and The Waltons eventually slipped to eighth during its third season.
The show dropped out of the top ten the following year, but managed to rank in the Nielsen top
thirty for seven of its nine seasons. It also enjoyed a long run in syndication, and spawned six TV
reunion movies, the last of which aired in 1997. The success of The Waltons also inspired
numerous imitators—most obviously Minnesota‘s Little House on the Prairie—but the same
formula was never repeated in Virginia.
All subsequent shows set in the state have had urban, contemporary settings, with all but
one of them located in the northern Virginia suburbs of D. C. The state‘s third entry, Rituals,
which was set in the fictional suburb of Wingfield, was the polar opposite of the Waltons, both in
theme and, more markedly, in expectations and results. Rituals was a glitzy syndicated soap
opera that told the story of three adversarial families: the Chapins, the Gallaghers, and the
Robertsons. These groups had much more in common with the Ewings of Dallas or the
Carringtons of Dynasty than they did with the Waltons, stocked as they were with avaricious,
devious, selfish, and unscrupulous characters. And, while The Waltons had been a surprise hit,
Rituals was a spectacular failure. It cost millions of dollars to produce, but drew few viewers,
and barely limped through 1984-1985 season.
Between 1990 and 2005, four more Virginia-based programs appeared, each of them
focused on the lives of government employees. Two were family comedies, the first being Major
Dad, which chronicled the marriage of hard-boiled, Marine Corps officer John MacGillis to
Polly Cooper, a liberal journalist and widow with three daughters. The show debuted in 1989,
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and was set in San Diego during its first season. MacGillis was then transferred to fictional
Camp Hollister in Farlow, Virginia, near Washington, D. C., where the show remained for the
rest of its run. Major Dad‘s warm and optimistic outlook on life was not unlike that of The
Waltons, even if it lacked that show‘s gravitas. It was partly a gentle skewering of life in the
Corps, reminiscent of Gomer Pyle, coupled with a heavy dose of family warmth. The show‘s
story lines were hardly groundbreaking: the family adopted a homeless puppy; the officers
organized a talent show, but no one could bear to tell the general he had no talent; Polly tried to
get her hard-boiled Marine to show his soft side; and so on.
Major Dad‘s only substantial departure from the carefree formula came when it dealt
with real-life military issues, such as the threat of Camp Hollister‘s closure due to reduced
military spending. It‘s most sobering moments came during the run-up to the 1991 war in Kuwait
and Iraq. The major told Polly that he was anxious to ―get over to Saudi,‖ even though that
meant leaving his wife and three stepdaughters behind. ―I have two families: One of them is
here, safe at home,‖ he explained to Polly. ―But the other one is overseas and in harm‘s way, and
I want to be with that family, to help them.‖ The major never shipped out, of course, but the war
was a major part of the show‘s story lines for two seasons, and it caused tension between pacifist
Polly and her hawkish husband. In one episode, Polly commented, ―Looking at my children, I
have to believe in a brighter future and hang on to the hope that someday, they‘ll live in a world
of peace, where no one will ever have to fight over a line drawn in the sand‖ (Tucker 1991a: 1).
Major Dad was never regarded by critics as an artistic masterpiece, but it was popular for
a time, ranking twenty-second on the Nielsen charts during its first year based in Virginia and
shooting to ninth place the next season. The next year, however, the show was moved from
Monday to Friday nights. Ratings plummeted, and Major Dad was cancelled.
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Virginia‘s other family comedy was the cartoon American Dad!, which premiered in
2005 and continued to air through 2010. It was considerably less syrupy than Major Dad, having
been created by the same subversive team that produced Rhode Island‘s Family Guy. Like that
show, the basic set-up of American Dad was nothing out of the ordinary. The title dad was Stan
Smith, a feverishly patriotic, ultraconservative CIA agent who was hell-bent on protecting
America from all possible threats. Stan lived in the fictional D. C. suburb of Langley Falls with
his wife, Francine, a former wild child who was now striving to be a model suburban wife and
mother; his daughter, Hayley, a college student who was as liberal as her father was
conservative; and his son, Steve, a nerdy weakling who craved, but rarely received, Stan‘s
approval.
Also like Family Guy, the well-worn story lines resembled, at least at first, those of
dozens of other suburban family sitcoms. On one episode, for example, Steve had a crush on a
girl at school, and Stan encouraged him to impress her by running for class president. Steve won
the election and the girl‘s heart, but he eventually discovered that she was only interested in him
because of his newly elevated status. So he broke up with her. Such simplicity, however, was
only half the story. As was the case on Family Guy, the banalities of setting and plot were only
cover for some truly bizarre stuff. Stan, as it turned out, was not just a vigilant soldier in the War
on Terror, but an obsessive one. He kept a color-coded Homeland Security terror advisory
system magnet on his refrigerator and a gun handy in case Osama bin Laden tried to break into
the house. And the ―threats‖ to America that concerned Stan included all radical elements, such
as gays, feminists, minorities, and Democrats. To make matters a little more surreal, along for
the ride was Roger, a cynical, manic-depressive, alcoholic alien who sounded an awful lot like
Paul Lynde. Roger had saved Stan‘s life at Area 51, and was now hiding out from the
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government in the Smith‘s attic. The family pet was Klaus, a goldfish with a crush on Francine
who spoke with a thick German accent, the result of a CIA experiment gone awry.
American Dad was, in part, a send-up of suburban conformity, but it was primarily a
parody of Bush-era politics, especially in its early years. Stan was a cartoonish embodiment of
neoconservatism and right-wing paranoia, and the show was especially pointed about the
government‘s abuse of power. When Steve ran for school president, Stan rigged the election to
guarantee his victory, and when a new girlfriend broke Steve‘s heart, Stan had her family
deported. When Stan became jealous of Francine‘s success as a real estate broker, he hastened
the demise of her firm by getting the Federal Reserve to impose a twenty-percent increase in
interest rates—and he accomplished that by kidnapping Fed chairman Alan Greenspan‘s dog.
When Stan forgot his anniversary, he took Francine to CIA headquarters and had her memory
erased. And when Stan ran for church deacon, he enlisted the help of Bush adviser Karl Rove,
portrayed on the show as a cloaked, grim reaper figure who achieved his evil goals by
summoning the dark forces of hell.
Despite the heavy dose of family dysfunction and shadowy government plots, American
Dad did not paint a particularly negative portrait of life in suburban Virginia. Stan was a
dedicated employee, Francine taught Sunday school, Steve was a Boy Scout, and Haley was a
devoted student. With the exception of a lusty goldfish and an inebriated alien, the Smiths were a
normal, solid, middle-class American family, and nearly every episode ended with one of the
characters, usually Stan, learning something about the importance of a loving family. As strange
as it may sound, the message of American Dad was, in essence, that of The Waltons.
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Most of Virginia‘s television programs have left the state‘s reputation relatively
unscathed. In the world of trigger-happy Stan Smith, threats to peace and civility came mostly
from Stan himself. The only show to truly cast a pall of crime, poverty and violence over the Old
Dominion was 2003‘s Line of Fire, a bleak drama set in Richmond. The protagonist was Lisa
Cohen, the determined head of the F. B. I.‘s local office, and the show followed the efforts of
Lisa and her team to bring down the syndicate operated by crime boss Jonah Malloy. ―Though he
looked like an accountant,‖ wrote Brooks and Marsh, ―Jonah could be vicious, as when he
whacked a man with a tire iron . . .or took a child as ‗collateral‘ in a drug deal, parking the kid
with the call girls in his whore house‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 797). The very first scene of the
series, in which an F. B. I. agent chased his quarry through grim back alleys near the James
River, set the tone for the series, as described by critic Chris Elliot:
Caught at the archetypal chain link fence (do crooks ever climb
these things well?), Carl, a low-life mobster, lies amongst a pile of
torn, black plastic garbage bags, which signify you‘ve wandered
onto the wrong side of the tracks. FBI agent Bert Somers looks
down at him, breathing hard and pleading with Carl to give himself
up. But Carl‘s having none of it; he‘s got a family and he knows if
he squeals, then it‘s the end of all of them. It‘s a tense, brief
standoff—two men, two guns, followed soon after by two shots,
and two dead bodies. Bert and Carl, we hardly knew you (Elliot
2003: 1).
Lucky for the Richmond Convention and Visitors Bureau, Line of Fire didn‘t outlive Bert
and Carl by much, airing for just two months of the 2003-2004 season. The more successful, but
no more cheery drama, Criminal Minds premiered in 2005. Child molesters, rapists and serial
killers were the usual target of the F. B. I.‘s Behavioral Analysis Unit. Headed by dedicated
Special Agent Jason Gideon, the crew was based in Quantico, and charged with profiling and
hunting down the country‘s most perverse criminals. A sort of psychologist‘s twist on CSI,
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Criminal Minds had been a mainstay in the Nielsen top thirty when it entered its sixth season in
2010. Despite the show‘s often grim subject material, it had little impact on the television
landscape of Virginia, since the team spent most its time crisscrossing the country in their
specially modified jet, seeking out their latest warped prey. If anything, Criminal Minds
reminded the viewer that evil was everywhere, and that one could rest easy knowing there was a
team of bright, motivated individuals somewhere in northern Virginia ready to go out and hunt it
down.
MISSISSIPPI
Mississippi‘s first entry was the sitcom Private Benjamin, which made its debut in the
spring of 1981 and ran just shy of two seasons. Adapted from the hit 1980 Goldie Hawn film, it
told the story of Judy Benjamin, a spoiled New York society girl who had run off to join the
U. S. Army. Set at fictional Ft. Bradley, just outside of Biloxi, the show mainly involved the
havoc created by Judy and her stereotypical band of platoon mates, which included Rayleen, a
streetwise product of a Detroit ghetto; Maria, a wisecracking Italian-American; and Barbara Ann,
a bumbling, country-music-wailing hayseed. In the end, they usually got the best of Captain
Doreen Lewis, their perpetually frustrated commanding officer. Private Benjamin was more of a
military spoof and class comedy than any kind of statement about life in Mississippi, although it
did, with its fish-out-of-water theme, lend the state the same kind of backwater air as Kansas
received from The Phil Silvers Show.
A far more forceful statement about life in contemporary Mississippi was made in the
state‘s dramatic entry, In the Heat of the Night, which ran from 1988 to 1994. Based on the
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award-winning 1967 film, this was the story of a gruff but wise Bill Gillespie, police chief of
sleepy little Sparta, Mississippi. Much like Alabama‘s Any Day Now, the show was commended
for its intelligent examination of race relations in the South, with TV Guide‘s Merrill Panitt
commenting that ―So far as entertainment is concerned, Heat scores a B-minus as cop show. As
an exercise in tolerance and understanding between races, which all of us—black and white—
can use, it warrants an A‖ (Bogle 2001: 328). As had been the case in the film, the show focused
on the relationship between Chief Gillespie, the archetypal cagy southern lawman, and Virgil
Tibbs, the department‘s black detective, who had been forced upon Gillespie by a mayor hoping
to court Sparta‘s African-American vote. While Gillespie was hardly an abhorrent racist, he was
a traditionalist, and did not always see eye-to-eye with Tibbs. In a broader sense, Gillespie and
Tibbs represent a transition from the Old South to the New. Tibbs had spent many years as a
policeman in Philadelphia, and was bent on bringing modern, big-city police methods to his
hometown. The New South was also manifested in the person of Harriet DeLong, a black city
councilwoman and, thus, another African-American authority figure in Sparta. In the Heat of the
Night also took a relatively revolutionary step when Harriet and Bill had an affair and, in the
final season, were married.
Still, the Old South was alive and well on the show. Things moved as slow as molasses in
Sparta, and nearly every crime that Tibbs and Gillespie set out to solve involved someone who
was related to one of the show‘s regulars or who, at the very least, was an old family friend. The
familiar southern dramatic devices of substance abuse, violent crimes of passion, and even incest
made appearances on In the Heat of the Night, and Sparta had a fairly high redneck factor, right
down to the fact that Gillespie‘s top deputy was named Bubba.
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As for Sparta‘s physical location, an unincorporated town by that name exists in northern
Mississippi, although the show was filmed elsewhere—first in Hammond, Louisiana, and later in
Covington and Conyers, Georgia—and the real Sparta was likely not the inspiration for the
fictional one. The town‘s name had also been used in the 1967 film, and that was probably
because much of the principal filming for the movie had taken placed in Sparta, Illinois, a small
town southeast of St. Louis. Wherever it was, viewers enjoyed travelling there each week. In the
Heat of the Night ranked eighteenth on the Nielsen charts after its first full season, and remained
in the top thirty for four straight years.
GEORGIA
Georgia‘s first television entry came in 1977, on the heels of Jimmy Carter‘s
inauguration, and was called, not coincidentally, Carter Country, set in fictional Clinton Corners,
―just down the road the road from Plains,‖ Carter‘s hometown (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 223).
The show was, of all things, a comic take on In the Heat of the Night, focusing on the
relationship between a white sheriff, Roy Mobey, and his black deputy, Curtis Baker. As in Heat
of the Night, the sheriff was affable and folksy, and his deputy sharp and urbane, having been
trained in the big city police methods of New York City. Despite their differences, they
eventually learned to respect one another and to work together. Although Carter Country
possessed some geographic contrasts common in many southern dramas—black and white, big
city and backwoods, Old South and New South—none of this was taken seriously. The show
also contained the sorts of characters that would be familiar in Georgia‘s early rural
comedy/adventure series—a redneck deputy named Jasper; a libidinous policewoman named
Cloris; and Teddy Burnside, the fat, spineless, wealthy mayor.
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While never a major ratings success, Carter Country did manage to stay on the air for
two seasons, and its very existence was somewhat significant to the South‘s television
geography. It was the first comedy set in the region since ABC and CBS had carried out their
purges of rural programming in 1971 and as such served as bridge to an even more extreme
southern farce. This new show, 1979‘s The Dukes of Hazzard, was every bit the slice of
cornbread that was Hee Haw and other programs the networks had fought so desperately to
purge just eight years before. Yet, here it was again, and on CBS, no less. The essence of The
Dukes of Hazzard was perhaps best captured by critic Jeff Alexander:
In the Evel Knievel seventies, it didn‘t seem at all unusual to tune
in every Friday night to see an orange Dodge Charger flying
through the air. In hindsight, one realizes that Hazzard County
must have been named for the ramp-shaped piles of dirt that dotted
the roads every half mile or so. The amazing thing wasn‘t the
extent to which vehicular aviation was commonplace, but the fact
they were doing it on purpose. At least once an episode, we‘d
expect to see the General Lee soaring gracefully into the southern
sky, describing a perfect parabolic arc in slow motion while Bo
and Luke emitted a tandem rebel yell out the open windows
(Alexander 2008: 164).
The Dukes of Hazzard was created by Gy Waldron, and closely resembled his 1975
theatrical comedy, Moonrunners, which was about a pair of Georgia cousins eluding the police
while running moonshine for their uncle. The protagonists of the television series were Bo and
Luke Duke, cousins who were, as the television show‘s theme song suggested, just good ol‘
boys. Bo and Luke‘s family bore a striking resemblance to characters from CBS‘s previous rural
comedies. Wise old Uncle Jesse Duke was played by Denver Pyle, who was essentially reprising
his role as Briscoe Darling on The Andy Griffith Show, and cousin Daisy Duke, a tomboyish
sexpot, was a hell-raising version of The Beverly Hillbillies‘s Elly May Clampett. Country music
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star Waylon Jennings narrated the series. The primary antagonist was the fat, frenetic, white-
flannel-suit-clad and memorably named Jefferson Davis Hogg, a local political boss who seemed
to own everything in Hazzard County. Hogg had it in for the Dukes, and they spent much of their
time eluding him and Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane, Hogg‘s slow-witted brother-in-law. The real
star of the show—which reportedly got half the fan mail—was the General Lee, an indestructible
Day-Glo orange 1969 Dodge Charger, which sported a rebel flag on the roof and a horn that
played ―Dixie.‖ Most of the episodes revolved around the Dukes undoing Hogg‘s shady
schemes, and usually involved a liberal dose of car chases, up-tempo country music, and half-
naked young women.
Some question exists about the precise setting of the show, with Hazzard County vaguely
identified as being ―east of the Mississippi and south of the Ohio‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007:
397). Based on the landscapes from the program, Hazzard County very well could have been
anywhere or, more precisely, everywhere within that large space. The Encyclopedia of Southern
Culture described the fictional county as ―a land of swamps (complete with alligators!), fertile
valleys, pine barrens, and mountains; in short, the fictional county‘s geography is that of the
South as a whole‖ (Blake 2002: 1). An argument can be made for Kentucky as the location.
Series creator Gy Waldron was a Kentucky native, a real Hazard, Kentucky, exists about a
hundred miles southeast of Lexington, and some of the show‘s stars made appearances at
festivals in and around that community. For most of the show‘s run, the bulk of the filming
actually took place on a back lot of Warner Brother Studios in Burbank. Before production
moved to California, however, the show‘s abbreviated first season was filmed in and around
Covington, Georgia, about thirty-four miles east of Atlanta. That fact, coupled with several
scripts that have the Duke boys taking day trips to Atlanta, makes Covington, in the words of
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television historian Tim Hollis, ―probably as close to the real Hazzard as anyone is likely to find‖
(Hollis 2008: 240).
The geographic traits of Hazzard County were not unlike those found in scores of
southern films and television shows. It was yet another story about a small town and the rural
areas around it. The Duke family, while not Kornfield Kounty bumpkins, were not sophisticates.
In one episode where the Dukes ventured into Atlanta, narrator Waylon Jennings gravely warned
that ―The Dukes are a little out of their picture when it comes to breakin‘ in the big city (Blake
2002: 1). The boys were not particularly well educated or, for that matter, holders of steady jobs.
Neither trait made them out of place in Hazzard, according to critic Ted Blake, who observed
that ―to find someone whose occupation and speech indicate that they have had the benefit of a
college education, viewers must stick to the random background characters that occasionally
materialize to fill the support roles that some scripts require‖ (Blake 2002: 1). Hazzard County
was, in true southern form, almost completely lacking a middle class. Boss Hogg owned just
about everything, and everyone else was either working class or poor.
As was traditionally the case on southern shows, Hazzard County was depicted as being
isolated, and when an outsider did show up—con artists, counterfeiters, hijackers, mobsters, and,
in one memorable episode, a space alien—it usually caused quite a ruckus. The Dukes of
Hazzard also avoided the issue of race relations by the simple expedient of not having many
black people in the cast. The most frequently seen black character was Sheriff Little of
Chickasaw County, who would occasionally appear standing behind a roadblock, glowering out
from behind his sunglasses, and hoping that whatever madness that was going on in the
neighboring county would not spill over into his own. While Little was by no means a negative
stereotype, it is a little curious that the show‘s most prominent black character was a menacing-
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looking authority figure, always seen peering in from the outside.
In summary, Hazzard County was a rural, unsophisticated, uneducated, poor, isolated and
almost entirely white world—the very demographic that CBS had run away from in 1971. To
make matters worse, The Dukes of Hazzard was hardly the same sort of ―prestige project‖ that
had led the network to green light The Waltons. The network was concerned, and had reason to
be, as noted by Tim Hollis:
The network was leery of putting the show on at all, especially
since several officials still in power remembered smarting from the
―Country Broadcasting System‖ appellation. Their worst fears
were realized when the first reviews came out . . . . TV Guide
branded the show ―moron heaven,‖ and a writer for one of the Los
Angeles paper spewed his venom in more detail: ―The worst thing
to happen to the South since Appomattox,‖ he declared. ―Video
historians may well study it as an astounding example of how to
fill an hour of prime time with no visible signs of acting, writing,
or direction‖ . . . . The critics were fond of pointing out that the
show embodied every previous stereotype of southern/rural
character in existence (Hollis 2008: 238-239).
In defense of CBS, if a defense is necessary, the network did not appear to have much
faith in The Dukes. Its initial order was for a scant eight episodes, and the show made an
unheralded debut as a winter replacement for Wonder Woman. The network likely felt compelled
to at least make an attempt, even if it was half-hearted, to cash in on the country-flavored car
chase craze of the late 1970s, exemplified by the blockbuster Burt Reynolds action comedy film,
Smokey and the Bandit. Success came immediately. Despite its short initial run, The Dukes of
Hazzard ranked twentieth in the Nielsen ratings at the conclusion of the 1978-1979 season. It
rose to the ninth position during its first full season, and rocketed to the second spot during 1980-
1981, trailing only the smash hit Dallas, which followed The Dukes on CBS‘s Friday night
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schedule. Ultimately, the show would rank in the Nielsen top ten for three seasons, and in the top
thirty five times during its six-year run.
Clearly, viewers saw something in the show that the critics did not.While vilification of
the show‘s writing was certainly warranted—no one would mistake dialogue from a Dukes
episode for that of an Oscar Wilde play—the characters obviously clicked with the audience. No
small part of the show‘s success was due to actor Sorrell Booke, who played Boss Hogg. Booke
and Denver Pyle were the only actors to appear in every single episode, and it is arguable that the
show was really about the contrast between the greedy, blustery Hogg and the wise, earthy Uncle
Jesse. Booke turned Hogg into a classic comic villain, an impressive waistline reflecting the
character‘s avarice, and a short stature mirroring his pettifoggery. Hogg was truly a nasty guy,
cruising about Hazzard County in a chauffeured Cadillac Coupe de Ville, bullying his stooge
deputies, and trying to find, in every episode, some way to toss the Dukes in jail or pad his bank
account. In varying episodes, he tried to shut down an orphanage and turn it into a shopping
center, to appropriate a million dollars that had been slated for destruction by the Treasury
Department, to steal Stonewall Jackson‘s sword and sell it for a profit, and to buy a tank to be
used as a war memorial to himself and other, ―less important heroic veterans of Hazzard County‖
(Tropiano 2000: 77).
Critic Leigh H. Edwards argued that the immensity of Hogg‘s egotism and greed was key
to the show‘s central theme, that of ―populist resistance to the Man, or the Boss:‖
The first hint is Waylon Jennings‘s role as balladeer/narrator; his
famous theme song was part of the Outlaw country movement. The
song tells us the boys are like ―modern-day Robin Hoods,‖ fighting
bad police and big business, sticking up for the small fry farmer.
Like Flannery O‘Connor's story, ―Good Country People,‖ the
series teaches that every time someone assumes the bumpkin is
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stupid, he or she will get burned by a little country ingenuity
(Edwards 2005a: 1).
Along with this attractively populist message, the show‘s producers boosted the show‘s
appeal by refusing to use the increasingly objectionable term ―hillbilly‖ and by avoiding the
region‘s more horrific images, such as those on display in the popular 1970s film Deliverance.
While there is no question that the Dukes were stereotypes of southerners, they were hardly cruel
stereotypes. The Duke family was always portrayed as clean, polite, respectful, and proud. As
the theme song suggested, they were just ―good ole boys, never meaning no harm‖ (Blake 2002:
1).
Even if The Dukes of Hazzard contained elements that southerners might find
objectionable, it is important to note that the show was clearly never meant to be taken seriously.
The characters on the show were not just caricatures, but caricatures of caricatures. Leigh H.
Edwards argued that the ―series had such a good time being ridiculous that it was often fun to tag
along,‖ and that it provided ―raucously escapist entertainment,‖ ―cheerfully uncomplicated
plotlines and cartoony characters.‖ The Dukes of Hazzard, wrote Edwards, ―is often great fun
precisely because it‘s so absurd‖ (Edwards 2005a: 1). This sentiment was echoed by Lichter,
Lichter, and Rothman, who wrote that ―Hogg‘s weekly schemes and fulminations against the
Duke boys were like Wile E. Coyote‘s futile attempts to catch the Road Runner‖ (Lichter,
Licther, and Rothman 1991: 265). In other words, accepting The Dukes of Hazzard as a serious
attempt to realistically capture the South‘s geography is akin to accepting the road runner and
coyote cartoons as a nature documentary.
The Dukes of Hazzard ended its run in 1985, largely as result of contract dispute between
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the network and the show‘s stars, but its popularity endured. Ben Jones, who played the Duke‘s
fun-loving grease monkey pal Cooter, parlayed his fame from the show into a run as a two-term
U. S. Congressman from Georgia. In 1996, when the Nashville Network began airing reruns of
the The Dukes, it regularly outdrew competition on the far more hip MTV network among the
desirable eighteen-to-thirty-four-year-old demographic. In 2005, the series was released on
DVD, and a new theatrical version of the show, with a new cast, did well at the box office. A
video game based on the General Lee was also released, and cable‘s CMT network reran
episodes of The Dukes each weeknight, also offering a promotional sweepstakes where one lucky
viewer could become the Vice President of the CMT Dukes of Hazzard Institute, a one-year,
$100,000 position.
CBS was not the only network in the 1970s to cash in on the genre popularized by such
movies as Smokey and the Bandit. Film aficionados will remember that Bandit featured not only
a fast car, but also a big truck. In February, 1979, two weeks after the debut of The Dukes, NBC
unveiled B. J. and the Bear, the story of a handsome young trucker who travelled around the
country with his pet chimp (yes, his pet chimp), Bear. Critic Jeff Alexander described some of
the show‘s peculiarities:
That show‘s theme song included the line ―best of all I don‘t pay
property tax,‖ which indicated that B. J. was, to all intents and
purposes, homeless . . . . Yet he still somehow managed to get
enough loads hauled from one place to another to be able to afford
spending long periods of time relaxing and/or brawling in
America‘s one truck stop (Alexander 2008: 156).
The show contained numerous Hazzardesque elements. B. J. was based in rural Georgia,
where car chases, corrupt and moronic local sheriffs, and beautiful women abounded. It also
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mirrored the populist theme of The Dukes, with a morally upright good ol‘ boy fighting corrupt
government. In one episode, B. J. exposed a police captain who was dealing drugs and taking
bribes, and on another he exposed a gubernatorial candidate who was running an illegal
pornography operation. It is noteworthy that NBC, which had helped precipitate CBS‘s rural
purge by promoting itself as America‘s erudite and urbane network, chose to air this show,
because it was every bit as cornpone and perhaps even more ridiculous than The Dukes of
Hazzard.
One of the sheriffs that B. J. encountered in his adventures was Elroy P. Lobo of rural
Orly County, who proved popular enough to get his own show in the fall of 1979. Lobo was, as
expected, a goofy comedy/adventure with plenty of car chases and scantily clad women, but with
a twist that the bumbling lawman was now the protagonist. That is not to suggest that Lobo was
any less corrupt than his Georgia predecessors. Though constantly trying to pull a con or a get-
rich-quick scheme, he was never successful. Elroy was essentially a harmless man who always
managed, against his better judgment, to do the right thing. Helping out, if that term applies,
were his blundering deputies, Perkins and Hawkins. The trio somehow always managed to catch
the bad guys and eventually got called up to the big leagues. At the beginning of the second
season, they had been assigned to a special police task force in Atlanta. The governor had
ordered the move based on Orly County‘s remarkably low crime rates, not realizing that Lobo
had simply neglected to report those statistics to the state. As might be expected, the Atlanta cops
resented the presence of these three rubes, but they always managed to get the job done on the
mean streets of the big city.
The Lobo formula did not change much when the show arrived in Atlanta, but the move
did mark a significant shift in Georgia‘s television landscape. B .J. and the Bear departed
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Georgia for Los Angeles in 1981, the same year Lobo was cancelled, and The Dukes of Hazzard
left the air in 1985. Thirteen more Georgia-based shows would make their debuts over the next
two decades, and all but two of them would be set in Atlanta.
If, in the minds of many television viewers, Georgia was a state dominated by the likes of
Bo and Luke Duke, Boss Hogg, and Elroy Lobo, that perception was likely altered by the
emergence of the Atlanta‘s Cable News Network. This twenty-four hour news outlet, founded by
Ted Turner, travelled a rocky road to respectability. Dismissed in its early years by the major
networks as the ―Chicken Noodle Network,‖ CNN did struggle for legitimacy, and at one point
had to take legal action in order to gain access to White House press briefings. But as Brooks and
Marsh put it, ―no one is laughing anymore‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 205). The network gained
momentum throughout its first decade and cemented its place as a leading news outlet with its
revolutionary, nonstop, frontline coverage of the Gulf War in 1991. CNN is now available in 93
million American homes and in ninety countries around the world, and must be credited, for
better or worse, with inspiring the rash of cable news networks that have evolved over the last
two decades. It probably must also be credited for changing the image of Atlanta from that of a
sleepy, provincial center to a city of national importance.
On the fictional frontlines, just two Atlanta-based programs emerged during the 1980s,
but both experienced ratings success and respectably long runs. Matlock, a program featuring
Andy Griffith as the title lawyer, premiered in 1986 and ran for nine seasons. This show was in
the Nielsen top thirty for six of those years, including its first five, peaking in the twelfth spot
during its third season. Designing Women, a sitcom about Sugarbakers, an Atlanta interior design
firm run by four women, premiered a few days after Matlock and ran for seven seasons. It was in
the Nielsen top thirty for three of those years, peaking in the sixth position during the 1991-1992
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season.
These two Atlanta programs arrived a little more than a year after The Dukes of Hazzard
was shut down, and recast Georgia as home to smart and sophisticated professionals. Granted, a
few rustic touches persisted. Matlock was regularly seen strumming a banjo on the porch of his
old stone farmhouse in Willow Springs, and several times Griffith‘s old sidekick, Don Knotts,
would show up, playing Les Calhoun, Matlock‘s neighbor. ―Mayberry,‖ as Brooks and Marsh
put it, ―was not far away, in spirit at least‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 867). For the first several
seasons, principal interior filming for Matlock was done in California, but production of the
show eventually moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, largely the result of Griffith‘s desire to
be near his home on Roanoke Island.
Designing Women also possessed a distinct regional flavor. The opening credits featured
a traditional rendition of ―Georgia on My Mind,‖ and the exterior establishing shots were also
authentically southern, although they were filmed in Little Rock, not Atlanta. The show
possessed its own rustic touches—one character owned a pet pig named Noel—but neither the
four Designing Women nor Matlock were rubes. Ben Matlock might have been polite and
unpretentious, but he was also a shrewd, Harvard-educated defense attorney, one of the best in
Atlanta, and he almost never lost a case. Helping Ben out was his daughter, Charlene, who was
also a lawyer. Her presence represented a shift in the portrayal of Georgia women who, prior to
1986, had primarily served as set decoration, poured into one skimpy costume or another.
The shift in female portrayals was, of course, even more distinct on Designing Women.
Sugarbakers was run by a pair of sisters: widowed Julia, the leader of the bunch, and her
divorced younger sister, Suzanne. Their partner, Mary Jo Shivley, was an energetic, if somewhat
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insecure, divorcee and mother of two. Charlene Frazier, the firm‘s kind and ingenuous business
manager, had never been married. The show signaled the arrival of a New South on television, if
for no other reason than it focused on women who were single, accomplished, outspoken, urban
professionals. In many ways, Designing Women was a southern take on The Mary Tyler Moore
Show. Just as Mary Richards had balanced the independence and determination of modern
womanhood with the courtesy and decency demanded of her small-town Midwestern upbringing,
the four Designing Women combined intelligence and resolve with the grace and civility of
southern culture. It is likely coincidental, but incredibly appropriate, that the first names of the
actresses who played the Sugarbaker sisters were Delta and Dixie, as they, in particular,
represented the show‘s sharpest geographic themes. Julia Sugarbaker, played by Dixie Carter,
had all the characteristics that one might associate with the aristocracy of the Old South. She was
tasteful, graceful, and polite, but no hothouse orchid. She was bright and liberated and could be
forceful and sharp-tongued when needed. Her sister, Suzanne, was more the Southern belle
archetype, and was played by Delta Burke, who bore more than a slight resemblance to Vivien
Leigh‘s Scarlett O‘Hara. A former beauty queen, she was flirtatious, ostentatious, and far more
likely to employ physical charms than intellect. Like Scarlett, however, she was no weakling,
and she usually got what she wanted, as evidenced by sizable alimony checks she was collecting
from three wealthy exhusbands.
Designing Women was also notable for its willingness to tackle current social and
political issues, something that even premier southern programs like The Andy Griffith Show and
The Waltons rarely did. Critic Stephen Tropiano credited the show‘s creator, Linda Bloodworth-
Thomason, for this approach and for illustrating in the ―daily challenges women face in a
patriarchal society:‖
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Instead of generic plot twists or physical humor that dominated
female buddy series like I Love Lucy and Laverne & Shirley, the
characters here express their opinions . . . . In ―Reservation for
Eight,‖ the women and their respective male companions have
plenty to say about the opposite sex . . . . The women observe that
men don‘t listen, aren‘t sensitive enough, and are ego-driven; the
men say women are manipulative and overanalyze everything. As
always, outspoken Julia has the last word. Tired of women being
blamed for all of the world‘s ills, she reminds the men that they are
the ones who ―have done the raping and the robbing and the killing
and the war-mongering for the last two thousand years . . . . So, if
the world isn't quite what you had in mind, you have only
yourselves to thank!‖ . . . . The show was also the first sitcom to
take on homophobia and AIDS . . . . The women are asked by a
friend and fellow designer, Kendall Dobbs, who is dying of AIDS,
to ―design‖ his funeral . . . . When snooty friend, Alma Jean, tells
Kendall pointblank that AIDS is ―God‘s punishment‖ of gays, Julia
responds, without hesitation, ―Killing all the right people.‖ It‘s a
gut-wrenching moment brought to a satisfactory conclusion when
Julia kicks Alma Jean out of her house, but not before calling her a
hypocrite and telling her that if ―God was giving out sexually
transmitted disease to people as punishment for sinning, then you
would be at the free clinic all the time! And so would the rest of
us!‖ (Tropiano 2003c: 1).
Both Matlock and Designing Women were also noteworthy for featuring recurring
African-American characters and doing so in a matter-of-fact manner. Matlock included a
character named Tyler Hudson, a black financial wizard who Matlock occasionally persuaded to
do freelance investigating. Designing Women featured Anthony Bouvier, a black excon who the
Sugarbakers initially employed as an assistant and handyman. Eventually, having worked his
way through college, Anthony became a partner in the firm. As had first been the case on The
Phil Silvers Show, the presence of these African-American characters was not a gimmick, nor
was their appearance intended as an extraordinary development. They were simply there.
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Beginning in the 1990s, four Atlanta-based programs would feature African-American
leads, though none of them lasted especially long. The Royal Family was a 1991 sitcom featuring
Redd Foxx as Al Royal, a crabby mailman who lived in Atlanta with his equally combative wife,
Victoria. His dreams of retirement were upended when his daughter got a divorce and moved in,
along with her three children. Unfortunately, Foxx died a few months into production, and so the
show limped through its first and only season. The sitcom Arsenio, featuring comedian Arsenio
Hall, lasted six weeks in 1997. It featured Hall as an Atlanta sports reporter and long-time
bachelor who had finally settled down and married Vivian, an over-achieving attorney. The
talent/reality series R U the Girl with T-Boz & Chilli, which aired for two months during the
summer of 2005, chronicled the efforts of the two title members of the hip-hop group TLC to
find a replacement for their late band mate, Lisa ―Left Eye‖ Lopes. The finalists were taken to
Atlanta where they lived in a mansion in between competitions. Class of 3000, a cheerful cartoon
that had a brief run on cable‘s Cartoon Network in 2006, featured André 3000 (André Benjamin
of the Georgia-based hip hop duo Outkast) as Sunny Bridges, a musical superstar who gave up
the ―money-grubbing music business rat race‖ to return home to Atlanta (Brooks and Marsh
2007: 259). His biggest fan was Li‘l D, who persuaded him to become the band director at
Atlanta‘s Westley School of Performing Arts.
Ten days after Matlock left the air, another Atlanta lawyer hit the airwaves. John
Grisham‟s The Client, which was based on a 1993 novel and 1994 film of the same name, aired
for the duration of the 1995-1996 season. The legal cases were considerably more disturbing
than those on Matlock, and the featured attorney considerably more troubled. Reggie Love was a
family lawyer who had just gone through a bitter divorce. She had moved in with her mother,
and was struggling to overcome the alcoholism that had cost her custody of her children.
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Meanwhile, she and her mother sheltered clients who needed a home while their cases were
being resolved. This clientele had lives as messy as hers, including a young boy who had
witnessed a murder, a crack addict whose children were being abused in a foster home, and a
young African-American man who had been expelled from school for setting fire to the Georgia
state flag.
