Upvote for Local Hero.
This has probably been mentioned already, but in a movie, whenever a car crashes into a fire hydrant (which happens with some regularity), the result is a geyser of water shooting up from the broken hydrant.
In real life, the valve for a fire hydrant is actually down at the supply pipe, and the bolt on top of the hydrant turns a long shaft that goes down to the valve. So if the hydrant is broken off, the valve is still closed, and it stays dry.
I once even saw a hydrant that had completely rusted away just above ground level, so almost the entire hydrant was suspended above the ground by nothing but that shaft.
Come to think of it, I’ve seen them several inches above ground that has receded. Very tempting for some punk to get a hacksaw and obtain a cool new doorstop.
There are two types. In warmer places, where they don’t have to worry about the whole thing freezing, the valve is in the hydrant, and the movies correctly depict what will happen if the hydrant is knocked over.
Aha. So this may then be another example of what happens in LA happens everywhere, as far as the movies are concerned.
I love it when someone refers to Indiana’s recall election, which we don’t have. If we elect an idiot, we are stuck with him until the end of his term, he dies, or someone stupider asks him to be his running mate (we don’t have recall elections, but we do have a rule that you can’t hold one office while running for another).
Technically Indiana could remove someone from office… except it would require a law to be passed detailing how that would happen before it could be done.
That doesn’t bar people from passing around petitions to have a politician removed. You’re allowed to petition for whatever you want. Whether that petition will have any effect is another question.
There were such petitions going around for a recent former governor who went on to hold a Federal position. How that was going to happen from that point was always an open question, but it did allow people to express their unhappiness with the guy.
Does that come up a lot in TV or movies?
Some of the so-called “water pills” that were supposed to relieve the bloating that went with your period* could turn your urine a weird sort of teal, I learned at MEPS.
*that is, if you liked your clothes so snug you couldn’t gain a pound and then they wouldn’t fit, you felt miserable during your period from this alone, so you took junk to make you pee a lot; I did not have this issue-- no pun intended
OK, not Indiana specifically, but when a script written in California, which has them, refers to them happening in any of the 31 states which do not have them.
Yeah California Lawisms show up all the time in fiction.
Off the top of my head, California gun laws pop up all the time in works set in states with basically no gun laws. Needing a permit to own a Desert Eagle in Arizona or an AK-47 in North Carolina I’ve both seen.
Don’t get me started on how The Good Wife made a half-assed effort when the writers wanted a Death Penalty story by at least figuring out that Illinois did not have the Death Penalty (and still doesn’t) and so would set their Death Penalty cases in Indiana, getting wrong everything from the fact that Indiana did not execute anyone during the run of the show (but three people in the Goodwifiverse), to geography, driving a couple of hours to get “there,” which is how long it takes to get from Chicago to the border. It’s another 2 hours to Indianapolis, and another 30-60 minutes to the men’s prison in the southwest, where the death chamber is.
There’s also one at the federal prison in Terre Haute, but that’s an even longer drive, and they haven’t done and execution in a while either.
I said don’t get me started.
California-isms in general!
On the west coast, it’s common to refer to an interstate highway with “the” in front of it. e.g. “Traffic on The 10”. On the east coast, that’s NEVER done. It’s “95”, or “I-95” or occasionally “Interstate 95”. Quite jarring, if you live hearabouts; Brendan Fraser did so in a movie, as did someone in an episode of The X-Files.
In west coast states, the prosecution is referred to as “The People”; in other states, it’s “The State”. But if you watch law shows, you may only hear the former.
Also, not every state has a District Attorney (in Florida, they are called the State Attorney), but that’s the term that everybody learns from TV.
(Also, tv has perpetuated a myth that cops have to Mirandize a person when they make an arrest. They don’t. It only applies during an interrogation done while a person is in custody).
This is purely a southern California thing. Not in use in Oregon, Washington or even Northern California. Calling it “the 5” in Oregon is a clear declaration that you are a recent California transplant. It is I-5 north to south, or I-84 if you are heading east.
Why do Angelenos put ‘the’ in front of every freeway name? - Curbed LA
Another example; a couple of years ago, a Connecticut-set sitcom referred to “Westport Union School District”. I think it’s a California thing to call the school districts “union districts” while the actual school district in Westport is called “Westport Public Schools.”
And I regularly hear people on TV shows referring to the “freeway” but again, that’s a California-ism.
Midwesterner. We’d call I-90 “I-90”. But I’ve heard the term “the freeway”. Rarely, someone trying to talk like a human being will say “the interstate”.
And no one except my mom (in her mid-90s) says “The I-Road”.
side note: I grew up knowing the Chicago interstates by number, so when people (or the radio, or a freeway sign!) say “The Dan Ryan” or “The Kennedy”, I get confused.
(I just looked it up! the Kingery Expressway, the Bishop Ford Freeway, the Dan Ryan AND the Kennedy, the Edens Expressway, and the Tri-State Tollway are ALL I-94!)
It’s “The People” in New York, too - which probably has a lot to do with how often you hear it, what with all those different “Law and Order” series.
Same as above , New York also has District Attorneys.
I hear a lot of just the number. On the Oregon coast, you take 101 all the way. You take 12 to Walla Walla or 95 to Bend. There are a lot of good places the I’s do not go. It is easier to just leave off the letters.
In Southern California, I’ve never heard anyone refer to a freeway as “the I-number”. For example. it can be “I-5” or “the 5”, but I’ve never heard it spoken as a mashup of the two.
Besides, as the locale which has had freeways (as opposed to highways) for longer than anyone else, Angelenos get to decide what’s a proper description. 
That article claims that the Arroyo Seco Parkway is the first limited-access highway/expressway, built in 1940. But there were similar parkways in the tri-state area before then, such as the Taconic Parkway in New York.