...Wikipedia, for however much it's worth, specifies that it *was* the "Southern California Police Department." Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg had a habit of fictionalising the settings of their cop series; Starsky & Hutch belonged to the P.D. of Bay City, California, T.J. Hooker was on the "L.C.P.D." (wherever that was); and S.W.A.T. was part of the "W.C.P.D." The only Spelling cop show that specified an actual city was Burke's Law, wherein Amos Burke was specifically a Los Angeles Police Department homicide division Captain...Lkeller said:
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Real cities/places passed over as a TV show setting
- Thread starter ixnay
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B
Bob1370
Guest
"Hill Street Blues" seemed to use Chicago as its backdrop, but the players and producers drew on the common background for many of them, Carnegie Tech, which wasn't too far from the Hill District police station in Pittsburgh."
And all the street names, and the color scheme of the squad cars, came from Stephen Bochco's home town, Buffalo.
And all the street names, and the color scheme of the squad cars, came from Stephen Bochco's home town, Buffalo.
F
FreddyE1977
Guest
the short-lived sitcoms Hope and Gloria (NBC) and Back To You (Fox) were both set in Pittsburgh as well.
So far as M*A*S*H is concerned, if they ever made an episode where the North Koreans had to be
driven out of Maumee maybe I'll accept that answer. ;D
So far as M*A*S*H is concerned, if they ever made an episode where the North Koreans had to be
driven out of Maumee maybe I'll accept that answer. ;D
B
Bob1370
Guest
If we move to the realm of the daytime soap opera, two related shows, General Hospital (which still lives on the ABC schedule as sole survivor come 2012) and Port Charles (which died a few years ago after a seven year run) had a disguised setting which was nevertheless unmistakeable to anyone who knows Great Lakes regional geography.
The city where the action takes place is called "Port Charles"--it's an old-line industrial city of a couple hundred thousand people at the center of a multi-county metropolitan area in upstate New York on the shores of Lake Ontario and straddling the banks of a river, halfway between Buffalo and Syracuse and diagonally across the lake from Toronto. They get that detailed in their on-air description of the place. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a dead giveaway because Port Charles can only be the real-life city of Rochester, New York. You even see opening titles of General Hospital which showed a slightly Photoshopped exterior shot of Rochester General Hospital on the city's north side, and an aerial skyline shot at the opening of Port Charles which was clearly downtown Rochester showing the Xerox Tower, Bausch & Lomb Tower, Chase Bank Building and First Federal Plaza among other downtown highrise landmarks. The producers have even sent some of the principal actors in the series up to Rochester and its suburbs to do outdoor scenes and exterior shots from time to time.
Rochesterians who are soap fans don't mind that their city goes under a pseudonym in ABC's one remaining daily soap...they just occasionally chuckle as they refer to their home town from time to time as "Port Charles" because, in effect, that's what it is...at least one hour every weekday...
The city where the action takes place is called "Port Charles"--it's an old-line industrial city of a couple hundred thousand people at the center of a multi-county metropolitan area in upstate New York on the shores of Lake Ontario and straddling the banks of a river, halfway between Buffalo and Syracuse and diagonally across the lake from Toronto. They get that detailed in their on-air description of the place. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a dead giveaway because Port Charles can only be the real-life city of Rochester, New York. You even see opening titles of General Hospital which showed a slightly Photoshopped exterior shot of Rochester General Hospital on the city's north side, and an aerial skyline shot at the opening of Port Charles which was clearly downtown Rochester showing the Xerox Tower, Bausch & Lomb Tower, Chase Bank Building and First Federal Plaza among other downtown highrise landmarks. The producers have even sent some of the principal actors in the series up to Rochester and its suburbs to do outdoor scenes and exterior shots from time to time.
Rochesterians who are soap fans don't mind that their city goes under a pseudonym in ABC's one remaining daily soap...they just occasionally chuckle as they refer to their home town from time to time as "Port Charles" because, in effect, that's what it is...at least one hour every weekday...
Bob1370 said:
Just on a side note, if you remember the old opening credits of General Hospital, the original hospital in question was Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, just east of Downtown Los Angeles, off Interstate 10. They've re-modeled much of exterior of that hospital in recent years (including some expansion), but much of the original exterior remains in-tact.
Ultimajock said:
I've always thought that "LCPD" in T.J. Hooker was clearly based on Los Angeles; the LCPD's police academy in the series was certainly based on the LAPD's real-life academy near Dodger Stadium, and some episodes featured exterior shots around various L.A. locales including Downtown and Hollywood. I never seen S.W.A.T. or Starsky and Hutch, but I've seen the theaterical remakes...the S.W.A.T. team in that movie was LAPD's, while the Starsky remake used the Bay City setting, and to me, it more or less resembled San Diego, although it could have based on either Oakland or San Francisco.
B
Bob1370
Guest
"Cleveland?"
There's the Drew Carey Show which ran about seven years on ABC starting in 1995, set in Cleveland (which happens to be Carey's real life home town)....and there's also "Hot In Cleveland" on TVLand with Betty White and Valerie Bertinelli, which is still in production right now.
There's the Drew Carey Show which ran about seven years on ABC starting in 1995, set in Cleveland (which happens to be Carey's real life home town)....and there's also "Hot In Cleveland" on TVLand with Betty White and Valerie Bertinelli, which is still in production right now.
FreddyE1977 said:
That was the same episode where everyone was listening to the Northview-Perrysburg game on Armed Forces Radio.
Llanview, the setting for "One Life To Live," is actually
Bryn Mawr, PA; I'm not sure about Pine Valley ("All My
Children") but it is a Philadelphia suburb.
I think most everyone here knows that the skyline used
for many years on "The Edge Of Night" was Cincinnati but,
reflecting changes in skyline and Monticello's population, the
Los Angeles skyline was used in the show's last years.
And yes, folks, there really is a Genoa City, WI, setting for
"The Young And The Restless," but it is nothing like what you
see on the show; it's more or less a small town people pass through
going from Chicago to Lake Geneva and hardly notice. The fictional
Genoa City seems, to me at least, to be Chicago.
Bryn Mawr, PA; I'm not sure about Pine Valley ("All My
Children") but it is a Philadelphia suburb.
I think most everyone here knows that the skyline used
for many years on "The Edge Of Night" was Cincinnati but,
reflecting changes in skyline and Monticello's population, the
Los Angeles skyline was used in the show's last years.
And yes, folks, there really is a Genoa City, WI, setting for
"The Young And The Restless," but it is nothing like what you
see on the show; it's more or less a small town people pass through
going from Chicago to Lake Geneva and hardly notice. The fictional
Genoa City seems, to me at least, to be Chicago.
In another thread it was mentioned that Salem, from Days of Our Lives, was supposed to be in IL. It was made out to be a good sized city, but the real Salem, IL is a small town near I-57 in Southern IL.
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