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"Don't all the nuts roll downhill to Florida?"
— Repeated line from several characters, "Agua Mala", The X-Files
When reading a " News of the Weird" site, it has been noticed that Florida has more than its fair share of weird stories. Some of them even hang a lampshade with a "Florida" tag, as seen below.
- Woman in an argument with town council over a goose? Florida.
- Voters pass a law making the wearing of baggy pants a criminal offense that may cost you up to $150 and 60 days in jail? Just as baggy pants were starting to go out of style, one might add, extending the fashion for at least another year. Florida.
- Japanese stripper claims judge (who looks like Bill Cosby) shared business and bank accounts but insists their relationship is "a pure business matter"? Florida.
And that's just from one day's worth of news in the Persistent Vegetative State. Quite literally one day's worth of news: All the above are summaries of Fark.com items from March 12, 2008. Don't get us started on the 2000 Presidential election either. This may be one of the causes of Florida's current population loss- in 2008, for the first time in over a century, more people moved out than moved in. Considering that development and housing construction are such a major sector that the state's entire economy has been described as a giant Ponzi scheme, that's a problem.
Prior to the paper folding, the Weekly World News was based in South Florida.
A lot of talented writers ( Dave Barry, Carl Hiaasen) work for newspapers in Florida, which is perhaps why so much is known about the state's quirks. The state has a number of excellent newspapers, largely the result of its strong sunshine (read: transparency in government) laws.
Often used negatively as a No True Scotsman fallacy, in which someone says something negative "can only be done in Florida", regardless if any other part of the country or the world can or has been subjected to it.
It is to their credit that most Floridians laugh along with this sort of "joke", mainly because they know that, on the whole, the Only In Florida "trope" is based on complete and utter nonsense created by comedians skimming a list of the most extreme events from an otherwise normal, run-of-the-mill newsday and presenting them as if this sort of stuff was the norm rather than the exception.
Also check out Only In Miami, which is about the city, rather than the state. Note: there is little relation between this and the Bermuda Triangle, as the Bermuda Triangle is more about the paranormal than the weird and wacky.
People who remark about the unusually large quantity of weird news stories coming out of Florida:
Comic Books
- In the Marvel Universe, Florida plays home to the Nexus of All Realities, a multiversal intersection that leads to high weirdness.
- Which plays at the true source of Florida weirdness. Its a Deep South tourist state that's also popular to retirees and refugees alike leading to a very diverse mix of culture (Miami-Dade county is often referred to as "Little Cuba.")
Film
- Big Trouble is unsurprisingly this being adapted from a Dave Barry book. It's often discussed by two out of town hitmen who constantly refer to the complete oddness around them and call it as Weirdsville, USA.
- The book's Spiritual Sequel Tricky Business is also set in Florida. Like Big Trouble, there is just as much weirdness.
Literature
- Carl Hiaasen: Apart from reporting on real Florida, he writes lurid but not really exaggerated fiction about it.
- Dave Barry, the Miami-based humorist. He says he is not making these things up.
- And his Boca Raton-based counterpart, Frank Cerabino, as well as pretty much any other local humor columnists in the state.
- A fantastic example is in the works of Piers Anthony, who depicts his Xanth series in a land that is the size/shape/geological make-up of Florida.
- Tim Dorsey has a series about Serge A. Storms, Crazy Awesome and Ax Crazy criminal/tour guide whose obsessions with Florida history drives a lot of the crazy plots.
- Alex Flinn's novel Cloaked is set in Miami and centers around a high school shoemaker being hired by a princess to search the Florida Keys for her brother, who has been turned into a frog. As the story goes on, it becomes apparent that there's a good number of enchanted people-turned-animals and fairy tale creatures in general in the region. Flinn's other novel, A Kiss in Time, has a modern-day teenage boy bring a fairy-tale princess he finds in Europe to live with him in Miami.
Live-Action TV
- The Daily Show: A "10 F#@king Years" segment was devoted solely to Florida stories.
"But without tacky shit on your lawn, how does anyone know they're in Florida?"
- An episode of Penn & Teller's Bullshit on the subject was planned before the 2007/2008 WGA strike.
- From Criminal Minds, which sees some of the most bizarre, gruesome, inventive and just generally screwed-up serial killers not set in a Stephen King novel:
JJ: We got a bad [case].
Morgan: How bad?
JJ: Florida.
