History Main / VivaLasVegas

* Music/FaithHill's "Let's Go to Vegas" has her persuading her lover to run off to Vegas.

* Glitter Oasis in CrazyTaxi 3: High Roller.

* ''DestinyTurnsOnTheRadio'' presents a seedy mythic Las Vegas with QuentinTarantino as a sort of trickster god of luck.

* ''DeadRising2'' takes place in a Vegas [[CaptainErsatz analogue]] by the name of Fortune City. Which is very similar to Vegas. The gambling, the giant hotels and malls...In fact, the only easily noticeable difference between Las Vegas and Fortune is the fact that Fortune has be [[ZombieApocalypse overrun by zombies]]. [[spoiler: The prequel establishes that Fortune City was a replacement for Vegas, the real thing having been overrun by the dead and firebombed into oblivion. The BigBad confesses to starting ''that'' outbreak in the main game.]]

* ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto: San Andreas'' features the city of Las Venturas, a dead ringer for Vegas, as the third big city in the state along with [[HollywoodCalifornia Los Santos and San Fierro]].

* The penultimate episode of ''Series/StargateAtlantis'', "Vegas", is set in the city, where John Sheppard is instead a police detective investigating a series of grisly murders committed by a lone Wraith. It later turns out to be an AlternateRealityEpisode in which Sheppard's life turned out somewhat differently from the one we're familiar with.

* There was a ''MadTV'' commercial parody [[spoiler:about Atlantic City]] where a woman is stalked by Las Vegas.

VivaLasVegas consists entirely of casino interiors (with rattling-change sound effects, although modern slots dispense credit slips), the Strip, and possibly Fremont Street. And of course, every other person you'll meet is an Elvis impersonator who doubles as a clergyman or justice of the peace for quickie, no-questions-asked marriages. These many not be too far away from reality...

* Music/GramParson's "Ooh Las Vegas" condemns the city for always making "a wreck out of me."

** An AnthropomorphicPersonification or GeniusLoci? Or [[BrassEye a stalker disguised as a casino]]?

* The Season 15 finale of ''Series/TheAmazingRace'' took place in Vegas. It involved traveling from casino to casino, an Elvis impersonator in a wedding chapel, a visit to Cirque de Soleil, Wayne Newton, and counting out a million dollars in poker chips. The season also featured Maria & Tiffany, a pair of professional poker players. [[hottip:*:Although by that time, they had already long been eliminated.]]

* The Music/ElvisPresley movie ''Film/VivaLasvegas'', which featurs the eponymous song.

* The characters in ''KnockedUp'' take a trip here; the ladies try to get into a nightclub and the guys check out Creator/CirqueDuSoleil's ''{{Mystere}}'' (the latter are high on mushrooms to enhance the experience).

* A [[http://www.carlustblog.com/2010/05/great-commercialsjoyride-dream.html 2010 Kia car commercial]] had a bunch of toys (including a character from ''YoGabbaGabba'') go to Las Vegas and cruise down the strip during a Super Bowl ad -- in defiance of an NFL advertising rule against showing casinos.

* In ''{{Wishmaster}} 2: Evil Never Dies'', the JackassGenie heads to Vegas, due to it being the perfect wishing hotspot.

* The Las Vegas tourism board currently reinforces this trope in its "What Happens in Vegas" ad campaign. This came as a much-needed breath of relief (and reality) after their [[DorkAge ill-advised attempt to market the city as family-friendly]] (parodied by JohnHodgman, above) in TheNineties.

* Every time the myth is evoked, I have that “you have got to be kidding” moment and then have to suspend my sense of disbelief. Clue, I am a local. The “family friendly Vegas” might be ridiculed, but during the Recession we wish we were able to back up that image, because nobody wanted to go to the “what happens in Vegas” and waste what little money they had left. As of April, 2013 unemployment finally dropped down to single digits. But still, to quote Jimmy Mirren, “many of those jobs have gone away and their not coming back”.
The history of Nevada, and with that Las Vegas, is the futile search to find economic diversity. Las Vegas is a one industry town. The only thing we have keeping us afloat is Consumption / Hospitality. With the state, we can only add mining to that list. To add to this, we have had to attract industries no other state wants. The reason prostitution is only legal in some parts of Nevada, but not in the urban areas, involved a compromise to secure statehood. Back when divorce was incredibly long and hard to get, Nevada introduced the six week cure; stay in Nevada long enough to qualify as a state resident and in that time you can get your divorce finalized. Then there’s gambling. [[Retrograde62 23 May, 2013 10:15 PM PST]][[/folder]]

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The history of Nevada, and with that Las Vegas, is the futile search to find economic diversity. Las Vegas is a one industry town. The only thing we have keeping us afloat is Consumption / Hospitality. With the state, we can only add mining to that list. To add to this, we have had to attract industries no other state wants. The reason prostitution is only legal in some parts of Nevada, but not in the urban areas, involved a compromise to secure statehood. Back when divorce was incredibly long and hard to get, Nevada introduced the six week cure; stay in Nevada long enough to qualify as a state resident and in that time you can get your divorce finalized. Then there’s gambling. [[Retrograde62 23 May, 2013 10:15 PM PST]]

* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': "Roads to Vegas" has Brian and Stewie heading to Las Vegas via the latter's teleporter. Problem is, the teleporter malfunctions and creates duplicates of the two -- one pair makes it to Vegas, the other doesn't, and neither set is aware of the other's existence. The latter pair takes a plane to Vegas instead and goes through the miserable Vegas experience (they get stuck at a fleapit hotel, lose their money at the gaming tables, etc.) while the first pair lives high on the hog. Eventually their paths unknowingly cross, [[spoiler: and the status quo is restored when one Stewie is murdered by a loan shark and one Brian kills himself]].

* In the sixth season premiere of ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'', JD, overstressed about the fact that [[spoiler: he impregnated his new girlfriend on the first date]] drinks himself into a stupor and promptly gets kidnapped to Las Vegas by the [[ItMakesSenseInContext elderly gay men who had commandeered his porch]], almost gets married to one of them, wakes up in utter confusion flees the chapel at the last second, stumbles onto a stage where the BlueManGroup is playing, gets covered in blue paint and confetti, and finally gets beaten up by security, arrested, and has to call Turk to bail him out. All in the three-minute-long pre-credits teaser.

* The characters in ''KnockedUp'' take a trip here; the ladies try to get into a nightclub and the guys check out CirqueDuSoleil's ''{{Mystere}}'' (the latter are high on mushrooms to enhance the experience).