A similarly grim, but more successful crime drama, Profiler, premiered in 1996 and
survived for four seasons. It was the story of forensic psychologist Samantha Waters, who had
retired after a serial killer murdered her husband. She wasn‘t retired for long, however, and was
soon working for the F. B. I.‘s Atlanta-based Violent Crimes Task Force. Sam was sent to the
scenes of grisly murders, where she proved remarkably adept at visualizing the crime from the
point of view of both the killer and the victim. Sam‘s character had a few rustic touches—like
Ben Matlock, she lived on a charming horse farm outside of the city—but her personality was
akin to that of Julia Sugarbaker. She was smart, independent, and, in the words of critic Cynthia
Fuchs, ―she didn‘t take shit:‖
One of my favorite moments comes in the first episode, when she
meets her cocky teammate John; he challenges her to come up with
a ―theory‖ of the crime at hand. She doesn't miss a beat: ―You
want a theory? You‘ve got Chinese food in your refrigerator, you
like your women in heels, your scotch straight, and yourself
definitely on top. But it‘s just a theory.‖ This shuts him up. And a
couple of scenes later, you see John alone at home, watching a
game on TV and eating Chinese food from the carton he had in his
fridge (Fuchs 2003: 1).
As for the show‘s depiction of Atlanta, the occasional serial killer or deranged sniper did
roam the city, but Sam‘s team also spent a lot of time on the road. A maniac, for example, was
on the loose in Yosemite National Park, a string of seemingly random murders occurred in both
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Boston and St. Louis, bomb blasts were rocking Pittsburgh, and a serial rapist was terrorizing the
Florida Panhandle. In other words, Profiler characterized Atlanta as no more dangerous than
anyplace else. Perhaps the most distinct geographic message of the show was that Atlanta was
evolving into a diverse and cosmopolitan city. Sam‘s team included Nathan, a black detective,
and Grace, a Latina forensics expert. As had been the case on Designing Women and Matlock,
Nathan and Grace were presented as unremarkable facts, as was the case with computer expert
George, whose ―gay partner shows up at the office partway through the season and no one blinks
an eye‖ (Fuchs 2003: 1).
Indeed, most of the characters who populated Atlanta-based programs after 1986—Ben
Matlock, Julia Sugarbaker, Sunny Bridges, and Samantha Waters—reflect a city that was
progressive, sophisticated, and generally white collar. Georgia, it appeared, had left Orly and
Hazzard counties far behind. In recent years, however, a small redneck Renaissance has
emanated from the Peach State, as evidenced by the renewed popularity of The Dukes of
Hazzard. In terms of new programs, the charge was led by stand-up comic and Atlanta native
Jeff Foxworthy. Foxworthy was a specialist in redneck humor, known for such pithy
observations as, ―If someone takes his dog for a walk and they both use the tree by the corner, he
might be a redneck‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 694). His sitcom, The Jeff Foxworthy Show, had
premiered on ABC in 1995 and was initially set in Indiana. When the series moved to NBC for
its second season, the entire cast changed, with the exception of Jeff and his son, Matt. He had a
new wife and a second son, and the setting was now Atlanta, where Jeff was the loading dock
manager for a shipping company. Some of the show‘s developments might have made Georgia
viewers uncomfortable—Brooks and Marsh noted, for example, that young Matt was ―somewhat
dumber than he had been in Indiana‖—but the overall tone was a gentle family humor. The
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comedy of the likable Foxworthy, while not exactly eradicating regional stereotypes, could
hardly be considered a true cultural assault (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 694).
Foxworthy‘s next effort raised a few more eyebrows. The sketch and stand-up comedy
show Blue Collar TV, which featured Foxworthy and fellow comedians Dan ―Larry the Cable
Guy‖ Whitney and Bill Engvall, premiered in July 2004 and ran for just over two years. Blue
Collar TV was something of a latter-day Hee Haw, with country music and broad, goofy humor,
including regular features such as ―The Redneck Dictionary Word of the Day‖ and ―The
Redneck Yard of the Week Award.‖ As always, the degree to which this show could be
considered offensive corresponded with the degree to which the viewer took it seriously, but
critic Terry Sawyer loathed the program, particularly in the way that it co-opted the term ―blue
collar‖:
When I watched Blue Collar TV, I couldn‘t help but think of how
homogenized images of ―working class‖ folks have become. Now,
―blue collar‖ means white, Southern, alcoholic redneck. Blue
Collar TV is a comic blight, a bastion of jokes well beyond their
expiration date culled from e-mail forwards sent by the least funny
of your coworkers. One typical skit involves a mulleted oaf asking
his wife for the number to 9-1-1. She tells him to call information.
He does. Somewhere the writers of Hee Haw sit, feeling literary
(Sawyer 2004: 1).
Blue Collar TV was taped at the Alliance Theater in Georgia, and was the second
entertainment program to actually emanate from the city. The first had been Animal Tails, which
premiered in 2003 and aired for three seasons. This show was, in part, educational, informing
viewers about animals, especially pets. It was also a sort of talent search, featuring animals with
unique abilities, some via tape from around the country, and others who ―performed‖ before a
live studio audience in Atlanta.
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As noted, Lobo‘s 1980 arrival in Atlanta began a period in which most Georgia-based
programs were set in the city. Two subsequent programs, however, both dramas, were located
elsewhere. The first, I‟ll Fly Away, was on location in Georgia and premiered in 1991. While
some Georgia-based programs have been nearly devoid of African-American characters, a few,
as mentioned, have featured either black supporting characters or predominantly African-
American casts. I‟ll Fly Away, however, was unique in this regard—it was the only Georgia-
based program to tackle the subject of race relations head on. Set in the fictional small town of
Bryland during the 1950s, this well-intentioned drama chronicled the relationship between the
white Bedford family and their black housekeeper, Lilly Harper. The head of the family, played
by Sam Waterston, was Forrest Bedford, Bryland‘s quiet and gracious prosecuting attorney. The
show often focused on Forrest‘s legal work, but it was also part family drama, featuring Forrest‘s
relationship with his three young sons and Lilly‘s role as their surrogate mother. It was also a
portrait of small-town southern life, and described a sense of place that can perhaps best be
described as Faulknerian. Things moved slowly in Bryland, very slowly. The stories were subtle,
the pace was deliberate, the atmosphere hypnotic, and the acting low key. Newsday critic Marvin
Kitman, despite writing a rave review, admitted that watching Sam Waterston on the show was
―like watching water drip‖ (Bogle 2001: 403). Beneath this sleepy surface, however, lurked the
fury, discord, and psychological tumult that often characterized Yoknapatawpha County. The
viewer learned that Forrest‘s wife was absent because she was in a mental institution, and
Forrest‘s case load contained more than a few vicious crimes.
The dominant topic, though, was quite obviously race, a point made clear by the names of
Forrest Bedford and his son, Nathan, a not-too-subtle allusion to Ku Klux Klan founder Nathan
Bedford Forrest. This is not to suggest that the I‟ll Fly Away characters embodied the spirit of
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their infamous namesake, even though they were often disturbed and confused by the Civil
Rights movement budding around him. Rather, Forrest has much more in common with Atticus
Finch, the principled attorney from To Kill a Mockingbird who ultimately does the right thing
despite the vehement disapproval of many of his fellow citizens. The Civil Rights movement was
most directly examined through the eyes of Lilly. Like Forrest, she possessed a quiet dignity and
intelligence, and had the courage to engage in courthouse sit-ins and voter registration drives.
She was also able to reshape the perspective of the Bedford family, particularly through her
interaction with the youngest boy, John Morgan Bedford, who ―asked wide-eyed questions about
why the black people were different‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 657). In keeping with the show‘s
subtle tone, these explorations of racial issues were handled in a thoughtful manner, as noted by
critic Donald Bogle:
Lilly always understood her place in Southern culture. Here I‟ll Fly
Away dramatized a fact that most African Americans were aware
of but had rarely seen articulated on the primetime series in such
thoughtful terms: that while Lilly becomes well aware of the
Bedfords‘ conflicts and contradictions, their dilemmas and
yearnings, they know very little about her, the Black woman in
their midst. Lilly also sees the contrast between the Bedfords‘
comfortable middle-class way of life and her own. I‟ll Fly Away
never let the viewer forget that once Lilly left the Bedford
household, she returned to her modest home in the colored part of
town (Bogle 2001: 398).
I‟ll Fly Away was one of the most critically acclaimed programs of the 1990s. It won the
Peabody Award, three Humanitas Awards, and received twenty-three Emmy nominations. It
also had an incredibly loyal following, but not a large enough one, and NBC cancelled the show
midway through its second season. In a unique acknowledgment of the strong attachment that
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many felt to I‟ll Fly Away, PBS produced a new, two-hour conclusion for the program‘s fans in
1993.
The second 1990s Georgia-based drama set outside of Atlanta was the over-heated
primetime soap opera Savannah, which premiered in 1996. This show began when Lane
MacKenzie, a sophisticated budding writer moved back home to Savannah from New York.
There she rejoined two of her lifelong friends: Reese, a spoiled and childlike Southern belle, and
Peyton, an immoral and devious harpy. Savannah was not very distant from Dallas in tone, and
the show contained all the usual soap opera elements: piles of cash, cheating spouses, illegitimate
children, con men and scam artists, prostitutes, crooked politicians, thieves, and long-lost
identical twins. Fans of quality television who were heartbroken by the cancellation of I‟ll Fly
Away might have taken some solace in the fact that Savannah was canned after six weeks.
CONCLUSION
Several cities outside of California and New York have contributed to primetime
television programming, most notably Washington, Philadelphia, and Chicago, but none of them
have been as prolific, at least in recent years, as Nashville. The irony, of course, is that although
Nashville is one of television‘s most prominent urban areas, the images from the city have been
decidedly nonurban. Nashville produced scores of country music programs for network
broadcast and syndication and even lent its name, for a time, to a prominent cable network. Most
of this programming owed a stylistic debt to the long-running country variety program Hee Haw.
The production value of that show was high and the musical talent remarkable, but it is probably
best remembered for its goofy and determinedly unsophisticated humor. Images of the corpulent,
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slow-witted Junior Samples, bad jokes told from a cornfield or from haystacks, and a braying
cartoon donkey are recalled affectionately by some and with disgust by others, but they were
certainly out of step with Nashville‘s older reputation as the Athens of the South. Such images
were, nevertheless, a step up from the images of Tennessee provided by scripted entries set
outside of Nashville. Most of these programs were short-lived, detailing life in rural backwaters
that were sometimes violent, sometimes impoverished, and nearly always culturally backward.
The sleepy small town has been, without doubt, the most common television image of the
South. Mayberry, North Carolina, of The Andy Griffith Show is probably television‘s most
famous fictional locale, and it was, in many ways, the epitome of the southern television
landscape. The show is undoubtedly the South‘s most enduringly popular show, and was one of
the most positive depictions of the region. Life moved slowly, and the people were generally
cheerful, warm, sincere, and friendly. Family, tradition, and community mattered, and although
the inhabitants were decidedly unsophisticated, any outsider, whether coming with nefarious
motives or simply ruffling feathers with their arrogance, nearly always left with a new
appreciation for small-town ingenuity.
The geographic messages of the South‘s small town programs have not been completely
uniform, but the general portrait of an isolated, slow-moving, tradition-bound little town has
been surprisingly consistent from state to state and decade to decade. The angles of South
Carolina and West Virginia‘s lone shows were very different, but both programs made heavy use
of their settings, with the serene beauty of Trinity, South Carolina, contrasting with the evil
powers of American Gothic‘s antagonist, and rural West Virginia lending an air of folksy
wisdom to the protagonist of Hawkins. Kentucky has been home to four short-lived programs
and, for the most part, they have followed the lead of the state‘s first entry, The Wonderful John
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Acton, by featuring themes rich in rural nostalgia. Arkansas‘s most prominent program, Evening
Shade, was lauded for its spicy and smart humor, but its core geographic element was a sleepy
amiability that dripped from the name of the title town. Things were not always so congenial on
Mississippi‘s most successful program, In the Heat of the Night, with its emphasis on racial
tension, cultural conflict, crime, and violence, but the overall geographic aura of its fictional
Sparta was not much different from that of scores of other fictional southern towns—the people
were polite, tradition mattered, everything moved slowly, and everyone knew everyone else.
Alabama‘s prominent entry, Any Day Now, was set in the industrial city of Birmingham,
but its tone was not much different from its small-town southern counterparts. Poverty, race, and
racism were prominent topics, but the defining geographic elements of the show were its
leisurely pace and the message that the present was entrenched firmly in the past. Likewise, the
television landscape of Louisiana, the most urbanized (on television, at least) of the southern
states, also presented the standard view of the South. New Orleans might have more than its
share of corruption, but it also was a town rooted in its past and reveling in its colorfully cheerful
idiosyncrasies. None of Louisiana‘s programs were particularly successful, but the critically
acclaimed Frank‟s Place epitomized the state‘s television landscape. Its protagonist, as noted by
Donald Bogle (2001), was drawn to New Orleans by its ―food, its music, its social clubs, its
jazzy seductiveness,‖ and its ―romantic, almost dream-like aura.‖
In the years since Mayberry left the air, a number of North Carolina programs have been
set in modern urban areas, and even the state‘s fictional small-town shows became far more
modern and turbulent. This shift from the Old South to the New has been chronicled throughout
the region, but this transition has been most noticeable in Virginia and Georgia. For years,
Virginia‘s television landscape was dominated by The Waltons, an acclaimed drama about a
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loving family living in a rural community in 1930s. With its traditional values, bittersweet
stories, and dignified, simple, and quietly intelligent characters, The Waltons has become
synonymous with rural nostalgia and quality family television. Years after The Waltons left the
air, Major Dad would echo these same sweet stories of loving families back, but, on balance, the
state‘s television entries have become more modern and urban. Along with a soap opera and a
pair of gritty crime dramas, Virginia has been home to the caustic social and political satire of
the adult cartoon, American Dad. Although this show ultimately celebrates family love just as
The Waltons did, American Dad is better known for its skewering of government and suburban
conformity, and its incredibly bawdy humor.
Georgia‘s television landscape has similarly followed the track from rural and traditional
to urban and modern, but its early entries were more carefree, and considerably greasier than The
Waltons. On Carter Country, B. J. and the Bear, and Lobo, cops and politicians were usually
colorfully corrupt, the women scantily clad, and the heroes cheerfully laidback. The defining
entry of Georgia‘s early years was The Dukes of Hazzard, which sent mixed messages about its
rural Georgia setting. On one hand, the show featured spectacularly corrupt politicians and cops,
and the plots, characters, and dialogue were lambasted for their decidedly low-brow nature. On
the other hand, the title cousins were charming and polite, possessed a good deal of country
ingenuity and, given their resistance to the devious establishment, were, in a way, populist
heroes.
Georgia‘s sleepy backwaters did not die with The Dukes of Hazzard, but remained
something a constant among the state‘s television programs—played for laughs on The Jeff
Foxworthy Show and Blue Collar TV, and earnestly examined on the civil rights drama I‟ll Fly
Away. That said, Georgia‘s television landscape underwent a major transformation in the mid-
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1980s. The shows on the cusp between the Old South and the New South were Designing
Women and Matlock. Both contained ingredients that tasted of an old and sleepy region, but they
were also set in modern Atlanta, and presented characters far more sophisticated than their
country cousins. The title protagonists of Designing Women were intelligent, accomplished, and
outspoken women, and the title hero of Matlock was a respected, Harvard-educated attorney.
Both shows were also notable for featuring black supporting characters, not as a comical
gimmick or for a tedious examination of racial matters, but simply as a matter of course.
Through the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, Atlanta was home to several programs featuring black
leads, and, in general, the city was increasingly depicted as a modern metropolis populated by
progressive, sophisticated, and white-collar professionals. Georgia‘s transition from Old South to
New was fully realized on Profiler, a crime drama that featured a strong female lead, and that
depicted Atlanta as a fast-paced, cosmopolitan, and even somewhat dangerous metropolis.
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TABLE 7. DEFINING PROGRAMS AND COMMON TRAITS: THE WEST
State Defining Programs Key Program
Elements
Other Common
Traits
Arizona The Adventures of Rin
Tin Tin
The rough and rugged
frontier; brave cavalry
soldiers facing down
outlaws and savage
Native Americans
Stern and noble
heroes maintaining
law and order on the
wild frontier; violent
action; mixture of
pejorative and
sympathetic views of
Native Americans;
Mexican-Americans;
tough towns; corrupt
land barons; hot,
filthy, barren little
towns; seedy Phoenix;
white, wealthy,
materialistic,
dissatisfied urbanites
Alice Friendly, blue-collar
Phoenix; an
independent, working
single mom; ―love,
comfort, down-to-
earth wisdom, and
good humor‖; a fresh
start out West
Idaho The Manhunter Rural home of title
character
Colorado Dr. Quinn, Medicine
Woman
A doctor arrives on
the rugged frontier to
start a new life; battles
ignorance and
prejudice; heart-
warming family
values
A newcomer arrives
for a fresh start; a
newcomer fights the
ignorance and
prejudice of natives;
an outsider arrives to
exploit the local
citizens and land;
attractive but wild
landscapes; toughness
of primary characters;
the mean streets of
Denver; mixture of
rustic small towns and
modern urban life
Dynasty Tumult, betrayal, and
greed among
Denver‘s super rich;
Mork & Mindy An alien arrives on
earth to learn lessons
about human life;
Boulder as a modern,
pleasant city
South Park A small, quaint,
mountain town with
eccentric, provincial,
and narrow-minded
residents who often
meet with disasters;
destructive outsiders
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Montana My Friend Flicka Adventures of a boy
and his horse on a
19th-century ranch
The wild, lawless, and
uncivilized frontier;
youthful vigor,
optimism, and
personal renewal
Nevada Bonanza Tales of dignity,
wisdom, integrity,
reason, honesty, and
rugged independence
on a prosperous
frontier ranch
Las Vegas‘s gaming
and entertainment
industry; Money,
glitz, glamor, sleaze,
romance sex, violence
and crime in ―Sin
City‖; lavishly
produced variety
programs; staring life
anew in the West;
dusty, isolated little
desert towns; eerie
loneliness of the
desert
CSI: Crime Scene
Investigation
An enigmatic hero
leads a team of
talented and dedicated
forensic scientists;
―pithy observations
about gambling and
fate‖; strange and
gruesome murders;
wild night life
Reno 911 Cartoonish portrayal
of Reno as ―society‘s
flabby underbelly‖
and as a town of
―trailer parks, shabby
bungalows,
unintelligible perps
and victims, sleazy
street shots‖
New Mexico The Rifleman Rancher on a wild
frontier whose skills
as a rifleman help
maintain law and
order
Lawmen maintain
order on a wild and
lawless frontier;
relatively sympathetic
portrayals of Native
Americans; highly-
principled
protagonists; Old
West values in
contemporary
settings; Hispanic
Americans
Roswell Teen angst,
government
conspiracy, and space
aliens
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Oregon Little People, Big
World
A friendly, happy, and
successful nuclear
family
Friendly, generally
normal families with a
gimmicky twist; the
grim streets of
Portland; a beautiful
but harsh wilderness;
Utah Donny & Marie Clean and good-
natured variety show;
wholesome family
entertainment
Spectacular
landscapes; old-timers
vs. newcomers
Washington Frasier Seattle as a modern
metropolis where the
sophisticated and
pedantic collide with
the earthy and crude
Rough and tumble
Seattle coming into
contact with a
civilizing force; dark
themes; violence;
picturesque but shady
small towns;
newcomers;
conspiracies
Grey‟s Anatomy Seattle as a city of
handsome, successful
young, hedonistic
professionals; ethnic
diversity
Twin Peaks A charming,
picturesque, and
seemingly normal
small mountain town
that turns out to be an
―eddying pool of
sadism, Satanism,
pornography and
drugs‖; melancholy
atmosphere;
spectacular mountain
scenery; the
supernatural
Wyoming Laramie A struggling ranch on
a wild frontier
plagued by outlaws,
Indian raids, and
corrupt land barons
The Virginian A gritty, brusque,
enigmatic, and
nameless gunfighter
maintains law and
order on a 19th-
century ranch
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CHAPTER 7 - THE WEST
Programs set in the West have accounted for 6.37% of the American television
landscape, although that number comes with a significant qualification. A number of programs in
the western genre have not taken place in the states defined here as the West—most notably
Kansas‘s Gunsmoke. Additionally, this study does not include an analysis of programs with a
vaguely western setting—that is, programs where the setting‘s precise state or territory is not
defined. Likewise, programs that might be defined as ―roving westerns,‖ where the setting
changed weekly, such as Have Gun Will Travel, Wagon Train, and Maverick, have been
excluded from this study. That said, while it is certain that the inclusion of such programs would
have boosted the West‘s share of the television landscape above seven percent, it is unlikely that
they would have put the region‘s share substantially higher than that. Images of the West have,
of course, played an enormous role in many forms of American art, including film, radio drama,
literature, music, and painting, and for a time, the western genre had a remarkable run on
American television. That said, this genre was not quite as dominant on the small screen as one
might expect. Few television westerns existed before 1957, and almost none after 1975. And
despite the spectacular success of the genre in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the mortality rate
of most television westerns was notoriously high. Of the 220 television programs to last at least
six years, just eight were westerns, and Brooks and Marsh‘s list of the top 100 television
programs of all time (as measured by both ratings and longevity) includes just five westerns.
Even in the West, the dominant genre in many states has not been the western, a fact
most evident in the region‘s leading television state, Nevada. It is true that Bonanza was the
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state‘s most popular entry, but among its forty other television programs, just one was a western.
Nevada‘s programs have accounted for 1.65% of the American television landscape, a figure that
is nearly double the state‘s current share of the country‘s population. The state‘s impressive
television exposure is partly due to the longevity of Bonanza, but also to the allure of Las Vegas,
which has served as the setting for thirty-two programs. The distribution of the West‘s remaining
television programs have, to a degree, approximated population distribution, with the region‘s
three most populous states accounting for next three most successful television landscapes.
Washington, Arizona, and Colorado collectively account for 5.8% of the country‘s population,
and they collectively have yielded 3.19% of the country‘s television images. In proportion to
their populations, the West‘s four least populous states have fared about as well. New Mexico,
Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming collectively represent 1.59% of the U.S. population, and have
shared about 1.06% of the television landscape. Idaho has fared the poorest among these four.
Like Delaware, it can lay claim to only one short-lived program. Other busts include Utah, which
has accounted for just 0.08% of the television landscape, and Oregon, which, despite its
relatively large population, has accounted for just 0.39% of the country‘s television images.
OREGON
Oregon has served as the backdrop for thirteen television programs—an appropriate
number given the state‘s generally unlucky run on the small screen. Things got off to an
inauspicious start. The sitcom Hello, Larry is listed in some sources as the flop for which actor
McLean Stevenson left the blockbuster series M*A*S*H. That is not true—it was the third of
four sitcom bombs in Stevenson‘s post-M*A*S*H career—but it was certainly the most
notorious. Hello, Larry was a midseason replacement series, debuting in January 1979, and it
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initially had a relatively simple format. Larry Alder was a recently divorced radio talk-show host
who had left Los Angeles for Portland with his two teenage daughters. The show focused on
Larry‘s new job at station KLOW, where his goofy co-workers brought WKRP in Cincinnati to
mind. Larry‘s radio show was a success, but Hello, Larry was not. Because NBC had high hopes
for the show, it was renewed for a full season the next fall, but when ratings did not improve, the
producers began pulling out all the stops. The show now focused on Larry‘s home life, featuring
the coming-of-age struggles of daughters Ruthie and Diane, who were helped along by the sage
advice of neighbor Leona, played by rhythm-and-blues legend Ruth Brown. Added to the fray
that season were sitcom veteran Shelley Fabares, playing Marion, Larry‘s ex-wife who showed
up seeking reconciliation; Henry, Larry‘s cantankerous father, who moved into the Alder
household; and Harlem Globetrotter Meadowlark Lemon, who played himself as a family friend
and the owner-operator of a Portland sporting goods store. In a novel move, NBC also tried to
make Hello, Larry a retroactive spin-off of Diff‟rent Strokes, the far more popular sitcom that
preceded Hello, Larry on Friday nights. Larry, it was explained, was Phillip Drummond‘s old
army pal and, when Drummond bought Larry‘s radio station, several crossover episodes were
necessary. None of this worked, and Hello, Larry‘s infamous run ended in April 1980.
Life in television Oregon did not change much in the years after Larry Alder‘s departure.
Oregon has been depicted, for the most part, as a state of friendly, generally normal families
whose lives are tilted off-center by some gimmicky twist. A number of these programs featured
actors from once-successful television shows or popular films, but, like McLean Stevenson, none
of them managed to hit pay dirt. Despite its legendarily disastrous run, Hello, Larry remains the
only Oregon entry to air for more than one season on a major network.
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Hello, Larry was followed by three more sitcoms, all set in Portland. Together We Stand
was a 1980s family sitcom featuring 1970s film icon Elliot Gould as David Randall. David had
recently retired as a coach for the NBA‘s Portland Trail Blazers. He remained in town to run a
sporting goods store (perhaps purchased from Meadowlark Lemon), but the show‘s primary
focus was on home life. David and his wife, Lori, had adopted their daughter Amy sixteen years
before. Two years later, they were surprised by the birth of Jack, the biological son they had been
told they couldn‘t have. Seeing what good adoptive parents the Randalls made, a social worker
persuaded them to adopt a Vietnamese orphan named Sam and an African-American orphan
named Sally. Episodes revolved around David and Lori‘s adjustments to a suddenly crowded
house, Lori and Jack‘s adjustments to new siblings, and Sam and Sally‘s adjustments to family
life. Plenty of lessons about cultural differences emerged, but Together We Stand was lost in the
wash of the decade‘s ―amalgam-family comedies,‖ and the show was put on hiatus after ten
weeks in the fall of 1986 (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,400). When the show returned in February,
Elliot Gould had departed, and the title had changed to Nothing is Easy. David, it seemed, had
been killed in a car accident, and Lori was adjusting to life as a single mother. Proving its new
title correct, Nothing is Easy vanished permanently after nine more weeks.
The 1994 sitcom The Boys are Back featured sitcom veterans Hal Linden (Barney Miller)
and Suzanne Pleshette (The Bob Newhart Show) as Fred and Jackie Hansen, a Portland couple
who were looking forward to a peaceful retirement after the youngest of their three sons headed
off to college. Unfortunately, their older two boys came back. Son Mike had lost his job and
moved in with his wife and three precocious kids, while son Rick returned after his wife kicked
him out. ―There was,‖ according to Brooks and Marsh, ―a predictable uproar as these three
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generations tried to live together‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 175). It was all a little too
predictable, and the show was off the air after four and a half months.
Whereas the Hansens were a little overwhelmed by the sudden influx of family, the title
character of the 1998 sitcom Maggie couldn‘t get the time of day from hers. Husband Mark was
a workaholic cardiologist and daughter Amanda a self-absorbed brat, so Maggie sought solace in
a new career. She studied veterinary medicine and got a job as an intern at the clinic of Dr.
Richard Myers. Soon romantic sparks flew between Maggie and Dr. Myers, and she shared her
conflicted feelings with her therapist, Dr. Kimberly, and her zany coworkers. Ratings for the
show were low, even by the standards of cable‘s Lifetime network, and Maggie was canned after
five months.
Like their sitcom counterparts, Oregon‘s seven dramas often featured fading television
stars, depicted chaotic families, and found few viewers. The first was Blue Skies, which featured
former Dukes of Hazzard star Tom Wopat as Frank Cobb, a successful San Francisco advertising
man who gave up his career and returned to rural Oregon to rescue his family‘s struggling
sawmill. He was a widower with two daughters, and had just married Annie, a sophisticated New
Yorker who had a teen daughter of her own. Annie adjusted to life in tiny Eagle Falls, the kids
adjusted to one another, and Frank argued with his father, Henry, who was disappointed that
Frank had given up his career. Blue Skies lasted just eight weeks in the summer of 1988, a run
that was equaled by 1991‘s Sons and Daughters. This second drama featured more family
adjustments, and was perhaps most memorable for its slightly strange character names. Bing
Hammersmith had recently returned to Portland with his young second wife, Mary Ruth, and
their son, Bing, Jr. He moved in with his daughter, Tess, and her adopted Korean daughter,
Astrid. Bing‘s other daughter, Patty, was married to a football coach named Spud Lincoln, and
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they had three children—Rocky, a high school dropout and male model, troubled Paulette, and
lovable little Ike. Bing‘s other son was yuppie Gary, who, along with wife Lindy, were adjusting
to life with their new daughter, Dakota. Oregon‘s third dramatic entry, McKenna, featured yet
more family adjustments. This time around the washed-up television star was Chad Everett, of
Medical Center fame, who played Jack McKenna, the rough-and-tumble owner of McKenna
Wilderness Outfitters. Jack had been in a funk ever since his favorite son, Guy, had plunged to
his death in a gorge. He had to adjust to life with son Brick, who had come back home to Oregon
after spending a few years as a race car driver. Jack, Brick, and the other members spent most of
the series arguing and leading hapless city slickers into the wilderness. The main appeal was the
spectacular scenery near Bend, Oregon, but it was not enough to save the show. After a two
week run in the fall of 1994, McKenna returned to ABC the next summer to burn off its three
remaining episodes.
Oregon‘s only police drama, Under Suspicion, was the story of Rose Phillips, the only
female detective in her precinct in Portland. Rose battled sexism in the station house, but always
found time to solve a series of gruesome murders. Under Suspicion was on the CBS schedule for
eleven months, part of it in the illustrious 12:35-to-1:40 A.M. slot, but only eighteen episodes
were produced. That was, nevertheless, good enough to make this show Oregon‘s longest-
running network drama.
All three of the state‘s remaining dramatic entries were filmed in Canada and spent most
of their runs airing on cut-rate television outlets. The first, The Fearing Mind, aired in 2000 on
cable‘s Fox Family Channel. It was the story of a man named, of course, Bill Fearing, a horror
writer with a vivid imagination. Bill lived in a small Oregon town, and the gimmick was that a
mundane event in Bill‘s life would inspire a short story, which would then play out before Bill‘s
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eyes. Nobody else, including Bill‘s grousing wife, daughter, and mother-in-law, saw these events
take place. Not many viewers saw them, either, and the show was off the air in six weeks. The
drama Mysterious Ways sought the same audience that The Fearing Mind had failed to reach. It
was a cross between a church sermon and The X-Files, telling the story of anthropology
professor Declan Dunn, who had miraculously survived an avalanche. Like Fox Mulder, Declan
was seeking truth, much to the chagrin of his superiors such as the crusty dean at Northern
Oregon University. Declan‘s research partner, a psychiatrist named Peggy, was the program‘s
Dana Scully, playing the role of skeptic. As was the case on The X-Files, the physical proof of
the miracles always slipped through their fingers. Mysterious Ways had a short run on NBC in
the summer of 2000 before moving to the Christian-themed PAX network in the fall, where it ran
for two full seasons. Oregon‘s last dramatic entry was Saved, which aired on cable‘s TNT. It was
the story of Wyatt Cole, a troubled young paramedic who, against the wishes of his physician-
father, had dropped out of medical school. He was also battling a gambling addiction, and his
girlfriend had recently ditched him. Otherwise, Saved was a ―by-the-numbers medical thriller,‖
following Wyatt and his fellow EMTs as they raced around the streets of Portland, dealing with
―car wrecks, drug addicts, heart attacks, street crazies, and premature births‖ (Brooks and Marsh
2007: 1,199).
Oregon was the setting for a pair of reality programs in the 2000s, the first of which was
2005‘s Brat Camp. Considered by some to be educational, and by others as the epitome of reality
trash, Brat Camp was the story of nine troubled teens, ages fourteen to seventeen, who had been
dispatched to a reform school called SageWalk, near Bend. The kids, who had been signed up for
the experience by their exasperated parents, were whisked away in something not unlike a
kidnapping, and driven, blindfolded, to a sparse camp in the backwoods. If that experience was
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not traumatic enough—one girl wept uncontrollably when she arrived—the ―students‖ were then
handed forty-pound packs and taken on a forty-day, hundred-mile trek through the woods. Their
guides were counselors with quasi-Native American names—―Glacier Mountain Wolf,‖ ―Flying
Eagle,‖ ―Stalking Cougar,‖ ―Little Big Bear,‖ and ―Mountain Wind‖—who spouted trite
proverbs.
That SageWalk‘s tactics were a little controversial goes without saying—the school
received much unwanted attention four years later when one of their wards died on the walk—
but, for many, the most disturbing part of the process was that it was being put on television.
―Adults can freely humiliate themselves however they wish on TV,‖ wrote critic Brian Lowry,
―but the scales should tip differently when minors are involved‖ (Lowry 2005: 1). Brooks and
Marsh outlined some of the show‘s more controversial elements:
Needless to say, emotions ran high. The show played this to the
hilt with teasers such as ―up next—Jada freaks out!,‖ ―dark secrets
are revealed,‖ ―Lexie reveals her traumatic past‖ (the 17-year-old
sobbingly revealed that she had been sexually abused in the
seventh grade, as the camera zoomed in for a close-up of her tears).
Brutally honest ―impact letters‖ from the parents added to the
trauma. These were deeply troubled kids and some psychologists
objected to their ―exploitation‖ for entertainment purposes, the lies
they were told to get them to SageWalk, and the glib labels applied
to them (onscreen labels such as ―angry punk,‖ ―compulsive liar,‖
and ―self-destructive drug-user‖ were routinely superimposed).
Nor was the experiment entirely successful. At least two of the
subjects, Jada and Isaiah, were in trouble with the law by the time
the series aired (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 178).
Brat Camp ran for one summer and, along with McKenna, was as close as Oregon ever
got to a western—highlighting both the beauty and harshness of the state‘s wilderness. The most
common subject of Oregon‘s television entries, however, remained family life, and that was the
central topic of Oregon‘s longest-running program, Little People, Big World, which debuted in
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the spring of 2006. The show aired on cable‘s TLC (The Learning Channel), so it never achieved
stellar ratings, but it did have a devoted following. The show‘s fans kept in on the air for four
years, making it Oregon‘s longest-running program.
Like many Oregon television families, the Roloffs were a family with a twist. The dad
was Matthew, a successful software engineer, and the mom was energetic Amy, a preschool
teacher. They had four kids, including teenage fraternal twins Mark and Zach, daughter Molly,
and younger son Jacob. The ―catch,‖ as the show‘s titled suggested, was that Matt, Amy, and
Zach were little people (Mark, Molly, and Jacob were all of normal height). The show‘s gentle,
cheerful atmosphere—it was a sort of reality show Waltons—was a far cry from that of the
tawdry Brat Camp, as noted by critic Dan Kennedy:
[The show] offers an up-close, unsentimental look at a family
headed by a dwarf couple, spreading the positive message that
little people can argue over money, coach youth soccer, and shoot
tin cans off rocks like anyone else. . . . Little People, Big World is
not exactly the stuff of high drama. In one episode, Amy and her
daughter, Molly, who share a birthday, are dispatched on a hot-air
balloon ride while Matt and the boys . . . are joined by family and
friends to undertake a frenetic bathroom makeover as a surprise for
Amy when she returns home. In another, Matt pushes Zach to pick
up girls at a Little People of America gathering. These scenes are
interspersed with interviews in which the Roloffs—primarily Matt,
Amy, and Zach—expound on what it‘s like to live in a world built
for people at least a foot taller than they are. Everyone is pleasant
and articulate (Kennedy 2006: 1).
While the Oregon of Little People, Big World was not necessarily action-packed, it was
certainly attractive. The Roloffs were friendly, happy, and successful, and their home
environment was quite literally the stuff of dreams. Because his dwarfism had required numerous
surgeries, Matt spent a good deal of his childhood in a hospital bed, and his success as an adult
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afforded him the ability to provide for his children all the experiences he had dreamed about as a
child. He created Roloff Farms, a thirty-four acre pumpkin farm near Helvetia, about twenty
miles northwest of Portland. The farm included, among other things, a soccer field, a lake
(complete with its own pirate ship), a three-story tree house, Molly‘s full-sized medieval castle,
an Old West ghost town, and a catapult for launching pumpkins. The atmosphere created by both
the Roloffs and their farm was so inviting that many of the show‘s fans decided to break off a
piece for themselves. After Little People, Big World premiered, thousands of fans descended on
the farm, creating miles-long traffic jams near Helvetia, and doubtlessly driving up the price of
pumpkins.