- As an example, two such cases from Florida include a hitchhiker who takes his victim's identities and an insane cannibal who feeds his victims to other people in the form of chili.
- On Countdown with Keith Olbermann, there is a regular segment called "Oddball" where Keith talks about the weird stories of the day. Florida was such a regular part of the segment that, at the end of every year when they do a week-long recap of the news of the year, they always do one episode on Oddball, and there is always a part of that episode on Florida.
- On Strangers with Candy, most of Jerri's drug-riddled, highly-sexed Expansion Pack Past seemed to have taken place there.
"Florida. Beautiful weather... harsh penal system."
- Every episode of The Smoking Gun Presents: World's Dumbest seems to have at least one thing that takes place in Florida.
Magazines
- Interestingly, back in the 1840s it was Kentucky, not Florida, which had this reputation—at least accordng to Punch.
Radio
- Anchorage, Alaska radio DJs Woody and Wilcox cover this daily in the "It Happened in Florida" segment; three recent news stories are presented, all real. Of the three, two are subversions, sounding like things that happened in Florida, but not actually occurring there. The calling guest who finds the straight example gets some prizes.
- When Adam Carolla was hosting Loveline, they played a game called "Germany or Florida", where listeners would call in with weird news stories and the hosts would have to guess whether it took place in Germany or Florida.
- Germany's reputation is well-deserved; it's one of the most common locations for such stories on The BBC radio show It's Been A Bad Week.
Web Original
Real Life
Examples of particularly odd cases of this trope in action in Real Life include:
- SWAT teams ignore duties during drug raid to play Wii Sports bowling? (Hint: ''not'' Reno911)
- Unstoppable Army of Snakes? A threat to all of humanity.
- Now there is also a coyote infestation in Broward County. Prepare for a bloodbath between the species. (All three of them.)
- There are also killer lizards attacking people and eating dogs in the Naples area.
- The town of Lauderhill, Florida invited James Earl Jones to speak at a Martin Luther King Jr. celebration, and sought to give him a plaque to commemorate the occasion. Only for the plaque to come back honoring James Earl Ray, the man who assassinated King. Pics here.
- A German doctor falls for a young tuberculosis patient. After she dies, he tries to restore her to life after stealing her from her tomb... And has sexual relations with her corpse. Only in Key West, people.
- That's Key West, where everyone's weird on some level.
- Many families on Boca Grande were surprised to find something waiting for them when they went to use their toilets. What did they find? Iguanas.
- They came up the sewage system.
- On one license plate (not a Vanity License Plate, surprisingly), the picture of an orange in the middle of Florida plates made the combination "A55 RGY" read as "ASS ORGY".
- British street lighting making an appearance in Fort Myers - namely the WRTL Arc, as recently as November 2008, before being removed after a short period of time. Apparently these must have been imported since WRTL don't export to America currently...
- A Florida minister trolling the world by telling national news outlets that he would burn copies of the Quran on September 11th; oh wait, no he won't; now he will; now he won't again. Earth just narrowly missed seeing World War III due to this event.
- Not as funny as the rest of these. Especially not for those who lived there, who were less worried about World War III than they were about the millions of murderous thugs that might be incited to kill yet again due to the actions of a single bigot.
- "The Hoodrat Kid" Lived in Palm Beach, Florida when he decide to take his grandma's car for a joyride. (Note: The child was 7 year-old).
- Noteworthy in that it was infamous enough to spawn an entire episode of The Boondocks parodying it.
- A fire breakout in the kitchen while the house owner was in the bathroom. Instead of running and exiting out the front door, which was nowhere near the fire, what does he do? Make a hole through his bathroom walls to escape.
- A branch of Bank of America trying to foreclose on a mortgage that they did not have? Odd. The homeowners fighting back in court and winning? Impressive. The homeowners showing up with a sheriff and moving truck to foreclose on the bank when they wouldn't pay court-ordered damages? Florida.
- In 1984, the entire police department of Key West was declared an illegal enterprise under the RICO laws—which are usually used to shut down mobsters. One witness even claimed to deliver bags of coke to city hall on a regular basis.
- Lawyer challenges his wife to a nude swordfight; when he fails to kill her before she can call 911, he absconds with the sword, still nude. Said lawyer previously worked on a case where his client robbed a credit union and hid the cash inside his prosthetic leg.
- One guess where Jack Thompson hails from.
- Getting questioned by the TSA because of the design of the purse? Close enough.
- Shark on the train? Sure, why not.
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