Quentin Tarantino’s movies sometimes make references to a Roscoe’s Chicken and waffles restaurant; there is a real Roscoe’s Chicken and waffles restaurant in L.A.!
From the Adventures of TinTin I was surprised to find that Tchang was a real person! He was a dear friend of Herge! (BTW Early next year is TinTin’s 75h Birthday!)
And in that old cartoon series Roger Ramjet, the hometown of the hero was Lompoc. Driving trough California, I did a double take when I found it was real.
Well, not entirely the same, but I always thought there was a city in California called “La Hoya,” as distinct from the city called “La Jolla,” which in my mind was pronounced “La Joll-luh.” It never occurred to me that I’d never heard La Jolla pronounced and I’d never seen La Hoya written about.
Not until I took a trip to San Diego and was on the freeway with a local did I figure out the truth. I tried very hard not to act surprised.
From classic (circa 1950’s) retorts to stupid questions regarding locations, these “fictional” cities appear a lot: (Last sighted in Who Framed Roger Rabbit)
I merely considered John Barth’s The Sot-Weed Factor a brilliant novel about a fictional 17th Century poet Ebeneeze Cooke, who supposedly wrote a poem entitled “The Sot-Weed Factor.” Years later, I discovered that Cooke was real and that he did write a poem called “The Sot-Weed Factor,” which Barth used liberally in his book.
Later I discovered the McGuffin of the book – the Secret of the Sacred Eggplant – was an actual recipe of the time. If you’ve ever read the book, you’ll find that astonishing.
All those years, I thought the Warners people had made up a silly sounding beach name for the cartoons.
Imagine my shock when I’m about 18 driving up the PCH and see signs for Pismo Beach! I had to detour just to check it out. I guess it was a big tourist attraction back in the day.
What American reader of the Narnia books can forget the wonder followed by disappointment when she (a) discovers that Turkish Delight is a real, obtainable candy (b) discovers that it must take some wicked powerful enchantments to make it worth selling out your family for more.
Two Harry Chapin songs are set in actual locations that I know personally.
At one time I used to regularly drive from upstazte New York to Philadelphia. There’s a road leading south from Scranton PA which has a four-mile hill that one climbs, with runaway truck turnoffs every half mile or so for those northbound and descending the hill. I presume at the foot of the hill, at one time, there were “Thirty Thousand Pounds of Bananas.”
Harry wrote the song “A Better Place to Be” one evening while stranded in my home town. The father of a good friend while Iwas growing up worked at Miller’s Tool and Die, and, while he didn’t drink, many of the men from there went to a bar two blocks away that fits precisely in description and ambience the one from the song. (Over the past few years, it’s tried to attract a younger crowd on Saturday nights, and my son DJs there. I’ve been there a few times while visiting him and his family, but have never been able to get them to play the song about that bar.)
