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There was an episode of Little House on the Prairie where a character was out in the "prairie" and it looked like a straight up desert in New Mexico. This is supposed to be Minnesota, right? The prairie of Minnesota isn't void of trees and it's not brown unless it's late autumn or early spring. (Character was dressed for summer!) Also looked really dry. I'll excuse this one as it's an old TV show.
Yeah, Little House on the Prairie is definitely one of those shows you have to just accept is not even trying to create a realistic portrayal of southwestern Minnesota. It's just filmed in a completely different environment. If it really was shot in Minnesota during the summertime, the landscapes would be luxuriantly green—even the fields. The unplowed prairie grasses would have been tall and soared over pioneers' heads. Rivers and creeks would be way bigger, and in that era in time, outside of the largest towns or cities, you would have seen wagons floating on wooden ferries as river crossings, which was a frequent occurrence.
Another thing that bothered me about the show is the layout of the Walnut Grove set — buildings just kind of randomly plopped down in a sort of circular clump. In small towns on the Minnesota prairie, businesses and other buildings would have been built in a single line down a single main street, and generally all of the buildings would have been constructed next to each other without gaps. The schoolhouse likely would have been built farther outside of town, closer and more central to nearby homesteads. There also likely would have been two churches — one Catholic, and one Lutheran. Also, why are the Olesons the only people who seem to live in town? There would have been at least a dozen or more houses.
Not necessarily movies but half of Texas nonsense merchandise (think keychains and such) show saguaros when saguaros clearly do not grow that far east by El Paso or even towards San Antonio. As an Arizonan that really grinds my gears. I’m sure if I dig deep enough I could find a TV show or movie referencing El Paso or New Mexico with saguaros in it. Or Vegas, or Palm Springs...
Saguaro range basically ends going east at the Rincon mountains around Tucson. There have been a few that have been grown purposefully in a few towns in SE Arizona (Benson-Sierra Vista-Tombstone) but they stop rather abruptly at the Rincons.
Speaking of which, the Movie "Oklahoma" was filmed in Sonoita, Arizona just SE of Tucson. The reason is that they didn't think that the state of Oklahoma looked enough like the stereotype of Oklahoma to film it there.
The mountains surrounding Los Angeles (San Gabriel?) are clearly visible in many shots on The Office. Wouldn't typically bug me but I was watching one scene where Michael was "attempting" suicide on a roof and the background was a little distracting.
My favorite is the one where they are doing a 5k or some sort of fun run and they are jogging past fences covered in Bougainvillea. I think it was filmed somewhere in the Valley. Not exactly native vegetarian for Scranton.
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Originally Posted by BadgerFilms
King of the Hill is a show that does Texas well. Of course in animation you have more liberty (just don't draw a damn palm tree lol) but the animators definitely created a realistic suburban Texas setting.
There are plenty of palm trees in Texas. Just go to Houston or anywhere else near the Gulf Coast. They're more the Florida type palms than the California palms though.
I watched "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" back when I lived in Denton, TX. It was partly filmed there (especially the courthouse scene) as well as other areas in Texas, but it was set in Iowa. I felt it still looked enough like Iowa, though. Parts of Texas do resemble the Midwest to the untrained eye.
The area around DFW actually looks a lot like Iowa. I don't know why they couldn't just film it in Iowa though.
Fargo the movie and show both botch their surroundings.
In the movie, they show Brainard as open plains. Brainard is 100% Northwoods. The Fargo area looks like how they show Brainard.
In season 2 of the show, they make LuVerne look like it's in the woods. LuVerne is out on the plains. They also show a compound an hour west of Fargo looking like it's set in the Black Hills. An hour west of Fargo is open plains.
Saguaro range basically ends going east at the Rincon mountains around Tucson. There have been a few that have been grown purposefully in a few towns in SE Arizona (Benson-Sierra Vista-Tombstone) but they stop rather abruptly at the Rincons.
Speaking of which, the Movie "Oklahoma" was filmed in Sonoita, Arizona just SE of Tucson. The reason is that they didn't think that the state of Oklahoma looked enough like the stereotype of Oklahoma to film it there.
I remember watching Adventures in Babysitting as a teenager and remarking on how they messed up Oak Park. It's shown in the movie as having large, far-apart houses on bucolic, curvy streets, but Oak Park (and most of suburban Cook County) is 100% on a grid plan and the majority of houses are modest (if well-kept) bungalows.
Some more - Happy Days was set in Milwaukee, but the Cunningham's house was in LA. Producers used close-in shots of the house to prevent a palm tree behind the left side of the house from being seen.
"Father Dowling Mysteries" was set in Chicago, but filmed in Denver. At times they didn't even try to hide it and Denver's famous "Cash Register Building" is visible in shots of downtown.
The Aspen scenes from "Dumb and Dumber" weren't filmed in Aspen at all. Street scenes were filmed in Breckenridge, and the hotel Harry and Lloyd stayed at was the infamous Stanley Hotel in Estes Park.
Speaking of the Stanley Hotel, it was the inspiration for the "Overlook Hotel" in Steven King's "The Shining." The original movie starring Jack Nicholson didn't use the Stanley. Even though it was set in Colorado, the movie's "Overlook" is Timberline Lodge at Mount Hood, Oregon.
The 90's miniseries adaptation of Steven King's "The Stand" features a scene where Trashcan Man (Matt Frewer of Max Headroom fame) blows up an oil depot that's supposedly in Indiana even though mountains are clearly visible in the background.
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