# “Fictional” places, people, and things that surprisingly are real.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-places-people-and-things-that-surprisingly-are-real/221183
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [December 27, 2003, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-places-people-and-things-that-surprisingly-are-real/221183 "2003-12-27T00:07:16Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2003, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-places-people-and-things-that-surprisingly-are-real/221183/1 "2003-12-27T00:07:16Z")
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.!
[http://users.aol.com/stranahan/roscoes.htm](http://users.aol.com/stranahan/roscoes.htm)
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!)
[http://www.tintin.com/](http://www.tintin.com/)
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.
[http://www.rogerramjet.com/](http://www.rogerramjet.com/)
[http://lompoconline.com/archives/index\_apr03.html](http://lompoconline.com/archives/index_apr03.html)
Any other “fictional” places, people, or things, that later surprised you when you found they were real?
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### Author:  [@Iteki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iteki)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2003, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-places-people-and-things-that-surprisingly-are-real/221183/2 "2003-12-27T00:25:27Z")
I was really surprised when I found out Timbuktu really exists.
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### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2003, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-places-people-and-things-that-surprisingly-are-real/221183/3 "2003-12-27T00:25:40Z")
From _George Of The Jungle_, the great, grey-green, greasy Limpopo River.
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### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2003, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-places-people-and-things-that-surprisingly-are-real/221183/4 "2003-12-27T00:34:11Z")
[http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/L/Limpopo.asp](http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/L/Limpopo.asp)
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### Author:  [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2003, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-places-people-and-things-that-surprisingly-are-real/221183/5 "2003-12-27T00:35:34Z")
Los Angeles…I thought it was one big joke…until errr…ummmm…oh wait, somebody convince me…
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### Author:  [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2003, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-places-people-and-things-that-surprisingly-are-real/221183/6 "2003-12-27T01:00:20Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2003, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-places-people-and-things-that-surprisingly-are-real/221183/7 "2003-12-27T01:17:01Z")
Yeah, I was pretty shocked about Timbuktu as well.
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### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2003, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-places-people-and-things-that-surprisingly-are-real/221183/8 "2003-12-27T01:49:09Z")
Timbuktu:
> **[Timbuktu](http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/119)**
>
> Home of the prestigious Koranic Sankore University and other madrasas, Timbuktu was an intellectual and spiritual capital and a centre for the propagation of Islam throughout Africa in the 15th and 16th centuries. ...
From classic (circa 1950’s) retorts to stupid questions regarding locations, these “fictional” cities appear a lot: (Last sighted in _Who Framed Roger Rabbit_)
Kalamazoo:
Yes, there really IS a Kalamazoo!
[http://www.ci.kalamazoo.mi.us/](http://www.ci.kalamazoo.mi.us/)
Cucamonga:
[http://www.ci.rancho-cucamonga.ca.us/](http://www.ci.rancho-cucamonga.ca.us/)
And Walla Walla.
[http://www.ci.walla-walla.wa.us/](http://www.ci.walla-walla.wa.us/)
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### Author:  [@ResIpsaLoquitor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ResIpsaLoquitor)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2003, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-places-people-and-things-that-surprisingly-are-real/221183/9 "2003-12-27T02:05:37Z")
Yeah, but what about Seattle?
[Homer]Ha-ha-ha…Seattle…[/Homer]
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2003, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-places-people-and-things-that-surprisingly-are-real/221183/10 "2003-12-27T03:00:15Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2003, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-places-people-and-things-that-surprisingly-are-real/221183/11 "2003-12-27T03:38:14Z")
Apparently, there really is a [“Piz Gloria.”](http://myswitzerland.raileurope.com/us/rail/passes/schilthorn_piz_gloria.htm) (Not that I know what the name means, though.)
And for John Christopher fans…there really is an [Jungfraujoch obervatory.](http://www.elec.rdg.ac.uk/Staff_PostGrads/academic/jbg/Jungfrau.htm)
Those Swiss sure know how to build lairs, don’t they?
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### Author:  [@whiterabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whiterabbit)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2003, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-places-people-and-things-that-surprisingly-are-real/221183/12 "2003-12-27T03:41:15Z")
Pismo Beach.
[http://www.pismobeach.org/SITE/index/index.html](http://www.pismobeach.org/SITE/index/index.html)
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.
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### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2003, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-places-people-and-things-that-surprisingly-are-real/221183/13 "2003-12-27T04:16:09Z")
Speaking of beaches:
Spongebob’s \* “Mussel Beach” is a reference to older cartoons and movies that mentioned Muscle beach.
Of course, it is based in a real Muscle Beach, the curious part is that there were 2 of them:
It was first in Santa Monica:
[http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues98/nov98/muscle.html](http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues98/nov98/muscle.html)
> [@](#):
>
> America’s love affair with fitness began a long time ago in Southern California (where else?) at a place called … Muscle Beach
>
> In the beginning, it really wasn’t about muscles. It was about fitness and fun. The focus of attention at the original Muscle Beach, back in the 1930s, '40s and '50s, was acrobats — strong young men and women who did somersaults and handstands, built human towers and threw each other around. Later the venue moved to another Muscle Beach in Venice, and the emphasis shifted to bodybuilding.
[http://www.venicebeach.com/musclebeach/](http://www.venicebeach.com/musclebeach/)
- The trailer for the SpongeBob movie is out:
[http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/spongebobsquarepantsmovie/](http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/spongebobsquarepantsmovie/)
Is das boat and the Red October! 😃
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2003, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-places-people-and-things-that-surprisingly-are-real/221183/14 "2003-12-27T04:34:25Z")
Peoria.
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### Author:  [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2003, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-places-people-and-things-that-surprisingly-are-real/221183/15 "2003-12-27T05:56:13Z")
Peoria, Illinois or Peoria, Arizona?
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2003, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-places-people-and-things-that-surprisingly-are-real/221183/16 "2003-12-27T16:09:41Z")
Now it’s Peoria and Peoria.
Thanks, Pal.
🙂
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### Author:  [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2003, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-places-people-and-things-that-surprisingly-are-real/221183/17 "2003-12-27T16:14:43Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor \*
> \*\*From _George Of The Jungle_, the great, grey-green, greasy Limpopo River. \*\*
The “great, gray-green, greasy” bit is from Kipling’s _Just So Stories_.
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### Author:  [@FisherQueen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FisherQueen)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2003, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-places-people-and-things-that-surprisingly-are-real/221183/18 "2003-12-27T16:20:40Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2003, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-places-people-and-things-that-surprisingly-are-real/221183/19 "2003-12-27T16:32:32Z")
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.)
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### Author:  [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2003, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-places-people-and-things-that-surprisingly-are-real/221183/20 "2003-12-27T16:37:30Z")
Aurora, Illonois (I’ve butchered that spelling, haven’t I?), Wayne and Garth’s home town.
Found out it was real when I discovered my drama teacher was from there. 🙂
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