History Main / ItsAlwaysMardiGrasInNewOrleans

* If you're watching or reading something set in [[HollywoodNewEngland New England]], it's winter, and it's Christmas, with the whole town in some sort of tizzy over a parade or festival. This is due to the association of the area with picturesque small towns and snow. In reality, it's usually freezing in that area of the country in December (often without snow) and dark by mid-afternoon, which severely limits the overall desire to throw a party. Festival/parade/fair season in New England is from June to September, because that's when the weather is most temperate. Most small towns' biggest yearly celebration is actually Fourth of July.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E145TheMasks The Masks]]" tells the story of wealthy but terminally ill New Orleans resident Jason Foster, who is visited by his useless daughter Emily and her even more useless husband Wilfred, Sr. and children Wilfred, Jr. and Paula. The day of this visit happens to be Mardi Gras. However, the episode occurs indoors so we don't see the actual festival.

* ''Comicbook/CaptainCarrotAndHisAmazingZooCrew'' features in the team's origin story several of the heroes making a trip to Mew Orleans ([[TheMultiverse Earth-C's]] version of New Orleans) during its Mardi Gras celebration, where they recruit future teammate Alley-Kat-Abra.
* When [[Comicbook/XMen The X-men's]] ComicBook/{{Gambit}} first appears, part of the story takes place at a Mardi Gras parade.
* In ''[[Comicbook/SamAndMaxFreelancePolice Sam And Max: On the Road]]'', the duo searches for a group of ransacking pirates in New Orleans. During which, Sam points out that all citizens of New Orleans celebrate Mardi Gras year round.
* Played with in a ''ComicBook/LuckyLuke'' story where Luke chases the Dalton brothers through the Chinatown of Virginia City, Nevada. It's not Chinese New Year - in fact, it's seven months away - but [[SeriousBusiness the locals insist]] that it's important to rehearse [[CrazyPrepared seven months in advance]].
* In one ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' story, Batman and secret agent King Faraday pursue Two-Face from Gotham City to New Orleans where he is planning to sell a stolen missile code to a foreign power. They arrive in the middle of Mardi Gras. {{Justified}} as Two-Face had picked this time and place for the meeting as it meant he could walk around in public and everyone would assume his face was [[NotAMask a mask]].
* In ''[[Recap/TintinTintinAndThePicaros Tintin and the Picaros]]'', Tintin arrives in San Theodoros during Carnival season. However, in the earlier story ''[[Recap/TintinTheBrokenEar The Broken Ear]]'', he visited the same country (presumably at a different time of year) and there was no festival.

* Comically played with in the ''WesternAnimation/SmilingFriends'' episode [[Recap/SmilingFriendsS1E9TheSmilingFriendsGoToBrazil "The Smiling Friends Go to Brazil"]]. It's only after the group land in Brazil that they realize it's Mardi Gras/Carnival. But they don't ever ''see'' the festival, it's only relevant because they can't find a vacant hotel after forgetting to book, [[spoiler:forcing then immediately leave]].

* In the ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' cartoon "8-Ball Bunny" Bugs Bunny is in New Orleans sending Playboy Penguin off on the S.S. Admiral Byrd (under the assumption it's going to Antarctica--it's going to Brooklyn) and says he wants to stay around for "Mardi Grass."

It's worth noting that "''Mardi Gras''" is French for "Fat Tuesday", and that it originated as a Catholic tradition of feasting before the fasting period known as Lent, which starts at midnight as Fat Tuesday becomes Ash Wednesday. It did not originate in New Orleans, and the American tradition most viewers are familiar with actually originated in Mobile, Alabama. It is part of a much larger worldwide Carnival event, and Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} has a page on it [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival here]].

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePrincessAndTheFrog'', which is set in New Orleans, primarily takes place during the last three days of Mardi Gras. This is justified for two reasons: one, the event is actually vital to the plot because Lottie is only a princess during Mardi Gras, and two, no one would forgive Disney if they made an animated musical set in The Big Easy and ''didn't'' include Mardi Gras. The trope is also partially subverted; through most of the plot, nobody even mentions a holiday.

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'', the bad guys tail Jackie to [[TorosYFlamenco Pamplona, Spain]], and end up getting caught up in the Running of the Bulls. In another episode, Jackie has to travel to Ireland on St. Patrick's Day. Also, given the show's setting in San Francisco and the main protagonist's Chinese origins it comes as no surprise that several episodes take place at Chinese New Year (including one season finale in China itself).
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', Chief Wiggum and "Skinny Boy" (Principal Skinner), on their spinoff crime drama set in TheBigEasy, [[FailedASpotCheck do not realize it is Mardi Gras]].
-->'''Wiggum:''' Are there any parties today, Skinner?\\

** The episode where the Simpsons visit Brazil puts them in the middle of the Carnival.

* In an episode of the cartoon based on ''ComicBook/SwampThing'' the plant beast is captured by a scientist whose lab happens to be in New Orleans. Mardi Gras is being celebrated while Swamp Thing's friends come to find him, but this does have a point since it allows all the monstrous characters to move around a big city unnoticed.

* Bugs Bunny is in New Orleans sending Playboy Penguin off on the S.S. Admiral Byrd (under the assumption it's going to Antarctica--it's going to Brooklyn) and says he wants to stay around for "Mardi Grass." From the [[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes cartoon]] "8-Ball Bunny."

