Despite the protagonists living in some form of Suburbia, where many houses are all near each other, there's only one set of neighbours that ever show up. These neighbours might share a backyard, they might live across the street, or they might live to the left or right of the protagonists. Despite this, whoever lives in the other three houses gets completely ignored, and if they are named, they never appear onscreen. This could also apply in an apartment complex, which tends to have at least half-a-dozen different residents, plus additional neighbours in the buildings adjacent.
The reasoning behind this trope is fairly simple: Keeping down the number of characters that the audience has to remember, and thus the number of actors you have to hire, and even the number of sets you have to maintain, in the case of a live-action TV-series. The result is a Limited Social Circle, and the few times a new neighbour is introduced, they promptly disappear by the next episode.
This trope doesn't apply when the house/home itself is in the middle of nowhere, or if the protagonists are living in an abandoned warehouse and similar. It only applies when the location is shown or implied to have a large number of residents, but only one set is consistently shown. The "one neighbour" could be a single resident, or it could be a secondary family, a mirror of the protagonists.
Compare Two-Teacher School, where a school only has one or two teachers to achieve a similar Economy Cast.
Examples:
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Comic Books
- Batman: While a few of the other rich folk who live in Bruce's neighborhood show up in stories from time to time, usually because they're being robbed or are corrupt corporate executives, they rarely make more than one appearance. The house next door that is right at the entrance of the Wayne estate though has the Drake family move in and they become recurring characters until their deaths since their son Tim becomes Robin.
- Disney Ducks Comic Universe: Donald Duck has two neighbors, one named Jones and one named Smith. They are, however, functionally identical, as they are both sworn enemies of Donald. Often, Donald's other neighbor will just be whoever happens to fit the story (though kind old ladies seem popular). Or it could be someone new who moves in and forces an Enemy Mine situation between Donald and Mr. Jones by annoying both.
Film — Live-Action
- In Clerks (and Clerks: The Animated Series), the convenience store, as far as we know, has only the video store next to it — thus making it an interesting case of a Moebius Strip Mall.
- One of the many Clerks comic book stories involves the clerks finally noticing a small store set in between the locations. Turns out an old, bearded guy named Claus runs it.
Literature
- This is one of the questions frequently raised about Harry Potter. Harry spends an awful lot of time in the Gryffindor common room or eating at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, yet some of his fellow (and not new) Gryffindors are still strangers by the time he meets them in books five and six. He would have to have been actively avoiding these people for years in order not to at least know who they are.
Live-Action TV
- Small Wonder never showed us the Lawsons' other neighbors, as if they and the Brindles were the only families on their block.
- The early seasons of Married... with Children had the Rhodes as the Bundys' neighbors... and nobody else. Later seasons introduced Bob Rooney, another man from the neighborhood, as a recurring character, though it's unclear whether he lives on the other side of the Bundys, or somewhere else nearby.
- Played with in the PBS show Square One TV. During the "Mathnet" sketches, George Frankly would often speak of his "right-side neighbor, Mr. Beasley," without ever mentioning who was on the left side. However, in later seasons, the "Math Brigade" sketches detailed the adventures of Dirk Niblick and his "left-side neighbor, Mr. Beasley," which gives Beasley two sets of neighbors.
- iCarly: Freddie and his mother live across the hall from Carly and Spencer, but the other residents of their apartment building are usually MIA.
- In That '70s Show, this trope is followed, and it's even strongly implied that the Foremans and the Pinciottis each have only each other for next door neighbors (where a lecherous character says he drives by Donna's house a lot because his mother lives next door and Eric protests that he lives next door).
- The title character of Everybody Loves Raymond lives across the street from his annoying parents, but neither house seems to have one beside it.
- Friends: Averted with the main apartment building. The gang do know other people in their building (Mr Heckles, Danny, Joey's singing friend, Ugly Naked Guy (who actually lives in a building across the street)). Played straight with their actual floor, as only Apartment 19 and 20 exist: We see the gang running across the hallway to each other, using it as a thoroughfare, never locking their doors, having joint parties in the hallway, getting into fights, riding pogo sticks, putting the chick and the duck out there...without the other residents ever appearing. They may as well have demolished the walls and joined the apartments up completely.