NEVADA
Nevada‘s first television entry, State Trooper, was one of a trio of popular four-wheeled
westerns that were produced for syndication in the late 1950s, running concurrently with The
Sheriff of Cochise, which was set in Arizona, and Highway Patrol, which took place in an
unidentified western state. Here, Rod Blake, chief investigator for the Nevada State Police, tore
around the state in his cruiser, chasing kidnappers, murderers, and other assorted bad guys. The
show debuted in 1957 and remained in production until 1959, the same year that a new western
literally burned Nevada onto the television map.
The map in question outlined the territory of the Ponderosa Ranch, situated on the north
shore of Lake Tahoe, just south of Carson City, Virginia City, and Reno. The map was a rather
dull, sepia-tone affair, but as the dynamic theme song gathered steam, bright yellow letters shot
into view, announcing the name of the program—Bonanza. The map then burst into flames,
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revealing four men on horseback, riding before a spectacular western backdrop. Bonanza‘s debut
on the television landscape was something akin to Dorothy‘s arrival in Oz, and if such a title
sequence seemed a little ostentatious, it was intended to be. Bonanza was the first television
western broadcast in color, and was developed with the aim of selling the color television sets
that NBC‘s parent company, RCA, manufactured. The network clearly had high hopes for the
show, and it did not disappoint.
The four horsemen of Bonanza‘s credits were the Cartwrights, a family who owned and
operated the sprawling Ponderosa ranch during Nevada‘s silver rush days of the 1860s. The
father was Ben Cartwright, a widower of quiet dignity and wisdom, who had had three sons by
three different wives. The eldest was Adam, Ben‘s heir apparent who, like his father, possessed a
solemn and thoughtful demeanor. Eric ―Hoss‖ Cartwright, the gentle giant, was kind and
trusting, and just a little slow-witted. The youngest son, Little Joe, was rambunctious and
quixotic, with a quick temper that often got him into trouble. Bonanza was something of a
precursor to the ―big-money‖ soap operas of the 1980s, often focusing on the trials and
tribulations of running a massive business like the Ponderosa, but the Cartwrights did so with
considerably more integrity than the characters of Dynasty or Dallas. Bonanza contained the
expected dose of conventional action, but fit squarely into the adult western genre, concentrating
as much on interpersonal relationships as it did on brawls and gunfights. Like Gunsmoke,
Bonanza often dealt with serious contemporary issues in an Old West context, with Ben
Cartwright ultimately serving as the voice of reason and honesty. As one critic put it, Bonanza
was ―a new kind of thinking person‘s western, and the three holstered sons were forever being
tortured by some ethical conflict that required a fireside chat presided over by Pa Cartwright‖
(Lewis and Stempel 1996: 120).
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Although Bonanza offered a fresh take on an old genre, its geographic message was not
much different from countless other westerns. The West was a tough place, and it took a tough
man to survive and prosper there. Ben was that tough man, according to series creator David
Dortort, who believed that the popularity of the show was due to Ben‘s rugged independence—
―He is not led around by the nose by anybody,‖ said Dortort (Lewis and Stempel 1996: 120).
One of the show‘s writers, quoted by critic Steven D. Stark, believed the success owed
something to its timing. In the tumultuous 1960s, it wasn‘t a sense of danger that drew viewers,
but a sense of safety. ―You know exactly what‘s going to happen in most Bonanza scripts,‖ said
the writer, ―and in this uncertain world, stability is comfort devoutly to be sought‖ (Stark 1997:
90). As was the case with Gunsmoke, some viewers found that the idealized world of Bonanza fit
with a politically conservative philosophy of the world, with its focus on individualism,
traditional family values, and noble actions of the wealthy. Pernell Roberts, who played Adam
Cartwright before leaving the show in 1965, was considerably more cynical:
Look at the setup of the show. Strange, man. The Ponderosa is a
little kingdom of very rich people, with Ben Cartwright as absolute
monarch. No women to speak of, three of the four men troubled as
adolescents (Stark 1997: 90).
Strange or not, viewers were enamored with Bonanza‘s world. The show put up mediocre
numbers during its first year, but climbed to the seventeenth position in the Nielsen ratings its
second season. After a move from Saturday to Sunday nights in its third year, the 1961-1962
season, Bonanza shot to second place, beginning a remarkable run that placed it in the Nielsen
top ten for a full decade, including nine years in the top five. For a three-season stretch beginning
in 1964, Bonanza was the most-watched program on television, a feat exceeded only by six other
shows, and just one drama—Bonanza‘s Kansas rival, Gunsmoke. The show was globally
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popular, airing, at its peak, in eighty-six foreign countries and dubbed into twelve different
languages. After years at or near the top of the ratings, Bonanza slid to the twentieth spot during
the 1971-1972 season, and NBC moved it from Sunday to Tuesday nights in 1972, opposite the
runaway hits Maude and Hawaii 5-0. That change, coupled with the unexpected death of series
star Dan Blocker (Hoss), caused viewership to plummet. Bonanza ended its long run midway
through its fourteenth season, ranking second only to Gunsmoke in terms of popularity and
longevity in the western genre.
Given Nevada‘s rugged scenery and equally rugged history, it is surprising that the state
has been the setting for only two television westerns. That might be explained by Nevada‘s first
entry in the genre being so colossal that there was simply no room for another. In fact, Nevada‘s
only other western was a prequel to Bonanza. Set in 1849, when the Cartwright sons were young
men, Ponderosa chronicled Ben‘s efforts to build a little 180 acre spread into the cattle empire it
would become. Like its predecessor, Ponderosa examined serious contemporary themes through
the lens of the Old West, but unlike Bonanza, not many people watched. The show debuted in
2001, but its viewership was poor even for the little-watched PAX network, and it was cancelled
after a one-year run.
With the exception of Ponderosa, each of Nevada‘s thirty-nine post-Bonanza entries had
contemporary settings. Las Vegas has been the dominant backdrop, serving as setting for thirty-
two of those programs. As might be expected, most of the Las Vegas entries have dealt with
gaming and entertainment. Just six of the city‘s thirty-two entries have been sitcoms, and only
one of those lasted more than a year. The only Vegas-based sitcom to feature a lead character not
connected to the entertainment industry was The Tortellis, a spin-off of Cheers, in which Carla
Tortelli‘s sleazeball exhusband Nick moved to Vegas to start a television repair business with his
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slow-witted son, Anthony. The Tortellis was not able to brew the success of Cheers, and was off
the air after four months in 1987.
Along for the ride on that short-lived sitcom was Nick Tortelli‘s new wife, the statuesque
and unbelievably dumb Loretta, who was trying to break into show business. She was not alone.
All of Las Vegas‘s other sitcoms chronicled the ―off-campus‖ life of the industry‘s professionals
and hopefuls. One early example was Blansky‟s Beauties, which aired for three months in 1977.
The title character, Nancy Blanksy, produced stage shows at the Oasis Hotel, where her nephew
Joey was a choreographer. Nancy, Joey, and all the showgirls from the Oasis lived in the same
apartment complex, where Nancy struggled to keep order. Sharing an apartment with Nancy and
Joey were two showgirls, Sunshine and Bambi, and Joey‘s understandably concupiscent little
brother, Anthony. The next season brought the similar Who‟s Watching the Kids. The title kids
were fifteen-year-old wiseguy Frankie (Scott Baio, who had played Anthony on Blansky‟s
Beauties) and his somber little sister, Melissa. They shared an apartment with their older sisters,
Angie and Stacy, who were showgirls. While they performed at a Las Vegas dive called the Club
Sand Pile, they conned their neighbor, Larry Parnell, into watching the kids. Not many watched
the show, however, and like Blansky‟s Beauties, Who‟s Watching the Kids was off the air in
three months.
Another showgirl sitcom, 2000‘s Nikki, was not a runaway success either, but its fifteen
months on the air were enough to make it Las Vegas‘s longest-running sitcom. Early episodes
featured a garish opening number from the fictional Golden Calf Casino, where Nikki White was
a dancer. Her husband Dwight White was an aspiring professional wrestler, and they both were
full of ambition. Life brought hurdles, of course. Dwight‘s wrestling career (where he was
known as ―The Crybaby‖) was not going well, and the scuffling Golden Calf was eventually
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seized by the I. R. S. and shut down. Nikki was forced to take a job at an auto parts store, and she
and Dwight moved into an old bus parked on Dwight‘s manager‘s property.
Although a number of sitcoms have featured characters who work, or want to work, in
Vegas casinos, only one has focused on the inner workings of a real casino. Comedian and writer
Bob Einstein‘s alter ego, the spectacularly unlucky stuntman ―Super‖ Dave Osborne, had
appeared on a number of comedy shows, including his own long-running series on cable‘s
Showtime network. On the sitcom Super Dave‟s Vegas Spectacular, which aired for six weeks in
1994, Dave was the proprietor of the glamorous Rio hotel and casino, a position that he valued
mainly for the opportunity to stage outlandish stunts. These, of course, invariably resulted in
Dave and his crew being ―blown up, flattened, electrocuted or otherwise mangled‖ (Brooks and
Marsh 2007: 1,353).
The closest that any Las Vegas program has come to resembling a conventional family
sitcom was the animated comedy Father of the Pride. The title father, Larry, was like many other
sitcom dads. He was a hard worker with a bossy wife, a wacky best friend, a patronizing father-
in-law, an insolent teenage daughter, and an insecure young son. Unlike other sitcom dads,
however, Larry was a lion. He and his family were part of the troop of animal performers kept in
a private zoo by real-life Las Vegas showmen Siegfried Fischbacher and Roy Horn. Despite a
desirable Tuesday night timeslot, an excellent sitcom track record by actors John Goodman and
Carl Reiner, and a lavish (and incredibly expensive) production provided by the feature
animation hit-maker DreamWorks, Father of the Pride became the most notorious fiasco of the
2004-2005 season. The show received mixed reviews, and the fact that Roy Horn had, in real
life, been mauled by one of his tigers during a live performance the previous fall did not help the
show‘s chances. Father of the Pride was cancelled after four low-rated months.
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If the scarcity and unpopularity of Las Vegas-based sitcoms are any indication, then it is
not comic relief that viewers expect from this city, but instead money, glamor, sex, and crime.
Vegas-based dramas, which outnumber sitcoms nearly two to one, offer plenty of these
diversions. The first in a long line of Las Vegas crime fighters was Dan Tanna of Vega$, which
debuted in 1978. In the words of one critic, Vega$ was ―certainly not a thinking-man‘s detective
show,‖ but it made up for in style what it lacked in substance (Martindale 1991: 488). Sporting a
black leather jacket and blue jeans, the handsome Tanna was as quick with a droll remark as he
was with his .44 Magnum. When not tearing up and down the Strip in a red ‗57 Thunderbird
convertible, he was at the Desert Inn, the site of his apartment and office. He was assisted by
(what else?) two sexy showgirls, the spacey Angie and the seen-it-all Beatrice. Bobby ―Binzer‖
Borso, a bumbling former con man, was Tanna‘s man on the street, and the suave Phillip Roth,
owner of the Desert Inn and a number of other Vegas establishments, was Dan‘s primary
employer. Exteriors for the show were shot on location, including scenes at Circus Circus, The
Golden Nugget, and Caesar‘s Palace. With plenty of car chases, shoot-outs, and beautiful women
on display before the neon-soaked backdrop, Vega$ became Nevada‘s first post-Bonanza
program to crack the Nielsen top thirty, rising to the twenty-third position in its first season. The
show‘s all-sizzle-and-no-steak approach wore thin quickly, apparently, and the show was
cancelled after its third season.
The Strip, a violent crime drama that debuted in 1999, channeled the spirit of Vega$ into
a buddy show. Like Dan Tanna, Elvis Ford and Jessie Tanner were private detectives on retainer
for a wealthy casino magnate. In this case it was Cameron Greene, the owner of Caesar‘s Palace,
where much of the show was filmed. African-American Jessie was of the Dan Tanna mold, and
his debonair smoothness stood in stark contrast to the slovenly, reckless Elvis, who lived in a
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trailer park on a dry-docked sailboat named the Gonzo. Jessie and Elvis‘s investigations, which
invariably led to shootouts and car chases, highlighted Vegas‘s seedier side. They stumbled
across kidnappings, high-dollar heists, murders, and even a plot by the Japanese Yakuza mob to
sell Vegas showgirls into white slavery. Such lurid goings-on were not enough to keep the show
afloat, and The Strip was cancelled after nine episodes.
The first Las Vegas-based show to feature crime fighters working in an official capacity
was Crime Story, which moved to the desert from Chicago midway through its first season in
1987, and returned for the duration of the 1987-1988 season. Having exposed the Windy City‘s
seamier side, Crime Story presented an equally disreputable Sin City. The cops of the 1960s
period piece had become federal investigators, tracking mobsters in Nevada. They not only
examined gangland hits and mafia control of the casinos, but also child molestation, rape,
kidnappings, prostitution, drug addiction, extortion, racism, money laundering, drug smuggling,
and corrupt lawmen. Crime Story even included a memorable first season cliff-hanger where the
key antagonist was nearly killed by an atomic bomb test in the Nevada desert.
The city was still in dire need of policing decades later, as indicated by Nasty Boys, an
action-filled crime drama about a group of vice cops working undercover on the flashy but mean
streets of Las Vegas. It was, in many ways, standard cop show fare. Its ―typically TV-mixed
team‖ included white Paul, Asian Jimmy, Latino Eduardo, African-American Alex, and grizzled
veteran Lt. Krieger. (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 964). The catch? They were ninjas. Nasty Boys
lasted five months in 1990.
The second drama to feature the Las Vegas police department was far more successful.
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation focused on forensic investigators who worked the graveyard
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shift for the department‘s crime lab. A typical episode began with a gruesome crime followed by
a scene in which the dispassionate investigators strolled, flashlights in hand, up to the site. Using
the latest technology and their own well-honed instincts, the team would sift through the
evidence, usually finding an intriguing bit of minutia that would help them track down the bad
guys.
CSI was an interesting mix of old and new. It had a splashy visual style and plenty of
―gross-out‖ special effects that allowed viewers to see, up close and in color, the devastating
effects the crime had had on the corpse in question. The show‘s gimmick was a series of black-
and-white cutaways, replaying the crime several times to demonstrate what might have happened
based on each new bit of evidence. Like many other postmodern crime dramas, CSI often refused
to provide closure for the audience—a number of the crimes went unsolved, and a lack of
evidence occasionally allowed a suspect to walk, even when the investigators were convinced of
his or her guilt. That said, CSI included other ingredients that linked it to its crime-fighting
predecessors. Like The Untouchables or Dragnet, little attention was given to the personal lives
of the taciturn team of cops. With the exception of a few subtle hints, the focus was always on
the crime at hand. Like Hawaii 5-0 or Columbo, shootouts and car chases were rare, and most of
the ―fun‖ revolved around watching the cagy detectives slowly put together pieces of the puzzle.
Add in a fairly liberal dose of dark humor, and CBS had found, to its surprise, Nevada‘s biggest
hit since Bonanza.
CSI premiered in 2000 on CBS‘s lightly watched Friday night schedule and put up
incredibly strong numbers. That prompted a midseason move up against tough competition on
Thursday night, where the show did even better. It ranked eleventh in the Nielsen ratings its
rookie season, jumped to the second spot in 2001-2002, and began a three-year run as
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television‘s most-watched show the next season. CSI‘s spectacular success spawned not only the
expected onslaught of imitators, but also its own franchise, including CSI: Miami and CSI: New
York. It continued to air through 2010, and has never dropped below eleventh place on the
Nielsen top charts.
The CSI team included Catherine Willows, a level-headed veteran; Warrick Brown, a
street-wise investigator with sharp analytical skills; Sara Sidle and Nick Stokes, ambitious
rookies; and Greg Sanders, an eccentric lab technician. Also seen frequently was the department
brass, who was, in fact named Jim Brass. Some of the team members had Vegas-appropriate
backgrounds—Warrick was struggling to overcome a gambling addiction, Catherine had worked
her way through college as a stripper, and Greg was an adrenaline junkie, addicted to surfing,
snowboarding, and punk rock. The show‘s primary character, at least in its early years, was Gil
Grissom, the lead investigator. Grissom was a departure from previous Las Vegas television
detectives. He was not a splashy lady‘s man, like Dan Tanna, or a hard-boiled gumshoe like
Mike Torello of Crime Story. If anything, Grissom most closely resembled the quiet, determined
hero of Gunsmoke. Like Matt Dillon, Gil Grissom was a strong believer in following the rules
and adhering to a proper code of conduct, although Dillon‘s faith in law and order was replaced
here by Grissom‘s unshakable faith in science. The most striking parallel between the two,
though, was Grissom‘s devotion to his work. His personal life was always a matter of
speculation, although the show suggested that he didn‘t have much of one. Like Dillon, Grissom
was enigmatic, and deliberately so. In one episode, he let it slip to Warrick that he had once been
a gambler. This surprised Warrick, given the many conversations the two had had about
Warrick‘s own addiction. When he asked Grissom why he had never mentioned this fact before,
Grissom replied, ―Same reason a good player hides his tells‖ (Fuchs 2002: 1).
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Still, it is doubtful that many viewers mistook CSI for a western. Although occasional
side trips were taken to scrape a corpse off the desert floor, the show focused on its urban setting.
Critic Cynthia Fuchs speculated that the show was set in Las Vegas so that Grissom could ―make
pithy observations about gambling and fate‖ (Fuchs 2010a: 1). Certainly, more than a few crimes
on the show were tied to the gaming industry and Vegas‘s famously wild night life—a world-
famous poker player was murdered at the Palms Hotel, for example, and a male stripper was
found dead after a particularly exuberant bachelorette party.
The influence of Las Vegas on CSI was more, however, than a collection of casino and
hotel backdrops. The city also represented a state of mind. In addition to their Vegas-appropriate
backgrounds, the characters on the show, who never seemed to sleep, exuded something like a
gambler‘s high, ―addicted,‖ according to critic Stephen Kelly, ―to the adrenalin rush of cracking
a case‖ (Kelly 2003a: 1). For the viewer, CSI constantly suggested that Las Vegas was a place
where anything goes—where strange occurrences were par for the course. This message was
reinforced by the matter-of-fact demeanor of the investigators as they wandered into some
perfectly bizarre crime scenes—a man was found dead in the middle of the desert, and the
autopsy revealed that he had drowned; a trainer was trampled to death by a horse aboard her
private jet; and the corpse of cheerleader was found mutilated on a soccer field, her organs
apparently having been eaten by her killer. Such unusual and horrific crimes were likely the
result of creative necessity. Unlike many other police procedurals, CSI focused almost entirely
on crime scenes and dead bodies, and since audiences were drawn to the show for the fun of
seeing the team make sense out of something that was seemingly senseless, the crimes had to
tend toward the unusual. The effect for the viewer, though, was to establish, or probably
reinforce, the notion that Las Vegas was a city entirely deserving of its Sin City reputation.
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While bodies piled up on the streets of Vegas, there was plenty of action going on inside.
Six hotel/casino dramas aired during the 1990s and 2000s, and none of them took what could be
called an unflinching, highly realistic look at life in the resort and gaming industry. Some of
these programs had a somewhat downbeat tone, but all have generally depicted their respective
casinos and hotels as part of the exciting and romantic Las Vegas of the American popular
imagination. The first was Hearts Are Wild, a rip-off of The Love Boat that aired for two months
in 1992. Like its maritime counterpart, it was essentially a lightweight anthology, with most of
the action played out by guest stars at the fabulously posh Caesar‘s Palace. A considerably
creepier variation on this theme was The Watcher, which aired for three months in 1995. The
title voyeur was always in his luxury suite high atop the Desert Flower casino. From there he
observed the activities of residents and visitors alike on a huge bank of surveillance monitors,
occasionally commenting on their various scrapes.
The premise of 2003‘s Lucky certainly suggested that it would offer a hard and gritty take
on the seedier side of local life. The title protagonist, Lucky, was a charismatic gambler who had
won a million dollars in the World Poker Championships. A year later, with all the money gone,
Lucky‘s wife had committed suicide, and he was in Gamblers Anonymous. Lucky was not,
however, a gambling version of The Lost Weekend, but rather a dark comedy populated by a
parade of ―loveable junkies, loan sharks, and crooks‖ (Brooks 2007: 821). Lucky continued to
gamble, and often win, but the show was cancelled after its unlucky thirteenth episode. The even
less successful 2004 drama Dr. Vegas was an attempt to merge casino drama with medicine. It
was the story of Dr. Billy Grant, who had given up life in an emergency room to become house
doctor at the up-scale Metro hotel and casino. In addition to the expected Vegas glitz and
romance, the show tackled hard issues like drug and alcohol addiction. Viewers apparently
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preferred to keep their gambling and health care separate, however, and the show was cancelled
after one month. The drama Tilt, which aired the following year, was a more conventional sleazy
take on the world of Vegas casinos. It was the story of three professional gamblers: Miami,
Clark, and Eddie. All three had been taken to the cleaners by a corrupt, arrogant card shark
nicknamed the ―Matador,‖ and they were now looking for payback. The show aired on ESPN,
the sports programming network that had begun to dabble in drama, and served as a nine-week
commercial for the network‘s upcoming coverage of the World Series of Poker.
The only genuinely successful industry drama was also its least substantive. Filmed, in
part, on location, 2003‘s Las Vegas was Nevada‘s response to Dallas and Dynasty. Although it
was not nearly as successful as its counterparts, it remained on NBC‘s schedule for five years,
making it the city‘s second longest-running scripted entry. The setting was the sprawling, glitzy
(and fictional) Montecito Resort and Casino, where a hard-boiled retired CIA agent named Ed
Deline was security chief. Others in the cast included the colorful casino staff, Ed‘s angry wife,
Jillian, and their vampish daughter, Delinda. Something treacherous was always happening at the
Montecito, including ―robberies, murders, gambling cheats, bomb threats, sex in the elevators,
and scams beyond counting‖ (Brooks 2007: 761). One of the primary antagonists was the
domineering and manipulative Monica Mancuso who, having made a fortune by marrying an
octogenarian billionaire, purchased the Montecito in 2005 and had it demolished and rebuilt.
Monica‘s demise served as a clear indication of the overall tone of Las Vegas. In what Brooks
and Marsh called ―one of TV‘s more memorable deaths,‖ a sudden gust of wind lifted her off the
roof of the Montecito and carried her down the Strip, where she crashed through the window of a
shoe store (Brooks 2007: 761). To honor her memory, the staff flushed her ashes down one of
the hotel‘s toilets.
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Critic Lesley Smith theorized that, ―If one sequestered a gang of adolescent males long
enough without female company and with only a few word processors for distraction, they‘d
sooner or later produce a script for Las Vegas‖ (Smith 2003: 1). That a show with such an
obviously lowbrow approach would become one of the city‘s longest-running entries suggests
much about what television viewers, or at least television producers, expect from Las Vegas.
Whether they are watching Vega$ or Las Vegas, viewers are clearly not seeking out an
intellectual challenge. As such, the city and state have provided a fertile breeding ground for the
reality craze of the 2000s.
A few reality programs have provided behind-the-scenes looks at Vegas‘s gaming and
entertainment industry. The Casino, which aired for three months in the summer of 2004,
followed the exploits of Tom Breitling and Tim Poster, a pair of dot-com millionaires who
purchased the legendary Golden Nugget Casino in downtown Las Vegas. It had been struggling
for years to compete with the new resorts on the Strip, and Tom and Tim were intent on restoring
the Golden Nugget‘s luster. They were seen dealing with the gaming control board, managing
the casino‘s 3,000 employees, hiring entertainment, and catering to high rollers and drunken frat
boys. The 2005 reality entry Inked provided a similar backstage look at the Hart and Huntington
Tattoo company, which was housed in the ritzy Palms Casino Resort. The same year, the Palms
played host to Party @ The Palms, which featured high-spirited Playboy pin-up Jenny McCarthy
chatting with guests around the pool, as well as hard-hitting looks at sex toys and lap dancing.
The title subjects of 2007‘s Taquita and Kaui were ―happy, giggly girls,‖ both reality-show
veterans, who moved into the Happy Inn in Las Vegas, where they ―horsed around, laughed,
went on auditions, laughed, and took whatever entry-level acting jobs they could get‖ (Brooks
and Marsh 2007: 1,357).
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Taquita and Kaui came along a little too late to try their luck on Ed McMahon‟s Next Big
Star, which aired during the 2001-2002 season. An updated version of McMahon‘s long-running
Star Search, it was a lavish talent show where amateur singers, dancers, comedians, and models
competed onstage at the MGM Grand Hotel. More established performers were featured on Oak
Ridge Boys Live from Las Vegas, broadcast from the Vegas Hilton during the 1988-1989 season
on The Nashville Network. Both shows suggested that nothing in Las Vegas is done on a modest
scale, with Brooks and Marsh noting that the Oak Ridge Boys was ―glitzier than most TNN
productions, with show girls, flashing strobe lights, [and] a huge audience‖ (Brooks and Marsh
2007: 1006). Another extravagant pair of Las Vegas entries featured stunts that would have made
Super Dave Osborne envious. I Dare You! The Ultimate Challenge, which aired for seven
months in 2000, showcased monster truck jumps, sky-diving, and stunt planes, while 2005‘s
Criss Angel, Mindfreak, followed the title Las Vegas magician as he prepared for and performed
dangerous tricks, including one where he was run over by a Hummer SUV while lying on a bed
of nails. Angel was seriously injured in that stunt, but he survived, and his show continued to air
through 2010.
Vegas would not be Vegas without a few game shows, the first of which Dealer‟s
Choice. It was Nevada‘s first post-Bonanza entry, and actually the first television program based
exclusively in Las Vegas. Dealer‟s Choice was taped at the Tropicana Hotel and Casino, with
210 episodes produced for syndication in 1974 and 1975. The show featured variations on
standard casino games like blackjack and roulette, and, according to Brooks and Marsh the
―garish surroundings and the betting fever prevalent in Las Vegas helped add to the excitement‖
(Brooks and Marsh 2007: 339). A cascade of poker programs washed over American television
in the 2000s, many of which included events taped in Las Vegas. Among them was Celebrity
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Poker Showdown, with stars playing Texas Hold ‗Em for charity. The show premiered in 2003,
and was taped at the Palms for three years before the action shifted to New Orleans.
Although a few of Nevada‘s game shows strayed from conventional casino fare, even
these exuded Vegas-style excitement and/or tastelessness. Race to the Altar, which aired for
about three months in 2003, featured eight unmarried couples dashing about the city to win
challenges, with the grand prize being a Las Vegas dream wedding. They stayed at the Venetian
Hotel, where they ―bickered, plotted, and formed alliances‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1128). The
mercifully short-lived 2004 FOX entry Playing it Straight chronicled the efforts of Jackie, a
young college student from Appleton, Wisconsin, to find her dream man. She was brought to the
Sizzling Saddle Ranch in Elko, Nevada, where she was to choose from fourteen bachelors.
Group activities and dates occurred each week, after which Jackie would eliminate two guys,
with everything leading up to the big day for the ultimate choice. The catch was that half of the
guys were straight and half of them gay. If Jackie picked a straight mate, they would split a
million dollars, but if he was gay, he got all the money. The show was pulled after three
episodes, but for those dying to know the outcome, leftover episodes were made available on the
FOX website for a small fee (she picked a straight guy).
A reality show spun off another reality show, 2007‘s Surreal Life: Fame Games, featured
D-list celebrities living together and humiliating themselves for cash. Baywatch actress Traci
Bingham narrowly edged out porn actor Ron Jeremy to win the $100,000 grand prize. The most
successful of Nevada‘s reality/competition entries was The Ultimate Fighter, which debuted in
2005 and continued to air through 2010. This show focused on mixed martial arts bouts and
followed sixteen prospective fighters in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) league.
Viewers also saw them train and live together in a large home outside of Las Vegas. One
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Nevada-based reality program was neither a game show nor a behind-the-scenes look at the
entertainment industry. It did, however, have both a competitive and theatrical air. King of Cars,
which aired in 2006, followed the inner workings of Towbin Dodge, a large Las Vegas auto
dealership whose garrulous owner, Josh ―Chop‖ Towbin, was known for his wild promotional
campaigns.
As mentioned, Las Vegas has dominated Nevada‘s post-Bonanza television landscape,
with only six scripted programs being set outside of that city. The first of these was the
syndicated sitcom She‟s the Sheriff, forty-eight episodes of which were produced from 1987 to
1989. It was the story of Hildy Granger, a young widow with two children whose husband had
been killed in the line of duty. The commissioner of fictional Lakes County appointed Hildy to
her late husband‘s post, much to the chagrin of some of the male deputies. Lakes County,
situated in the mountains near Lake Tahoe, occasionally hosted serious criminals, including a
jewel thief and a mobster, but it was mainly a quiet beat, more reminiscent of Mayberry, North
Carolina, than Las Vegas. Like The Andy Griffith Show, She‟s the Sheriff was as much a
workplace and family comedy as it was a cop show, dealing with the Granger kids‘ growing
pains, Hildy‘s reentry into the dating world, and the misadventures of her goofy deputies.
While Hildy Granger channeled the spirit of Andy Taylor, 1994‘s Harts of the West
resurrected the spirit of New Mexico‘s short-lived 1960 entry Guestward Ho! The protagonist,
Dave Hart, had spent years selling women‘s underwear at a Chicago department store. After
suffering a heart attack, he decided to follow in the footsteps of numerous other television
protagonists and start a new life out west. Fulfilling his lifelong desire to be cowboy (his kids
were named L‘Amour, Zane Grey, and John Wayne), Dave bought the Flying Tumbleweed, a
dude ranch located just outside fictional Sholo, Nevada. Dave‘s wife and kids were not thrilled
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about the move to the dusty little town, but a bigger problem was the ranch itself. The Flying
Tumbleweed was a complete mess. It seems that Dave had made his purchase based on a
brochure from 1957 and its irritable old foreman, Jake, was not much help. Viewers apparently
found the plot to be about as fresh as Dave‘s brochure, and despite the father-son star power of
Beau and Lloyd Bridges (who played Dave and Jake, respectively), the show was cancelled after
fifteen weeks.
The goofy good nature of Harts of the West was an exception to the rule when it came to
depicting life in the desert. Rural Nevada possessed the same kind of eerie loneliness that has
characterized the television landscape of rural Washington, Kansas, and Maine. The first such
indication of strangeness came in the science-fiction drama Seven Days, which debuted in 1998
and ran for three seasons. This series chronicled attempts of a team to develop time-travel
technology, and although the setting varied from week to week, the base of operations was a top-
secret government facility near Las Vegas. Things got stranger still in 2002‘s Push, Nevada, a
little town that would have made a fine sister city to Washington‘s Twin Peaks. Buried deep in
the desert, the town‘s primary employer was the Versailles Casino, which had been making some
abnormally large payouts. That fact, coupled with a series of anonymous messages suggesting
tax violations at the casino, drew mild-mannered I. R. S. agent Jim Prufrock to the scene. Jim
discovered that the casino, and much of the town, was controlled by a shadowy organization
called Watermark, L. L. C., which had a possible connection with top-secret government
agencies. The locals warned Jim to mind his own business and witnesses started dropping dead,
but the agent was determined to get to the bottom of it all. The real threat proved to be Nevada‘s
own CSI, which clobbered Push in the ratings. It left the air after six weeks.
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If shadowy government conspiracies were not enough to cast a pall over the Nevada
desert, there were always giant, subterranean, man-eating worms. Tremors was a low-budget
1990 film that had become a cult favorite, and it had been followed by three straight-to-video
sequels. The television series of the same name lasted thirteen weeks in 2003. This series picked
up where the movies left off, with residents of the tiny desert town of Perfection dealing not only
with mutant creatures called graboids, shriekers, and assblasters, but also with greedy real estate
developers and nefarious government officials. The Perfectionites were appropriately odd,
including Burt, a heavily armed survivalist; Jodi, a tough-gal owner of the general store;
Rosalita, a former Las Vegas showgirl turned rancher; Nancy, an aging hippie who made
ceramic figurines of the monsters; and Tyler, a newcomer who wondered why anyone lived
there.
Reno‘s television landscape was not quite as treacherous as Nevada‘s small towns, but it
was every bit as bizarre. In its single television entry, Reno was home to what was perhaps the
most inept and unsavory crew of crime fighters ever seen on television. Reno 911!, a wild send-
up of Cops, debuted on Comedy Central in 2003 and ran for seven years, making it Nevada‘s
longest-running comedy by a wide margin. Like its inspiration, Reno was shot with hand-held
cameras, followed officers around the station house and out in the field, and featured off-the-cuff
interviews. The leader was Lt. Jim Dangle, who always wore disturbingly short shorts as part of
his uniform. Dangle was about as bad at performing his official duties as he was at masking his
bisexuality. Still, he was a better officer than his six subordinates. The men included James
Garcia, an angry Mexican-American who hated immigrants; Jonesy, a laconic black man who
moonlighted as a stripper; and Travis Junior, a dimwitted redneck who always wore a Kevlar
vest on the outside of his uniform. Reno‘s female deputies included the loud and vain Raineesha
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Williams; Clementine Johnson, an unrepentant stoner and nymphomaniac; and Trudy Weigel,
whose sweet and innocent disposition masked her racism and profound emotional problems.
To say that Reno 911 was uncharitable to its setting is an understatement. Travel writer
Jayne Clark described the city of the show as ―society‘s flabby underbelly,‖ and, after noting that
little actual filming took place in Reno itself, added that ―if there were, given the skanky locales
portrayed, it probably wouldn‘t make you want to visit (Clark 2009: 1). Critic Laurel Harris
concurred, describing the show‘s setting as a ―distinctly ratty, unromantic, and dull‖ being filled
with ―trailer parks and shabby bungalows,‖ as well as ―unintelligible perps and victims, sleazy
street shots, and alternately arrogant and underconfident‖ police officers (Harris 2003: 1).
Just as Vega$ and CSI used Las Vegas‘s gambling, drugs, and sex to dramatic effect,
Reno 911 played similar offerings for laughs. The officers made many calls to parties, bars, strip
clubs, and brothels, but unlike their more serious Las Vegas counterparts, who would shake their
heads at society‘s ills, the Reno deputies would, as often as not, join right in. That said, the show
would not have been the same had it been set in Las Vegas. The geography of Reno 911 was
similar to that of St. Louis‘s The John Larroquette Show, Scranton‘s The Office, or WKRP in
Cincinnati, with the second-banana status of the setting used to underscore the second-banana
status of the characters. That formula was evident in an ―interview‖ with Deputy Clementine
Johnson, the aging, rock and roll groupie, in the pilot episode:
I love Reno. I‘ve got roots here. I‘m very popular here . . . . I‘ve
done a lot of RV shows, all the camper shows—they always call
me. As it turns out, I‘m one of the better-looking women here
(Comedy Central 2004).
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The combination of the city‘s moderate size and unusual reputation was integral to Reno
911‘s artistic success, according to critic Lee Siegel, who argued that the show ―could only have
been set in Reno, Nevada:‖
Big cities are too dangerous for comedies about police
incompetence; putting bumbling cops in a small town is
disrespectful; and setting them down in a suburb would be just
plain boring. Reno is just right: the stuff of small legend; sort of
artificial in a vaguely Vegas kind of way. Reno is one of those
places you think you know without ever having been there or
wanting to go. So the show‘s creators found a real town with a
semi-fabled environment, a setting for a satire on murder and
various kinds of violence and crime that wasn‘t going to stimulate
comedy-obstructing thoughts or feelings. In one episode, you see
the chalk silhouettes of murder victims drawn in the most
improbable positions—sitting against a building, lying on the
sidewalk with one arm neatly drawn down the side of the curb and
then perpendicularly sticking out onto the street—and you think,
this could only happen in this place, and you laugh (Siegel 2007:
27-28).
While many of Reno‘s residents may not have been laughing, it appears that at least some
were. When the show was cancelled by Comedy Central in 2009, local tourism officials launched
a crusade to save the show, taking their case to Facebook, Twitter, and even their own website,
SaveReno911.com. Michael Thomas, a director for the Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors
Authority, was one of those spearheading the campaign. He explained the city‘s unique
relationship with Reno 911, and his comments were reminiscent of his Kansas counterpart in the
wake of Married to the Kellys:
Has it been uncomfortable at times for the city? Yes. But there‘s so
much noise going on in the world, it‘s important to be part of the
conversation. Besides, we have a sense of humor here. We don‘t
mind being the brunt of a joke . . . . We‘re a departure from the
norm. We think there‘s a lot of fodder here (Clark 2009: 1).
