Movies and TV shows, wherever they're supposed to be set, tend to be filmed in [[CaliforniaDoubling Southern California]] or British Columbia. This leads to a common error, where mountains show up in the background of settings which have no visible peaks in RealLife, such as in Illinois, which, if you haven't already realized it, is as flat as this joke.

A subtrope of TelevisionGeography. See also MisplacedVegetation. [[RealityIsUnrealistic Note that in some parts of Illinois, the mountains of Missouri are indeed visible.]] But this obviously doesn't include Chicago, the default location for shows based in Illinois.
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'''Examples:'''

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Film ]]

* In ''AustinPowers 2'', the Hollywood hills are clearly visible in the background to the "London" scenes. According to the commentary, the hills can't be seen from the set but were deliberately added in in post-production to make the scene [[StylisticSuck look even more fake.]]
** [[LampshadeHanging "You know what's remarkable? Is how much England looks in no way like Southern California."]]
* Named for the opening scene of ''BeginningOfTheEnd'', as {{lampshaded}} in ''MysteryScienceTheater3000''.
** And the episode for the movie ''The Rebel Set'' features a car chase through the mountains we all know are outside of Chicago.
*** To be fair, there ''are'' mountains outside of Chicago. A very long way outside (and over the horizon), mind you, but they're definitely outside.
* Exceptionally unacceptable since it's animation, ''Film/{{Beowulf}}'' opens with a wide shot of the majestic mountains of Denmark - a country so flat its highest peak is a TV tower (and said TV tower is twice as tall as the highest ''natural'' point). DidNotDoTheResearch, anyone?
** Even worse, they had the main character fighting ''a dragon''. There are no dragons in Denmark, are there?
*** Well, not anymore. Beowulf's seen to that. That part of the story was set in Geatland (Götaland, Sweden), by the way.
**** Not in the film: the bit with the dragon was moved to Denmark as well, at the request of the director. (Trying to save money on set construction? Didn't trust the audience to follow along? We may never know.)
*** Not that the mountains of Geatland are particularly majestic. The highest reaches 377 m over sea level.
*** Maybe Beowulf fought all the mountains, as well.
* The first scenes of ''CloseEncountersOfTheThirdKind'' depict in a few places what seem to be mountains and cliffs in what is Indiana (whose geography is nearly identical to Illinois).
** To quote one of this troper's friends, "There is something central Indiana lacks: [[http://members.wri.com/layland/pics/Misc/tn/ski_terre_haute.jpg.html elevation changes.]]
* In ''Cold Mountain'' (set in the Appalachian Mountains region of North Carolina), the Romanian location is mostly accurate....until giant craggy peaks appear towards the end.
* ''Elizabeth: The Golden Age''. Fotheringay Castle, in which [[MaryOfScotland Mary, Queen of Scots]] is confined prior to her execution, is played by Eilean Donan castle in Scotland, complete with romantic mountains and loch. The real Fotheringay Castle is in Northamptonshire, which has a distinct dearth of either.
* The [[TheFilmOfTheSeries movie version]] of ''TheFugitive'' has plenty of this when Kimble steals the ambulance and gets chased to the dam. (Most of the film's location shooting was done in the Great Smoky Mountains, although the action is nominally confined to Illinois...which is ironic, seeing as how the original show sent Kimble running all over America!)
* The docu-drama ''Gacy'', about real-life serial killer John Wayne Gacy, is set in Des Plaines, Illinois. In the movie you can clearly see both mountains and wild palm trees, none of which exist in Illinois. On the DVD commentary, the producer and director actually ''counts'' them...
* In John Carpenter's ''{{Halloween}}'', the town of Haddonfield is supposed to be in Illinois, but a sharp-eyed viewer can not only see mountains in the background of some scenes, but palm trees as well.
* In ''IndependenceDay'', the first sighting of the alien ship takes place in Novosibirsk, Russia. A news reporter says the ship is "clearing the mountains" - but there are no mountains in Novosibirsk, the area is flat.
** Inversely in the same film, the landscape supposedly surrounding El Toro shows a desert. El Toro Marine Base is located in a hilly section of Orange County.
* Inverted in ''KingdomOfHeaven'', where Jerusalem is located in a flat desert.
* ''National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation'' takes place in suburban Chicago, but in the opening scene where the Griswolds are driving down the highway to look for the perfect Christmas tree, mountains can be seen very clearly in the background. Chicago does not have mountains anywhere near it (the closest mountains may be in South Dakota, and I doubt they went that far).
** It's Clark Griswold looking for a Christmas tree. He's just crazy enough that he might.
* According to [[DisneyAnimatedCanon Disney's]] ''Pocahontas'', there are tall mountains in Virginia. Perfect for a musical number.
** While there are some tall mountains in Virginia, there are none anywhere near Jamestown.
** Or Norfolk, despite the fact that in ''DownPeriscope'' peaks are visible from the naval base.
*** There are also the craggy mountains of Norfolk, ''England'' (famously one of the flattest areas in the UK) in ''ReignOfFire''.
* The snow-capped mountains in Jackie Chan's ''Rumble in the Bronx'' were actually part of the Coast Range in British Columbia.
* ''The Rundown'' has some hills in TheAmazon... considering the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brazil_topo.jpg highest places in the forest]] are nowhere near the Amazon river...
* The 1950s Hollywood Mountie movie ''Saskatchewan'' had the Mounties riding through the majestic snowcapped mountains of said province. A province which, in reality, is so stereotypically flat that Canadians make jokes about roof repair guys being treated in Saskatchewan like astronauts.
** Some say that the movie was about the Saskatchewan Territory that extended into Alberta, and therefore the mountain scenes are accurate. But Alberta isn't one big mountain range: the Rockies are only found on the southwestern edge, nowhere near the old Saskatchewan territory. The movie was marketed as a comedy in Alberta, incidentally.
* ''Starman'' begins with the titular character crashing to earth in Wisconsin... with mountains clearly visible in the background. While the country is certainly hilly, there are no mountains in Wisconsin.
* ''TheThiefOfBaghdad'' (1940) depicts the city of Baghdad as surrounded by craggy peaks. The real city stands in a perfectly flat plain.
* ''DeepImpact'' shows a packed highway fleeing Virginia Beach from the impending titular impact. While the movie did film that scene in Virginia, they did so several hours northwest [[hottip:*:specifically on what is now the VA-234 bypass west of Manassas, which was nearing completion at the time filming was done; the mountains in this case are the Bull Run Mountains, an outpost of the Blue Ridge not far from there]], and thus, has mountains visible that should be well over the horizon.
*In ''Stick It'', the opening scene (and all travel scenes) show great panoramic shots of the desert wasteland that is Plano and Houston (note: there isn't a desert within 200 miles of Plano, and if not for modern drainage, Houston would be a swamp). Also, neither city has elevation changes large enough to help your bike downhill, much less to perform stunts. The film was so obviously made in Arizona and California that it isn't funny. Don't set a show in Texas if it isn't relevant and you don't include Texas culture.
* Not exactly an example of this trope (what do you mean Middle Earth isn't real?!), but since LordOfTheRings was filmed in New Zealand, there are mountains in most scenes. Which is fine, when they are traveling through countries that are supposed to be mountainous. But the Shire is certainly not within sight of any mountains, yet we see Frodo and Sam traipsing across it at the beginning of the first film with majestic mountain backdrops. The inclusion on the page is ''slightly'' justified, because Middle Earth does have a scale map (which they show in the film), showing that the mountains are very far away. In addition, Bilbo lists his desire to see mountains again as a reason to leave the Shire.