- Lampshaded on The Drew Carey Show when one of Drew's wacky neighbors from the early episodes drops by. Drew, not being too happy about them always showing up, asks her, "Don't you have neighbors on the other side?"
- Cougar Town: Either played straight or averted, depending on how many houses there are on the cul-de-sac. Either there are not many houses and we know all or most of the residents, or it's a good example of this trope.
- Steve Urkel on Family Matters lived next door to the Winslows for most of the series, but eventually he moved in with them. Apparently this left a vacancy in the neighborhood's only other house, because shortly thereafter a new obnoxious neighbor, Nick Niedermeyer, moved in to the former Urkel residence.
- Home Improvement: Wilson is the wise next-door neighbor to the Taylors, and is the only one who appears regularly throughout the series. Doc Johnson across the street never appears onscreen and is only mentioned in Christmas episodes when he's competing with Tim over the lighting contest. A handful of episodes feature Joe and Marie moving in down the street, but once Joe leaves her Marie departs the show shortly after, and no one else besides Wilson is featured again.
- On Boy Meets World, the Matthewses and Mr. Feeny are always talking over the fence between their adjacent side yards, but we never see an inch of the rest of the street or even the rest of their yards.
- In Round the Twist, the only neighbour of the Twists is Nell. However, as the Twists live in a lighthouse near a cliff's edge, this is pretty realistic.
- Roseanne had new neighbors in the house next door every few years. Sometimes they would be heavy in the plot, and others would be around for a one-off joke. No neighbors living in any other house on the block were ever mentioned or interacted with, though.
- Justified in Son of a Critch, where the Critch family lives in VOCM Valley, a largely undeveloped strip of land owned by the VOCM radio station. Nobody else would want to live there, because it's right next to a highway and is removed from everything else in St. John's.
- Justified in The Good Place, where Eleanor lives in a tiny cottage next door to Tahani and Jianyu in a Big Fancy House, with no mention of anyone else living in their immediate vicinity. The justification comes after The Reveal: they're in the Bad Place. Eleanor, Tahani, Jianyu, and a fourth character are the only real humans in the neighborhood and were isolated in close proximity so that they would torture each other. The other residents are demons.
- In My So-Called Life, the only neighbor to the Chase family we see is Brian Krakow, who lives next door and who's got a crush on Angela. We also only hear, rather than see, his parents.
- In Gilmore Girls, despite living in a tiny Quirky Town, the girls only ever interact with their next-door neighbors, Odd Couple Babette and Morey. The only exception is in "Eight O'Clock at the Oasis," when new neighbor Dwight pressures Lorelai and Rory into watering his plants and his lawn while he's away. He comes on a little strong, which freaks Lorelai out, and he commits such sins as being into board games and houseplants that need meticulous tending, as well as having an ex-wife who leaves mean messages on his answering machine. It's largely used to give Jess and Rory a Ship Tease moment when the sprinklers watering the lawn get stuck open, and he helps her close them. Dwight is never seen again.
Visual Novels
- The protagonist of Melody lives in an apartment building surrounded by apartment buildings, but the only one of his neighbors who is ever seen is Becca.
- In Our Life: Beginnings & Always, the protagonist lives on a fairly populated street, but the only neighbors they regularly interact with in Steps One and Two are Cove Holden and his father Cliff. Even in Step Three, they only gain one new named neighbor in the form of Baxter Ward, and he is a minor presence at best without his associated DLC.
Webcomics
- Bitmap World averts this: Both the Smileys and the Ks are plot-relevant.
- Andy Weir talks about his attempts to avert this trope in this
Casey and Andy newspost (scroll down to the Trivia Tidbit).
- This is what is shaping up for Savestate. The only known neighbors for Kade and Nicole at the house they inherited from their Uncle Scooby are a family of reindeer that live across the street. This includes Amber and her two children, Chris and Claire. Possibly justified as Kade and Nicole's house is actually a mansion, which tend to be built on large plots a fair distance from any neighbors.