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COLORADO
Colorado‘s television entries have been relatively balanced in both setting and genre. Of
the state‘s nineteen entries, twelve have been dramas, twelve have had contemporary settings,
twelve have been set in small towns, and twelve have taken place in actual Colorado places.
Seven of the state‘s programs have been comedies, seven had been period pieces, seven have
been set in urban areas, and seven have taken place in fictional locales. A few distinct thematic
patterns connect a number of the programs, a relatively consistent one being that of the
newcomer who, in the spirit of Horace Greeley‘s famous exhortation, headed west to begin life
anew. Televised Colorado‘s relationship with such outsiders has been a contradictory one.
Sometimes the outsider has been cast in a positive light, as a noble soul who fought the
ignorance and prejudice of natives. Other times, the outsider was the threat, bent on exploiting
Colorado‘s upright citizens and spoiling its natural beauty. One near-constant in Colorado‘s
television programs has been their love affair with the state‘s famous mountains. These are
characterized as beautiful, but rugged and wild. Whether the setting is a frontier village or a
contemporary city, a key underlying message has been the idea that one has to be tough to make
it out west.
Colorado‘s first entry was Hotel de Paree, a western that ran the 1959-1960 season. Set
in Georgetown, Colorado, in the 1870s, the twist was that two of the primary characters were
women, sisters Annette and Monique Denver. The Denver sisters did what nearly every gainfully
employed female on television westerns did—they owned and operated the town‘s only hotel.
They were attempting to bring Old World charm to the Old West, and the title hotel was a bit of
opulence amid a wild and lawless frontier. To help keep things civilized, they enlisted the help of
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a gunfighter named Sundance who had just been released from prison after a seventeen-year
stretch. Quick with his fists, and even quicker with his pistol, Sundance was trying to get a new
lease on life.
Six more Colorado-based period pieces appeared over the next four decades, but few of
them followed the standard guns-and-horses formula of other television westerns. Whispering
Smith, which was set in 1870s Denver, was based loosely on both a 1948 Alan Ladd movie and
the actual cases of a real-life police investigator. On television, Audie Murphy played the title
character, who was the first to bring modern methods of criminology to the Old West. The
novelty of the premise was not enough to draw many viewers, however, and the show was
cancelled after four months in 1961. The western situation comedy Pistols „n‟ Petticoats
followed in 1966. Its twist was that the person in the petticoat was also the one doing the
shooting. Set in the 1870s, the show featured Henrietta Hanks, her daughter Lucy, and Grandma
and Grandpa Hanks. They were a rugged family, so rugged, in fact, that they kept a pet wolf
named Bowser. The members of the Hanks family, with the exception of poor Lucy who had
grown up in the city, were all crack shots. Strong-willed Henrietta was constantly called on by
hapless Sheriff Sikes to help subdue the numerous desperadoes who passed through the
appropriately named fictional town of Wretched.
Another appropriately named town, and another strong-willed female protagonist, arrived
on the Colorado television landscape with the period drama Sara. Set in fictional frontier town of
Independence in the 1870s, it was the story of Sara Yarnell, a determined school teacher who had
―given up a dull, predictable existence in the East for the challenge of the West‖ (Brooks and
Marsh 2007: 1,194). She was not the shy, retiring, schoolmarm the people of Independence had
bargained for, of course, and she fought ignorance and intolerance for six months in 1976. The
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sweeping mini-series Centennial, based on the James A. Michener novel, dealt with some of
these issues, and many more, during its original run during the 1979-1980 season. Taking place
from the late 1700s through the modern day, Centennial explored the lives of generations of
Native Americans, farmers, ranchers, soldiers, and developers who sequentially populated the
area that would become Centennial, Colorado. Like Sara, Centennial explored issues of
prejudice, particularly in the relationship between the white men and the area‘s original Pawnee
and Cheyenne inhabitants, but the core theme of the series was environmental. Michener himself
was seen at the beginning of each installment, reminding viewers that ―their actions (and
inactions) have an impact on the quality of life for future generations‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007:
231).
The combined efforts of Sara Yarnell and James Michener could not measure up to the
civilizing force of Dr. Michaela Quinn, the protagonist of 1993‘s Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.
Just as the people of Independence had been shocked by the assertiveness of their young
schoolteacher on Sara, so, too, were the people of 1860s Colorado Springs when the doctor they
hired turned out to be a woman. Following her father‘s death, Michaela had left Boston for a new
life on the frontier. In addition to becoming surrogate mother to three orphaned children, she
dealt with patients who had been bitten by poisonous snakes, attacked by rabid dogs, and mauled
by the occasional mountain lion.
Medical cases were not Michaela‘s only problems. The townspeople of Colorado Springs
were wary of anything new, and downright distrustful of anything that smacked of science. In
short, they were suspicious of everything Michaela stood for. During an outbreak of influenza,
for example, Michaela urged that the sick be isolated from the healthy, patiently explaining that
the disease was spread by a germ, to which a man snarled ―what the hell is a germ?‖ The greatest
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problem, of course, was that this advice was being given by a woman. Despite her remarkable
track record, the Coloradans of Dr. Quinn were always apprehensive about being treated. When
she offered to examine an old-timer‘s hernia, he growled, ―Don‘t you go touching me . . . . I
won‘t have you messing with my innards!‖ (O‘Connor 1993: 1) In another episode, a prisoner
regained consciousness after he was successfully treated by Michaela, and shouted ―You let a
dang woman work on me? What are you trying to kill me?‖ (Suarez 2008: 1).
Regularly, Michaela also found the people of Colorado Springs to be unreceptive to her
progressive views, particularly when it came to race. One of the more common topics on Dr.
Quinn was the treatment of Colorado‘s Native Americans, with a character called Cloud Dancing
serving as a sort of microcosm of his people, constantly enduring broken treaties and army
massacres. The show‘s handling of these topics was sincere but occasionally a bit ham-fisted, as
noted by New York Times critic John J. O‘Connor:
One recent episode probably set a record in its opening minutes for
multi-cultural sensitivity. Mike informed one of her young ‗uns:
―We‘re all immigrants. Some of us just came to America sooner
than others.‖ Then the camera panned to the village smithy, who
happened to be black. ―Robert E. did not come here willingly,‖
Mike added. Then, spotting some American Indians, she conceded:
―I was wrong. We are not all immigrants‖ (O‘Connor 1993: 1).
O‘Connor, as did most critics, found the show to be a mixture of sickeningly sweet
homilies, trite melodrama, and overbearing political correctness. In fact, he argued that Dr.
Quinn had the feel of a ―shampoo commercial in the making:‖
One recipe for a successful series: take a contrived concept,
sprinkle with homespun truisms updated for political correctness
and mix well with tired plot devices. Process and serve. And out
comes Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman . . . . Possible subtitle: Little
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Shtick on the Prairie . . . . Dr. Quinn is a television construct, its
every nuance calculated out of lowest-common-denominator
concerns. Art, or even craft, decidedly takes a back seat to
commerce . . . . Subtlety is not a strong suit. You want local color?
Get the store owner to announce to the kids, ―We‘re still out of
jawbreakers.‖ Or, at a picnic, have someone sit on a gorgeous
patchwork quilt and shout gleefully, ―Hey, let‘s pitch some
horseshoes!‖ Then it‘s quickly back to the uninspired business at
hand (O‘Connor 1993: 1).
To the chagrin of the critics, however, Dr. Quinn drew a strong audience, doing particularly well
among young women, and single-handedly brought the warm, family-friendly drama back from
the dead. The program ranked in the Nielsen top twenty-five during its first two seasons, and
remained on the air for more than five years.
Colorado‘s final period piece, Legend, debuted in 1995 and featured yet another new-
comer to the state. This time it was Ernest Platt, a drunken writer who moved to Sheridan,
Colorado, in 1876 to assume the identity of Nicodemus Legend, a character he had popularized
in a series of dime novels. Platt was played by Richard Dean Anderson, previously seen on
MacGyver, and Legend featured a similar obsession with creative gadgetry. It could not, however
muster the audience of the previous series, and departed after four months.
Colorado‘s first contemporary drama, 1961‘s Bus Stop, took the extreme approach of
having a newcomer or, rather, a whole busload of newcomers, arrive each week. Based on the
successful William Inge play and subsequent film, the title bus stop was a diner in the fictional
Rocky Mountain town of Sunrise. Stories revolved around interactions of bus passengers with
the show‘s four regular characters—the diner‘s owner, its only waitress, the town sheriff, and the
district attorney. The series is probably best remembered for an episode starring teen idol Fabian
Forte called ―A Lion Walks Among Us.‖ Fabian played a young drifter who had been accused of
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murder. To win an acquittal, he had an affair with the prosecuting attorney‘s alcoholic wife and,
once free, killed his own lawyers before finally dying at the hands of his former lover. This
episode‘s ―sadism-and-smut‖ message sparked widespread outrage, with critic Jack Gould of The
New York Times calling it ―a disgraceful and contemptible flaunting of decency, an indescribably
coarse glorification of vulgarity to win an easy rating‖ (Mehling 1962: 166). The episode was so
controversial, in fact, that it prompted Congressional hearings, and likely forced the the
program‘s cancellation in the spring of 1962.
If anything, Bus Stop reinforced the notion that life in Colorado could be dangerous
business, and perhaps it was that danger that drew so many doctors to the state. Like Michaela
Quinn, the protagonist of Doc Elliot was an easterner who wanted to start a new life. Dr.
Benjamin Elliot left a lucrative career in New York City to be a general practitioner in rugged
Gideon, Colorado. He served patients who were scattered over an enormous swath of wilderness,
which Elliot traversed by airplane or in his specially outfitted four-wheel-drive camper.
Essentially an excuse to showcase Colorado‘s spectacular mountain scenery, Doc Elliot lasted
for seven months in 1974. The state‘s third contemporary drama, The Innocent and the Damned,
was a 1979 mini-series about a young lawyer‘s attempt to free a man who had been wrongfully
convicted of the rape and murder of a fifteen-year-old girl. A secondary plot involved attempts
by greedy, manipulative developers to transform quiet little Aspen, Colorado, into a major resort
town.
Only one Colorado-based program made its debut in the 1980s, but it proved to be not
only the state‘s most successful entry, but also one of the most popular dramas in the history of
television. Dynasty, which premiered in 1981, revived many familiar themes of Colorado
dramas. Like the contemporary Bus Stop and The Innocent and the Damned, Dynasty was full of
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psychological tumult, betrayal, greed, and even a few murders. Like Colorado‘s Old West
programs, there was plenty of villainous treachery to go around, and like most of Colorado‘s
entries there was breathtaking mountain scenery. The first shot in the opening credits was a
spectacular aerial view of snowcapped mountain peaks, although the subsequent visuals
indicated that viewers would see an entirely different version of Colorado. Sleepy mountain
villages and frontier towns were replaced by images of limousines, smoked-glass skyscrapers,
and an opulent mansion. The cast was seen sipping brandy and champagne, looking
aristocratically grim in tuxedoes and evening gowns. From the outset, Dynasty was clearly not
the story of life in Wretched.
Dynasty was ABC‘s answer to the CBS megahit soap opera Dallas, and although the
setting was now Denver, the fabulous wealth came similarly from the oil industry. Blake
Carrington was the head of Denver-Carrington Oil, which was fighting for its life after a
revolution in the Middle East led to the nationalization of many of the company‘s assets. The
real problem was not petroleum politics, of course, but Blake‘s troubled family and their
acquaintances. These people included Krystle, his glamorous yet melancholic wife; Fallon, his
spoiled daughter; and Steven, his troubled son. At the deep, black heart of Dynasty was Blake‘s
exwife, Alexis, described by one critic as ―one of the campiest and most beloved bitch goddesses
ever to strut, stagger, skulk, slug, and scheme her way into the family rooms of America‖ (West
2005: 33).
Dynasty was a mind-bogglingly complex array of characters, plots, and subplots. In their
summary of the series, Brooks and Marsh listed sixty-three recurring characters, noting that
every last one of them ―was either filthy rich and disgusting or not-so-rich and disgusting‖
(Brooks and Marsh 2007: 400). And, if Dynasty is to be believed, being rich and disgusting is not
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as easy as it looks. Some of the high (or low) points of the series included Blake‘s trial for the
murder of Steven‘s gay lover; Alexis causing Krystle to lose her baby; Krystle and Alexis
engaging in a knock-down, drag-out fight in a lily pond; Steven‘s injury in an explosion in
Indonesia; a deadly fire at Blake‘s resort hotel; Krystle and Alexis trapped together in a burning
cabin; Blake and Alexis running against one another for the state‘s governorship; and, perhaps
most spectacular, the season-ending near-murder of the entire cast by machine gun-wielding
revolutionaries at a royal wedding in Moldavia. In the series finale, Dynasty exited in appropriate
fashion, with Fallon and her sister ―trapped together in a collapsing mine shaft with a buried
Nazi art collection and a deranged killer‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 401).
Like Dallas, Dynasty gained momentum quickly. It finished its first season nineteenth in
the Nielsen ratings, and climbed into the top seven for the next four years, peaking in the top spot
during the 1984-1985 season. Dynasty dropped back to seventh in 1986 and to twenty-fourth in
1987, before finally being cancelled in the spring of 1989. In hindsight, the fact that Dynasty
never made it to the 1990s seems wholly appropriate. Its demise marked the end of a decade-
long obsession with lavish prime-time soaps, and although it never quite equaled Dallas‘s
ratings, it was named by TV Guide as the best soap opera of the decade. The magazine wrote that
its ―campy opulence gave it a superb, ironic quality—in other words, it was great trash‖
(Mazzarella 2010: 1). For some, including critic Todd Ramlow, it was the quintessential 1980s
program, despite its decidedly artificial approach:
Even if Dynasty never represented any ―truth‖ about the U. S. back
then, it did represent a sort of dominant national fantasy of
American life and burgeoning neocon ideals. To sum it up: excess,
excess, excess. Big shoulder pads, big hair, big jewels, big houses,
big oil companies, and the lives of the mostly idle rich: it‘s all
there in Dynasty, in big spades (Ramlow 2010: 1).
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Dynasty almost certainly altered the viewing public‘s perception of Colorado. While the
state‘s television landscape had entered the 1980s as a collection of rustic little towns, it had
exited it squarely in the lap of luxury. And, for better or worse, the show put Denver on the
television map, and there is no indication that Denverites were upset with the avaricious nature
of the show. If anything, they appeared upset that some of the Dynasty‘s opulence was not their
own. The home that served as the exterior for Blake‘s mansion, for example, was actually
located in Woodside, California. Coloradans were even more upset that the spectacular snow-
covered mountains from the show‘s credits were also stand-ins from California. In response to
volumes of hate mail, Dynasty‘s producers belatedly began inserting more establishing shots
from the city itself, and even filmed a few episodes on location. The most notable was a 1985
episode filmed at Denver‘s extravagant Carousel Ball, which featured appearances by President
and Mrs. Gerald Ford and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
Only two more contemporary Colorado-based dramas would follow Dynasty, and both of
them possessed a very different perspective on the state. The first was Promised Land, which had
roamed the country for two years before settling down in Colorado. A heartwarming, family-
oriented series, this was the story of Russell Green, an unemployed factory worker who decided
to ―redefine what it meant to be a good neighbor and recapture the American dream‖ (Brooks
and Marsh 2007: 1,114). Russell, along with his mother, wife, two sons, and nephew roamed the
country in a worn-out travel trailer, picking up work where they could, and doing good deeds in
the process. They eventually settled in Denver which, by 1998, had lost some of the luster of the
Carrington years. The Greens moved into a run-down house in a struggling neighborhood where
they befriended a former gang member and a young single mother and where Russell
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volunteered at a local teen center. Such good works did not appeal to viewers as much as the
Carrington‘s bad ones, and Promised Land was cancelled at the conclusion of its first season in
Denver.
Colorado‘s final dramatic entry to date, 2002‘s Everwood, was, in some ways, a
microcosm of the many dramas that had preceded it. A newcomer (yet another doctor) following
another death of a loved one, started a new life in yet another fictional small town amid
spectacular mountain scenery. He, too, encountered danger, psychological tumult, family issues,
and some resistance from the wary locals. This time the doctor was Andy Brown, a successful
New York neurosurgeon who, following the death of his wife in an auto accident, moved with
his son and daughter to Everwood, Colorado, which was every bit as rustic and beautiful as its
named suggests. Andy had more than enough money, so he opened a free clinic in Everwood,
where his medical cases were a little more au currant than those of his Colorado predecessors,
including drug addiction, AIDS, spinal cancer, and a young man in a coma. The kids were not
enthusiastic about the move, of course, with his son Ephram referring to it as ―Harrison-Ford-in-
Mosquito Coast crazy‖ (Razlogova 2002: 1).
Everwood never accumulated tremendous ratings, but they were good enough for the
struggling WB network, and the show remained on air for four seasons. Elena Razlogova, like
many other television critics, was not impressed by Everwood, calling it ―a perfect example of
Hollywood's assembly-line production and marketing.‖ She took exception to both the show‘s
lack of originality and geographic accuracy:
Apart from gorgeous panoramas of the snowy Rockies, Everwood
offers little fresh material . . . . Executive producers Greg Berlanti
and Mickey Liddell seem to have culled the show‘s main dramatic
conventions from other successful dramas about small-town family
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and community life . . . . Still, the creators of Everwood miss any
compelling aspects of the storylines they ransack. In interviews,
Berlanti has compared Everwood's focus—Brown‘s relationship
with Ephram—to that of Gilmore Girls, about a mother-daughter
relationship in yet another quirky small town. But a single woman
who chose to have a daughter at sixteen and raise her on her own
while holding a full-time job has little, or rather nothing, in
common with a world-famous neurosurgeon who moves to a small
town on a whim, having raised his children by proxy, with enough
money saved to play doctor for free. Girls, in other words, explores
a set of class and gender issues that Everwood avoids. In crafting
this fantasy, the show does a disservice to diverse populations
living in small Northwestern towns. And that includes the white
middle-class people at the center of Everwood, as well as those it
leaves out, for example, the seasonal immigrant and tourism
industry workers who populate most small Colorado towns
(Razlogova 2002: 1).
Although Colorado‘s television landscape has favored dramas over sitcoms, two of its
most successful programs have been comedies. The first was the 1978 slapstick comedy Mork &
Mindy, which was Colorado‘s first hit show. Half of the title pair was Mindy McConnell, a
journalism student (and eventual television reporter) who clerked part-time, along with her sassy
grandmother, at her father‘s music store. The setting was Boulder, and the opening credits
included the usual dose of attractive mountain scenery as Mindy cruised into town in her Jeep.
Her counterpart, Mork, was the ultimate newcomer to Colorado. Played by frenetic stand-up
comic Robin Williams, Mork was an alien from the planet Ork. The sullen Orkans, who could
never quite get a handle on the zany Mork, had an even tougher time understanding the strange
habits of earthlings, and so sent Mork off to Boulder to study them. Once there, Mork
immediately befriended Mindy, and moved into the attic of her apartment in a quaint Victorian
home. Only Mindy knew Mork‘s secret, and much of the comedy derived from Mork‘s
inevitable misunderstandings of human ways. The general public, of course, thought he was ―just
some kind of a nut‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 919).
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Although Mork & Mindy was essentially a vehicle for the manic comedy of Williams, it
also showcased the kinds of moralistic lessons that would later be a staple of Dr. Quinn,
Medicine Woman. Each episode concluded with Mork‘s report to his unseen Orkan superior,
Orson, and each was a little homily about life on earth. Some of the issues on Mork & Mindy
were timeless, such as life, death, love, and hate, but others were contemporary, ranging from
immigration to sexism. One episode dealt with a greedy landlord, and another with black-market
babies. In yet another, Mork encountered a hate group similar to the Ku Klux Klan, forcing
Mindy to explain racial discrimination to him and, of course, the viewer. ―We‘re all created
equal,‖ she told him, adding that ―It‘s easier to put down someone who is different than
understand him.‖ In his report to Orson, Mork waxed poetic. ―When you mix all earthlings
together, you get this incredible rainbow,‖ he said. ―Everyone has a pot of gold‖ (Lichter,
Lichter, and Rothman 1991: 259).
One could suggest that Mork & Mindy‘s emphasis on moral lessons made it something of
a modern western, but such morality tales aren‘t exclusive to programs set in the West, and Mork
& Mindy‘s Boulder setting appears somewhat arbitrary. According to Fran Golden, the show‘s
producers selected the state simply because numerous UFO sightings had been reported in the
Colorado Rockies. Boulder, in particular, was chosen because ―it seemed likely an alien would
end up in the college town‖ (Golden 1996: 167).
In any case, Mork & Mindy was initially a smash hit, placing fourth in the Nielsen ratings
in its first season. Just as quickly as success arrived, however, it vanished. Producers meddled
with the format of the series, dropping a number of regular characters and adding some episodes
with surrealist themes, including the second-season opener where Mork was ―dropped into a
never-never world filled with caricatures of good and evil‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 919). At
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the same time, ABC moved the show from Thursday to Sunday nights, and its audience
vanished. The network moved the show back to its original spot in January of its second season,
but the damage was done. Ratings dropped every year the show was on the air, and it was
ultimately cancelled after season four.
It would be fifteen years before another comedy would arrive on the Colorado television
landscape. Then five made their debuts between 1997 and 2003. The Denver-based sitcoms The
Closer and House Rules premiered in 1998, each lasting two months. The Closer was the story of
a smarmy ad executive, while House Rules was a buddy comedy about three young women—a
lawyer, a reporter, and a nurse—who shared a Victorian home. The Denver-based comedy Rock
Me Baby, which aired during the 2003-2004 season, concerned the cohosts of a wild Denver
radio show, one of whom had just become a father. Sixty-six episodes of a syndicated television
series based on the 1989 film Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, were produced from 1997 to 2000. Set in
Matheson, Colorado, the show followed the exploits of eccentric inventor Wayne Szalinski,
whose strange gadgets put the family into fanciful scrapes. None of these programs were terribly
successful, but they were notable for their trend toward urban settings, and toward characters
whose lifestyles more closely resembled those seen on programs set throughout the country.
Still, the most successful of the Colorado-based comedies of this time period ran counter
to the trends, taking place in a small town and containing characters unlike anything seen before
on television. South Park, a crude-looking cartoon about a group of foul-mouthed children, first
appeared in 1997 on the then-lowly cable channel, Comedy Central. Against all conventional
wisdom, the show quickly became the most talked-about new series of the year, and eventually
transformed Comedy Central into a serious cable outlet on its way to becoming Colorado‘s
longest-running program at fourteen years and counting.
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South Park‘s protagonists were Stan Marsh and Kyle Broflovski, a pair of relatively
normal fourth graders living in the small mountain town of South Park along with classmates
Kenny McCormick and Eric Cartman. Kenny was the poor kid, whose oversized orange parka
reduced his voice to an unintelligible mumble that only his friends could understand. Eric was a
fat, spoiled, and self-centered loudmouth who constantly antagonized (and who was constantly
antagonized by) his friends. A running gag on the show was the grisly death of Kenny, an event
that happened on nearly every episode, always followed by the lines ―Oh my God! They killed
Kenny! You bastards!‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,277). The repeated bludgeoning death of a
fourth-grader was, however, one of the least bizarre things to happen in South Park.
Although a basin called South Park exists in central Colorado, the town itself is fictional.
At first glance, it is a relatively typical American small town, featuring a city hall, a library, a
courthouse, a town square, the Bijou Theater, a few churches, and a utilitarian elementary
school. Houses range from ornate mansions to little bungalows, and the Main Street is lined with
small businesses, including Jimbo‘s Guns and Tom‘s Rhinoplasty. Fitting into the motif of rural
Colorado as a wild and dangerous place, the town is always threatened by one potential disaster
or another, including hurricanes, zombies, mutant turkeys and space aliens. In the words of one
character, ―This is just a small, quiet, mountain community where nothing out of the ordinary
ever really happens, except for the occasional complete destruction of the entire town‖ (Johnson-
Woods 2007: 161).
Along with a liberal dose of bizarre plots and gross-out gags, South Park also contained
storylines similar to any other sitcom, detailing the kids‘ relationships with one another, their
parents and teachers, and chronicling the inevitable joys and pains of growing up. It was also
fierce satire. The show tackled consumer culture, religious hypocrisy, sexuality, and political
571
agendas of every stripe. In its own off-kilter way, South Park dealt with Hurricane Katrina, the
Iraq war, the Elian Gonzales incident, and the hyperbole surrounding global warming. It
lambasted television conventions, having the audacity, for example, to name the only African-
American kid at Stan and Kyle‘s school ―Token Black.‖ Favorite targets included Christian
fundamentalists, fear-mongering and hype-driven journalists, hippies, incompetent government
bureaucrats, and televangelists. The foils of choice, however, were, more often than not,
celebrities, as in one episode where all the girls in South Park rushed out to purchase Paris
Hilton‘s Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset.
South Park resembled two animated contemporaries, The Simpsons and Family Guy, in
having its setting serve as a neutral backdrop before which contemporary American politics,
society, and popular culture could be skewered. But it also possessed some themes specific to
small towns and small Colorado towns in particular. Showing small-town residents as eccentric,
provincial, and narrow-minded is not unusual on television, but what sets South Park apart from
most other of television‘s small towns is that its residents seemed to revel in their prejudice and
ignorance.They never learned lessons, and were ready, willing, and able to be driven to ecstasy
by the latest cultural fad. Critic Toni Johnson-Woods argued that the show‘s flat, one-
dimensional animation style ―gestures to the one-dimensionality of town life and the narrowness
of small-town mentality‖ (Johnson-Woods 2007: 156). While that might be a bit of a stretch,
there is no doubting her assessment that South Park was depicted as a ―redneck twenty-first-
century town‖ (Johnson-Woods 2007: 152). The upper class of the town smacked of nouveau-
riche vulgarity and the middle class of thoughtless conformity. The town‘s lower class, in the
form of Kenny and his family, did not shatter any stereotypes, either:
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The McCormick house is metonymic for ―white trash.‖ Signifiers
of ―white trash‖ are the front yard detritus of car repairs: an empty
oilcan, discarded tires, and a car with front wheels on blocks;
furthermore, the yard contains a broken refrigerator and a sofa and
the garage door is skewed and seemingly broken. The inside
completes the ―white trash‖ picture: the living room boasts a neon
beer sign, cinder blocks prop up a makeshift coffee table, a car seat
stands in for the couch. The kitchen cupboard doors hang off their
hinges, and Kenny‘s room has a hole in the ceiling, a frameless
mattress, and ripped curtains . . . . Empty liquor bottles, oilcans,
and a car engine litter the living room. The coffee table shows un-
mopped spills. Kenny‘s clothes are scattered on the floor of his
bedroom. Rats roam freely (Johnson-Woods 2007: 159).
Still, a few moments on South Park reveal an almost affectionate view of small-town life.
The episode ―Die Hippie, Die,‖ suggests, in fact, that such life might be something of an ideal. In
that episode, hippies invaded the town and proceeded to smoke pot, sit in drum circles, listen to
the music, and complain about corporate America. Otherwise, they didn‘t do much. While
Cartman went on an antihippie crusade to save the town, Kyle and Stan joined the newcomers,
and were preparing for the coming revolution:
STAN: So it seems like we have enough people now. When do we
start taking down the corporations?
HIPPIE: Yeah man, the corporations. Right now they‘re raping the
world for money!
KYLE: Yeah, so, where are they? Let's go get ‗em.
HIPPIE: Right now we‘re proving we don‘t need corporations. We
don‘t need money. This can become a commune where everyone
just helps each other.
OTHER HIPPIE: Yeah, we‘ll have one guy who like, makes bread.
And one guy who like, looks out for other people‘s safety.
STAN: You mean like a baker and a cop?
HIPPIE: No, no. Can't you imagine a place where people live
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together and like, provide services for each other in exchange for
their services?
KYLE: Yeah, it‘s called a town (South Park Studios 2005: 1).
Generally, when a population is as disagreeable as the residents of South Park, any
outsider is a beneficial force, as was the case in Colorado‘s Sara and Dr. Quinn, Medicine
Woman. In South Park, however, outsiders were often as dense as the locals and far more
destructive. Often they were celebrities whose egomaniacal and sanctimonious attitudes created a
serious annoyance for the townspeople or, in more extreme cases, mass destruction. In one
episode, the townspeople battled a gigantic killer robot called Mecha-Streisand. On another,
Robert Redford and a legion of Hollywood movie moguls took over the town and almost
destroyed its ecosystem because they were, figuratively and literally, full of shit.
Series creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker are both Colorado natives, and this appears to
be the geographic message closest to their hearts—that the residents of small towns can be weak
and ignorant, but, then, so can everyone else. That said, it is difficult to peg South Park to any
particular political or social philosophy. The show has offended just about everyone at one time
or another. If there is a unifying theme, it the one reiterated in a thousand television westerns—
that civilized behavior is a tenuous thing at best. This sentiment was reflected in a statement by
Matt Stone:
There‘s two competing theories in the world. One is that we‘re
born natural and beautiful and good, and that society corrupts us,
which is what I think a lot of people believe. South Park is based
on completely the opposite notion, that we are born basically
gorillas, and that society keeps us just barely in line (O‘Neill 2005:
1).
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MONTANA
Depictions of the American West, like all American regions, have provided mixed, often
contradictory, messages about the region‘s basic character. As noted before, the most common
theme of television Westerns is that of a lone, rugged individual standing up against a tide of
violence and greed, attempting to civilize a region that is wild, lawless, and uncivilized.
Secondary, but still important regional behaviors suggested by television westerns are those of
youthful vigor, optimism, and personal renewal. All of these have been key in Montana‘s
relatively modest television landscape.
Montana‘s earliest television entries were of the youthful vigor variety, including the
state‘s first entry, My Friend Flicka, which ran from 1956 to 1958. An update of the 1943 film, it
told of the trials and tribulations of a family trying to scratch out a living on a turn-of-the century
ranch, but the focus was a young boy and his beloved horse, Flicka. Two months after Flicka‟s
demise, Buckskin premiered, running until the fall of 1959. Set in the frontier town of Buckskin,
Montana, in the 1880s, the show focused on the interactions of a ten-year-old boy who lived in
his mother‘s boarding house with townspeople and passers-through. Lonesome Dove, a
syndicated series that was produced from 1994 to 1996, was based on the Larry McMurtry novel,
and was a continuation of two popular miniseries the novel had spawned. Filmed in Alberta and
set in Curtis Wells, Montana, in the 1870s, the program focused on a youthful stable hand, Newt
Call, and his love interest, Hannah. Newt‘s chief rival for Hannah‘s affections was Colonel
Mosby, a former Confederate officer who was a gunfighter, bank robber, and saloon owner.
Youthful vigor, however, apparently did not have much drawing power in 1990s, and in
its second year Lonesome Dove tacked toward the more classic Western theme of a gritty lead
575
character standing up against the forces of evil. As the second season began, Mosby had taken
control of Curtis Wells, which looked, as noted by Brooks and Marsh, ―much grimier‖ than it
had in the first season (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1808). The show‘s tone and title also became
markedly darker, adopting the name Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years. Hannah was killed in
an explosion, the sheriff had been murdered, the town‘s hotel had been sold to a grifter, and
Newt, now a bounty hunter, had developed a relationship with Mattie, a rough-and-tumble
gunsmith and undertaker.
Just two of Montana‘s programs have had contemporary settings. The first, 1993‘s Angel
Falls, was a primetime soap opera, an unusual genre for a small-town western setting, but the
show did rehash the common western theme of personal renewal. Rae Dawn Snow had recently
moved back home to the title town with her sixteen-year-old son to run the family pool hall.
Episodes centered on the son‘s new romantic entanglements, and the mother‘s renewed ones.
Angel Falls offered the usual soap opera schemes, promiscuity, and heartache, but viewers were
not sure what to make of it, and the show was pulled after six weeks. Montana‘s final entry,
Caitlin‟s Way, which ran from 2000 to 2002, was also an odd mixture of twenty-first-century
dysfunction and the traditional Western theme of youthful renewal. Caitlin, a troubled fourteen-
year-old orphan from the mean streets of inner-city Philadelphia, was given the choice between
juvenile hall and going to live with her relatives, a veterinarian and a local sheriff, in rural
Montana. She chose the latter, and although she had some early troubles, the relatives were
patient with her rebellious ways. As it so often does on television, the West began to heal
Caitlin‘s emotional wounds. She made a friend at school and developed an interest in
photography. Television life in Montana then came full circle when, in Flickaesque fashion,
Caitlin adopted a wild stallion named Bandit, who had saved her from a rabid wolf.
576
WASHINGTON
Like other western states, Washington‘s first television entry was set in a nineteenth-
century boomtown, but 1968‘s Here Come the Brides was hardly a conventional western. It was
the story of Jason Bolt and his brothers, who ran a logging camp on Bridal Veil Mountain near
Seattle. This camp was nearing a state of mutiny, however, the problem being that nearly all of
Seattle‘s 152 residents were men, and the love-starved lumberjacks were getting desperate. So,
Jason sailed off to Massachusetts and convinced a hundred potential brides to return west with
him. There was, of course, a catch. In order to finance his enterprise, Jason had borrowed money
with the understanding that if any of the prospective brides left before the end of a year, the Bolt
family would forfeit their land. In the end, he convinced them all to stick around, and Here Come
the Brides managed to remain on the air for two seasons. A few of the show‘s basic traits would
reappear on subsequent Washington-based programs. Many have featured recently arrived (or
recently returned) characters, and a few would borrow Brides‘s central theme of a rough and
tumble Seattle coming into contact with a civilizing force. Some also gave a nod to the timber
industry, but Here Come the Brides would be Washington‘s last period piece, and its last show
for more than a decade.
Washington returned with a pair of situation comedies in the mid-1980s. The state
eventually served as the setting for eight sitcoms, but only five of them appeared on a major
network, and just one of those lasted at least a full season. CBS was responsible for three of the
network duds, the first being Domestic Life, which aired for six months in 1984. It was the story
of Martin Crane, who, like so many of Seattle‘s television residents, had recently moved to the
city. He had taken a job at a local television station, where he delivered human interest stories.
The action was divided between Martin‘s lives at the station and at home with his wife and two
577
children. The Cranes would be one of the few traditional nuclear families to appear on
Washington‘s television landscape, but the public never got excited and Domestic Life lasted just
six months.
The Boys, another sitcom, was the story of Doug Kirkfield, a New York author recently
arrived in a small town outside of Seattle to work on his second novel. The show centered on the
relationship between sophisticated Doug and a trio of grouchy blue-collar pals who met for a
weekly poker game next door—Burt, a retired fireman; Harlan, who owned an antique shop; and
Al, who had ―worked his entire career in a tar factory and was euphoric when talking about tar‖
(Brooks and Marsh 2007: 175). After The Boys lasted just five weeks in 1993, CBS made just
one more attempt at a Seattle sitcom. The area‘s famously successful software industry has not
often served as comic fodder, and perhaps 1995‘s Dweebs explains why. It was the story of a
young but legendary software designer named Warren Moseby. Like all of the programmers at
his Seattle company, Cyberbyte, Warren was brilliant, but also incredibly shy and socially
awkward. Into the mix came sexy new office administrator Carey, who taught Warren and the
other dweebs the ways of the world, at least for six weeks.
Seattle‘s sitcom landscape has included a pair of syndicated programs, the first of which
was One Big Family. Danny Thomas, who had been a New York nightclub comedian in a
previous sitcom life, played a semiretired nightclub comedian who moved to Seattle to take care
of five orphaned grandchildren after his son and daughter-in-law were killed in a car accident.
This multigeneration comedy never caught on, and the program ceased production after five
months. Seattle‘s second syndicated sitcom, Harry and the Hendersons, based on a 1987 movie
of the same name, featured another blended family. This time, the newcomer was not Grandpa
but a seven foot tall Sasquatch, also known as Bigfoot or, in this case, Harry. The Hendersons
578
had accidentally hit Harry with their car, and they brought him to their Seattle home to nurse him
back to health. The show followed the personal and professional lives of the Hendersons,
including a story arc in which the dad, George, quit his job at a sporting goods company to start a
magazine called The Better Life, which dealt with ecological issues. Most of the stories,
however, revolved around the family‘s efforts to keep their big house guest a secret. The show
was released in 1991, and seventy-two episodes of the program were produced between 1991
and 1993.