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[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* The fourth season of ''[[TwentyFour 24]]'' had terrorists hiding a nuclear missile in the mountains of Iowa, a state which in RealLife has nothing more than rolling hills.
** While parts of the seventh season were filmed on-location in Washington DC, ''CaliforniaDoubling'' was used in a large portion of the episode. Thus, you get palm trees and brown hills ... in DC.
* In ''PowerRangersOperationOverdrive'', the Florida Everglades has mountains. As does the rest of the world, thanks to filming in New Zealand.
* A third-season episode of ''{{Smallville}}'' features a scene on the shores of one of Kansas' picturesque mountain lakes. For those of you in other countries, the terrain of Kansas is just like a billiards table, except for just enough ripples to mess up your shot. (According to research published in the ''Annals of Improbable Research'', the state is literally flatter than a pancake.)
** And to add insult to injury, Kansas has no natural lakes.
** It goes much further than an isolated incident in ''{{Smallville}}''. [[http://www.supermanhomepage.com/tv/tv.php?topic=reviews/smallville-knockout This]] site has an entertaining list of many unlikely elements of the show, but scroll down to about 2/3rds of the way down for a list of appearances of "Mountains in Kansas"
*** On the other hand, it is an excuse to get Erica Durance in a bikini...
* The same Kansas Problems for Clark and the gang also apply to {{Jericho}}.
* An episode of TheXFiles featured the SAME fjord surrounded by mountains and pine trees that played a lake in Kansas in the {{Smallville}} example above as a lake in Iowa.
** They even spelled Okoboji wrong.
* ''TheCommish'' was supposedly set on Long Island, but one ChaseScene showed the Rocky Mountains prominently in the background.
* The Minnesota farmland in ''LittleHouseOnThePrairie'' was peppered with suspiciously Californian mountains and hills. (Not to mention that it rarely ever snowed there, except during Christmas episodes.)
** That's OK. The whole show was transplanted to Minnesota when the book of the same name was set in Oklahoma. There's not a lot of prairie in Minnesota, and what there is, is on the western edge.
*** While the bulk of "Indian Territory" did indeed go on to become Oklahoma, the book's setting - and the Ingalls' own Little House - is actually in Montgomery County, ''Kansas''. (Laura herself was unclear on this, admittedly, having misheard or misremembered the claim's location.)
** To be fair, the Northern Superior Shore can be very mountainous. There are several ski resorts up there.
***Replace mountainous with hilly. We have maybe four or five mountains total, and most are barely considered mountains.
* The TV miniseries version of StephenKing's ''TheStand'' featured a pyromaniac setting fire to an oil tank farm in Gary, Indiana, just to watch it burn. Mountains are clearly visible in the background behind the oil tanks. Big mountains. Northwest Indiana is flat enough to make Iowa look mountainous by comparison.
** Gary actually has two "mountains". One is Mt. Tom, a very large sand dune, and the other is an old garbage dump covered in dirt and fenced off. They are no where near within sight of each other.
* In ''Series/{{Heroes}}'', Claire goes to an oil rig in her hometown of Odessa, Texas several times, and the background is quite mountainous. On the commentary for the episode "Godsend," Sendhil Ramamurthy (Mohinder) said, "I'm from San Antonio, and I've been to Odessa, and there are no mountains in Odessa."
* The illegal road race in ''Drive'' begins in Key West and runs through South/Central Florida for several episodes, featuring the mountains of the Florida Keys and Everglades in many of the highway scenes.
** "Several" episodes? Wasn't the show ''canceled'' after four?
*** Four were aired, six were filmed (and can be downloaded via legal routes).
* ''{{Supernatural}}'' is guilty of this all the time. This troper couldn't stop giggling when a scene set outside Lincoln, Nebraska had pine-covered mountains in the distance. Nebraska does have canyons, bluffs, and buttes (though nowhere near Lincoln), but mountains? Not so much.
* Averted in ''{{Carnivale}}'' through the magic of CGI, as it was supposed to be taking place in the dustbowls of Depression USA, hence no mountains at all.
* Despite being set in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area, the ''NCIS'' agents sure spend a lot of time on dirt roads and empty farmland.
**A 20 minute drive from DC can put you in that kind of terrain, not outside the realm of reality for the team to go investigate.
* The MadeForTVMovie ''Spring Break Shark Attack'' was supposed to be set in Florida but was shot in South Africa... with lots of nice shots of the mountains near "Miami Beach".

