History Main / TheOldCountry

* Miss Mush in ''WesternAnimatation/{{Wayside}}'' frequently references the "Mamaland". Where this country is is never elaborated on.

* Miss Mush in ''WesternAnimatation/Wayside'' frequently references the "Mamaland". Where this country is is never elaborated on.

* There's a short story in Neil Gaiman's ''ComicBook/TheSandman'' in which a modern-day grandfather tells his teenage granddaughter a folk tale from the old country [[spoiler:and then hints at the end that the tale's hero was, in fact, himself as a young man. Also, apparently their entire family are werewolves.]]

The old country is usually a {{Ruritania}} or {{Uberwald}}, with splashes of [[{{Oktoberfest}} Bavaria]], [[SpaghettiAndGondolas the Mediterranean]], the Former Soviet Union, [[NorseByNorsewest Scandinavia]] and {{Scotireland}}. Expect everyone to drive [[TheAllegedCar Ladas]] and tractors (if not goat carts), eat some sort of [[ForeignQueasine bizarre offal sausage]] and speak in a lilting yet guttural tongue. May be a case of WhereTheHellIsSpringfield but you can guarantee they're never from France or England, where many Americans and Canadians descend from and see as cultured already. In fact, it's possible to play this trope straight with contintental Europeans settling in England, which was the most advanced (but maybe not cosmopolitan) nation on Earth until America overtook it in the first half of the 20th century.

'''Gustavo''': [[UpToEleven We fought all three sides.]]

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* Several of Jack O'Connell's ''Quinsigamond'' novels involve characters who came to the US from the Central European state of Old Bohemia, which appears in the world of the novels to be an actual country rather than a romanticised name for a region. A major city in the country is Maisel, chiefly notorious for a particularly gruesome incident during the Holocaust involving an [[{{Squick}} industrial shredder]].

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* ''Series/{{House}}'' and ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' have both featured doctors, struggling with their {{Worthless Foreign Degree}}s, who merely came from the old country.
* [[Creator/AndyKaufman Latka Gravas]] of ''Series/{{Taxi}}'' fame, whose country was entirely fictional and rather vague. Probably the TropeCodifier for the current era.

* ''Series/TheMunsters'' reboot had Grandpa often musing on "The Old Country" with all its traditions of ghosts, vampires, werewolves, possibly Romania but never stated so.

* Pierre, on ''Series/{{Danger 5}}''. While the other members of the eponymous MultinationalTeam of spies represent the major Allied powers of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII - the USA, UK, and USSR - [[CreatorProvincialism plus Australia]], Pierre is simply "from Europe", and seems to be a mishmash of French, Italian, and Spanish stereotypes.
* Borderline instance on an early episode of ''Series/JeevesAndWooster'', where Prof. Kluj and his wife have strong emotional reactions to anything that reminds them of the old country. Only borderline because the professor does explicitly name it as Romania in one scene (and describe it as "dump"), but ''mostly'' it's just referred by nonspecific descriptions.

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* Played with in Creator/ChannelFour's ''Gophers!'', which was made and set in the UK but had an Australian character (Merv Wombat) who called it the Old Country. ([[BellisariosMaxim Don't worry too much about why an Australian-native species would think that.]])

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** One of the later episodes implies that Rolf and his family are probably from somewhere in Northern Europe, possibly Scandinavia

* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' has Ustinkistan. Timmy's maternal grandparents hail from this place. We see the country is a bleak and barren territory where the main exportation are turnips and everything is made of that plant. Even fairies can only grant turnip-related wishes. The country also celebrates Yaksgiving, a holiday that must hold a record in terrible Yak-related injuries.

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* ''WesternAnimation/FairlyOddParents'' has Ustinkistan. Timmy's maternal grandparents hail from this place. We see the country is a bleak and barren territory where the main exportation are turnips and everything is made of that plant. Even fairies can only grant turnip-related wishes. The country also celebrates Yaksgiving, a holiday that must hold a record in terrible Yak-related injuries.

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* Troper @/SilentHunter used this term at Roleplay/PhoenixRoleplaying to euphemistically describe Roleplay/AJJEGames (where much of the membership originated from and left in unpleasant circumstances) and it seems to have stuck.

* In ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'', the homeland of protagonist Niko Bellic is not named, and he and his cousin refer to "the old country". However, they speak Serbo-Croatian in-game and Niko is quick to correct people that he's definitely ''not'' from Russia due to being born in the Balkans. Due to being based off a Serbian character from the Yugoslav wars film BehindEnemyLines and having fought in that war, the wiki treats him as Serbian.