Seattle‘s last off-network comedy, and its last sitcom to date, was Romeo!, which aired
on the youth-oriented Nickelodeon cable outlet. It was the story of the Millers, a black Seattle
family headed by Percy, a widowed record producer, who was played by rap mogul Master P.
His son (both on the show and in real life) was Romeo, an aspiring rapper and basketball star
who headed the family band, Pieces of the Puzzle. Also seen were Romeo‘s sister Jodi, his
brother Gary, and, in a significant step forward in race relations on family sitcoms, his adopted
white brother, Louis. It was a bright, happy sitcom, typical for its cable home, and ran for fifty-
three episodes from 2003 to 2006.
Down on the major network end of the dial, NBC launched two Seattle-based sitcoms in
1993. The first was a salvage effort called Almost Home, which appeared in February. After an
unsuccessful season in Oklahoma, the title family of The Torkelsons followed the lead of a
number of their television cohort and moved to Seattle, with the show taking on a new name. It
featured working-class mom Millicent Torkelson, who had just taken a job as live-in nanny for
Brian Morgan, the owner of a successful mail-order business. Millicent‘s rambunctious brood
was not greeted warmly by Brian‘s snooty kids, but it didn‘t matter much, as the second life for
The Torkelsons lasted just five months.
579
The title character of NBC‘s other 1993 entry was, like Millicent Torkelson, a holdover
from a previous sitcom, and was also looking to start a new life in Seattle. The difference, of
course, was that Frasier Crane came with a much more reputable sitcom pedigree. Kelsey
Grammer had played the pompous psychologist on the wildly successful Cheers for nine of the
show‘s eleven years. A number of television‘s more successful sitcoms have been spin-offs,
including The Facts of Life, Family Matters, Gomer Pyle, U. S. M. C., Good Times, and The
Jeffersons. For each one of these successes, however, there have been a number of disasters,
such as Joanie Loves Chachi, AfterMASH, the Ropers, Fish, Flo, Gloria, and Grady. To the
relief of NBC, Frasier not only survived, but went on to equal Cheers in longevity and
popularity.
As the show began, Frasier had left Boston and his icy wife, Lillith, behind, moving back
to his hometown of Seattle. He was now dispensing advice on the radio, where his coworkers
included Bob ―Bulldog‖ Briscoe, the loud-mouth host of KACL‘s sports program, and Gil
Chesterston, the station‘s pompous food critic. He developed a close, if somewhat contentious,
friendship with his producer, the salty Roz Doyle. Frasier also reconnected with his brother
Niles, a fellow psychiatrist who was somehow even more pretentious than Frasier. Niles lived in
a ludicrously opulent mansion with his tyrannical wife, Maris, who was so far removed from the
unwashed masses of humanity that she was never actually seen on the show. When not sipping
coffee with Niles or Roz at the modish Café Nervosa, Frasier could usually be found in his
stylish luxury apartment, which featured a spectacular view of the Seattle skyline. Just when the
star-crossed Frasier seemed to have his life in order, along came his estranged father, Martin
Crane. A former Seattle police detective, Martin had been shot in the line of duty, resulting in a
debilitating hip injury that forced him to walk with a cane, and which made it difficult for him to
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live alone. A reluctant Frasier invited Martin in, realizing too late that along with Martin came a
bubbly English home-care therapist named Daphne, a mischievous terrier named Eddie, and
Seattle‘s ugliest easy chair.
Like Cheers, Fraiser‘s hallmark was sharp, witty, rapid-fire dialogue reminiscent of
1930s screwball comedies. A classic example of this was found in a 1998 episode, ―Merry
Christmas Mrs. Moskowitz,‖ in which the Crane family pretended to be Jewish on Christmas
Eve in order to fool Frasier‘s girlfriend‘s mother. When Martin worried that he wouldn‘t be able
to pull it off, he was coached by Niles:
MARTIN: I don‘t know how to be Jewish.
NILES: Well, just answer questions with a question.
MARTIN: Like what?
NILES: What, I have to explain everything?
MARTIN: Can‘t you give me an example?
NILES: What, I should give you an example?
MARTIN: Are you going to help me or not?
NILES: You‘re saying I‘m not being helpful?
MARTIN: Oh, forget it! (Abernethy 2003: 1)
Frasier also adhered to a time-honored comic philosophy that closely resembled that of
Jack Benny, in which the protagonist is the exasperated straight man. Frasier Crane, like Benny‘s
on-air alter ego, was vain and self-centered, but somehow likable, probably because he was
forever being hoisted on his own pompous petard. A common gag on Frasier was the call-in
segment of the radio show, which would begin with Frasier‘s placid, self-assured, catch phrase,
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―I‘m listening.‖ The caller (often voiced by an uncredited celebrity, such as Mel Brooks, Art
Garfunkel, or Timothy Leary), then would present Frasier with a problem that was often so
trivial, unsolvable, or downright bizarre that it ultimately would lead to the host‘s undoing. This
comic formula—the deflating of the pompous—permeated the show, as in one episode where
Frasier, hesitant to admit a mistake, told Daphne, ―You don‘t understand. It‘s not the same as
Dad being wrong, or you being wrong. I have a degree from Harvard. Whenever I‘m wrong, the
world makes a little less sense‖ (West 2005: 44).
Just as Cheers had done for Boston, Frasier depicted Seattle as being the collision of two
cultures, with the sophisticated and often pedantic world of Frasier, Niles, Maris, and Gil
conflicting with the earthy and sometimes crude world of Martin, Daphne, Roz, and Bulldog.
Critic Stephen Tropiano described Frasier as ―essentially the story of one man who appreciates
the finer things in life, yet feels trapped in what he regards as an inferior, uncultured, and
unsophisticated world‖ (Tropiano 2003b: 1). Frasier and Niles reveled in their sophistication, and
the show was often lauded as one of the most erudite on television, with frequent references to
classical music, fine wines, literature, and philosophy. An appreciation for life‘s finer things was
never belittled, but the cachet and self-importance often associated with such things nearly
always was. Whenever Frasier or Niles sought out something strictly for its exclusivity—tickets
to a sold-out show, an invitation to a posh dinner party, membership in an elite club—that is
when they met their undoing. A good many of Frasier‘s episodes involved Frasier desperately
seeking something for all the wrong reasons, not getting it, throwing a tantrum, and learning a
lesson.
Martin, the man‘s-man counterpoint to the effete snobbery of Niles and Frasier, was
usually the one who dispensed the lessons. The show often took jabs at Martin‘s blue collar
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sensibilities, as in one episode where Frasier commented that ―by tonight my dad will be safely
back in his beer-stained, flea-infested, duct-taped recliner, adjusting his shorts with one hand and
cheering on Jean-Claude Van Damme with the other‖ (West 2005: 44). Stephen Tropiano wrote
that the episodes pitting Frasier and Martin against one another were ―by far the most
entertaining and touching:‖
Frasier and Martin butt heads over everything from privacy to
restaurants to dad‘s recliner. In ―Give Him the Chair,‖ Frasier
(with a little help from Niles) convinces himself that it would be in
his father‘s best interest to go behind his back to dispose of the
chair. As Niles explains, the chair is like a baby‘s blanket and
―There comes a time when it‘s the healthy thing to do to put these
security objects aside.‖ Frasier‘s scheme not only puts him in the
doghouse, but also, in a truly hilarious scene, his attempt to
retrieve it lands him on stage performing in a high school
production of Ten Little Indians. As always, in the end Frasier
grows a little wiser and closer to his father, who explains his
chair‘s sentimental value: it‘s where he was sitting when he
watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon and heard the news
that he was a grandfather (Tropiano 2003b: 1).
Such personal moments were not only at the heart of the show‘s comic and dramatic
formula, but also its clearest geographic message. The show‘s creators had, of course, worked on
Cheers, which had been created by writers from The Mary Tyler Moore Show. None of these
programs were exterior shows—just as Mary Tyler Moore focused on Mary‘s apartment and the
WJM office, and Cheers spent most of its time in the bar, Frasier‘s universe was restricted
primarily to the radio station, the coffee shop, and Frasier‘s apartment. Because of this, viewers
had to learn most of their geography from the primary characters. So, while Frasier frequently
referenced Seattle‘s obsession with caffeine, its dreary climate, and the woeful fate of its
professional sports franchises, the central geographic message was that the city‘s style and
sophistication, as embodied by Frasier, was superimposed upon a rough-and-tumble working-
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class town, as embodied by Martin. All told, the geography of Frasier was not inappropriate for
a lumber-town-turned-technopole.
According to Frasier‘s creators, the decision to relocate Frasier Crane to Seattle was
consciously geographic, but not one based on the physical or cultural geography of the city. It
was chosen, quite simply, because it was 4,000 miles from Boston. Producer David Lee recalled
that ―the first thing NBC said to us when we pitched the show was, ‗How often will Norm, Cliff,
and Woody stop by?‘ We said never.‖ As it happened, a few members from the Cheers gang did
eventually make it on the show, but Lee and coproducer David Angell were able to limit such
occurrences by their choice of setting. ―We wanted to avoid that constant breathing down our
neck from the network every three weeks to get a Cheers person to stop by,‖ said Angell. ―If we
were in Seattle, it wouldn‘t be as easy for them to get there‖ (Graham 1996: 19-20).
Like its parent program, Frasier aired for eleven years. Only five sitcoms have had
longer runs, and none have aired longer than the remarkable two decades that Kelsey Grammar
played Frasier Crane, a lifespan for a fictional, live-action television character exceeded only by
that of Gunsmoke‘s Matt Dillon. Unlike Cheers, Frasier never made it to the top spot on the
Nielsen charts, but it was ranked in the top thirty each of its eleven seasons, including four years
in the top ten. The show peaked in third place during the 1998-1999 season, and was a force
when it came to industry awards. Frasier won a record-smashing thirty-seven Emmy awards,
including five consecutive wins for Outstanding Comedy Series.
While Frasier is clearly Washington‘s defining television program, the landscape of the
state, in terms of total shows, has not been dominated by comedies. After Frasier‘s 1994 debut,
only two more sitcoms—Dweebs and Romeo!—appeared. They were joined by Washington‘s
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only reality entry in 1998, when the seventh installment of MTV‘s long-running The Real World
checked into a Seattle waterfront apartment. All eighteen of Washington‘s dramatic entries have
debuted since 1990, and they eventually outnumbered the state‘s comic entries by a nearly two-
to-one ratio.
Like its sitcoms, most of Washington‘s dramas have proven to be lemons, including three
short-lived family dramas. Under One Roof, a gritty portrayal of an African-American family
sharing a home in Seattle, aired for a month in 1995. The lighter, but no more successful Cold
Feet, which ran for a month in 1999, was a story of dating, marriage, and parenthood among six
self-absorbed yuppies. Citizen Baines, which aired for six weeks in 2001, was the story of a
divorced U. S. senator who, having lost his bid for a fourth term, returned home to Seattle and
attempted to repair damaged relationships with his three adult daughters.
Although a few lawyers and police officers have passed across Washington‘s television
landscape, the state is almost completely absent of programs entirely devoted to either
profession. The only exception was Traps, the story of a retired homicide detective named Joe
Trapchek who still consulted on some cases, and who occasionally worked with his grandson,
Chris, a rebellious young detective on the Seattle force. Traps was about as successful as most
other conventional Seattle dramas, lasting just a month in 1994.
The third element of television‘s iron triangle of policemen, lawyers, and medical
professionals met a similar fate in Washington during the 1990s. First appearing in 1994, the
syndicated, sex-drenched medical soap opera University Hospital, about four student nurses in
fictional Seaside, Washington, lasted for less than six months. Medicine Ball, which was pulled
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after six weeks, was a similarly soapy tale of a five young medical interns at Seattle‘s fictional
Bayview Medical Center.
Another Seattle-based medical drama, Grey‟s Anatomy, appeared in 2005, and its basic
description read like a photocopy of Medicine Ball—the professional and personal lives of five
young doctors, in this case surgical residents at Seattle Grace Hospital. Proving that the Nielsen
gods are a fairly capricious bunch, however, Grey‟s Anatomy was not just a success, but a smash
hit, checking in at fifth place during its first full season. Like its fast-paced medical counterpart,
ER, everybody yelled and ran around, and medical crises and professional dilemmas abounded.
But while ER had left the impression that Chicago was a frosty warzone where dedicated young
professionals constantly battled their inner demons, Grey‟s Anatomy left the impression that,
after hours, at least, Seattle was a nearly constant bacchanal—something suggested by the
nicknames of two of the handsome male doctors, ―McDreamy‖ and ―McSteamy.‖
That the show‘s two fundamental elements were work and sex was made clear in the
opening credits—a scalpel morphed into a tube of red lipstick, an I.V. bag dripped into a martini
glass—but most critics agreed that the emphasis was on the sex. ―Those people switch partners
more often than square dancers,‖ observed critic Jeff Alexander. ―I started putting together a
little diagram outlining who all has slept with whom, but it quickly started looking like an M. C.
Escher drawing‖ (Alexander 2008: 122-123). Critic Samantha Bornemann agreed that Grey‟s
Anatomy was ―a soap, not a hospital procedural,‖ arguing that this fact was made clear in the
series‘ first two scenes:
The pilot opens with Meredith Grey waking naked but not alone on
the den floor of her mother‘s vacant home. She‘s late for her first
day of work, and she can‘t remember the name of the man who just
woke bare-ass-up beside her. ―Derek,‖ he says, proffering a
handshake and a smile that says he‘s ready for another go.
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―Goodbye, Derek,‖ she grins, rushing off to the shower. Next stop:
Seattle Grace Hospital. Meredith slips in just in time for chief of
surgery Richard Webber‘s dispassionate welcome to the interns.
―The seven years you spend here as a surgical resident will be the
best and worst of your life,‖ he says. ―Look around you. Say hello
to your competition . . . . Eight of you will switch to an easier
specialty. Five of you will crack under the pressure. Two of you
will be asked to leave. This is your starting line. This is your arena.
How well you play. That‘s up to you.‖ Melodramatic? Sure, but in
a rousing, manipulating, on-with-the-show kind of way. This is
television, not a trip to the doctor, after all. Let‘s have some fun.
And Grey‟s Anatomy provides it (so long as you check any real-
life medical knowledge at the door) (Bornemann 2005b: 1).
As odd as it may sound, Grey‟s Anatomy shared a structural similarity with Frasier. As
mentioned, the action on Frasier primarily centered on just three locations. Likewise, the Grey‟s
Anatomy‘s characters would put in their long, arduous hours at Seattle Grace, pop across the
street to the Emerald City Bar for a cocktail, then head off to one bedroom or another. Like ER,
life in the city was manifested by the patients who entered the hospital. Unlike ER, where the
patients‘ stories often drove an episode, on Grey‟s Anatomy, according to Bornemann, the
patients were simply ―wheeled in as excuses to get the leads into the OR or as metaphors for
something Meredith and her newbie cohorts need to learn‖ (Bornemann 2005c: 1). Because of
this, as was the case on Frasier, viewers of Grey‟s Anatomy learned about Seattle primarily from
the action and words of the primary characters. The central geographic message, then, was that
Seattle is populated primarily by good-looking, young, smart, ambitious professionals who were
sexually liberated, and who were always happy to take advantage of that fact.
Another notable trait of Grey‟s Anatomy was its ethnic diversity. This show, wrote critic
Matthew Fogel, ―has differentiated itself by creating a diverse world of doctors—almost half the
cast are men and women of color.‖
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The series creator, Shonda Rhimes, has conceived Seattle Grace as
a frenetic, multicultural hub where racial issues take a back seat to
the more pressing problems of hospital life. . . .As one of
television‘s few black showrunners, [Rhimes] has created a show
around her vision of diversity—one in which color is more
description than definition . . . . Ms. Rhimes has also worked hard
to extend diversity to her show‘s smallest roles. Determined not to
have a program in which ―all the extras are white, except the lone
janitor,‖ she has created one of the most colorful backgrounds in
television, a hospital in which punked-out bike messengers and
suffering Hasidim roam the corridors. ―Shonda's only rule is drug
dealers and pimps cannot be black,‖ said Dr. Zoanne Clack, a
black writer for the show (Fogel 2005: 1).
Although a number of critics praised the show for its diversity, many found fault with its
failure to tackle racial issues on a consistent basis. ―Cultural distinctions still exist, even if we
don‘t feel that there is blatant racism in the workplace the way there once was,‖ said critic
Donald Bogle. ―We don‘t want to see a racial or cultural problem every week, but at some point
if you ignore them it becomes dishonest.‖ Other writers, such as Fogel, found the show‘s
tendency to accept its cultural diversity as fact of life ―defiantly fresh for network television.‖
Whether Grey‟s Anatomy‘s treatment of racial issues was a problem or an asset, it did represent a
marked departure from Chicago‘s ER and Boston‘s St. Elsewhere, where such themes were
examined frequently. This represents an important, albeit subtle, geographic message—that
Seattle is a youthful city with a fresh perspective. ―I‘m in my early 30‘s, and my friends and I
don‘t sit around and discuss race,‖ said Shonda Rhimes. ―We‘re post-civil rights, post-feminist
babies, and we take it for granted we live in a diverse world‖ (Fogel 2005: 1).
Grey‟s Anatomy continued to be produced through 2010, and has been a perennial
Nielsen favorite, making it Washington‘s most durable and popular drama. It was not, however,
representative of the pervasive tone of most of the state‘s other dramatic entries. Few other
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states‘ television landscapes have been so thoroughly dominated by a single genre as has
Washington‘s. Eleven—more than forty percent—of the state‘s entries have been thrillers. With
its large quantity of murder mystery, science fiction, and supernatural genres, Washington‘s
television landscape of the 1990s and 2000s was crowded with corpses, murderers, clairvoyants,
evil twins, eerie small towns, werewolves, space aliens, mysterious amnesiacs, and post-
apocalyptic bicycle messengers.
The first, and most influential of Washington‘s darkly themed dramas was the 1990
murder mystery, Twin Peaks. At first glance, the little mountain town of Twin Peaks was
charming, picturesque, and normal as could be. Its principal industries were timber, controlled by
the Packard Sawmill, and tourism, which focused on the imposing Great Northern lodge that
overlooked majestic White Tail Falls. The town was noteworthy for hosting the Twin Peaks
Passion Play and the Packard Timber Games, having the highest per capita doughnut
consumption in the world, and for producing an undefeated high school football team in 1968.
Local small businesses included Big Ed‘s Gas Farm, a bar called the Roadhouse, Horne‘s
Department Store, and the Double R Diner, which served up some of the world‘s best pie and
coffee. Beneath the picture postcard exterior, however, was what one critic called an ―eddying
pool of sadism, Satanism, pornography and drugs‖ (Lewis and Stempel 1996: 113).
The series began with the murder of Laura Palmer, a beautiful seventeen-year-old prom
queen, whose body was found wrapped in plastic on the shores of Black Lake. The town‘s
solemn sheriff, Harry S. Truman, called in the F. B. I., and Special Agent Dale Cooper was soon
on the scene. Laura had last been seen at One-Eyed Jack‘s, a combination casino-whorehouse-
drug den located just across the Canadian border. Agent Cooper soon discovered that seemingly
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wholesome Laura led a double life, and that this was just one of a twisted maze of dark secrets
that haunted the town.
The primary storyline of the show, however, always took a backseat to style. The
question of who killed Laura Palmer was merely a framing device for what critic Robert J.
Thompson called ―the strangest goings-on ever portrayed on American entertainment television‖
(Thompson 1996: 155). The show‘s trademark was the incongruous coupling of an archetypal
small town with dreamlike photography, a haunting musical score, absurdist dialogue,
melancholy mood, and surreal plot twists. It was The Andy Griffith Show by Samuel Beckett. To
begin, Agent Dale Cooper was not a typical fish-out-water character, but a sort of microcosm of
the town itself. He was ludicrously straight-laced, constantly clad in a Bureau-issue black
business suit, and his greatest lusts seemed to revolve around coffee and pie. His catch phrases,
which became ―virtual mantras‖ among the shows rabid fans, were ―This must be where pies go
when they die,‖ and ―Damn fine coffee. And hot!‖ (Lewis 1996: 113). He was also, like the
town, just plain strange, a mystic whose detecting methods involved meditation and ESP. He
narrated the show with sometimes cryptic messages delivered into a microcassette recorder,
which he always addressed to ―Diane.‖ Over time, the viewer began to wonder whether Diane
was an unseen secretary or, in fact, the name of his tape recorder. Whenever Cooper reached a
dead end in the Laura Palmer case, he was always helped out by his dreams. These provided
mysterious clues via a dancing midget in what appeared to be the garishly decorated waiting
room to Hell. The show‘s other characters were, in the words of Brooks and Marsh ―hardly
relatable, unless you happened to reside in an asylum‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1441). These
included, to name just a few, Benjamin Horne, a local businessman who recreated Civil War
battles in his office; Nadine Hurley, a one-eyed, middle-aged woman who, thinking she was still
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a teenager, became the star of the high school wrestling team; and Dr. Lawrence Jacoby, a
spaced-out hippie and Laura‘s former psychiatrist, who might have been the craziest man in
town. The most memorable of the supporting cast was Margaret Lanterman, better known as the
Log Lady, who never left her house without her beloved Ponderosa pine log, which she spoke to
and carried like a baby. The log, of course, had psychic powers. In the end, the search for
Laura‘s killer led Cooper to Killer Bob, a ―malleable and apparently supernatural entity
inhabiting the deep woods of the Pacific Northwest‖ (Sconce 2010: 1).
While Twin Peaks shocked and fascinated millions of American viewers (initially, at
least), fans of the show‘s cocreator, avant-garde filmmaker David Lynch, could hardly have been
surprised. Lynch had been behind some of the strangest art-house favorites of the late 1970s and
1980s, including Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, and the Oscar-winning The Elephant Man. He was
also the director of 1984‘s Dune, a big-budget, three-hour adaptation of the science fiction novel
by Frank Herbert, which proved to be one of the biggest box office disasters of the year.
Encouraged by Lynch‘s critical esteem, cult following, and partnership with Hill Street Blues
veteran writer Mark Frost, but tempered by the limited appeal of Lynch‘s work, ABC originally
scheduled Twin Peaks for a limited run in in the spring of 1990, ordering a two-hour pilot and
seven additional episodes. Despite this handicap, the show was nominated for fourteen Emmys
that first season. It was also named the year‘s best show by the Television Critic Association, and
took home the esteemed Peabody Award. The pilot was the highest-rated TV movie of the year,
and Time magazine called Twin Peaks ―the most hauntingly original work ever done for
American TV‖ (Thompson 1996: 155).
Twin Peaks‘s success was helped along by a considerable critical buzz that was heard
even before the show premiered. Dale Cooper and his cohort graced scores of magazine covers
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and soon the show developed a fanatical following, and spawned a franchise that included three
books—an Access Guide to Twin Peaks, The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, and The
Autobiography of F. B. I. Special Agent Dale Cooper—an audio recording of Cooper‘s messages
to Diane, and a best-selling soundtrack album. ―Who killed Laura Palmer?‖ became, in the
words of Robert J. Thompson, ―the biggest TV-inspired question since ‗Who Shot J. R.?‘‖
(Thompson 1996: 156).
Surpisingly, the general viewing audience‘s fascination with Twin Peaks faded as quickly
as it had emerged. This decline might have been the result of what television historian Jeffrey
Sconce called ―the series‘ obstinate refusal to move toward a traditional resolution, coupled with
its escalating sense of the bizarre.‖ It might also have been the fault of its network. After the
stunning numbers from the pilot, which had aired on a Sunday night, ABC, in a move reeking of
hubris, moved the show to Thursday nights, opposite Cheers and Beverly Hills 90210. While
critical praise for the show continued to ring loudly, Twin Peaks was pulverized in the ratings.
ABC renewed the show for a second season, but moved it to Saturday night, in vain hopes of
attracting ―the program‘s quality demographics to a night usually abandoned by such audiences‖
(Sconce 2010: 1). It didn‘t work. ABC then shifted the show back to Thursdays, but the results
were even worse. The final episode of Twin Peaks aired in June 1991, fourteen months and just
thirty episodes after its stellar premiere.
The show remained a cult favorite even after its demise. David Lynch released a film
prequel, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, in 1993 to the delight of the television show‘s loyal
fans, who were evidently still talking about the series. Critic David Bianculli wrote that ―never
before, in the history of television, had a program inspired so many millions of people to debate
and analyze it so deeply and excitedly for so long a period‖ (Thompson 1996: 156). Libby
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Gelman-Waxner, one of the few critics who was not a fan of the show, grudgingly acknowledged
its cult following. She wrote that ―every time someone on the screen eats a piece of apple pie,
you can hear a thousand students start typing their doctoral dissertations on ‗Twin Peaks: David
Lynch and the Semiotics of Cobbler‘‖ (Lavery 1995: 14). This program also developed an
international following, particularly in Japan, where the series was once aired, uninterrupted, in
its entirety, and where package travel deals to the show‘s filming locations remain popular.
When the Japanese fans of the show arrived in Washington, they may have noticed a few
errors in the show‘s geography. A shot from the opening credits announced ―Welcome to Twin
Peaks, population 51,201,‖ an inflated number given the apparent size of the town on the show
(its producers later jokingly acknowledged that the sign was an error, stating that the real
population was, in fact, 5,120.1). An even more glaring error was the fictional town‘s location,
said by Agent Cooper to be five miles south of the Canadian border and twelve miles west of the
state line—coordinates at serious odds with the town‘s apparent Cascade Mountains backdrop.
That said, the exteriors on the show were authentic Washington. Much of the filming was done
in Snoqualmie, with Snoqualmie Falls serving as the stand-in for White Tail Falls, and the Salish
Lodge filling in for the Great Northern. The towns of Fall City, North Bend, and Preston also
appeared on the show. The fictional town‘s famous title peaks are located near North Bend, and
belong to Washington‘s Mount Si.
Twin Peaks‘s central geographic theme, other than its moody visual love affair with the
Cascades, was quite simple, and not very different from Grace Metalious‘s view of New England
as reflected in Peyton Place. The defining element of Twin Peaks, in the words of critics Jon E.
Lewis and Penny Stempel, was David Lynch‘s ―fascination with the dark life behind the white
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picket fences of smalltown America‖ (Lewis 1996: 113). This notion was supported by Lynch
himself, who suggested that this look at the world was shaped by experience:
My childhood was elegant homes, tree-lined streets, the milkman,
building backyard forts, droning airplanes, blue skies, picket
fences, green grass, cherry trees. Middle America as it‘s supposed
to be. But on the cherry tree there‘s this pitch oozing out—some
black, some yellow, and millions of red ants crawling all over it. I
discovered that if one looks a little closer at this beautiful world,
there are always red ants underneath. (Lynch 2005: 10-11).
Whether or not Twin Peaks had anything to do with the deluge of darkly themed,
Washington-based thrillers that began to hit the airwaves in the mid-1990s is a matter of
speculation, but its influence was plainly evident in a number of shows set across the country,
including American Gothic, Picket Fences, Northern Exposure, and Push, Nevada. Dale Cooper
also had a kindred spirit in The X-Files‘s Fox Mulder, another seemingly mild-mannered F. B. I.
agent with a penchant for employing unusual methods to investigate strange cases. Although The
X-Files was a D.C.-based show, a number of episodes were set in Washington state and a 1996
spin-off of the show was among the first of the state‘s moody thrillers.
Millennium was the story of Frank Black (an appropriate name given the show‘s bluntly
dark tone), who had moved back to his hometown of Seattle after a decade with the F. B. I.
Frank did freelance work for the local police, helping to solve gruesome local murders, but he
was also part of the secretive Millennium Group, which was preparing for the ultimate battle
between the forces of good and evil that was believed to be coming at the turn of the century.
After two seasons in Seattle, Frank‘s work took him back to Washington, D. C., but there was no
shortage of shadowy thrills in his absence. Another 1996 entry, The Sentinel, was the story of
Jim Ellison, a former army officer who had spent eighteen months in the Peruvian wilderness
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following a helicopter crash. During this time, Jim had developed into what the natives called a
Sentinel—a spirit medium and clairvoyant with superhuman senses of hearing, vision, and
smell—which he put to use as a detective for the Cascade, Washington, police department.
Joined by sidekick Blair Sandburg, a graduate student in anthropology who had been studying
the Sentinel mythology, Jim became a walking crime lab. The crimes in Cascade went on for
three seasons. The less successful but similarly dark thriller Two also appeared in 1996. It was
the story of Gus McClain, an English professor at a college in Seattle, whose life was turned
upside down after the murder of his wife, Sara. As it happened, Gus had an evil twin named
Booth (they had been adopted separately at birth), who was a homicidal maniac. He had
murdered Sara as part of a killing spree and framed Gus for the crime. Gus therefore had to go on
the run, searching for evidence to exonerate himself, all the while harassed by Booth and chased
by a zealous F. B. I. agent named Terry Carter. A twisted twist on The Fugitive, the syndicated
Two couldn‘t live up to its inspiration, lasting just twenty-four episodes.
The mood of Washington-based dramas did not lighten in the 2000s. The supernaturally
themed drama Wolf Lake was the story of a sullen cop named John Kanin, whose girlfriend Ruby
had mysteriously disappeared. John tracked her to the picturesque little town of Wolf Lake,
where nothing was quite as it seemed. The twist was that Ruby, her family, and nearly everyone
else in town were werewolves. CBS pulled the show after five low-rated weeks. These episodes
showed up on UPN the following spring, along with four previously unaired installments. The
similarly unsuccessful Glory Days, which aired for two months in 2002, was something of a
cross between Twin Peaks and Murder, She Wrote. It was the story of washed-up mystery
novelist Mike Dolan, who had recently returned to his picturesque hometown of Glory Island,
Washington. His sister, Sara, who ran the local newspaper, gave Mike a job, and he spent his
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spare time helping Sheriff Rudy Dunlop solve mysterious murders and other strange crimes, of
which little Glory Island seemed to have more than its share.
As mentioned, a number of Washington-based programs, from Here Come the Brides to
Twin Peaks to Wolf Lake, have featured protagonists who were new in town. That theme was
repeated on the thrillers John Doe, The 4400, and Kyle XY. The new wrinkle was that, unlike
previous Washington newcomers, these protagonists had no idea where they had been. That was
the case on 2002‘s John Doe, in which the title character awoke naked on Seattle‘s Horseshoe
Island with no knowledge of who he was. He seemed to know just about everything else,
however, possessing a superhuman intelligence that he soon put to good use. He made a killing
on the stock market and befriended Frank, a Seattle cop, who found John‘s skills useful in
solving crimes. In a cliffhanger season finale, John came close to discovering his true identity,
but FOX left the show‘s few viewers in a lurch by failing to pick up John Doe for a second
season.
A similarly themed sci-fi mystery series, Kyle XY, premiered in 2006 and lasted for three
seasons. It was the story of a young man who was found wandering the streets of Seattle (naked,
of course) with no knowledge of who he was or how he got there. He was taken in by Nicole
Trager, a psychologist, and her husband Stephen, a software developer, who soon discovered that
shy Kyle possessed superhuman physical abilities. Many of the early stories examined everyday
human dramas through Kyle‘s wide eyes, while later shows focused on Kyle‘s search for his true
identity which, as one might expect, led back to a series of shady experiments conducted by a
covert organization.
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The science fiction drama The 4400, which premiered in 2004, upped the ante of
amnesiacs to 4,400. In the pilot episode, a huge glowing sphere quietly deposited the title bunch
in the foothills of Mt. Rainier. Unlike John Doe and Kyle, they knew who they were (and were
fully clothed, for a change), but they did not know how they had gotten there. Eventually, they
discovered that they were all U. F. O. abductees who had disappeared, one by one, over the
previous six decades. None of them had aged, and they did not remember their abductions. The
series, which aired for three seasons, followed this group as they attempted to return to their
lives, all the while searching for truth about their time away. Inevitably the abductees began
developing superhuman powers and a secretive government organization called NTAC (the
National Threat Assessment Command) was charged with controlling them.
Although amnesia was not involved, similar themes could be found in Dark Angel, a
science-fiction series that premiered in 2000 and aired for two seasons. Set in 2019 in post-
apocalyptic Seattle, it was the story of a young woman, Max Guevara. Max was a bicycle
messenger for Jam Pony X-Press and, like so many of her Washington television peers, was also
a genetically enhanced mutant with extraordinary powers. She had escaped from a mysterious
government program, Project Manticore, and Max and was relentlessly pursued by an evil
government agent named Michael Lydecker. Another science-fiction entry, Level 9, cast a
secretive government organization in a positive light for a change. It was the story of Annie
Price, a former F. B. I. agent who had formed the title team of supernerds. Based in Seattle,
Annie and her colleagues used high-tech equipment and computer knowledge to combat all
manner of cybercrime. The ―geeks with guns‖ premise was unique, but it failed to attract an
audience, lasting just three months of the 2000-2001 season (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 784).
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Why should dramas greatly outnumber sitcoms among Washington‘s entries? Perhaps
Seattle‘s reputation for long, dark winters and overcast skies lent a gloomy atmosphere that
drama writers found intriguing, or perhaps these people were influenced by the melancholy
nature of Seattle‘s much-hyped grunge music of the late 1980s and early 1990s. In her review of
Wolf Lake, critic Cynthia Fuchs definitely saw the show‘s dark atmosphere as an extension of the
regional culture. She wrote that ―Wolf Lake is seriously disturbed and disturbing, conjuring up
the visual fragmentation and guitar-driven raging for which its Pacific Northwest setting is,
indeed, rather famous—you know, the home of serial killing, grunge rock, Starbucks‖ (Fuchs
2010c: 1). The nihilistic, melancholic musings of Dark Angel‘s protagonist Max Guevara
appeared to be torn directly from the Seattle grunge rock playbook. In one episode, she said:
They used to say that one nuclear bomb could ruin your whole day.
That was sort of a joke before those terrorist bozos whacked us
with an electromagnetic pulse from eighty miles up. You always
hear people yapping here about how it was all different before the
pulse, the land of milk and honey, blah blah blah blah, with plenty
of food and jobs, things actually worked. I was too young to
remember, so, whatever . . . . America really thought they had it
dialed in, money hangin‘ out the butt. But it was all just a bunch of
ones and zeroes in a computer someplace. So when that bomb went
kablooey and turned all those ones and zeroes into plain old zeroes,
everyone‘s like no way! America‘s just another broke ex-super-
power looking for a handout and wondering why‖ (Fuchs 2010d).
A more immediate explanation for Washington‘s dark television mood was the influence
of Twin Peaks and The X-Files. A number of the later thrillers drew direct comparison to these
two standard bearers. Fuchs wrote that ―it‘s clear that Wolf Lake has visions of Twin Peaks . . .
dancing in its head,‖ adding that the lead character, John Kanin, had ―moments where he sounds
a lot like . . . much-missed Agent Dale Cooper‖ (Fuchs 2010b: 1). Critic Tobias Peterson
observed that although ―the titular character of John Doe may not work for the FBI, his story and
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the rest of the show owe a lot to the marginalized-protagonist-on-a-quest-for-answers model
made popular by The X-Files‘ Fox Mulder‖ (Peterson 2002: 1). As for the show that started it all,
Twin Peaks cocreator David Lynch has suggested that the Washington setting was not incidental,
but chosen for the mood created by the physical landscape of the Cascades. ―Just sort of picture
this kind of darkness,‖ said Lynch, ―and this wind going through the needles of the Douglas firs,
and you start getting a little bit of a mood coming along‖ (Golden 1996: 320).
Still a third explanation for the dark tone of so many Washington entries is simple
economics. Programs from the science fiction, supernatural, and thriller genres often generate an
intensely loyal but rather narrow fan base, a fact exemplified by the mediocre ratings for such
iconic programs as The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, and Twin Peaks. Even the paranormal/sci-fi
juggernaut The X-Files never ranked higher than nineteenth in the Nielsen ratings during its long
run. Increasingly, programs of this nature fill the same niche as shows with predominantly black
casts. Both types of programs, though shunned by the major networks because of their often
limited appeal, are embraced by struggling networks because they can guarantee a dedicated
following. The television landscape of Washington provides a good example. Most of the state‘s
conventional dramas appeared on one of the Big Three networks—Under One Roof, Citizen
Baines, and Traps on CBS, Cold Feet on NBC, and Grey‟s Anatomy on ABC. Nearly all of the
―thriller‖ entries, however, appeared elsewhere. FOX broadcast Millennium, Dark Angel, and
John Doe. Wolf Lake started on CBS, but finished on UPN, which was also the home of Sentinel
and Level 9. Glory Days aired on the WB network, The 4400 on cable‘s USA network, and Kyle
XY on cable‘s ABC Family, while Two was produced for syndication. Only one Washington-
based drama from the thriller category, Twin Peaks, appeared on a Big Three network.