Western Animation
- Big City Greens: The Green family lives in the heart of Big City, directly next door to a fairly large apartment building. Only two residents of that building (Brett and Mr. Alucard) show up with any regularity.
- In The Loud House, Mr Grouse appears to be the Louds' only neighbor.
- Living next door to The Simpsons are, of course, the Flanders. But on the other side? Ruth Powers and her teenage daughter Laura. Never heard of them? Don't feel bad; they've appeared in a grand total of maybe two episodes.
- And before them there were the Winfields, who appeared in four episodes, including the one where they moved out to be replaced by the Powers. In fact, Ruth's most recent appearance ("Strong Arm of the Ma") suggests they're not living there anymore, either...
- A few episodes seem to forget that the house next door exists at all in any way, shape, or form.
- Similarly, the house across the street from the Simpsons alternates quite rapidly, some episodes it's a huge mansion as in the episode where Barbara and George H.W. Bush move in, other times it's a vacant lot, most of the time it's just another regular house with nondescript occupants, but once it was shown that Carl lived there which was never mentioned again.
- Of course, there is a Separate Simpsons Geography Thing anyway. And the first time 742 Evergreen Terrace was mentioned, it was a generic house being burgled by Snake rather than the Simpsons' house, adding to the confusion.
- Similarly, behind the Simpsons' backyard is most commonly sheer empty space (nothing is drawn behind the fence) or wilderness, but it has also been everything from a graveyard to the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. The episode "Friends and Family" placed a house there owned by a neighbor, Julia, who has apparently observed quite a few of Homer's antics (and feels the same way he does about Flanders).
- Darkwing Duck has only one set of neighbors, the Muddlefoots.
- Eventually abandoned in The Flintstones, in which a group of Addams Family knockoffs: The Gruesomes moved next to the other side of Fred and Wilma from the Rubbles.
- In the 1980s they got a similar cast of neighbours, the Frankenstones, who seemed to be based more around The Munsters. The head of the family is a typical Frankenstein's Monster knockoff, and he and Fred really hate each other's guts, even when everyone else gets along fine.
- Up until around the sixth season of The Fairly OddParents, it seemed as if the Dinkleburgs (the relationship's pretty much ripped off Homer and Ned) were the only neighbors to the Turners. It turned out their other neighbors included a black family and an extremely stereotypical British family. Naturally, they only existed for the sake of the plot of one particular episode and have yet to be seen again.
- The Pfifers [the black neighbors] did reappear as one of the childless couples outshining the Turners in "The Masked Magician".
- Carl is the only neighbor of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and they are his only neighbors (except for the half season or so when they were kidnapped/evicted and their landlord rented the place out to even worse people to live near). Probably makes sense considering how the Aqua Teens seem to demolish property values.
- The Amazing World of Gumball: The Robinsons are essentially the only neighbors of the Wattersons. A few shots show various supporting cast and Recurring Extras living in nearby houses, but only Gary the mailman is seen consistently—and even he's been shown living in several different houses ("The Wand" and "The Allergy" both show Gary living on the house opposite to the Robinsons' house, in "The Remote" he lives across the street, and in "The Nest" and "The Neighbor", to the left of the Wattersons).
- Mort and the It's Your Funeral Home and Crematorium is to the left of Bob's Burgers. A constantly changing array of businesses are to the right of the titular shop in the show's opening titles, but the lot is generally vacant in the body of the show's episodes. Jimmy Pesto's Pizzeria is directly on the other side of the street, and various other nearby businesses are visited.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: SpongeBob Patrick Star, and Squidward Tentacles live in houses in a row along a street with nothing else in sight but flat ocean floor.
- The Chum Bucket is usually across the street from the Krusty Krab, but there are many episodes where it's missing. Usually when Plankton isn't present.
- Family Guy attempts to avert this by having several neighbors as a part of the main cast instead of just one neighbor (Joe, Quagmire, Cleveland, Mort, and Herbert) and they all live within the immediate vicinity of the Griffin family's home. Outside of these neighbors, no one else exists on Spooner Street.
