Greg Garcia, the show’s creator, has said it is loosely based on Waldorf, Maryland. There are a lot of Maryland references in the show (such as Hagerstown, Cumberland, Shady Grove, and Frostburg University) but he prefers that it be seen as “Anywhere, USA.”
TV-Seinfeld is successful enough to be pitching a TV show to NBC, to appear on latenight TV shows, etc. He’s not really “struggling”. He’s depicted as being relatively wealthy (granted not as wealthy as real-life Seinfeld). He flies first class, buys his dad a luxury car, etc.
A minor correction, but it goes to the OP: Mork and Mindy was set in Boulder, not Denver.
*Roseanne *was set in Illinois, not Michigan.
The defunct NBC show, Wings was set on Nantucket. The island and, to a lesser extent, coastal Massachusetts were essential to the character of the show.
Wagon Train
Gunsmoke
Rawhide
Little House on the Prairie
Hell, most westerns.
Holly Hunter’s Saving Grace is set in Oklahoma City, and pretty much the entire overall plot arc of the series was about how people dealt with the aftermath of the bombing of the Murrah Building.
As was discussed in a recent thread, Wisconsin does not share a land border with Canada. I don’t think there’s anyplace in Wisconsin that’s less than about a 3-4 hour drive from Canada, and from southern WI it’s more like 8-10 hours.
I lived in Wisconsin for a good portion of the time That '70s Show was on the air, and while they did reference a number of real locations I don’t remember ever feeling the show had a particularly strong grasp of the region. It’s basically just Small Town, USA. Wikipedia tells me that the fictional town of Point Place, WI, was in fact inspired by Dunkirk, NY, where one of the show’s co-creators grew up. Looking at a map, I see that Dunkirk is actually pretty close to the Canadian border – only about an hour and a half from Niagara Falls.
In Plain Sight always makes emphasis of its location in Albuquerque. And Royal Pains uses its setting in the Hamptons to make it look like an exclusive vacation spot for the rich and pampered.
I always found King Of The Hill to be a pretty accurate capture of the Houston Suburbs, with some odd details slightly off. But some was so spot on and without context I wonder what people think of it(the Laos immigrants for example) that are not familiar with the area.
Arlen is actually based on Richardson, TX, a suburb of Dallas.
Ouch. I think that one gives me the record for most errors/wrong things said in a two page thread.
Coronation Street’s Manchester setting is pretty integral to the program.
The Red Riding trilogy’s setting in Leeds, West Yorkshire was definitely integral, seeing as the story was interwoven with the story of the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper and has hints of the Moors Murderers.
Reading the mentions of King of the Hill, I believe the show could’ve been set in ANY “red state” and the show changes little, if at all.
================ Message from Zeldar ====================
Okay, people, we’re going to have one largish poll from all this. I want some guidance on at least these issues:
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Should there be some preliminary polls heading toward an ultimate one?
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Should there be a multiple choice structure?
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If so, what’s a reasonable number of “honor system” choices?
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Just exactly what do we want to be polling?
4a-- Which show(s) capitalizes best on “sense of place”?
4b-- Which show(s) depends most on its regional aspect?
4c-- Which show(s) would suffer most from being set in a different locale?
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Below is an unorganized edit of the posts through Post #73, with duplicate shows left in, in the order they appeared.
Should we have a breakdown of Comedies vs. Dramas? Maybe animated/cartoon shows separate?
I would hope that some preliminary polls (with 20-30 shows per poll) and 5 votes per person per poll, would help narrow down the eventual list to maybe 20 or so where there would be no more than 3 votes per voter for:
==== The Shows that make the best use of “feel of location” (or something along those lines)
Your Input needed! Your help would be great!
======================================================
The Sopranos (New Jersey)
Justified (Kentucky)
Dexter in Miami
Chicago Code
Detroit 1-8-7
Blue Bloods – NYC
Friends – NYC
Seinfeld – NYC
30Rock – NYC
Rhoda – NYC
Will and Grace – NYC
Spin City – NYC
Mad Men – NYC
Southland – LA
The Middle – Indiana
Hot in Cleveland
The Drew Carey Show – Cleveland
Law & Order (the original) – NYC
Hawaii 5-0 – Hawaii
Magnum, P.I. – Hawaii
parks and rec – pawnee
Happy Endings – chicago
Whitney – chicago
the Office – Scranton, Pa.