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Because these thriller programs appeared on networks with lower ratings and, therefore,
lower advertising revenues, they were forced to film on tighter budgets. Numerous ways exist to
trim a program‘s production budget, of course, but beginning in the 1990s, one of the most
popular was to head north. By 1996, numerous American film and television companies were
shooting in Canada, taking advantage of both cheap labor and the weak Canadian dollar. That
year, Hollywood ―maquila‖ productions spent $320 million in Canada, accounting for nearly
sixty percent of the entire $542 million Canadian film and television industry. The next year, the
Canadian government introduced the Film or Video Production Services Tax Credit, which
offered companies a tax credit of eleven percent of wages paid to Canadian employees of
productions filmed in the country. By 1998, Hollywood maquila production in Canada had
jumped to $834 million, accounting for seventy percent of the Canadian film and video industry
(McIntosh 2008: 1).
The X-Files was a relatively early arrival in Canada. Filming for the show‘s pilot was
scheduled for March of 1993 and, according to series creator Chris Carter, he had originally
intended to shoot in Los Angeles. Production was shifted to British Columbia, however, because
the episode was set in the wilds of the Pacific Northwest, and Carter wanted to ―go where the
good forests are.‖ Ultimately, the first several seasons of The X-Files were filmed almost
exclusively in the Vancouver area, and Carter and his team were not alone. When The X-Files set
up shop at the studios of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Vancouver, twenty other
American television programs already were shooting in the city. Fifty-one percent of all foreign
productions in Canada are filmed in British Columbia, partly because of the city‘s proximity to
Hollywood and, according to Carter, because Vancouver ―has the advantage of being able to
visually approximate almost any city in North America‖ (Lowry 1995: 17). Of course, the most
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easily approximated area of the United States for a Vancouver production is the Pacific
Northwest. As long as the Canadian film maquiladoras are cost-effective, it is likely that
Washington will be well represented on the American television landscape, particularly in shows
that feature gruesome murders, eerie lights in the night sky, and genetically enhanced humans
running from shadowy government agencies.
IDAHO
Although it avoided the dubious distinction of being the only state not to serve as the
setting for a primetime television program, Idaho‘s lone entry might well deserve an asterisk.
The Manhunter, which aired during the 1974-1975 season, spent much of its run with the lead
character out of the state. Set in the 1930s, it was the story of Dave Barrett, a farmer and former
marine whose friends had been killed by bank robbers. He pursued the culprits, and other
infamous gangsters, around the country, only occasionally returning to visit his family in Idaho.
WYOMING
The geographic message of Wyoming‘s television landscape is thoroughly unambiguous.
Its three successful entries were gimmick-free, straightforward, nineteenth-century westerns
where the motif of a strong, ruggedly independent man taming a wild land was fired right down
the middle of the plate. The Lawman premiered in 1958, and was the story of Marshal Dan Troop
and his deputy, Johnny McKay. In the second season, Lily Merrill was added for a bit of flavor,
but The Lawman was as uncomplicated as a Western could get, with Brooks and Marsh noting
that there were ―no tricks or gimmicks . . . just simple stories of desperadoes brought to justice
by the long, stern arm of the law‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 774). The show was mildly
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successful, peaking in the fifteenth spot in the Nielsen ratings during its second season, and
charting in the top thirty for the first three of its four seasons.
Wyoming‘s second entry, Laramie, arrived in 1959 and was similarly straightforward.
Set in the 1870s, Laramie told about the young Sherman brothers, who had been running the
family‘s struggling ranch since their father had been shot and killed by a land-grabber. Laramie‟s
Sherman brothers were joined by Jonesy, an old family friend, and Jess, a drifter who the boys
persuaded to help run the ranch. When the actor playing the younger Sherman brother left the
series, he was replaced by Mike Williams, a young man who had been orphaned in an Indian
raid. The Sherman Ranch raised cattle and served as a way station on the stagecoach line out of
Laramie, which permitted more than a few outlaws and distressed travellers to pass through the
series. The sheriff of Laramie eventually became a regular, as did Daisy Cooper, who arrived to
serve as a housekeeper and stand-in mom for the boys. While never a hit, Laramie had a
respectable run, ending after four seasons in 1963.
The sorts of characteristics that viewers expected of a 1960s television western hero were
clearly indicated in the creative history of Wyoming‘s most successful series. By 1946, the
classic 1902 Owen Wister novel, The Virginian, had been adapted for the big screen four times.
The first, in 1914, was directed by D. W. Griffith, and the last two featured the likes of Gary
Cooper and Joel McCrea in the lead roles. An attempt to bring the story to the small screen in the
late 1950s, however, was a flop. Brooks and Marsh note that the initial pilot portrayed the title
character as ―a Western dandy replete with shiny hunting boots, skintight pants, lace cuffs, and a
tiny pistol‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2001: 1,473). The series did not test well, and was not picked up.
A second attempt, in 1962, was made without the preening and dandyish affectations, and this
second Virginian became a classic. This time around the title character was gritty, brusque,
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enigmatic, and nameless, and kept the peace on the Shiloh Ranch in the 1890s. This spread had a
succession of owners, but the one constant was the Virginian‘s sidekick, Trampas, a rowdy
young ranch hand. A literate, gimmick-free program, The Virginian was a part of the adult
western movement that had also given rise to Gunsmoke and Bonanza. The ninety-minute
program was Wyoming‘s longest-running entry, and a staple of NBC‘s Wednesday night line-up
for nine years. It charted in the Nielsen top thirty during its first seven seasons, peaking in the
tenth spot during its fifth year.
Just as The Virginian exemplified what made a western successful, Wyoming‘s final
entry exemplified what could kill one. The Monroes, which was filmed on location in the Grand
Teton National Park, told the story of six orphaned children struggling to make a living in the
rugged 1870s. The parents of the title orphans, who ranged in age from six to eighteen, had
drowned en route to their new ranch. The kids‘ chief ally was a renegade Indian named Dirty
Jim, while their chief adversary was Major Mapoy, an evil English cattle baron who was trying
to steal their land. Lacking a conventionally rugged, masculine lead, this Western never caught
on, and was cancelled after running the 1966-1967 season.
UTAH
Utah has served as the backdrop for three television programs. Just one of them lasted
more than a year, but the state does have the distinction of having all of its programs filmed on
location. Television came to Utah, quite literally, with Donny & Marie, a squeaky-clean variety
show featuring the title brother-and-sister duo and, at one point, twenty-six other members of the
Osmond family. The Osmonds had been mainstays of the variety show circuit for years, and their
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own show debuted from Hollywood in January 1976. It was a minor hit, checking in at twenty-
sixth on the Nielsen charts during the 1975-1976 season, but the Osmonds were homesick, and in
1977 moved the show to their hometown of Orem, Utah. To accommodate production, the
Osmonds built a $2.5 million studio facility and the show actually became more lavish than it
had been in California. It remained, however, an odd mixture of Hollywood schmaltz and
wholesome family entertainment. The first Orem broadcast, for example, found room for both
the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and bawdy comedian Paul Lynde. In the end, the show never
drew huge audiences, and production ended in May of 1979. It remains, however, the defining
television image for Utah, with the good-natured, toothy-grinned, teeny-bopping Osmonds
leaving an impression distinctly different from the state‘s rough-and-tumble, cow-punching
neighbors. And Orem has not been entirely shorn of its celebrity status, as the old Donny &
Marie production facility now serves as a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center catering, in part,
to Hollywood stars.
Utah returned to television for a pair of short-lived entries in the 1990s. The title of The
Boys of Twilight was a double entendre (a clean one), referring both to the show‘s setting and the
age of its two stars, Hollywood veterans Richard Farnsworth and Wilford Brimley. They played
Cody McPherson and Bill Huntoon, a long-tenured sheriff and his chief deputy, in the quiet
mountain town of Twilight. A contemporary cop show with Old West elements, the program‘s
running theme was conflict between the town‘s long-time residents and jet-setting city slickers
who were trying to turn Twilight into a playground for the wealthy. Ratings for the show were
dismal, and CBS pulled the plug after four weeks in 1992. With age and wisdom having failed in
Utah, ABC returned in 1995 with youth and beauty. Extreme, which ran for seven weeks in
1995, focused on Reese Wheeler, the leader of the courageous Steep Mountain Rescue Group of
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Park City. This show was essentially a high-altitude version of Baywatch, with most of the
episodes focusing on daring rescues and the romantic entanglements of the handsome young
crew. Extreme did have one thing in common with The Boys of Twilight. The chief recurring
villain on the show, as is often the case on contemporary westerns, was a conniving developer
bent on destroying Utah‘s unspoiled beauty.
NEW MEXICO
Of the eleven programs representing New Mexico, six were set in the days of the Old
West. Some offered twists on the familiar formula, but, in general, they stuck with the central
theme of a righteous man standing up to injustice on a wild and harsh frontier. Of the state‘s five
contemporary entries, four had a distinctly western flavor, while a fifth took advantage of the
state‘s reputation for being a favorite destination for extraterrestrials.
The state‘s first entry was also its most successful, and by a wide margin. Entering the
television landscape with a tidal wave of westerns in 1958, The Rifleman was the story of
homesteader and crack shot Lucas McCann, a widower who lived with his son on a struggling
ranch near North Fork in the 1880s. North Fork was plagued, as might be expected, by outlaws,
and the town marshal often called on Lucas and his modified Winchester rifle to help out when
things got dicey. The Rifleman entered the television schedule like a shot, ranking fourth on the
Nielsen charts in its first year. It maintained respectable numbers for three more seasons, but
gradually sank down the charts and into oblivion after its sixth and final year, the 1962-1963
season. It remains the longest-running show set in New Mexico, and the only one to break into
the Nielsen top thirty.
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Four more New Mexico-based traditional Westerns appeared during The Rifleman‘s run,
but none were especially successful. Black Saddle and Law of the Plainsman premiered in 1959,
but both were off the air in 1960. Set in the territorial days shortly after the Civil War, Black
Saddle concerned a former gunfighter who was trying to stay on the right side of the law. To that
end, he became an attorney, slung law books over his saddle, and roamed about the territory
helping those in need. Law of the Plainsman, a Rifleman spin-off, told the story of Deputy U. S.
Marshal Sam Buckhart. The twist here was that Sam was an Apache who had gone off to
Harvard, where he acquired a ―tremendous respect for the white man‘s laws and the U. S.
Constitution‖ (Brooks and Marsh, 2007: 773). Returning to the wild territory of his birth, Sam
attempted to balance his desire to help his fellow Native Americans with his duties as a lawman.
The Tall Man, which debuted in 1960 and aired for two years, was a fictionalized account
of two very real western characters. Sheriff Pat Garrett, whose fairness and integrity had earned
him the title nickname, was struggling to maintain law and order in 1870s New Mexico. His best
friend was a troubled young gunfighter named William H. ―Billy the Kid‖ Bonney. Although
their respective career paths occasionally put them at odds, they remained close friends, and
Billy often helped out Pat when he knew it was the right thing to do. That show was followed in
1961 by a paint-by-numbers western called Gunslinger, which aired for seven months. Also set
in 1870s, it chronicled the efforts of the title hero to maintain the peace from his base in Fort
Scott. The last New Mexico entry with an Old West flavor was the teenage western The
Cowboys, another show set in the 1870s. Airing for just under six months in 1974, it chronicled
the efforts of seven young men to help a widow run a ranch.
New Mexico‘s first program with a contemporary setting was also its only sitcom.
Guestward Ho!, which premiered in 1960 and lasted for one year, was a fish-out-water story
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with a western flavor. It seemed that the Hooten family, fed up with life in New York City,
decided to buy the title New Mexico dude ranch, sight unseen. The ranch turned out to be, as
might be expected, a complete wreck, and the show chronicled their attempts at rehabilitatation
and adjustment to life out west. A memorable supporting character from the series was Hawkeye,
who owned the only store near the ranch. A Native American, Hawkeye was considerably less
menacing and much less earnest than most of his television counterparts. An indigenous Ernie
Bilko, Hawkeye read the Wall Street Journal, sold ―authentic‖ Indian knickknacks that had been
made in Japan, and was willing to do almost anything to make a quick buck. Still, unlike many
of television‘s other ―civilized‖ Indians, Hawkeye was more than a little dubious about the white
man‘s presence in New Mexico. In the words of one critic, he was ―bound and determined to
find a way to return the country to its rightful owners, his people‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007:
568).
Another contemporary entry, Empire, aired for two seasons beginning in 1962. Its main
character was Jim Redigo, foreman of the half-million acre Garret Ranch, which was a sort of
updated version of Bonanza‘s Ponderosa. In addition to managing the ranch‘s vast livestock,
crop, mining, oil, and timber interests, Redigo seemingly served as the area‘s lone representative
for truth and justice, making him a kindred spirit to many other highly principled loners on
television‘s westerns. On one episode, for example, Redigo stood up for a ranch hand who had
been falsely accused of murder. When the jury returned an unpopular verdict of not guilty,
businessmen cancelled contracts with the Garret Ranch, and all of the other employees
threatened to walk out rather than work with a murderer. Redigo stuck to his guns, however, and
offered his resignation, saying that ―integrity and principles fall in the category of luxury items.
If you can‘t afford them yourself, don‘t expect anyone else to foot the bill‖ (Lichter, Lichter, and
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Rothman 1991: 119). Eventually the supposed murderer was exonerated, life returned to normal,
and Redigo held no grudges against those who had challenged him. Such actions suggested that,
unlike the contemporary Colorado of Dynasty or Texas of Dallas, the values of the Old West still
mattered in New Mexico.
Empire was followed in 1971 by The Man and the City. Filmed on location in
Albuquerque, the show aired for a season and a half, and was New Mexico‘s first entry with a
modern urban setting. It was also one of the first television dramas to feature a Mexican-
American lead actor and protagonist, with Anthony Quinn playing Mayor Thomas Jefferson
Alcala. In the words of one critic, ―Anthony Quinn played Alcala as a kind of Zorba the
Hispanic, exuding charismatic vitality from every pore as he rushed around governing and
empathizing‖ (Lichter, Lichter, and Rothman 1991: 239). Much like Empire, this political drama
infused Old West ideals into its contemporary setting, featuring a character whose sense of moral
righteousness was not far removed from that of Empire‘s Jim Redigo or, for that matter,
Gunsmoke‘s Matt Dillon or Bonanza‘s Ben Cartwright. This meant that Mayor Alcala often
found himself fighting lonely crusades. On one 1971 episode, a police officer was shot and killed
in a predominantly Hispanic section of the city. Subsequently, Alcala discovered that the police
were holding suspects, most of them Hispanic and without any demonstrable connection to the
shooting, without charge or the aid of legal counsel. Our hero immediately ordered their release,
angrily reprimanding his police chief, Wheeler, with the line, ―You can‘t suspend the law . . . . In
my city we go by the rules.‖ Chief Wheeler then ordered a curfew for the barrio, prompting the
following exchange:
ALCALA: Doesn‘t the curfew restrain freedom?
WHEELER: It‘s good for the community.
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ALCALA: Do they willingly give up the freedom and really have a
choice?
WHEELER: The curfew is inconvenient but necessary.
ALCALA: Isn‘t law and order without justice meaningless? (Lichter,
Lichter, and Rothman 1991: 264).
In the end, Alcala himself helped track down the cop killer. As had been the case with Jim
Redigo a decade earlier, Tom Alcala was vindicated, justice was served, and New Mexico‘s Old
West virtues survived.
Also filmed on location in Albuquerque, the 1974 action series Nakia was a modern-day
version of Law of the Plainsman. This show focused on Nakia Parker, who was trying to
reconcile his responsibilities as a deputy sheriff with loyalty to his fellow Native Americans.
That dilemma often arose, of course, as he dealt with scheming white politicians and frequent
violence on the reservation. As was the case with Law of the Plainsman, the show failed to catch
on with viewers. It was cancelled after three months, and marked, at least for now, the end of the
New Mexico western.
Nearly a quarter century passed before New Mexico reemerged on American television.
The new entry, Roswell, which debuted in 1999, was quite different in tone from the state‘s
western-flavored entries. It mixed the science fiction and government-conspiracy elements of
The X-Files with the teen soap of shows such as Dawson‟s Creek. The protagonists were three
teenage aliens—Max, Isabel, and Michael—who had been abandoned on earth in 1959. They had
remained in incubation for three decades, emerging as seemingly normal, six-year-old earthlings
in 1989. Mixed in with the usual youth-soap elements of identity crises, love triangles, and
familial conflicts were the teens‘ search for truth. They tried to discover why they had been left
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on earth, all the time dodging evil alien bounty hunters and shadowy government figures bent on
tracking them down.
Roswell appeared on the lowly WB network before moving to the even lowlier UPN, so it
never garnered big ratings. It did, nevertheless, remain on the air for three seasons, the first New
Mexico-based program to do so since The Rifleman. Roswell, an actual city of about 40,000 in
the southeastern part of the state, was made famous by a series of UFO sightings in 1947. These
sightings, and the supposed crash of an alien craft, have made the area a favorite with UFO
enthusiasts.
ARIZONA
Eleven of Arizona‘s twenty-three entries were set in the Old West, and the western genre
dominated the state‘s television landscape during the 1950s and 1960s. Another two programs
were contemporary spins on the western, including the state‘s first entry, Sky King, which
debuted in 1953 and aired for one season. The title hero, who apparently had no other name, was
a rancher who opted for a twin-engine Cessna instead of a horse to have adventures, solve crises,
and fight the bad guys. Arizona‘s second modern-day Western was the syndicated program The
Sheriff of Cochise, which produced 156 episodes from 1956 to 1960. This program bore a strong
resemblance to its syndicated contemporary, Highway Patrol, a straightforward mixture of car
chases and brawls with criminals. The hero was blunt tough guy Frank Morgan, sheriff of the
title (and actual) county in southeastern Arizona. Not enough crime existed in and around
Bisbee, however, so in 1958 Morgan became a U. S. Marshal, allowing him to chase criminals
all over the state.
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The first of Arizona‘s Old West entries was The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, which
premiered in 1954. The setting was the real Fort Apache, Arizona, near the fictional town of
Mesa Grande. Its two primary characters were a young orphan named Rusty, whose parents had
been killed in an Indian raid, and his faithful German shepherd. The two had been taken in by
soldiers at the fort, and their adventures revolved around attempts to maintain law and order in
the wild territory. The title pooch was first seen on film in the 1920s, and was heard on
occasional radio serials from 1930 to 1955. The television version ran five seasons and was the
first Arizona program to break into the Nielsen top thirty, checking in at the twenty-third position
during its first year on the air. Unlike Lassie, its more peaceful counterpart, Rin Tin Tin was full
of violent action, including gun battles with outlaws, raging rivers, and ravenous wolves. The
most common threat, and the most perilous, were the Apaches, generally depicted here as
primitive, bloodthirsty savages.
Broken Arrow, which premiered in 1956 and aired for two seasons, took a markedly
different view of Native Americans. The protagonist was army officer Tom Jeffords, who was
charged with keeping the peace in the Apache country of Arizona, and who had adopted the
―novel approach of making friends with the Indians instead of shooting at them‖ (Brooks and
Marsh 2007: 186). Jeffords was soon welcomed into the native community, and became blood
brother to the Apache Chief, Cochise. They then worked together to combat renegade Indians
and treacherous white men alike.
Seventy-eight episodes of the syndicated series 26 Men were produced from 1957 to
1959. Although it was a fairly standard action series, the show possessed some measure of
authenticity. It was filmed on location in Arizona, and residents of Tucson and Phoenix appeared
in small roles. It was also inspired by real events, chronicling the adventures of a twenty-six man
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militia that had been recruited in 1901 to establish law and order on the frontier. Years later, one
of the members of this force recounted that ―the reason there was only twenty-six of us was
because the Territory couldn‘t afford no more‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,438). Another set of
heroes tried to tame the Wild West in Tombstone Territory, which aired intermittently from 1957
to 1959. They were lawman Clay Hollister and crusading newspaper editor Harris Claiborne, and
the show was set, as its title suggests, in Tombstone, ―the town too tough to die‖ (Brooks and
Marsh 2007: 1,402).
Even after Tombstone Territory left the air, the town hung around. Having spent the
previous four seasons in Dodge City, Kansas, the title lawman of The Life and Legend of Wyatt
Earp moved to Arizona at the start of the 1959-1960 season. Once in Tombstone, Earp
encountered Old Man Clanton, a local strongman who had built an empire bilking money from
townspeople and running guns across the Mexican border. Clanton had the town sheriff in his
pocket, and a gang of gun-slinging thugs to enforce his will. Earp took on the whole gang.
Adding a feminine touch was Nellie Cashman, who, as was apparently required in television
westerns, operated the local saloon, the Birdcage. Wyatt Earp aired for two seasons after its
move to Arizona, with the final five episodes leading up to the famous gun battle at the O. K.
Corral.
Like its counterpart, Gunsmoke, Wyatt Earp signaled a shift in the Western genre toward
more complex characters and themes, and, theoretically at least, a more realistic depiction of the
West. That shift was certainly evident in Arizona‘s next four entries. Johnny Ringo, which aired
during the 1959-1960 season, was set in Velardi, and was based, albeit very loosely, on an actual
outlaw-turned-lawman. The Deputy was set in Silver City during the 1880s, with the title
character being a young shopkeeper named Clay McCord. Clay was a crack shot, but he
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abhorred violence, and avoided using gunplay whenever possible. He was, nevertheless, often
called to service, as the town‘s aging U. S. Marshal, Herk Lamson, had trouble upholding the
law on his own. The Deputy premiered in 1959 and aired for two seasons, helped along by the
star power of Henry Fonda, who served as narrator, and who occasionally appeared as Chief
Marshal Simon Fry. Common themes included the conflict between the pacifist Clay and the
more aggressive Fry, who believed that violence was an unfortunate necessity in the fight for
order. The Deputy also highlighted conflicts between the town‘s younger and older generations,
who had different perspectives on Silver City‘s future development.
The two Arizona Westerns that appeared in 1967 were similarly complex. Based on a
Louis L‘Amour story and the 1953 John Wayne movie of the same name, Hondo, which aired
for four months, was the story of Hondo Lane, a former Confederate captain turned cavalry
officer. He served at Fort Lowell in the 1870s. While all the usual western elements were there—
corrupt land barons, outlaws, and treacherous Indians—Hondo was not the typical strong-armed
and straight-laced western hero. Having witnessed the death of his Apache bride in an army
massacre, Hondo had become a bitter loner, joining the cavalry with the aim of preventing
further violence. The High Chaparral, which aired for four seasons, was set on the title ranch in
1870s Arizona. The spread was owned and operated by the Cannon brothers, who were a study
in contrasts. John, the older, was stolid, industrious, and ambitious, determined to carve an
empire out the wild landscape. His brother Buck was an easygoing hell-raiser, who could
―outdrink, outshoot, outfight, and when properly motivated outwork any man alive‖ (Brooks and
Marsh 2007: 610). Threats came from natural disasters, outlaws, cattle rustlers, and Native
Americans, but High Chaparral was not a typical shoot-‗em-up Western. Like Bonanza, it was
what some critics called a ―saddle soap,‖ focusing as much on interpersonal relationships as it
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did on adventure. What made The High Chaparral even more distinctive is its handling of ethnic
issues. Although it was set in what one critic called ―Indian-infested‖ Arizona (John Cannon‘s
first wife was, in fact, killed by Apaches in the pilot episode), High Chaparral generally adopted
a sympathetic view of Native Americans (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 610). It was also one of the
first television Westerns to feature Hispanic characters in significant, recurring roles. John‘s
second wife was Victoria Montoya, daughter and heiress of cattle baron Don Sebastian Montoya,
and the relationship between the two families was used as a vehicle for examining cultural
differences and conflicts between Americans and Mexicans.
Television‘s fascination with the traditional western began to wane considerably in the
1970s, and that is reflected in Arizona‘s entries. Just two Westerns followed The High
Chaparral, both featuring James Garner, and neither especially successful. The nature of
Garner‘s characters in these series, and their poor performance, suggests much about what
viewers look for in a western television hero. The title of 1971‘s Nichols referred to both its
setting—fictional Nichols, Arizona, in 1914—and its lead character, who was never given a first
name. Having retired after eighteen years in the Army, Nichols returned to the small town that
had been founded by his family. Nichols (the town) was in the grip of Ma Ketcham, head of a
formidable and greedy clan, and she soon had Nichols (the man) in her grip as well. She coerced
him into serving as the town sheriff so that she could keep him in view. That he was likely to be
shot dead in the process was an added bonus, and in the season finale Nichols was, indeed,
gunned down. Nichols had not been a conventional western hero. He abhorred violence, refused
to carry a gun, and spent most of his time cooking up various money-making schemes. After his
untimely demise, an identical twin brother (also played by Garner) rode into town to avenge the
death. This represented a last-ditch effort to salvage the show. ―By replacing the avaricious
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Nichols with his stronger, more traditionally heroic twin brother,‖ wrote Brooks and Marsh, ―it
was felt that next season‘s program would be more successful‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 984).
Whether or not it would have worked will never be known, as NBC chose not to renew the show.
A decade later, James Garner returned in Arizona‘s final Western to date, Bret Maverick.
Set in the 1880s in the town of Sweetwater, this program was an update of Maverick, the popular
satirical western that ran from 1957 to 1962. In the earlier version, Garner‘s Bret Maverick had
been a breezy, wisecracking cardsharp who roamed the frontier looking for poker games and
getting into scrapes in rough little western towns with names like Apocalypse and Oblivion. In
the 1981 version, both the lead character and the setting were more polished. Bret had now
settled down on his own ranch, and was part owner of a saloon. The town was working to ―shed
its untamed rural western image‖ and Bret Maverick had become a ―solid citizen‖ (Brooks and
Marsh 2007: 181). Perhaps he was a little too solid. Viewers failed to warm to this new, more
reputable Maverick, and the show was cancelled after one season. If these two failed Garner
entries are any indication, viewers want their western heroes to be respectable, unlike Nichols,
but not too respectable, like the new Bret Maverick.
Arizona‘s first sitcom was an attempt to put old wine in new bottles. In the fall of 1971,
five years after The Dick Van Dyke Show left the air, Rob and Laura Petry experienced
something of a reunion on CBS‘s Saturday night line-up. The New Dick Van Dyke Show shared
the 9:00 Eastern hour with The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and followed a blueprint remarkably
similar to Mary‘s in Minneapolis. Filmed on location in Carefree, Arizona, Van Dyke‘s character
was Dick Preston, host of a local talk show on a Phoenix television station, and the action
chronicled both station and home life. Despite its plum time slot, wedged among All in the
Family, Funny Face, and Mary Tyler Moore (all top ten shows), Van Dyke‘s program garnered a
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tepid reception, placing eighteenth. The show was moved to Sunday nights for its second season
opposite NBC‘s popular rotating selection of Columbo, McCloud, and McMillan and Wife. Its
ratings plummeted and so the setting of the show (and its production) limped west to Hollywood
where it remained on the air for one more year.
Arizona‘s second sitcom was far more successful. Based on the 1974 film Alice Doesn‟t
Live Here Anymore, television‘s Alice debuted in 1976, and placed a respectable thirtieth in the
Nielsen ratings. It rose to eighth place during its second season and continued to thrive for the
next four years, peaking in the fourth position during the 1979-1980 season. The title character
was Alice Hyatt, a widowed mother who left her native New Jersey to pursue a singing career in
Hollywood. Fate intervened, however, when her Buick broke down in Phoenix. Alice and her
twelve-year-old son, Tommy, got an apartment and took a temporary job at Mel‘s Diner.
Although the show did occasionally tackle serious, contemporary issues such as sexuality and
substance abuse, the people who populated the Phoenix of Alice were every bit as traditional and
down-to-earth as the characters seen on any western. Alice‘s coworkers included Vera, a shy,
naïve, and somewhat slow-witted waitress, and Flo, a salty and opinionated, but ultimately
warmhearted Texan whose catchphrase was ―kiss my grits‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 31). The
diner was owned by Mel Sharples who, despite a crotchety attitude, did a booming business
largely because he made a spectacular pot of chili.
The premise of Alice—a single woman reinventing her life in a new city—invites
comparison to The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and, consequently, comparison of Alice Hyatt‘s
Phoenix to Mary Richards‘s Minneapolis. With its greasy-spoon atmosphere, Alice‘s Phoenix
certainly is not as urbane as Mary Richards‘s Minneapolis. More important, whereas Mary went
to Minneapolis by choice, making it the city of opportunity, Alice wound up in Phoenix by
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accident, making it the city of inopportune circumstance. Nevertheless, Alice was not really a
disparaging portrait of the local inhabitants. Mel‘s Diner was, in the glowing words of one critic,
a place where ―love, comfort, down-to-earth wisdom, and good humor are always on the menu,‖
and Phoenix surely cannot be held in too-low regard if someone whose car breaks down there
decides to stick around for nine years (West 2005: 73). The fresh start that Phoenix provided
Alice was evident in the show‘s opening theme song, ―There‘s a New Girl in Town,‖ which was
every bit as buoyantly optimistic as Mary Tyler Moore‘s ―Love is All Around,‖ containing the
lines:
There‘s a new girl in town ‗cause I'm feelin‘ good. Get a smile, get
a song, for the neighborhood. There‘s a new girl in town on her
own two feet, and this girl‘s here to say, ―with some luck and love,
life‘s gonna be so sweet!‖ (Warner Home Video, 2006).
Alice ended its nine-year run in 1985, one of the most durable sitcoms in television
history. It was also Arizona‘s longest-running entry by a wide margin, and something of a
geographic anomaly. In the two decades following the departure of Alice, just six Arizona-based
programs found their way to television. This is a surprisingly low number given the state‘s
proximity to the television production center of Los Angeles and the ease of recreating an
Arizona setting in southern California. The lack of programming is even more surprising in light
of the impressive population growth of the state, nearly 400% from 1960 to 2000. It seems
unlikely that so many Americans would have moved to the state if they didn‘t find it at least a
little bit interesting.
Still, Arizona‘s post-Alice television landscape remained relatively sparse. Only two such
programs made their debuts in the 1980s. Coming of Age was the story of a sixty-year-old
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commercial pilot named Dick Hale, who had been forced into early retirement by his airline. He
moved to a retirement community called the Dunes, and while his wife Ginny exuded an Alice
Hyatt-like enthusiasm for her new home, grouchy Dick detested the place. He spent most of his
time grousing about retirement, the Arizona climate, and his fellow residents. Although the show
was given three different chances from March 1988 to July 1989, none of those runs lasted more
than a month. Arizona‘s other 1980s comedy, Hey Dude, was a bright sitcom about the young
staff of a dude ranch. Filmed in Tucson, the program premiered in 1989 on the youth-oriented
Nickelodeon cable network. It lasted just two years, but that was good enough to make it the
longest-running, Arizona-based program to appear between 1985 and 2005. That the state‘s only
successful program for two decades was a safe throwback to the western genre suggests that
television producers and audiences are perhaps not yet sure what to make of contemporary
Arizona.
The possibility also exists that Americans today do know what to make of Arizona, and
that what they make of it is not very positive. On the first episode of the California-based sitcom
Arrested Development, the main character, Michael Bluth, who was the only smart, responsible
adult member of an otherwise slothful and dim-witted upper-class family, threatened to leave
them and take a job in Phoenix. Upon his exit, he told his family, ―I‘ll see you when the first
parent dies,‖ to which his mother, Lucille, responded, ―Well, I‘d rather be dead in California than
alive in Arizona‖ (20th Century Fox: 2004).
Given Arizona‘s recent television landscape, Lucille Bluth might not be alone in her
convictions. The state has had its fair share of image problems. In 1986, Arizona Governor Evan
Mecham chose to ignore the newly minted federal holiday memorializing Dr. Martin Luther
King. In 1990, Arizona voters narrowly sustained that position in a referendum, precipitating an
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intense backlash. Organizations refused to hold conventions in Phoenix, top entertainment acts
vowed not to perform in the state, and the National Football League moved Super Bowl XXVII,
scheduled to be played in Tempe, to Pasadena, California. ―For years Arizona has suffered from
an image of being a center of right-wing extremism and fast-buck operators,‖ wrote Robert
Reinhold of the New York Times. ―Once again Arizona has been plunged into political and racial
turmoil, its leaders forced to protest that the state is not as narrow-minded and backward as it
might seem to some outsiders‖ (Reinhold 1990: 1).
Twenty years later, Arizona was back in an unwanted spotlight. When President Barack
Obama spoke at the Phoenix Convention Center, he was greeted by a dozen armed protestors,
including one who gave interviews to the press with an AR-15 assault rifle strapped to his back.
It was a publicity stunt carried out by progun activists, intended to highlight the state‘s very
permissive gun laws, but the brazen display stunned many across the nation. ―It is hard to know
what is more shocking,‖ wrote the New York Times, ―the sight of a dozen Americans showing up
to flaunt guns outside the venue for President Obama‘s speech in Phoenix on Monday, or the fact
that the swaggering display was completely legal‖ (Wong 2009: 1). Arizona‘s image took
another hit the following spring when the state legislature passed Senate Bill 1070, creating the
most far-reaching immigration control measures in the country. Saturday Night Live said of
Arizona, ―It‘s a dry fascism;‖ TV humorist Jon Stewart referred to the state as ―the meth lab of
democracy;‖ and a parody of an Arizona tourism commercial by Chicago‘s Second City comedy
troupe became an internet classic. The skit featured a Latino man gushing about the wonders of
Arizona. That is, until he heard police sirens in the background, after which he fled the scene.
The tag line of the video was ―Arizona. Come for the barren desert wasteland, stay for the
hospitality‖ (Rose 2010: 1).
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Whether or not Arizona‘s image problems have had an impact on the state‘s television
geography is anyone‘s guess, but it is notable that, following the state‘s referendum upholding
the Martin Luther King Day boycott, no new Arizona-based programs debuted for more than a
decade. And when Arizona did return in the 2000s, it did so with a string of programs that cast
the state in a less-than-positive light. That was especially true of Manhattan, AZ, which aired for
two months in the summer of 2000. It was the story of Daniel Henderson, a former Los Angeles
vice cop who had left the force after his wife, a Greenpeace activist, died while attempting to
rescue a dolphin from Japanese fishermen. The off-kilter tone of the show was set at her funeral
when, in place of a casket, several cases of recalled tuna were lowered into a grave. Heartbroken,
Daniel and his twelve-year-old son, Atticus Finch Henderson, relocated to Manhattan, Arizona,
where Daniel took a job as sheriff.
Manhattan was named for, and essentially owned by, Mayor Jake Manhattan, an aging
former television star who seemed oblivious to the fact that nobody remembered him. Jake had
conned Daniel into the move with promises of a luxury home, a world-class golf course, and
Arizona‘s largest man-made lake. It turned out, however, that Manhattan was a hot, filthy, barren
little town, where the sheriff‘s office and civic center were located in an old gas station.
Buzzards circled overhead. There was no lake, no golf course, and Daniel‘s luxury home turned
out to be a pile of lumber. Daniel made the best of it, though, parking a Winnebago next to the
lumber pile and starting a new life among the town‘s bizarre residents. His neighbors, the
Gundersons, were an aging couple who lived in a bomb shelter stocked with hand grenades and
assault rifles. The Gundersons wiled away the empty hours having sex atop their Humvee near
Area 61, a secret air force base where government scientists conducted shadowy experiments.
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Daniel‘s first case involved finding out who was responsible for secretly removing the right rear
legs of all the town‘s pets. By comparison, Mel‘s Diner seemed downright genteel.
The wave of reality programs that hit television in the 2000s rippled through Arizona,
and while these shows did cast Arizona in a much more urbane light, they did not do much for
Arizona‘s self-image. One was the relatively benign, if somewhat materialistic, House Wars. It
featured four families rushing to finish the interiors of newly constructed Phoenix houses, with
the winners getting to keep the home. The show ran in the fall of 2003, and was essentially an
eight-week commercial for Home Depot, the hardware chain that sponsored the programs and
supplied the contestants‘ building materials. Another reality entry, the documentary series State
V., aired for five weeks in 2002. If some Arizonans were concerned about Phoenix‘s violent
reputation, they were evidently not members of the state‘s Supreme Court, which granted special
permission for ABC‘s cameras to follow court cases in Maricopa County. Each of these involved
murder, and episodes included preparations by prosecuting and defense attorneys, conferences
with the accused, the trial itself, and even jury deliberations.
