Unsurprinsingly, West Virginia doesn’t appear to be a place where show creators/writers are dying to set the latest and greatest TV series. I had to look up “Hawkins” I had never heard of it.
Walker, Texas Ranger for Texas seems wrong. I’d go with *Dallas *.
“Married With Children” beats out Bob Newhart for Illinois?
and Roseanne, and ER. Whatever fancy metrics they used, they’re wrong.
*Smallville *was a more popular show than Gunsmoke?
And surely there must be a better choice for California that The Brady Bunch…Dragnet, perhaps?
The map seems way off to me.
I nominate Saving Grace for Oklahoma (even though most of it was filmed elsewhere).
I didn’t even know Brady Bunch was supposed to be in California. There are certainly many, many other choices: All the Jack Webb shows, Dragnet, Adam 12 ,or Emergency. Also, The Rockford Files, Twin Peaks, Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel, Veronica Mars, Arrested Development, Baywatch, etc., etc. I don’t know how they compare in popularity though.
California would have to be a tough one, since many of the shows set there are set there by default. Few are specifically set in California in the sense that they wouldn’t work elsewhere *CHiPs *would probably qualify, and Baywatch. Or Streets of San Francisco.
“Parks & Recreation” over “One Day At a Time” for Indiana?
And Hill Street Blues.
I agree - they’re totally wrong.
Every other show is set in LA or NY, so those states aren’t really interesting. Forget em.
“Hill Street Blues” isn’t explicitly set in Chicago, the city is anonymous.
I agree that the criteria make you scratch your head. I Love Lucy, for instance, had twice the viewership of Seinfeld and certainly had shown its popular culture cred over the years.
“South Park”, while popular, is on Comedy Central , which probably isn’t available in 60,000,000 homes, which is the number of people who watched a single episode of “Dynasty” in the mid 80’s.
When the title is “Most popular”, South Park doesn’t even approach the popularity of Dynasty, which was airing in Prime Time before Cable Networks produced their own shows.
Forgot to mention: Colorado, obviously.
Twin Peaks was in Washington.
What metric this map is using is completely beyond me. In some cases their choice makes sense, and in some it makes no sense at all.
Lamar correctly points out that it cannot be objectively explained why anyone would put “South Park” above “Dynasty,” which was at one point the most popular TV show in America. So it appears the website gave the nod to South Park based on “lasting impact on American culture,” as they phrase it, a catch-all that pretty much allowed them to pick whatever show they wanted. Which makes the South Park choice defensible; “Dynasty” was a huge deal at the time, but is now a terribly dated and transparently awful show, fading quickly into the mists of time, having left behind few cultural markers and few lasting careers. Heather Locklear’s done well, I guess. “South Park” seems to have had the greater overall impact, though time will tell.
Not too many shows set in Arizona, but I’m surprised “Medium” was more popular than “Alice.” Kiss my grits!
Heck, “I Love Lucy” won its prime time time slot LAST WEEK!
From the article:
South Has been on for 16 years vs. Dynasty’s 8 (and still going), it’s rating on imdb is much higher, had a hit movie, at least one video game, tons of merchandising, not to mention all of the catch phrases and memes that it inspired.
So, yeah, by the criteria they used, South Park is hugely more popular.