The Wire – Baltimore
Seinfeld – NYC
How I met Your Mother – NYC
Breaking Bad – Desert Southwest (Albuquerque)
The Killing – Seattle
Bones – DC
My Name is Earl – wherever
King of the Hill – North Texas
Burn Notice – “Miami”
The Waltons – ?
Little House On The Prairie – ?
Andy Griffith Show – ?
Northern Exposure – Alaska
Homicide: Life on the Streets – Baltimore
Life on Mars – ?
Breaking Bad – New Mexico
Portlandia – Oregon
Simpson’s – the State that Springfield is in
King of the Hill – North Texas/Houston/Austin/general Texas
The Honeymooners – Bensonhurt, Brooklyn, in the Fifties.
All in the Family – Astoria
“Home Improvement” – metro Detroit
CSI – Las Vegas
Twin Peaks – Pacific Northwest
Petticoat Junction – Hooterville
Green Acres – Hooterville
Corner Gas – Saskatchewan
Streets of San Francisco – SF
MAS*H – the mountains around southern California
Dragnet (the 50s and 60s versions) – Los Angeles
Always Sunny in Philadelphia – “Philly”
Dallas – Dallas
Mike & Molly – Chicago
ER – Chicago
Chicago Hope – Chicago
Friday Night Lights-- West Texas
Six Feet Under – LA
Mystery Science Theater 3000 – Twin Cities
Life on Mars – Manchester (England)
That 70s Show – Wisconsin
The Andy Griffith Show – rural North Carolina
Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley – Milwaukee
Cheers – Boston
Mork & Mindy – Denver
Roseanne – Michigan
The Bob Newhart Show – Chicago
Saturday Night Live – NYC
The Mentalist – different locations over a large area of California
Nash Bridges – San Francisco
Roseanne – in the rust belt somewhere
WKRP – Cincinnati
King of the Hill – Central Texas (within an hour of Austin – somewhere just north of it)
NYPD Blue – NYC
Rescue Me – Boston?
Frasier – Seattle
Cheers – Boston
Roseanne – Lanford, IL – generic Midwest
Friday Night Lights – Midland/Odessa Texas.
The Waltons – Appalachian mountains of Virginia
The Andy Griffith Show – North Carolina, specifically, Mount Airy, NC
Miami Vice – Miami
My Name is Earl – Camden County (unincorporated area or something)(loosely based on Waldorf, Maryland)
Mork and Mindy – Boulder
Roseanne – Illinois, not Michigan
Wings – Nantucket (The island and, to a lesser extent, coastal Massachusetts)
Wagon Train – western
Gunsmoke – western
Rawhide – western
Little House on the Prairie – western
That 70s Show – Small Town, USA – Point Place, WI, was in fact inspired by Dunkirk, NY
In Plain Sight – Albuquerque
Royal Pains – the Hamptons
King Of The Hill – Houston Suburbs – Richardson, TX, a suburb of Dallas
Coronation Street – Manchester
The Red Riding trilogy - Leeds, West Yorkshire
=================================================
But those are all fantasy/farcical versions of New York and the majority of them were filmed in Los Angeles studios.
Louie - New York - one of the few comedies that really lives in its setting.
Well, considering that Los Angeles is one of the small number of American cities whose traffic is worse than Washington’s, maybe they just have a skewed sense of perspective.
Drew Carey - Cleveland Rocks!
Actually, WKRP did have some level of Cincinnati/Ohio references – the Who concert, Reds caps – Strangely enough, both Gary Sandy and Gordon Jump were from Dayton.
Family Ties - It was in Ohio, with references to both Cincinnati and Cleveland.
But, yeah, this is the major point. Most traditional sitcoms might make passing references to localities, but they in no way capture a regional feel. Or culture. They’re all just Hollywood Generic America with some regional set dressing. I can’t think of any three-camera studio sitcom that really captures the locality that it’s set in.
I’ve watched a half-dozen random episodes of How I Met Your Mother and didn’t know it was set in NY. Felt like it could have been any big city.
I think Burn Notice does Miami a tad bit better than Dexter, although they need more Cubans on the show.
Confession time: I have personally seen less than 1/3 of these shows; almost none of the sitcoms and none of the animated/cartoon ones.
I’m happy to leave the thread as a discussion and listing of shows, but if there’s to be some poll(s) to follow, I’m at your mercy. Seriously. 
NYC.