Oh indeed! It seemed their movies would only play the small towns, and they announcer would mispronounce 3/4 of them. It’s one thing to pronounce Berlin like you are in Germany (It’s BER lin, ever since WWI), which is forgivable, but the mangling of towns like Ashwaubenon and the aforementioned Shawano that were insulting and hilarious at the same time. Ask a local!
The first time I was looking for the US Embassy in London, I made a local’s day when I asked how to get to “Gross-vennor Square.” (The correct pronunciation is “Grove-ner.”)
I know I sounded like just another dumb American, but I was 21 at the time and still very innocent. 
If they want it pronounced that way, they should spell it that way!
Who was right?
Norfolk, NE is pronounced “Nor fork.”
If you come to the UK, be sure to visit Loughborough[1], and Oswaldtwistle[2], and why not stop in the charming village of Cholmondeston[3] in Cheshire, on your way to Wales, to, of course, visit Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch[4]?
Depends. If you’re from Wisconsin, it’s “Lions.” If you’re from somewhere else, I don’t know.
Aboot, as in "Oot and aboot, " eh? 
Shawano’s pronunciation tripped me up the first time I encountered it in college. i had never heard about it in Madison.
I live in a part of California where city founders insisted on naming things in Spanish that they were incapable of pronouncing correctly. Paso Robles is “Paso Row-bulls”. Avila is “Av-a-lah” and San Luis Obispo is “San Louis Obispo”. Every out-of-town performer who pronounces the names in the correct Spanish are taken aback by a condescending chuckle from the audience.
I sometimes think that locals deliberately mispronounce city names just as a shibboleth.
For example, in Arizona Prescott is pronounced “presskit” for no discernible reason.
In Colorado, there’s a small town near Durango named Mancos. Any reasonable person would pronounce it Man-Kos, but if you do, everyone knows you are a tourist. It’s “Makiss” (with a hint of ’n’ before the k.
Are you whooshing me? In MN it is pronounced “New Prayge”
I live near Eldorado, Ark.
Been pronounced wrong as long as I know.
It’s ray not rah, in the middle.
Around here.
Don’t forget the port town next to Long Beach, “San Pee-dro.”
But in Czechia it’s not. I would expect “Prahg”, though on the other hand they spell it Praha. . . .
And let’s not forget Callus, Maine.
Yes but that’s against the cost of renting the entire theater. You got to make sure you can put enough butts in the seats to break even.
Here’s a fun little fact. In “The Business” (and by “The Business” I of course mean “The Industry”) that’s known as “four-walling”. I’ve been involved in that several times, most significantly when the feature film I helped make played in a chain theater for 3 weeks. We weren’t gonna get any distribution deals so we four-walled.
Nobody who produced the TV movie about the Tuskegee Airmen bothered to call up the Ottumwa, Iowa chamber of commerce to find out how the town’s name is pronounced. It’s ah-TUM-wah but Laurence Fishburne said he was a doctor from OTT-toom-wah.
Exactly so, and that’s why Sunn carpet-bombed the market with TV ads, largely during lower-cost time slots.
Then there’s Sannazay and Sampensisco. San Rafell. Sackamenna/Sackamenno. We Californios screw up a lot of place names. At least we can say Bakersfield!
It’s that way in southern Illinois, too.