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Music ]]

*SufjanStevens' ''The Avalanche: Outtakes and Extras from the "Illinois" Album''. His press releases for the album joked about the Prairie State's lack of real avalanches, and said that the name was meant to suggest "musical debris". The title track from the album is apparently about a Chevy Avalanche.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Comics ]]

* During the Magneto War crossover, Magneto met up with the Acolytes in an alpine looking location. Which the caption box called "the Netherlands".
** Just to clarify that one, the Netherlands has a ''single hill'' that's high enough to be noteworthy for cartographers. And it's pretty small.
** Which is, of course, why it's ''called'' the ''Lowlands''.
* An early issue of Alpha Flight showed mountains in the distance in Winnipeg, Manitoba, which is located in the Red River Valley, one of the flattest areas on Earth. The nearest mountains are nearly 900 miles (1400 km) west, in Alberta.
* At one point, the headquarters of the JusticeLeagueOfAmerica was indentified as inside a mountain in Rhode Island, which doesn't have any. Really strange seeing as Rhode Island isn't a place that demands they set up shop there.

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[[folder: Video Games ]]

* In the first ''CallOfDuty'' game there's a mission where you have to blow up the Eder Dam. The background is hilarious to any German; the Alpine peaks definitely don't look much like Hesse.
**In the expansion United Offensive, a mission takes place "somewhere in Holland" (presumably near Rotterdam, since that was what the plane you were in was bombing before it was shot down), yet features hills and even some rocky cliffs (there are no cliffs in the Netherlands, and the only hills are in the southeast, about 150 kilometers from Rotterdam).
* Taken to an absurd degree in ''[[HomestarRunner Dangeresque 3]]'': Venice, Cairo, Ireland, Tokyo, and Paris are all ''the same set'' (which, of course, resembles ''none'' of the aforementioned places) with a really badly made prop in the background. They even have the same character (sort of) standing around in the same place in each.
* Not mountains as such, but this troper recalls an 80's arcade game involving a motorcycle racing across the US. The stages alternated between "street" and "desert", which worked plausibly except that it placed a ''desert'' in Illinois.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Real Life ]]

* There is a region of the Midwest called the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driftless_Area Driftless Area]] running through southeastern Minnesota, southwestern Wisconsin, northeastern Iowa and, yes, ''northwestern Illinois'' that, in contrast to the surrounding states, is fairly mountainous. Just to show you: [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/TypicalDriftless.jpg this]] is Wisconsin.
** Which would be considered "mountainous" by people from [[http://www.bestfewo.de/uploads/pics/nordfriesland_blick_hamburger_hallig_by_sprisi_pixelio_1_.de0025.jpg the Netherlands, Denmark or northern Germany]].
** Even so, Illinois' tallest mountain (1,250-foot Charles Mound) is 200 feet shorter than the Sears Tower. That's right, Illinois' highest point is a ''man-made structure''.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* Several episodes of ''FamilyGuy'' (set in Rhode Island but, of course, written in L.A.) feature a rugged, mountainous landscape forested with pine trees. Rhode Island does have some hills, but not very large or jagged ones. Its highest point is 812 feet. Also, New England has many pine trees, but the native tree, the Eastern White Pine, looks rather distinct from the bushier Ponderosa of the West.
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