If a painstaking examination of homicides did not paint an adequately unappealing
portrait of contemporary Arizona, then Tuesday Night Book Club, a Scottsdale-based reality
series that premiered in 2006, certainly picked up the slack. This show followed seven women
who met weekly, even though none of them, according to Brooks and Marsh, ―seemed
particularly interested in reading‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,429). The women—all white,
wealthy, and dissatisfied with their lives—were each assigned a title. There was the ―trophy
wife,‖ the ―conflicted wife,‖ the ―doctor‘s wife,‖ the ―divorced mom,‖ the ―loyal wife,‖ the
―newlywed,‖ and the ―party girl.‖ They discussed family problems, career aspirations, self-
esteem, money, cosmetic surgery, and most of all sex. The doctor‘s wife wished her husband was
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more intimate, the trophy wife‘s husband wanted to engage in wife swapping, and the conflicted
wife was having an affair. Critics were horrified, referring to the show as ―tawdry‖ and ―soft
porn,‖ and, to their credit, viewers were uninterested (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,429). The show
was cancelled after just two episodes.
Arizonans unsettled by such unsavory portrayals of their state can take some solace in the
fact that the state‘s two most successful entries of the 2000s were also the most sympathetic.
Greeting from Tucson and Medium were neither totally positive portrayals, but both shows
avoided the crude rustic stereotypes of Manhattan, AZ and the lusty nouveau-riche shallowness
of Tuesday Night Book Club. Greetings from Tucson, which aired during the 2002-2003 season,
is notable for being the only contemporary Arizona program to prominently feature Latino
characters. Because the show appeared on the WB network, Greetings from Tucson did not
attract a large number of viewers, but it was the first Arizona-based network sitcom since Alice
to survive a full season.
The protagonist was fifteen-year-old David Tiant, whose family had moved from an
impoverished section of Tucson to an upscale neighborhood following his father‘s promotion at
the copper mine where he worked. The show played on familiar sitcom contrasts. Dad Joaquin
was Mexican-American and conservative, while mom Elizabeth was Irish-American and liberal.
Joaquin was straight-laced, responsible, and middle class, while his brother, Ernesto, who lived
with family, was a freewheeling dog catcher who had been divorced three times. David‘s
cheerful sincerity contrasted with his sister Maria‘s self-absorbed petulance. Other characters
included David‘s affectionate grandmother, Magdalena, and the pretty girl next door, Sarah.
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Greetings from Tucson injected ethnic themes along with the standard chatter, including a few
playful jabs at Mexican-American stereotypes. In one episode, for example, David quipped,
―You know, of all the parts of my Mexican heritage that I‘m most proud of, taking the extended
family to the mall in one car to buy one item is probably my favorite.‖ In another episode, the
Tiants‘ neighbor saw Joaquin and Ernesto working in the yard and assumed they were day
laborers. She was horrified upon realizing her mistake, and spent the rest of the day apologizing.
Greeting from Tucson also featured more nuanced examinations of cultural tensions experienced
by an upwardly mobile Latino family. Self-conscious Maria, for example, told her friends that
she was not Mexican, but Spanish. When Joaquin agreed to buy David a new suit, David selected
a shiny sharkskin model, while his father argued for something brown and conservative. For
David, the brown suit represented assimilation, while, for Joaquin, the flashy one represented the
worst stereotypes of working-class Mexican-Americans.
Greetings from Tucson was a pretty straightforward family sitcom, but for critic Tracy
McLoone, its most extraordinary feature was how ordinary it was:
Greetings from Tucson is standard family-based sitcom fare, with
generally low-budget production values, an overactive laugh track,
and passable humor. But if it‘s not going to win any awards for
breaking generic sitcom molds, it does present non-whiteness as a
fact of life, rather than a remarkable event. The only difference
between this new series and, say, Growing Pains, is that the family
is Mexican American . . . . It can‘t decide if it‘s comedy because of
being Mexican American or in spite of Mexican American—and
that‘s one thing working in its favor. We‘ve come a long way from
laughing at Cuban Ricky Ricardo for being hyper-Hispanic. Now
we have a comedy both for and about ethnicity, and about race
without too much stereotyping . . . . David isn‘t identified as
stereotypical Mexican American, or as stereotypical Anglo
American . . . . David refuses categorization; he can‘t be neatly fit
into one niche or the other, expanding what it means to be
―Mexican American‖—or ―American‖ for that matter (McLoone
2002: 1).
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Medium, which premiered in 2005, has sent similarly mixed signals about life in
contemporary Arizona. The title referred to Allison DuBois, who used her abilities as a
clairvoyant to help solve murders and other crimes in Phoenix. While the focus of the show was
on these crimes, the show was also, in part, a family drama, showing day-to-day life in the
DuBois household. Allison was a calm, intelligent law student and loving mother of three. Joe,
an aerospace engineer, was her ―calm, loving, and very supportive husband‖ (Brooks and Marsh
2007: 879). Like the Tiants of Tucson, the DuBois family represented a mode of existence
conspicuously absent in previous Arizona entries—a stable family living a middle-class lifestyle
in a contemporary city. There were, however, the dreams.
As the show began, Allison wasn‘t aware of her psychic abilities, but she was having
incredibly vivid dreams, all of which involved murder or some other horrific activity. Sometimes
she dreamt of the victims, other times of the perpetrators, as in one incident where a killer was
caressing her hands. ―Your skin is so white,‖ he said. ―If I took my blade and ran it from the
bottom of your neck to the top of your crotch, the way the blood would slowly seep out and
cover your white skin would be quite a sight‖ (Fuchs 2005a: 1). Understandably disturbed,
Allison began to wonder if the events and people in her dreams might be real. When Joe began
sending descriptions to law enforcement agencies, he found that this was indeed the case. And so
the show rolled on, with Allison helping solve a string of crimes. Cases included a six-year-old
boy‘s molestation and murder, a boy who claimed an alternate personality had made him kill his
parents, a woman who committed suicide because her husband was abusing their infant daughter,
and a serial killer who murdered six women and then slept with their dead bodies.
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Such gruesome events contrasted with Allison‘s generally happy family life, making it
difficult to say whether Medium should be considered a positive or a negative portrayal of
Phoenix. In either case, the series represented a step in the right direction, at least in terms of
success. It was the first contemporary Arizona drama to debut since The Sheriff of Cochise in
1956, ending a drought of nearly half a century. Medium continued to air through 2010, making
it the longest-lasting Arizona program of any genre since Alice. The popularity of Medium may
represent a willingness of television producers and viewers to reexamine their perceptions of the
state, but whether or not life in Arizona is preferable to death in California remains to be seen.
CONCLUSION
The most thoroughly ―western‖ of the western states has been Wyoming. All of that
state‘s entries have been conventional westerns—shows that were, in fact, about as conventional
as a western could get. The moderately successful Laramie was set on a struggling frontier ranch
plagued by outlaws, Indian raids, and corrupt land barons. The Virginian, one of television‘s
most popular westerns, was the story of a gritty, brusque, enigmatic, and nameless gunfighter
fighting to maintain law and order on another frontier ranch. Although several of Montana‘s
programs have had contemporary settings, they‘ve been mostly rural, and, in general, have
followed the familiar western themes of youthful vigor, optimism, and personal renewal played
out on a wild, lawless, and uncivilized frontier. New Mexico was home to a number of
conventional westerns, most notably The Rifleman, and that show‘s theme of a righteous man
struggling to maintain law and order on a wild frontier continued in all of the state‘s other period
pieces. New Mexico is unique for being the setting for a number of shows that provided
relatively sympathetic portrayals of Native Americans, for hosting some of the first shows to
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prominently feature Hispanic characters, and for serving as the backdrop of several programs—
Guestward Ho!, Empire, The Man and the City, and Nakia—that translated western themes into
contemporary settings. The only New Mexico series not laden with traditional western themes
was Roswell, a contemporary teen soap opera and thriller that played on the title city‘s reputation
as a favorite destination of UFOs.
While the television landscapes of several western states have been dominated by the
western genre, a few have been almost devoid of it. Several Oregon entries, for example, have
featured rugged protagonists in a beautiful but harsh wilderness, but none of these programs
could be considered westerns. A pair of short-lived programs chronicled life on the grim streets
of Portland, but the life of friendly, generally normal families has been the most common topic
of the state‘s entries. With the exception of the family-oriented cable reality series Little People,
Big World, the most common link among Oregon‘s television programs has been a short
lifespan. Utah‘s television landscape has been similarly sparse, and, like Oregon, it has not been
the setting of conventional westerns. Two short-lived Utah entries featured spectacular
landscapes, but the most memorable state program was Orem‘s squeaky-clean family variety
show, Donny & Marie, which placed Utah in a television no-man‘s land between the region‘s
rugged small towns and its gritty and/or urbane cities.
Washington‘s only period piece was the comedy/adventure series Here Come the Brides,
but that program could hardly be considered a western. Like Brides, a number of Washington‘s
programs have employed the familiar western theme of a newcomer rediscovering himself or
herself in the West, but most of the traditional themes stop there. The majority of Washington‘s
programs have been set in Seattle, and these frequently feature that city‘s transition from a
working-class, blue-collar city to a stylish, white-collar metropolis. The clash between the
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sophisticated and the earthy was the central theme of the city‘s most popular series, Frasier, and
if the city‘s most recent hit, the medical soap opera Grey‟s Anatomy, is any indication, the
transition is near completion. Seattle‘s blue-collar past has faded from view, and it has become a
city of handsome, successful, young, ethnically diverse, and hedonistic young professionals.
Other common traits of Washington‘s recent programs, both those set in Seattle and in the state‘s
small towns, have been melancholy moods, shadowy conspiracies, and often violent and
supernatural themes. The plot devices of these programs have varied from werewolves to serial
killers and from aliens to heroes with supernatural abilities, but all of them owe a stylistic debt to
the groundbreaking mystery drama Twin Peaks, the story of a seemingly normal mountain town
that turned out to be, in the words of Jon Lewis and Penny Stempel (1996), an ―eddying pool of
sadism, Satanism, pornography and drugs.‖
The television landscapes of Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada have had a foot in both the
Old West and the New, each featuring both conventional westerns and contemporary programs,
and both rural and urban landscapes. Arizona was home to a number of conventional westerns,
the most successful being The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, which was the story of brave cavalry
soldiers facing down outlaws and savage Native Americans on the rugged frontier. Arizona‘s
subsequent westerns were fairly standard, with the usual stern and noble heroes, wild
environments, violent action, corrupt land barons, tough towns, and characterizations of Native-
Americans that were sometimes pejorative, sometimes sympathetic. Beginning in the 1970s,
Arizona began to feature programs with contemporary, urban settings, the most popular of which
was the sitcom Alice, which depicted Phoenix as a friendly, earthy, if not especially upscale
metropolis. Since the departure of Alice, the population of Arizona has boomed, but the growth
of the state‘s television landscape has been modest by comparison. This may be in response to
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some image problems that have plagued the state, and the state‘s recent entries have not been
especially kind, mixing barren little towns with seedy urban areas, and including depictions of
the state‘s urbanites as wealthy, materialistic, and dissatisfied.
The Colorado television landscape has been relatively balanced between period pieces
and contemporary settings, and between small towns and urban areas. Common traits linking
many of Colorado‘s entries have been affection for the state‘s famously attractive vistas, and the
message that these landscapes were wild, requiring a tough protagonist to tackle them. The most
consistent device linking a number of the state‘s entries has been an examination of the role of
the newcomer. On television, a good number of Coloradans have recently made their way to the
state. Occasionally they were the villains, arriving to exploit the people and the land, but just as
often the newcomer was the hero, arriving to do battle with the ignorance and prejudice of the
natives. The ultimate newcomer was the title alien of Mork & Mindy, who arrived in Colorado in
1978 to study the ways of human society. That show, however, tended to deal with universal
issues, rather than regional themes, and the show‘s most prominent geographic legacy was to
depict Boulder as an attractive, pleasant, modern city. Denver, in contrast, has been occasionally
portrayed as a seedy place, but that city‘s most successful program went to the other extreme.
The characters of Dynasty might not have been very admirable—they were the very model of
1980s arrogance and avarice—but the city came off well, depicted as an extravagant playground
for the wealthy and powerful. The state‘s longest-running entry, South Park, returned to the
state‘s roots, with a small, quaint, mountain town playing host to eccentric and provincial locals
and destructive outsiders. The show flayed just about every conceivable political, religious,
philosophical and cultural perspective and, likewise, was both a condemnation and celebration of
small-town life in the West.
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Nevada has been the home to surprisingly few conventional westerns, but one of them,
Bonanza, is rivaled only by Gunsmoke in terms of popularity and longevity in the genre. For
many viewers, Nevada‘s television landscape is synonymous with the tales of wisdom, reason,
honesty, and rugged independence on the prosperous Ponderosa Ranch. A few other Nevada
programs were set in rural areas or small towns, but most of these had more in common with
Twin Peaks than Bonanza, telling tales of eerie loneliness in the Nevada desert. The state‘s
subsequent programs, however, were set mostly in urban areas. Reno was home to one show, but
the vast majority of Nevada‘s television landscape has been dominated by Las Vegas. Many
shows have focused on the city‘s famous gaming and entertainment industries, and the central
geographic message of most Las Vegas entries, including the very popular crime drama, CSI, is
that the city is a bubbling cauldron of money, glitz, glamor, and sleaze, where gruesome and
even bizarre murders are par for the course.
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CHAPTER 8 – CONCLUSION
As noted in chapter one, I initially considered analyzing the television landscape by
comparing the medium‘s images to existing works concerning regional identity. I ultimately
decided that it would be best to approach television with a blank slate, to allow the possibility of
identifying geographic themes not found in the existing regional literature. In hindsight, that
decision proved to be, I believe, the correct one. That said, I think it is appropriate to conclude
this study with a comparison of the geographic themes and images I have uncovered to those
contained in other regional studies. Of course, an exhaustive review of the literature concerning
regional identity in the United States would represent a dissertation unto itself, so I have selected
a single work for each region. These five books come from different periods—the earliest from
1972, and the latest from 2001—and represent diverse approaches to regional study, including
the fields of journalism, American studies, sociology, geography, and history. Still, an
examination of these books says much about the regional images and identities that television
has reinforced, contradicted, and ignored.
THE MID-ATLANTIC AND GARREAU‘S NINE NATIONS
The states in this study were assigned to regions based loosely on those from Wilbur
Zelinsky‘s 1980 article ―North America‘s Vernacular Regions,‖ in which he constructed regions
based on the names of businesses in North American cities. From this base I modified the
boundaries somewhat so as to fit the demands of my data set (as described in the first chapter),
and that was certainly the case in the one defined here as the Mid-Atlantic. Zelinsky noted that
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part of this region—the southern sections of Maryland and Delaware—were on the periphery of
the South, and that western Pennsylvania had a similar relationship to the Midwest. Further, he
identified parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey as being in the Northeast—a designation shared
with some of New York and all six New England states. With all these ties to other places,
Zelinsky actually could identify only one state—Pennsylvania, and a small section of it, at that—
with the term Mid-Atlantic. Still, this seemed to be the best available label for the general area
and so is employed here.
Because the Mid-Atlantic‘s regional identity is more nebulous than other regions in this
study, I was unable to identify a single work that addressed this area alone. An evocative analysis
of the region exists, however, within journalist Joel Garreau‘s 1981 book, The Nine Nations of
North America. Garreau‘s designation for this region is the ―Foundry,‖ which he bluntly defined
as the ―gritty cities of North America‘s industrial Northeast‖ (Garreau 1981: 50). In this usage,
the Foundry is somewhat larger than my Mid-Atlantic, but the core is the same. Garreau
excludes the District of Columbia, however, which, he says ―is so consumed with itself that it is
dealt with separately‖ (Garreau 1981: 67).
Garreau‘s description of the Foundry includes interesting parallels to the Mid-Atlantic‘s
television landscape, including a statement that appeared to predict the iconic opening credits of
The Sopranos. ―The view along the New Jersey Turnpike,‖ wrote Garreau, ―is so appalling that
Dixie planners specifically mention that state as what they don‘t want to see their world become‖
(Garreau 1981: 66). While this assessment of the Jersey Turnpike was verified on television, it is
notable that another of Garreau‘s descriptions of the Mid-Atlantic‘s landscape was not. ―The
largest stretch of wilderness,‖ he wrote, ―in the East is in New Jersey—the Pine Barrens of the
southern part of the state. The Delaware River, along its west, is the biggest wild river in the
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East. The rural scenery twenty minutes north of Trenton is breathtaking (Garreau 1981: 65-66).
The author acknowledges, however, that the wild and beautiful landscapes of the Mid-Atlantic
are not central to the region‘s identity:
The Foundry . . . is a place that is thoroughly described by man and
what he‘s done to the mountains and rivers and plains in the course
of trying to get ahead, more than it is by the mountains or rivers
themselves . . . . Cities are the Foundry‘s dominant physical
characteristic. There are lots of them. They‘re not terribly far apart,
by the standards of most of the continent, and they are crowded
places. As a result, there is no trouble pointing to the Foundry‘s
heartland—its megalopolises (Garreau 1981: 66).
The Mid-Atlantic‘s television programs have confirmed the centrality of cities to the
region‘s identity. Urban and suburban settings are an important part of the entire country‘s
television landscape, but the other regions analyzed in this study tend to showcase small towns
and rural areas far more often. The Mid-Atlantic is, on television, a long string of large industrial
cities separated only by their suburbs. With the exception of Joan of Arcadia, Maryland‘s
television landscape is nearly synonymous with Baltimore and its suburbs. New Jersey‘s
television landscape is also highly urbanized. Although the state lacks a dominant city,
television‘s New Jersey is a long series of blighted industrial landscapes, apartment buildings,
and pleasant suburban homes extending from New York to Philadelphia. The existence of the
New Jersey wilderness described by Garreau would likely surprise those whose knowledge of
the state has been informed only by the small screen. The television landscape of Pennsylvania
has also been almost exclusively urban and suburban, with the three hundred miles that separate
Philadelphia and Pittsburgh nearly invisible. The one major exception is Scranton of The Office,
and that is a setting that could hardly be considered rustic. It is notable that Delaware—the one
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Mid-Atlantic state that lacks a large metropolitan area—has been almost completely absent from
television.
Garreau argued that, along with urbanism, the defining trait of the region is economic
struggle. In his opening essay, he quoted a business owner in a struggling Baltimore
neighborhood who provided the secret of success in such an economic climate—―You just gotta
be tough.‖ Garreau wrote:
And tough is what defines North America‘s nation of northeastern
gritty cities in a multitude of ways . . . . Pittsburgh. Bethlehem.
Harrisburg. Wilkes-Barre. Wilmington. Camden. Trenton. Newark.
The litany of names bring clear associations even to the most
insulated of residents of other regions. These names mean one
thing: heavy work with heavy machines. Hard work for those with
jobs; hard times for those without. When columnists speak of
managing decline, this is the region they mean. (Garreau 1981: 57-
58).
And Garreau was not particularly optimistic about the region‘s prospects. ―The problem with the
Foundry,‖ he wrote, ―is that it is failing. Its cities are old and creaking, as is much of its industry
(Garreau 1981: 65).
The Mid-Atlantic‘s television landscape both confirms and refutes Garreau‘s gloomy
portrait of the region. Programs that depict the Mid-Atlantic as a troubled place are many.
Whether set in Philadelphia (Strong Medicine, Philly, Ryan Caufield, Hack, and Cold Case),
Pittsburgh (Equal Justice and Sirens), New Jersey (Toma, The Street, and Matt Waters) or
Baltimore (In the Beginning, Roc, and Homicide), they all demonstrate that the region has more
than its fair share of poverty and crime. That said, most of these programs focus on individuals—
doctors, lawyers, cops, a teacher, a priest, a social worker, and community activists—who have
dedicated their lives to combating the ills that plague their city, rather than on those who are
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actually suffering financial trouble. Programs that take a direct look at lives plagued by
economic decay, such as Big House, Skag, and Dream Street, have been relatively rare and short-
lived. Even The Sopranos, which frequently depicted New Jersey as a garbage-strewn industrial
wasteland plagued by crime and violence, featured a protagonist who drove a Cadillac and lived
in a very nice house. More important, for every gritty comedy and drama set in the Mid-Atlantic,
several more shows have featured characters who are relatively wealthy or, at the least,
economically secure and who live in pleasant urban and suburban environments—shows
including Amen, thirtysomething, Mr. Belvedere, Hope & Gloria, Max Bickford, One of the Boys,
House, and One on One.
Whether television or Joel Garreau has come closer to capturing the reality of the Mid-
Atlantic is, of course, a matter of speculation. There is no denying that a good many of the
region‘s residents live above the poverty line—a fact largely ignored by Garreau. To be fair,
1981 was not a particularly opportune time to write a glowing account of the Mid-Atlantic‘s
economic fortunes, but it is possible that Garreau and other journalists have been somewhat
obsessed with the region‘s pathology—focusing on its economic and social struggles rather than
on the region‘s success stories. In contrast, audiences have been far more receptive to stories
about the Mid-Atlantic‘s fortunate residents. For example, Skag, an unflinching and critically
acclaimed look at the economic struggles of a Pittsburgh steel worker, lasted less than two
months. Mr. Belvedere, a sunny story of a middle-class Pittsburgh family that could somehow
afford a top-notch, live-in English butler, lasted five years.
Garreau‘s assessment of Washington, D.C. chronicled the rapid growth of the city during
the mid-twentieth century, and noted the explosive real estate prices and household incomes in
the D.C. suburbs:
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It‘s not the paychecks of the bureaucrats that caused Washington
real estate prices to double in five years. While hardly what you‘d
call niggardly, they don‘t pay for castles on Foxhall Road. It‘s the
subsidiary private industries spawned by the existence of the
bureaucrats . . . . The three biggest industries in the Washington
area, after government and tourism, are the government
codebreakers: lawyers, communicators, and consultants.
Depending on how you define consultant, that industry may
actually be bigger than the federal government that spawned it
(Garreau 1981: 101).
Washington journalists, one part of Garreau‘s trio of ―codebreakers,‖ have received a fair
amount of attention on television, including Murphy Brown, one of D.C.‘s most successful
programs. It is notable, however, that Washington‘s lawyers and consultants, most of whom,
according to Garreau, work for private political action and lobby groups, are nearly absent from
the city‘s television landscape. While lobbyists, activists, and their ilk have been part of the
milieu of some political programs, just one show—the short-lived 1975 sitcom Karen—focused
on this activist element of Washington politics. That is one show (and the title character of Karen
was certainly not the sort of person that Garreau was describing when spoke of D.C.‘s wealthy
and powerful codebreakers) compared to more than forty programs about government
employees. If the ―codebreaker‖ industry is, as Garreau suggested, larger than the federal
bureaucracy in D.C., then it is easy to argue that the city‘s television programs have created a
misunderstanding of how Washington politics actually work.
CONFORTI‘S IMAGINING NEW ENGLAND
Joseph Conforti‘s 2001 book, Imagining New England, is an analysis of the region‘s
identity as it evolved from the early seventeenth century to 1940. Those dates, of course, exclude
the television era, but some interesting parallels can be found among the images and ideas
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explored by Conforti and those found on New England‘s television landscape. Some of those
parallels are minor, but amusing, such as a description of Maine from John Smith‘s 1616
Description of New England, in which the New England patriarch described the future setting of
so many tales of murder and terror as a ―country rather to affright than delight‖ (Conforti 2001:
14). Conforti also quoted a 1793 caution from the usually boosterish New England geographer
Jedidiah Morse to the effect that ―freedom, without virtue or honor, is licentiousness,‖ adding
that a ―restless, litigious, complaining spirit‖ betokened ―a dark shade in the character of New
Englandmen‖—an observation that seems to have predicted the emergence of the hedonistic,
morally directionless attorneys of Ally McBeal, The Practice, and Boston Legal (Conforti 2001:
93). Conforti also noted that, during the eighteenth century, Rhode Island was ―perceived in
other corners of New England as a licentious republic where feeble or non-existent institutions
allowed liberty to degenerate into unbridled individualism and disorder,‖ a comment that seems
wholly appropriate to the behavior chronicled on Family Guy (Conforti 2001: 100).
Conforti spent much time analyzing the Purtian legacy and the Pilgrim narrative of New
England, and while these have rarely been dealt with on television, save for a short-lived parody
of the Pilgrim experience in Thanks, some of the core elements of traditional New England
culture can be found on the television landscape. One example is the ―Puritan commitment to
literacy‖ that ―placed New England in the forefront of American education, newspaper
publishing, and lyceum founding‖ (Conforti 2001: 4). He also cited Morse‘s American
Geography, which stated that ―In New England, learning is more generally diffused among all
ranks of people . . . than in any other part of the globe‖ (Conforti 2001: 97). While it may be a
coincidence, the diffusion of learning observed by Morse in 1793 was evident on the region‘s
television landscape two centuries later. Television‘s New England is home to a relatively large
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number of writers and artists, including Maine‘s Jessica Fletcher and Vermont‘s Dick Louden,
and to devotees of art, literature, and other prestigious forms of culture, such as the remarkably
erudite private detectives from Boston. Many other New England television characters, from the
sophisticated family dog and infant on Family Guy to the incredibly astute teenagers of James at
15, Dawson‟s Creek, and Gilmore Girls, also reflect the region‘s intellectual tendencies.
Another core New England trait identified by Conforti was a belief in social equality.
Once again, Conforti quoted Morse, who observed that New England was a place where ―every
man thinks himself at least as good as his neighbour, and believes all mankind are, or ought to be
equal‖ (Conforti 2001: 97). At first glance, this notion seems at odds with a region where many
shows, most notably Cheers, Gilmore Girls, and Family Guy, have revolved around a theme of
class warfare. This theme is, indeed, quite common in television‘s New England, and far more
common than in the Midwest, South, and West. There is a tendency among western programs,
such as Dynasty and Bonanza, to glorify the wealthy, and a tendency in midwestern and southern
programs, such as Roseanne, Married with Children, The Andy Griffith Show, and The Dukes of
Hazzard, to adopt a fatalistic attitude toward the class system—that is, the notion that the rich are
rich, the poor are poor, and that is that. It might be a bit of a stretch, but it is arguable that the
topic of class differences comes up so often in New England television programs precisely
because New Englanders find class disparity to be so objectionable. This tendency also suggests
a third core New England trait identified by Conforti—the region‘s traditional sense of itself as
the moral and political compass of the nation. This trait can be seen on some shows, such as The
Young Lawyers and Boston Legal, but it is not a particularly strong characteristic of the region‘s
television landscape. In fact, other than the occasional examinations of class, some of New
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England‘s iconic shows, such as Cheers, Newhart, St. Elsewhere, and Ally McBeal, seemed
deliberately apolitical.
By analyzing popular and scholarly writings from the eighteenth and nineteenth century,
Conforti also addressed the ways in which New England‘s sense of identity was tied to its sense
of place. According to him, the writings of geographer Jedidiah Morse, author Harriet Beecher
Stowe, and a Congregationalist pastor and Yale president Timothy Dwight ―signaled the rise of
the most recognizable visual marker of New England regional identity: the central village,
comprised of a cluster of houses and businesses encircling a white-steepled church‖ (Conforti
2001: 124). Conforti noted that Stowe‘s New England novels ―dwelled on the ‗smallness,
isolation, cohesiveness, innocence, and unchangingness‘ of village-centered New England,‖ and
that Dwight‘s informal geographies tied such villages to the region‘s temperament (Conforti
2001: 149). ―For Dwight, the New England character was etched into the regional landscape.
Republican New England, ‗the numerous, cheerful, and beautiful towns and villages,‘ derived
from the enterprise and diligence of an ‗extraordinary people‘‖ (Conforti 2001: 114). One does
not need to dig very deep into New England‘s television landscape to confirm that ―numerous,
cheerful, and beautiful towns and villages‖ have been central to the region‘s identity. Pleasant
small-town life was a key theme of such iconic shows as Wings and Dawson‟s Creek, and quaint
New England villages were absolutely central to Gilmore Girls, Newhart, and Murder, She
Wrote.
Conforti noted that, in the twentieth century, the leading artistic source of traditional New
England images was poet Robert Frost. Frost‘s breakthrough book, published in 1914, was
appropriately titled North of Boston. It should be noted that, while villages have been important
to the television identity of southern New England, they have totally dominated television‘s
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depiction of life in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. As noted in chapter three, just one of
northern New England‘s television programs was set in a city—all the rest featured a small town
or village. Conforti‘s study confirms that the tendency to depict the northern states as the more
traditional part of the region—as the real New England, predated the television era:
With the urban, industrial, and ethnic transformation of southern
New England, the regional heartland seemed to shift northward.
Old New England acquired an increasingly fixed geographical
location; it endured in the Yankee towns and villages of Maine,
New Hampshire, and Vermont. The regional periphery was
reimagined as the new center of New England identity (Conforti
2001: 263-264).
As important as the New England village is to the region‘s identity, television programs
about village life certainly do not tell the story of those living in Portland, Burlington,
Manchester, Boston, Providence, or Bridgeport. Conforti acknowledged this issue, but also
argued that the village‘s iconic status was actually a reaction to—or, more appropriately
against—urbanization, immigration, and industrialization. The consecration of the New England
village in the eighteenth century, wrote Conforti, ―reassuringly imaged the region as a pastoral,
stable Yankee world precisely at a time when factories and mills were propelling New England
to the forefront of the industrial revolution and when Irish immigrants were initiating changes
that would, in less than two generations, bring about the ethnic transformation of the region‖
(Conforti 2001: 124). Idealized visions of the ―real‖ New England, such as those found in artist
John Barber‘s engravings, continued to dominate regional identity in the works of other artists
and writers long after the region had been transformed by industrialization. Conforti wrote:
In the decades after he published Historical Collections of
Connecticut and Massachusetts, Barber‘s New England became
increasingly urban and ethnic, peopled by growing numbers of
Irish immigrants. Yet visual representations of the ―real‖ New
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England continued to invest the regional landscape with pastoral
conventions similar to Barber‘s . . . . More than any other mid-
nineteenth-century writer, Harriet Beecher Stowe elevated the
emergent compact New England village into a literary icon that
paralleled the visual representation of the regional landscape that
descended from Barber‘s engravings. Stowe limned the pastoral
world of the New England village, slighting its incubating
commercialism to create a region of the literary imagination that
erased urbanism, industry, and the Irish from the changing
landscape (Conforti 2001: 144).
Conforti noted that the village remained at the center of regional identity well into the twentieth
century, and for the same reasons. He wrote that ―nostalgia for Old New England registered
Yankee reaction to disquieting alterations in the texture of life: the acceleration of ethnic, urban,
industrial, and technological change‖ (Conforti 2001: 204).
Conforti‘s analysis raises the question of whether or not the emerging regional traits to
which village celebrants were reacting—ethnic diversity, urbanization, and industrialization—
have been evident on the television landscape as well. The answer is certainly yes, with many
programs featuring numerous characters who were the descendants of the ―Catholic hordes‖
described by Conforti (Conforti 2001: 209). Ethnic flavor has been an important element of
several programs, including Banacek, which was lauded for its positive portrayal of a successful
Polish-American, and on a handful of other Boston programs that highlighted Irish-American
culture, some of which were derided by critics for their tendency to stereotype. Cultural conflict
between New England‘s old-guard WASP population and its working class Catholics also has
been a recurring, although subtle, part of the region‘s television landscape. On Family Guy, Irish
Catholic Peter Griffin was viewed as an unsuitable son-in-law by wife Lois‘s aristocratic WASP
parents, the Pewterschmidts. On Who‟s the Boss, Italian-American Tony Micelli was a fish out
of water in a WASPish, upper-class Connecticut suburb. A similar culture clash could be found
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on the region‘s most important program. Ethnic differences were rarely dealt with in an overt
way on Cheers, but it is notable that the line dividing the two camps in the Boston bar‘s war of
words was, among other things, an ethnic one. In the cultural and intellectual middle ground
were Cliff Clavin and Norm Peterson, both of whom had surnames that suggest British origin
(although Cliff once claimed to be the rightful heir to the Russian throne). More important, with
the exception of the Jewish psychiatrist Lilith Sternin, most of the intellectually, culturally, or
economically elitist characters of the show were those with English, or seemingly English,
surnames—Diane Chambers, Frasier Crane, Rebecca Howe, Kelly Gaines, Evan Drake, and
Robin Colcord. Most of those from the blue-collar, earthy end of the bar had names that
suggested New England‘s ―Catholic hordes‖—Ernie Pantusso, Carla Tortelli, and Sam Malone.
The primary exception was Woody Boyd, but, of course, Woody was a midwesterner.
As for the two other processes that precipitated New England‘s village nostalgia—
urbanization and industrialization—the former has been present on television, but the latter has
not. Urbanization, without question, has been an important part of the region‘s television
landscape. While many programs have taken place in small towns and villages, many more have
been set in the region‘s cities and suburbs. For the most part, however, television‘s version of
New England jumps from idealized village life straight to clean, appealing post-industrial cities
and suburbs. Grim stories of industrialization and deindustrialization have largely been absent.
Some shows have dealt with the detritus of urban decay, such as St. Elsewhere and Boston‘s
occasional detective and legal shows, but the region has lacked conventional crime procedurals
and successful working-class or inner-city dramas. When seediness—crime, poverty, ethnic
strife—made a rare appearance, it was seen through the eyes of white-collar professionals, such
as doctors, lawyers, and teachers, rather than from the perspective of the impoverished.
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Conforti is a native of Fall River, Massachusetts, which he described as a ―gritty New
England textile city, a charter member of the Rust Belt long before that term was coined.‖
My New England, then, was a gray ethnic city of mills, hills, and
dinner pails. From their classroom windows teachers could easily
point to half-abandoned factories and warn indifferent students that
they would end up in a ―sweatshop‖ . . . . Fabled Plymouth was
only forty-five minutes away. Thanksgiving acquired a special
aura because of Fall River‘s proximity to the place where the
―Spirit of New England,‖ and of America, was born . . . . The real
New England seemed at once geographically proximate and
culturally remote (Conforti 2001: xi-xii).
If television‘s version of New England is substantially lacking any key element of the region‘s
geography, it is the ―gray ethnic‖ cities of ―mills, hills, and dinner pails.‖ Conforti‘s book
confirms that television is not alone in its elimination of New England‘s industrial history. ―We
need a new narrative,‖ he wrote, ―of how New England developed not only as a Puritan-Yankee
city on a hill but also as an ethnic city by the mill‖ (Conforti 2001: 316).
SHORTRIDGE‘S MIDDLE WEST
In his 1989 book The Middle West: Its Meaning in American Culture, geographer James
R. Shortridge examined the origin and evolution of the midwestern regional label. Shortridge
acknowledged that images of the Midwest have been diverse and even contradictory, but cited L.
Frank Baum‘s The Wizard of Oz as one of the popular works that best encapsulated the region‘s
identity:
Baum provides a useful point of departure . . . because his imagery,
first written in 1900, is typical of much of the twentieth-century
literature and raises some issues and dilemmas that are basic to
Middle-western identity. Consider Dorothy, for example: polite,
friendly, and bright-eyed, she wears her hair in braids, is a little
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naïve, and lives on a farm. Her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry are
simple, hardworking religious folk. They wear practical clothing,
raise chickens and pigs, and are so trusting of authority that they
give up Toto when a fussy schoolteacher claims it is the law. The
farmstead also is stereotypical: it sits amidst a flat, nearly treeless
plain; Kansas is vast and fertile but also bleak. This Middle-
western scene contrasts vividly with Oz, the land ―over the
rainbow.‖ Oz is lush and wondrous in all ways, a point made
graphically in the 1939 Judy Garland version of the tale by a
switch from black-and-white to color photography. Still, for all its
fascination, Oz is as full of danger and deceit as it is opportunity
and Dorothy eventually opts to return home (Shortridge 1989: 1-2).