* ''VideoGame/{{Guacamelee}}'' takes place during Dia de los Muerte, and apparently ''every'' day is Dia de los Muerte in the World of the Dead.

* ''VideoGame/HowToSurvive2'': One holiday mission involves a group of survivors who decided to throw a big Mardi Gras party somewhere in Southeast America. [[TooDumbToLive ''In the middle of a'']] ZombieApocalypse. Yep, almost everyone died.

-->'''Wiggum:''' Are there any parties today, Skinner?
-->'''Skinner:''' Nah; it's not really a party town. Though if I remember correctly, they occasionally hold a function called...Marty's...something.

This goes for any city or country with a famous festival; for instance, a large number of episodes set in Mexico take place during ''Di­a de los Muertos'' or ''Cinco de Mayo''[[note]] although ''Cinco de Mayo'' is a minor holiday in Mexico itself and is not even celebrated in some regions [[/note]], a large number of episodes set in [[TorosYFlamenco Spain]] take place in Pamplona during the ''Fiesta de San Fermin'' (of "the running of the bulls" fame, complete with seemingly obligatory ThunderingHerd of ''toros''), and any episode set in UsefulNotes/{{Brazil}} (thus UsefulNotes/RioDeJaneiro) or UsefulNotes/{{Venice}} wanders into the Carnival. And while the trope isn't really applicable to [[BigApplesauce New York City]], there are still a disproportionate number of stories set in the city during the Feast of San Gennaro, or during the [[UsefulNotes/MacysThanksgivingDayParade Macy's Parade]], or in Times Square on New Year's Eve. San Francisco seemingly hosts an excessive number of Pride Marches; one might think that the entire LGBT community is unemployed, or that they have somehow managed to make parade-marching into a source of income. It's also usually Chinese New Year whenever a show's characters end up in Chinatown (with the characters hiding from danger under a lion train), and cities with large Irish communities -- Boston and Chicago, for example -- play host to frequent St. Patrick's Day Parades. However, it's never Bon when characters visit Japan, nor is it the 4th of July when characters visit America...

It's worth noting that "''Mardi Gras''" is French for "Fat Tuesday," and that it originated as a Catholic tradition of feasting before the fasting period known as Lent, which starts at midnight as Fat Tuesday becomes Ash Wednesday. It did not originate in New Orleans, and the American tradition most viewers are familiar with actually originated in Mobile, Alabama. It is part of a much larger worldwide Carnival event, and Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} has a page on it [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival here]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Rio}}'', all the time spent in Rio De Janero just happens to intersect in some way with Carnival, the first film coinciding with a countdown to it and the second starting with it a few years later.

* Anthony references this trope in the Brazil episode of the travel/food show ''Series/AnthonyBourduainNoReservations'', and also averts it; they're four months early for Carnivale. They do stop by at a dance school, though.

* WesternAnimation/ScoobyDoo and the gang solve a mystery in Rio de Janiero during Carnival in "Jeepers, It's The Jaguaro."

* In ''Film/TheLeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen'', the League is first assembled in London, in a very wet and foggy ''July'' as a title-card makes clear; and their first assignment takes them to Venice, during Venice's signature festival, Carnival. This, of course, is the exact same holiday as Mardi Gras or Shrovetide -- the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, thus the day on which Catholics overindulge in vices and partying before beginning their Lenten fast. Ash Wednesday is 40 days before Easter, therefore Carnival ''never'' falls in late summer in the northern hemisphere. It also doesn't take into account that the Venetian Carnival was outlawed in 1797 by the King of Austria, and wasn't celebrated again until ''1979.''

* Anthony references this trope in the Brazil episode of the travel/food show ''AnthonyBourduain: No Reservations'', and also averts it; they're four months early for Carnivale. They do stop by at a dance school, though.

* ''CarolineInTheCity'''s episode "Caroline and the Bullfighter", where the gang travels to Pamplona, of course, during the Running of the Bulls.

Also note: Mardi Gras is a rather long festival, with parades spread out over about two months with the various New Orleans area cities (Slidell and Metairie especially). Though this doesn't excuse the trope entirely, there are 40+ parades that run through the season, so having the character(s) visit during a Mardi Gras parade is not as coincidental as it may seem--especially if they visit from January to March--as there are other parades that occur on random weekends. The Krewe of Boo, for instance, runs the week before Halloween. And then you have Southern Decadence, a ''huge'' annual gay men's festival and parade, during Labor Day weekend. Though not all parades during the year use the same purple-green-gold coloring, having that distinctive color scheme instantly sets the stage for the rest of the scene.

* The Creator/LarryCohen films ''Film/GodToldMeTo'' and ''Film/ManiacCop'' are both set in New York, and both prominently feature the city's famed St. Patrick's Day parade.

* The Creator/LarryCohen films ''Film/GodToldMeTo'' and ''Film/ManiacCop'' are both set in New York, and both prominently feature the St. Patrick's Day parade.

* When ''Film/NowYouSeeMe'' shifts to New Orleans for Act II, sure enough...

* ''Film/DejaVu'', starting Denzel Washington, is set in New Orleans. At the beginning of the movie, a ferry on the Mississippi River blows up on Mardi Gras Day.

* In ''[[Recap/TintinTintinAndThePicaros Tintin and the Picaros]]'', Tintin arrives in San Theodoros during Carnival season.