Shortridge‘s selection of The Wizard of Oz as an iconic Midwestern story is connected to
the fact that Dorothy‘s story begins and ends on a farm. ―Farming is the dominant image in
Baum‘s Middle West,‖ wrote Shortridge, ―as it has been in the accounts of journalists throughout
this century‖ (Shortridge 1989: 2). Such images are central to Shortridge‘s argument ―for a close
and continuing association between the Middle-western identity and the concept of pastoralism‖
(Shortridge 1989: 2). There has certainly been no shortage of pastoral images associated with the
television Midwest. As noted in chapters four and five, relatively few midwestern programs have
had a truly agrarian focus, but a number of the region‘s programs, such as Little House on the
Prairie and Smallville, and a large number of midwestern characters, most notably Radar
O‘Reilly and Woody Boyd, have been tied to the farm.
Shortridge acknowledged that the centrality of pastoralism to midwestern identity
contradicted the ―predominantly urban reality of the modern Middle West.‖ That urban reality is
especially true on television. Most of the region‘s television images came along after 1970—
about a half-century after the region‘s farm population peaked. For all the television stories of
the region‘s farmers, there have been many more about urban and suburban midwesterners. That
said, even though pastoral images have been outnumbered by urban ones on midwestern
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television programs, the values associated with pastoralism have been integral to the region‘s
television identity. Some of the terms that Shortridge used to describe Dorothy and her family—
polite, friendly, bright-eyed, naïve, simple, hardworking, religious, practical and trusting—could
be used to describe many of television‘s midwesterners, even those living in urban environments.
These traits are not exclusive to the region and are not appropriate for all characters on the
Midwest‘s television landscape, but they are far more apparent in the Midwest than any other
television region, and some of the region‘s iconic television characters—Radar O‘Reilly, Richie
Cunningham, Woody Boyd, Tim Taylor, Laverne De Fazio, Shirley Feeney, Mary Hartman, and
Jed Clampett—possess nearly all of these characteristics. Perhaps the closest television parallel
to the Wizard of Oz was The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Mary Richards did not grow up on a farm,
but she was from the small town of Roseburg, Minnesota, and she possessed all the key pastoral
traits—she was polite, optimistic, a little naïve, hardworking, religious, practical, and trusting.
While Mary was very intelligent and not quite as innocent as Dorothy, her look of wide-eyed
amazement, seen each week in the opening credits as she twirled in the busy streets of
Minneapolis, was not much different from Dorothy‘s initial reaction to Oz (and, it can be added,
Mary‘s interaction with Lou, Murray, and Ted brought to mind Dorothy‘s friendships with the
lion, tin man, and scarecrow). Of course, not every midwestern television character would be
mistaken for Dorothy Gale, but the values that Shortridge associated with pastoralism can be
found in many of them—in Dave Garroway‘s sincerity, Ann Romano‘s industriousness, Drew
Carey‘s egalitarianism, Bob Hartley‘s humility, Alex P. Keaton‘s self-reliance, Roseanne
Conner‘s pragmatism, and Arthur Fonzarelli‘s honesty.
Shortridge also argued that the Midwest‘s identity had strong temporal and spatial
elements. In both time and space, the Midwest was lodged between the established East and the
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untamed West, and the region‘s identity began to assume this middle ground, forming an ―ideal
middle kingdom‖ between the ―uncivilized wilderness‖ of the West and the ―urban-industrial
evils‖ of the East (Shortridge 1989: 6). Shortridge likened this level of maturity to stages in the
human life cycle, writing that ―whereas the West was seen as brash and youthful, and the East
was viewed as stodgy and old, the Middle West escaped the problems of both extremes. It was
still young enough to have ideals and energy, yet it was not so old as to be ossified by decay,
class stratification, and overcrowding‖ (Shortridge 1989: 8).
This maturity model can certainly be seen on the television landscape. The frontier
wildness of the West could be seen on a few programs, but mostly on ―midwestern westerns‖
like Gunsmoke and Little House on the Prairie, and even those shows were not nearly as ―brash
and youthful‖ as many similar programs set in the West. The television Midwest has also had its
fair share of urban decay, particularly in Chicago, but when compared to New Jersey or to
Baltimore, Washington, New York, and Philadelphia, the cities of the Midwest have escaped
relatively unscathed. It is perhaps appropriate that Minneapolis has been characterized as being
nearly crime free, but the relative lack of poverty, decay, and crime on the television landscapes
of Kansas City, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, and, particularly, Detroit and Cleveland, seems at odds
with reality. But it is not at odds with the midwestern identity described by Shortridge. It is
possible that these cities have been free of crime and poverty on television because they are in
the Midwest, and they are supposed to be free of crime and poverty. In other words, television‘s
version of many of the Midwest‘s cities, particularly its eastern ones, conforms to regional values
far more easily than the real cities do.
Television‘s version of Chicago has an odd relationship with midwestern identity. In
some ways, it squares nicely with the pastoral values described above. This is particularly true of
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its family sitcoms, nearly all of which possessed an air of friendliness, industriousness,
cheerfulness, sincerity, and optimism. On the other hand, the snide attitude of programs such as
Married with Children undercut these values, while the bloodbath on Chicago‘s television streets
and the attendant images of urban decay place the city far away from the ―ideal middle kingdom‖
that the Midwest is supposed to represent. If nothing else, the sheer size of the city, which is
quite evident on television, place it more comfortably in the East than in the Midwest.
Still, television‘s Chicago fits, if a little oddly, into Shortridge‘s maturity model of the
Midwest. Rather than being midwestern because it eliminates the wildness of the West and the
ossification of the East, television‘s Chicago is midwestern because it embraces both wildness
and ossification. Like eastern cities, Chicago is the home of great wealth and great poverty, and
its television landscape contains the ―urban-industrial evils‖ of the hardened East. That said,
Chicago‘s television programs suggest that it still, for better or worse, has some youthfulness
left. A sense of wildness has been far more evident on Chicago‘s television landscape than on
those of eastern cities—it closely resembles the stormy, husky, brawling city described by Carl
Sandburg. Viewers of early Chicago television might have discovered the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra, but they were just as likely to have witnessed stock car races, meat-carving
demonstrations, or a live cattle drive. This wild streak can best be seen on the city‘s crime and
medical dramas. Chicago‘s shoot-first cops, such as Eliot Ness, Frank Ballinger, Katy Mahoney,
and Mike Torello, have more in common with television‘s rugged, taciturn western sheriffs than
with the philosophical cops and private eyes of eastern crime shows like Law & Order, Spenser:
for Hire, and Homicide. The medical drama ER, despite its frequent depiction of the calamitous
results of urban decay, also reflected the youthful vigor of the city. When compared to the
doctors of Boston‘s St. Elsewhere, the staff of ER was less fatalistic, less resigned to the despair
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of the urban environment. Perhaps the strongest indication of Chicago‘s youthfulness can be
found in its lack of legal dramas. It is on such shows that characters can be philosophical about
crime and, by extension, the social issues that cause crime. If a tendency to be philosophical is a
sign of old age, then television‘s Chicago has yet to reach that stage. Chicago‘s television
characters are far more likely to kill the criminal than to ponder the crime.
Of all the midwestern character traits identified by Shortridge, the one that cuts to the
core of the region‘s television identity is the idea that midwestern life acts ―as a deterrent to
ostentation and arrogance‖ (Shortridge 1989: 30). Whether a wide-eyed innocent like Radar
O‘Reilly, or a bitter realist like Roseanne Conner, nearly every important midwestern television
character and personality has represented a rejection of pretension and self-importance—Drew
Carey, Bob Hartley, Woody Boyd, Al Bundy, Grace Kelly, Sherman Potter, Jed Clampett, Red
Foley, Dave Garroway, and Studs Terkel are among the many examples of this. It would be
difficult to imagine a number of programs from other regions, particularly those that featured
status-conscious, self-absorbed yuppies, being set in the Midwest. In reality, the traits and values
of characters from Grey‟s Anatomy, Ally McBeal, Sex and the City, and thirtysomething might
well be found among the populations of Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis,
or Kansas City, but that has not been the case on television. Although it is true that numerous
attempts have been made to place self-absorbed yuppies in Chicago, viewers have apparently
found them to be an invasive species, and have killed them off quickly. As noted in chapter four,
only one of Chicago‘s many yuppie sitcoms lasted long, and that was the beer, sports, and poker-
filled universe of My Boys, a show whose tomboy protagonist was conceived as a midwestern
response to Sex and the City. It is perhaps because of the Midwest‘s egalitarian streak that, in the
words of Shortridge, the region came ―to symbolize the nation and to be seen as the most
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American part of America‖ (Shortridge 1989: 33). This idea is also at the heart of the Midwest‘s
television landscape—the region has often been characterized as a sort of microcosm of
America—and can be seen most plainly on a number of Ohio programs, such as Family Ties, 3rd
Rock from the Sun, Ed, and Normal, Ohio.
Television‘s assessment of midwestern character, however, has not been entirely positive.
Shortridge wrote that the peak of Midwestern self-confidence occurred in the 1910s. This self-
confidence began to be replaced by self-doubt in the 1920s, and a number of the region‘s
television programs and characters reflect that loss of confidence. Some observers, according to
Shortridge, began to argue that ―conservatism had begun to replace progressive idealism, a sign
perhaps that the yeoman society was aging. Old-fashioned, even culturally backward, ideas were
often seen to exist along with the traditional pastoral friendliness and honesty‖ (Shortridge 1989:
9). A prime example of this could be found on the Korean War comedy M*A*S*H. Nearly all of
the region‘s midwestern characters—Iowa‘s Radar O‘Reilly, Illinois‘s Henry Blake, and
Missouri‘s Sherman Potter—exhibited the traditional pastoral traits of friendliness and honesty,
but they were also, to a degree, old-fashioned and culturally backward. O‘Reilly was kind and
trustworthy, but also somewhat unenlightened. Potter was friendly and earnest, but also
obstinately old-fashioned and stodgy. Blake was a likable goofball and a competent surgeon but,
like all of the 4077th‘s midwesterners, he did not possess the wit and sophistication of Maine‘s
Hawkeye Pierce, California‘s B.J. Honeycutt, or Boston‘s Trapper John MacIntyre and Charles
Emerson Winchester. The primary example of negative midwestern stereotypes, however, was
Frank Burns, M*A*S*H‘s incompetent, self-righteous, sycophantic, hypocritical, conservative,
and avaricious Indiana native. Burns, perhaps more than any other television character,
exemplified what Shortridge described as the ―air of smug self-righteousness‖ that began to
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characterize the Midwest in the 1920s. During that period, the Midwest came to be viewed as a
region of ―business-minded, narrowly conservative people.‖ Shortridge described the
conventions of the period:
A siege mentality, similar to that found throughout the South,
developed there, whereby people blindly protected the old
traditions against corrupting influences that were perceived to be
coming in from outside . . . . Being conventional gradually
changed into being reactionary. Movements by the Non-Partisan
League to create state-owned grain elevators, banks, and other
socialistic reforms were regularly opposed by the mainstream
society with little or no debate. Church attendance became a
requisite for social acceptance instead of an individual option, and
similar allegiance was required for Prohibition and other moral
issues of the time (Shortridge 1989: 52-53).
This was clearly the kind of society that had produced Frank Burns, and a residue of its
conventions could be found in other midwestern television characters and programs. Alex P.
Keaton represented a far more friendly and benign embodiment of these reactionary values than
did Frank Burns, but he was no less conservative. The Midwest‘s parochial and provincial
attitudes were effectively skewered on Mary Hartman and Fernwood 2-Night, and, somewhat
less effectively, on Normal, Ohio, Harper Valley PTA, and Married to the Kellys. And although
Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley represented a positive spin on life in the Midwest,
conservative values were essentially inherent in both shows. They could even be found, to a
degree, in the Presbyterian militancy of Mary Richards.
Despite such images, it is important to note that Archie Bunker, for example, lived in
New York, not the Midwest. For the most part, television has been relatively kind to the
Midwest, with objectionably reactionary characters kept to a minimum. This is likely because the
Midwest‘s fall from grace occurred around 1920 and, of course, television did not come to the
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Midwest until much later, when the region‘s image was experiencing a rebound. Shortidge noted
that the Midwest‘s esteem and self-confidence bottomed out in the years prior to 1950, but that
they began to recover in the second half of the twentieth century. This renewed faith in
midwestern values was connected with nostalgia, which itself, according to Shortridge, arose
―slowly and uncertainly during the 1950s‖ as a ―vague sense of loss seems to have developed
among city dwellers.‖
Instead of generating wholesale condemnation by writers, small
towns and traditional farms, indeed the entire Middle-western
culture, began to be labeled as quaint. Support for this viewpoint
quickened in the mid 1960s, and by the early 1970s it was perhaps
the dominant image that outsiders held of the region. From this
perspective, the Middle West had become a museum of sorts. No
up-and-coming citizen wanted to live there, but it had importance
as a repository for traditional values. The Middle West was a nice
place to visit occasionally and to reflect upon one‘s heritage. It was
America‘s collective ―hometown,‖ a place with good air,
picturesque farm buildings, and unpretentious ―simple‖ people
(Shortridge 1989: 67-68).
To a great degree, the Midwest‘s television identity resides in the notion that the region is
―America‘s collective hometown.‖ The region‘s television landscape is filled with small towns,
and that landscape is often populated by people who, for the most part, possessed the admirable
traits long associated with the region‘s pastoral character.
What is unusual about the Midwest‘s television landscape, as noted above, is that that
these pastoral values are also usually attributable to the Midwest‘s population in large
metropolitan areas. This is the most significant departure of the television Midwest from the
region described by Shortridge. The result is that the television map of the Midwest sometimes
corresponds, and sometimes differs, from Shortridge‘s analysis of the cognitive map of the
region:
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Despite the results of perceptual surveys that show a Kansas-
Nebraska focus for today‘s Middle West, the defining cultural
traits actually describe Iowa better. Small towns dominate in both
places, but the extent of rural prosperity differs considerably. A
demanding yet rewarding physical environment is quintessentially
Middle Western, but in the western plains, demand often exceeds
reward . . . . Missouri is a great mixing ground, a place that was
initially Southern in culture but that is not totally at ease with any
regional label today . . . . The pastoral definition of the Middle
West has long created identity problems for people in the Great
Lakes states. In Michigan, the most extreme case, the label Middle
West is almost never used as a descriptor . . . . Wisconsin and
Minnesota share Michigan‘s heritage of lumbering, mining, and
tourism; and Ohio, Wisconsin, and Illinois mirror its heavy
industrial side. Well-developed agricultural images, however,
make all of these other states fit the pastoral Middle West better
than does Michigan. Wisconsin owes much of its Middle-western
identification to its self-proclaimed status as ―America‘s
Dairyland.‖ Minnesota, with its combination of rich agriculture
and large cities that have escaped urban decay, is the epitome of
the old Middle-western utopian dream of the 1910s before the
industrial portion of the cultural definition was excised (Shortridge
1989: 10-11).
Most Iowa-based shows conform to midwestern themes, but they have largely been
unsuccessful. Still, given that pastoral character traits are so strongly associated with two of
Iowa‘s favorite television sons, James T. Kirk and Radar O‘Reilly, it is arguable that the
television version of the state is, as Shortridge suggested, the epitome of the Midwest. As for the
other trans-Mississippi states, the Dakotas appear to be more western than midwestern but, like
Nebraska, these states‘ programs have not been very successful, so it is unlikely that viewers‘
geographic perceptions have been affected one way or the other. Television‘s version of Kansas
has an interesting relationship with its midwestern identity. In many ways it is quintessentially
midwestern, given its lack of urban areas, its preponderance of friendly, earthy people, and the
fact that several shows have taken place in small towns and on farms. But television‘s Kansas
has also been the sort of place where, as Shortridge put it, ―demand often exceeds reward,‖ as
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evidenced on the tumultuousness of Jericho and Courage the Cowardly Dog and in the
geography-induced malaise of Tom and The Phil Silvers Show. Missouri‘s schizophrenic
television history, with its mixture of seedy urban areas, downhome rural backwaters, and
wholesome and not-so-wholesome small towns reflects Shortridge‘s assertion that the state
resists any concrete regional label. The pleasantness of Mary Tyler Moore, Little House on the
Prairie, and Coach certainly confirms the description of Minnesota as the ―epitome of the old
Middle-western utopian dream.‖
Among the Great Lakes states, as Shortridge suggested, Wisconsin has the least trouble
with its midwestern identity—the state‘s television programs radiate all of the love and
wholesomeness one might expect from ―America‘s Dairyland.‖ The other Great Lakes states
contain some of the more interesting identity issues in the Midwest. Illinois is home to gritty
streets of Chicago, but has also played host to shows that adhere to pastoral character traits—
from the squareness of Bob Newhart, to the unabashed wholesomeness of According to Jim, to
the earthy genuineness of Roseanne. Indiana‘s television landscape has been surprisingly urban
and often violent, but it is hard to ignore the industriousness of Ann Romano, and impossible to
overlook the television legacy of Woody Boyd, who is arguably television‘s most typical (or
stereotypical) midwestern character.
As Shortridge noted, it is somewhat difficult to label Michigan as midwestern. The state‘s
television landscape, with its lack of small towns and emphasis on shows that feature African-
Americans or blue-collar gearheads, does indeed suggest an identity shaped by lumberjacks,
miners, and factory workers rather than one forged on the farm. Still, Home Improvement was,
without doubt, the state‘s defining program, and it was a thoroughly midwestern show. As noted
earlier, the show‘s protagonist, Tim Taylor was an embodiment of the region‘s pastoral values—
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described by one critic being emblematic of ―the white-bread heartland‖ (Stark 1997: 383). In a
1996 Midwest Today article about series star Tim Allen, journalist Larry Jordan wrote that ―with
his white-bread commonality and a face as wide open as the Great Plains, Allen seems just like
your average Joe‖ (Jordan 1996: 1).
Shortridge also noted the problems of assigning a midwestern label to Ohio. The state‘s
television landscape, however, contradicts this. In fact, Ohio‘s television programs could serve as
a microcosm for the evolving images of the Midwest described in Shortridge‘s book. The fact
that Ohio‘s television programs have favored small towns over the state‘s cities reflects the
region‘s pastoral roots, as did the images of Cincinnati‘s Midwestern Hayride and Charley
Weaver‘s Mount Idy. The mediocrity of 3rd Rock from the Sun‘s Rutherford, the narrow-minded
conservatism of Harper Valley, and the downright cultural backwardness of Mary Hartman and
Fernwood 2-Night‘s fictional small town reflected the region‘s self-doubt and loss of confidence.
And there is no doubt that Family Ties and Ed reflected the search for the integrity of family and
community that became associated with the Midwest during the subsequent nostalgia movement.
Even Cleveland, a city whose image is clearly at odds with a midwestern label, became
midwestern on television. Drew Carey, the star of that city‘s defining program, wrote in his 2000
autobiography:
The only thing that ever really got to me back when The Drew
Carey Show premiered was when they would compare my show to
Friends . . . . Now, normally a guy wouldn‘t bitch about having his
show compared to a super-popular mega-hit, except that they were
comparing us to the wrong show. We thought our show was closer
in tone to [Illinois‘s] Roseanne or [Missouri‘s] Grace Under Fire
. . . . It‘s set in the Midwest. Gilligan‟s Island was more like
Friends than we were (Carey 2000: 69).
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REED‘S ENDURING SOUTH
Sociologist John Shelton Reed‘s 1972 book The Enduring South was, like the works of
Conforti and Shortridge, an attempt to identify key traits related to a region‘s identity, but it
differed from those two in that it relied primarily on public opinion surveys and a variety of
statistical data. Among other things, Reed determined that northerners‘ (a term used to describe
any American not from the South) ―attitude toward Southerners may be slightly less favorable
than Southerners‘ attitudes toward them. Extremely negative responses, however, may be more
frequent among Southerners‖ (Reed 1972: 21). Reed‘s use of the phrase ―may be‖ indicated his
reluctance to make a definitive statement about this matter, and the region‘s television shows are
even vaguer on the subject. The occasional snobbery of outsiders found on such programs as The
Simple Life, The Andy Griffith Show, and Hawkins was perhaps an indication that northerners
held the South in low regard, but that appeared to be as much an urban prejudice as a northern
one. The same can be said for shows like Carter Country, Lobo, and In the Heat of the Night,
where the tension was between big city and backwoods, rather than between North and South.
An extremely negative attitude toward northerners among southerners is even less apparent and,
in fact, the tendency among television‘s southerners—as evidenced on Andy Griffith and The
Simple Life—is to approach outsiders with a sense of bemusement rather than hostility.
Reed also examined some commonly held beliefs about southern culture, among them the
notion that southerners have a greater tendency toward violence than other Americans:
―Southerners,‖ someone once remarked, ―will be polite until
they‘re angry enough to kill you.‖ He might have added that this
flashpoint seems to be lower for Southerners than for other
Americans. Beneath the image of a gracious, hospitable, leisurely
folk has lurked that of a hot-tempered, violent, even sadistic
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people, an image ―so pervasive that it compels the attention of
anyone interested in understanding the South‖ (Reed 1972: 45).
Reed verified that the South suffered from more violence than other sections of the
country, but the region‘s television programs do not reflect this. Given television‘s preoccupation
with violence, it is arguable that every region of the country‘s television landscape is a violent
one. A few iconic southern shows did contain violence, or the aftermath of it, including In the
Heat of the Night and I‟ll Fly Away, but the television landscape of the South, when compared to
that of the West or to several cities of the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic, seems quite placid. Serious
violence was practically unheard of on The Andy Griffith Show, where the sheriff did not carry a
gun and the deputy had only one bullet, and the same was true of The Dukes of Hazzard, where
the protagonists carried only bows and arrows, which they never fired at another person. New
Orleans has long been a violent television city, but it is also rarely considered to be a typical
southern city. If anything, violence is most strongly associated with those southern shows that
are more urban and less provincial, like Profiler, Line of Fire, and even American Dad. In other
words, the less ―southern‖ the region‘s shows are, the more violent they become.
Reed confirmed another commonly held belief about the South—that religion was more
pervasive there than any other part of the country—but this trait is also not common on the
region‘s television landscape. There is, of course, no evidence on television to suggest that
southerners are likely to be irreligious, and the region‘s programs did contain some religious
elements. On Andy Griffith, for example, Andy and Barney attended church regularly, and even
sang in the choir. The Nashville Network had an entire program dedicated to southern gospel
music, and the title of I‟ll Fly Away certainly had a religious connotation. Fewer shows in the
South also have tested the bounds of American social taboos—it is difficult to imagine, for
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example, Will & Grace having been set in Jackson, Mississippi. That said, when compared to
programming from the rest of the country—for example, California‘s 7th Heaven, Connecticut‘s
Book of Daniel, Illinois‘s Have Faith, Pennsylvania‘s Amen, Maryland‘s In the Beginning and
Joan of Arcadia, and Massachusetts‘s Miracles—there has been a relative lack of overtly
religious programs set in the South.
Of all the traits attributed to the region, Shelton noted that the ―paramount characteristic
of Southerners, in the view of twentieth-century Americans, seems to be their relative (if only
relative) lack of ambition, energy, and industry‖ (Reed 1972: 30). With few exceptions, such as
the hillbillies lazing about on Hee Haw‘s porches and haystacks, very few southern television
characters could be described as being absolutely shiftless. It is true, however, that television‘s
southerners do seem to be lacking in ambition and industry, at least when compared to characters
in other regions. Few of the region‘s television personalities have been terribly wealthy, and
relatively few could be described as upwardly mobile. As often as not, though, such traits were
given an air of nobility. The southerners seen on The Waltons, B. J. and the Bear, The Dukes of
Hazzard, and The Andy Griffith Show were rarely depicted as being lazy, but rather as people
who had embraced the gift of simplicity. As for the South‘s perceived lack of energy, some of
the region‘s iconic shows did indeed have a sleepy pace, such as In the Heat of the Night, Andy
Griffith, and Evening Shade. In a few, such as Any Day Now, I‟ll Fly Away, and Frank‟s Place,
the pace was positively languid.
Included in Reed‘s study was a discussion of whether or not southern identity was fading.
He began by acknowledging that the South was undergoing profound changes:
The South, runs the refrain, is disappearing: the region is well on
its way to becoming ―almost indistinguishable from any other
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region in the country‖ . . . . Certainly there have been phenomenal
changes in the lives of most Southerners during the decades just
past. In economic and demographic terms, the South has
undergone a considerable demographic transformation . . . .
Although pockets of poverty and ignorance remain, the
industrialization for which generations of ―New South‖ thinkers
worked has largely taken hold, with dramatic effects on regional
differences in education, income, and style of life. For changes of
such magnitude in the material conditions of life in the South not
to affect the attitudes and values which have distinguished
Southerners in the past would be virtually inconceivable . . . . Add
to the impact of industrialization and urbanization the effects of
mass society and mass communications—the whole logic of
which, it seems, must be to reduce sectional differences—and there
appears to be little reason to suppose that the South . . . will not be
exorcised shortly (Reed 1972: 2).
Some evidence exists that regional identity is fading on the South‘s television landscape.
There is, of course, no way of saying definitively which programs are ―more southern‖ than
others, but it is possible to get a sense of this by asking whether or not a particular program could
have been set elsewhere. It would be difficult to imagine, for example, North Carolina‘s first
program, The Andy Griffith Show, taking place outside of the South. It is less difficult, however,
to imagine one of the state‘s more recent programs, Charlotte‘s My Brother and Me, taking place
in a different city. Likewise, Georgia‘s 1970s entries, The Dukes of Hazzard, Lobo, B. J. and the
Bear, and Carter Country, were inexorably tied to their southern setting. A pair of Georgia‘s
1980s entries, Designing Women and Matlock, were less cartoonish in their depiction of the
South, but their regional identity was no less integral. However, Georgia‘s most popular 1990s
program, Proflier, probably could have been set in any major city.
Reed also examined suggestions that the reduction in regional uniqueness was occurring
primarily in southern cities, while the rural South remained relatively unchanged. ―There has
been some speculation,‖ wrote Reed, ―that city people are pretty much alike, and the bulk of
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regional differences will be found among rural populations‖ (Reed 1972: 5). This is, to a degree,
true of the television South. The least ―southern‖ shows tend to be set in urban or suburban areas
(Profiler, Line of Fire, American Dad), and the more southern ones in small towns or rural areas
(Andy Griffith, The Dukes of Hazzard, The Waltons). That said, One Tree Hill contained few
conventional southern stereotypes despite being set in a small town.
As the title of his book suggests, Reed uncovered plenty of evidence that the South, while
undoubtedly changing, was not necessarily shedding its regional identity. Ultimately, Reed
argued, the South, both urban and rural, would continue to be a distinctive region:
For a long time to come, we can expect that the South will be
something more than simply the lower right-hand part of the
country. Although the region is, in some respects, rejoining the
Union at last, the accommodation is a tentative one. Southerners
continue to see themselves as different—and, in some ways, they
are different (Reed 1972: 90).
Reed‘s enduring South is evident, to a degree, on television. It can be seen in the
remarkable staying power of The Andy Griffith Show. That program was deeply rooted in its
geography, and probably would not be so enduring if it was not still somehow relevant to current
southern values. The endurance can also be seen in Jeff Foxworthy‘s redneck revival and in the
recent theatrical remake of The Dukes of Hazzard, which suggested that the South had not
changed much since the General Lee had last been taken out of the barn in 1985. The staying
power of southern identity is also subtly evident in such relatively recent programs as Evening
Shade, The Client, Savannah, State of Grace, and American Gothic. Although these programs
dispensed with some of the more stereotypical traits of southern culture, it would be somewhat
difficult to imagine any of them taking place in Vermont, Iowa, or Oregon.
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WROBEL AND STEINER‘S MANY WESTS
Many Wests is a 1997 collection of essays, edited by historian David M. Wrobel and
American Studies scholar Michael C. Steiner, concerning regional identity in the West. A few of
those essays provide interesting parallels to the television landscape, including historian John M.
Findlay‘s examination of regional identity in the Pacific Northwest. Findlay noted that the region
―has generally not been a place people come from . . . . Rather, it has been a destination to which
other Americans have gone. This fact looms large for explaining regional identity‖ (Findlay
1997: 45). Although Findlay was speaking for only one section of the West, he observed one of
the most common traits found on western television programs. The story of a recent arrival to the
West has been told many times on television, in every era and, in fact, in nearly every state.
Whereas Findlay‘s observation reveals a part of western identity that television got right,
historian Anne F. Hyde‘s essay concerning the extractive industry in the Rocky Mountains
reveals much about what television has missed or, at least, misrepresented. Hyde included in her
essay a series of descriptions of the Rocky Mountains that both celebrated its stunning natural
scenery and decried the environmental and social destruction that has accompanied the region‘s
extractive industries. Hyde wrote:
What seems oddly combined in these scenes—stunning beauty,
hideous destruction, and human pain—characterized much of the
culture and landscape that has developed in the Rocky Mountain
region . . . . Two major features make [this region] distinctive: the
inhospitable but spectacular nature of mountains and high plains,
and the overwhelming presence of extractive industries . . . .
Certainly the beauty of the landscape is significant in the way
people have come to define the region, but this chapter focuses on
extractive industries because they are crucial in understanding the
―place‖ that has developed here. The reality of this place stands in
stark opposition to the ―Rocky Mountain High‖ imagined by
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wannabe Westerners and Westerners themselves, largely because
of the shaping power of extractive industries (Hyde 1997: 95).
Of the extractive industries analyzed by Hyde—furs, mining, ranching, water sales, and
skiing—only ranching has received much exposure on television. There have been occasional
references to mining and skiing on western television programs, but practically no mention of the
fur trade or water sales. More important, although there has been no shortage of ―stunning
beauty‖ and ―human pain,‖ few depictions exist of the hideous social and environmental
destruction described by Hyde. The topic was dealt with earnestly on Centennial and
sarcastically on South Park, but the story of the extractive industry in the television West has
largely been one of triumph, rather than devastation.
As noted in chapter seven, one of the most common characteristics of the television
western is the story of an aloof individual taming a chaotic and lawless frontier. Hyde confirmed
that this was a common and very real western story, and provided insight into its origin:
The landscape—scraped, uprooted, excavated, deforested, and
eaten—became a testament to the junk-heap mentality encouraged
by extractive industries. The rapidity of development and the
calamity of decline, characterized by the boom-bust cycle of these
industries, affected families, communities, and landscapes,
creating, in journalist Ed Marston‘s words, a world ―without social
glue.‖ The lack of social glue had serious implications. Without it,
communities and cultures cannot hope to weather storms of
instability and social change, and few places show much success at
this in the Rocky Mountain region. Community in general in the
West does not have a high profile. Our most famous western
characters . . . celebrate their disconnectedness to place and
community. Whether or not we take seriously the utterly
dysfunctional sorts like Jeremiah Johnson or any of Clint
Eastwood‘s characters, this personality type represents reality
(Hyde 1997: 101).
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If Hyde is correct, then the television western has not necessarily misrepresented the
personalities and situations of the frontier West. Instead, it has misrepresented or at least omitted
the forces that created them. Western television shows imply that chaos and lawlessness were
endemic to the frontier—that these characteristics should be expected from such a youthful
culture—and suggest that, over time, they would be overcome by civilizing forces. The notion
that tempestuous places and rugged individuals were byproducts of extractive industries has been
nearly absent from the region‘s television programs.
One of the central questions posed by Many Wests is whether or not a western identity
still exists. American regional literature suggests that such regional identity is tied up in that
which has been lost. From this perspective, many American places could be likened to an
individual mourning for lost youth—the Mid-Atlantic for its passing industrial might, New
England for its Yankee villages, the Midwest for its prosperous farms and pleasant small towns,
and the South for antebellum grace. This is especially true, it appears, of the West. In the arts,
including television, the term ―western‖ is strongly associated with a bygone era. Contemporary
or modern television westerns exist, of course, such as New Mexico‘s Empire, but the term has
almost always been applied to programs set in the nineteenth century. Bonanza, The Virginian,
The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, The Rifleman, and Laramie are
emblematic series.
Wrobel and Steiner noted that the Old West depicted on these programs was being
mourned as early as 1902, when Owen Wister wrote of a ―vanished world‖ of ―the horseman, the
cowpuncher, the last romantic figure upon our soil‖ (Wrobel and Steiner 1997: 4). They added:
The once rugged West is dead. Crushed between corporate glaciers
from the coasts—from Wall Street and from Silicon Valley, from
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Houston and from Hollywood—the true West as a wide-open place
of promise is gone. All that remains are commercialized travesties
of the real thing—manufactured moccasins and kachina dolls,
franchised Santa Fe cuisine, packaged dude ranches, and other
regional kitsch for bored urbanites craving tokens of authenticity
(Wrobel and Steiner 1997: 2).
Television bears out Wrobel and Steiner. Only a few characteristics associated with
conventional westerns—rugged and attractive vistas, the newcomer, the transition from a rugged
past to a more polished and sophisticated present, and tough characters in rough situations—
remain as standard fare in the region‘s modern programs. Moreover, since 1970, only a few of
the region‘s contemporary programs, such as Caitlin‟s Way, Nakia, Harts of the West, and Hey
Dude, could be called westerns, and even that is a bit of a stretch.
The question, then, is whether or not a broad, cohesive sense of regional identity exists in
television‘s modern West. The same litmus test applied to the South can be used here—asking if
the West‘s contemporary television shows could have been set elsewhere. Some of the region‘s
television programs do not have particularly strong thematic connections to their setting. Mork &
Mindy, for example, probably would not have played differently if the title alien had, after his
debut on Happy Days, simply headed up the road to Madison, Wisconsin, rather than west to
Boulder, Colorado. Similarly, although Dynasty did concern a natural resource empire and had
some Denver touches, the show probably would not have changed much if the Carrington
mansion had been located in Scarsdale, New York.
Many contemporary western programs, however, do return a relatively strong sense of
place. It is difficult to imagine Reno 911 or Roswell taking place anywhere but their title cities,
and the same can be said for most Las Vegas programs, although that city‘s most iconic show,
CSI, has been successfully franchised in Miami and New York. Frasier, Grey‟s Anatomy, and
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Twin Peaks are also firmly entrenched in their settings, and it would be difficult to imagine Alice
if her car had broken down in Cincinnati, rather than Phoenix, or to imagine South Park taking
place anywhere but the Colorado Rockies. Still, while these programs have much to say about
their particular settings, it is impossible to argue that any of them speak for the entire West. This
idea parallels a statement by Wrobel and Steiner, who observed, ―The West probably does have
certain defining characteristics, but they are not readily and evenly applicable to all parts of the
West‖ (Wrobel and Steiner 1997: 11).
It is not a sense of place that is lacking in the television West, but a sense of regional
cohesiveness. In their search for regional identity in the contemporary West, Wrobel and Steiner
asked:
Is state identification more important than regional identification in
the West or in some parts of the West? . . . . Or does locality
overshadow state, subregion, and broader region as a foundation of
regional consciousness? . . . . Have scholars slighted the regional
consciousness of western urban dwellers—the bulk of the West‘s
present population—by emphasizing the relationship between
sense of place and attachment to the land? (Wrobel and Steiner
1997: 15-16).
Television‘s answer to the last question is that critics are, indeed, far more likely to discuss
regional identity in the West‘s small-town and rural programs than they are when writing about
urban shows. The critical literature does not suggest that Phoenix‘s Alice, Las Vegas‘s CSI,
Seattle‘s Frasier, or Reno 911 lacked a sense of place, but critics analyzing Everwood, South
Park, or Twin Peaks were far more likely to write about those show‘s western identity than
critics reviewing their urban counterparts.
What is far more apparent on television, however, is that, on programs with a
contemporary setting, locality and subregion tend to overshadow broader identifications. In other
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words, the West seems, both in reality and in television‘s version of it, to be incredibly nebulous.
It is arguable that this was true even on traditional westerns. Bonanza, The Virginian, and The
Rifleman were westerns to be sure, but more important, they were frontier programs. Robbed of
the frontier, the television West lost regional cohesiveness. Again, a strong sense of place can be
found on many contemporary western television programs, but it is a collection of Las Vegas,
Pacific Northwest, Colorado, Sun Belt, and other senses of place, but not wholly ―western.‖ In
other words, it is not inaccurate to suggest that Alice, Grey‟s Anatomy, CSI, and South Park are
representative of the West, but these shows represent the West in the same way that Roseanne,
The Sopranos, Miami Vice, The Dukes of Hazzard and Cheers represent the East. In this way, the
television landscape confirms a statement by Carey McWilliams and Wallace Stegner, who
wrote that the West‘s subregions are ―all so different in their history and ethnic compositions,
that . . . trying to make a unanimous culture out of them would be a hopeless job. It would be like
wrapping five watermelons‖ (Wrobel and Steiner 1997: 9).
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