The more people you pack in limited space, the more those people have to follow the rules. Law, order and good manners are essential to the healthy functioning of our towns and cities.
Democrat-run cities often have an unfair reputation as hotbeds of left-wing activists intent on letting miscreants run wild. That’s because lefty activists have bigger megaphones through which they often shout ludicrous proposals, like cutting police forces in the middle of a crime wave.
In reality, these cities usually have two political factions — progressive Democrats and moderate Democrats. As the disruptions caused by COVID shutdowns unleashed disorder, electorates in these cities started moving toward the moderates. That’s happening from San Francisco to Chicago to New York.
Their voters are jettisoning many of their fringe politicians. San Franciscans famously recalled their uber-progressive district attorney, Chesa Boudin. Who can forget former Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan who created the outrageous no-go zones for police during the 2020 protests?
Durkan was replaced by Bruce Harrell, whom Fox News called a “pro-police candidate.” And New York’s mayor is former police captain Eric Adams, a law-and-order guy along the lines of Mike Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani in his sane days.
In Portland, Oregon, left-wing excess let homeless encampments spread and trash pile up. The city is suffering economically and psychologically from the departure of the REI sporting goods store. REI cited thefts and break-ins in its decision to leave. Moderates are fighting back.
Before going on, let’s recognize that though most big cities are Democrat-run, those with Republicans in charge have problems as bad or worse. For all the handwringing over the crime surge in San Francisco, violent crime is worse in Miami, whose mayor, Francis Suarez, is a Republican candidate for president.
Nor are these cities as monolithically Democratic as many think. Giuliani and Bloomberg were elected mayor as Republicans. And San Francisco has the highest percentage of independent voters of any county in California.
In New York City’s outer boroughs, local officeholders are being challenged by candidates to their right who happen to be other Democrats. Public safety is a major issue.
One of the most interesting races involves Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz. Two years ago, Katz barely won the Democratic primary against lefty Tiffany Caban, who was endorsed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders. Now Katz is being primaried by a Democrat who is accusing her (unfairly) of being soft on crime.
Ocasio-Cortez has not been endorsing candidates for city council of late, and, as it’s becoming clear, they don’t want her endorsement. As Jeff Leb, who runs super PACs that champion moderates, put it, “A lot of the luster of AOC’s endorsement has really gone out the window. The more she endorses candidates, and loses, it devalues her.”
The pandemic hurt cities in several ways, but those downward trends have begun to reverse. Tourist dollars disappeared for a while, but the visitors are returning even to troubled San Francisco. In New York, they’re back big time.
Downtown office towers may not soon enjoy their previous high occupancy rates, but more employers are calling their workers back to the office. Transforming some of these office spaces into residences could lower some high rents as well as repopulate business districts.
In the big cities, rare is the successful politician who rails against gay marriage. And anyone who portrayed drag queens as a threat to America would get laughed off the podium. There’s also no bashing of immigrants, who, in fact, make up a large part of the electorate.
Call them conservative liberals, if you want. They are really moderates. The cities need their pragmatism to keep the gears turning. Actually, the country does as well.
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There is no such “conservative liberal” mayor in a major Wisconsin city. In fact, voters in Madison and Milwaukee keep replacing hard-left mayors with harder-left mayors, or refuse to de-elect harder-left mayors. And people wonder why the quality of life is sinking likc a rock in the Axis of Evil cities, the same cities that elected a governor who vetoed a tax cut that would have cut taxes for most Wisconsin families.No comments on A what what?
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The number one single today in 1960 was the first, but not only, example of the caveman music genre:
It was also the first song ever played on WLS in Chicago after it turned from country to rock and roll two months earlier.
Today in 1962, Joe Meek wrote “Telstar,” the first song about a satellite:
Today in 1964, the Beatles appeared live on (British) ABC-TV’s “Thank Your Lucky Stars.” The appearance was supposed to be taped, but a strike by studio technicians made that impossible. The band had just appeared at the northern England premiere of their movie “A Hard Day’s Night,” requiring them to get to London via plane and boat.
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Last week, the Supreme Court scuttled the Biden administration’s attempt to forgive more than $400 billion in student loan debt.
As a matter of policy, broad-based student debt cancellation remains a terrible idea for a host of reasons.
While targeting relatively small debts held by lower-income community college graduates is more defensible, sweeping student debt forgiveness is regressive, rewarding people with an asset—a college or graduate degree—who are better equipped to pay it off than other debt-burdened Americans.
At a time when the government is still fighting inflation, it was “reckless”—in the words of Obama administration chief economist Jason Furman—to pump billions into the economy.
Finally, it’s counterproductive on its own terms. The debt payment moratorium, implemented by the Trump administration and extended by Biden, has led to more borrowing. According to a University of Chicago study summarized in The Economist, “the pause in student-loan payments caused borrowers to rack up more debt, not less.”
But if Democrats want to ignore economic reality and reward a key constituency by having other people pay their debts, they’re free to do so. There’s just one hitch. Congress needs to do it.
In 2021, Joe Biden questioned how much authority he had to cancel student debt “by signing with a pen” and then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi said he didn’t have the authority to do that. But under intense pressure from the left of their party, they reversed course. They discovered a ridiculous pretense under the 2003 HEROES Act and reversed the Department of Education’s standing opinion.
Fortunately, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutional separation of powers. Congress, not the president, has the power of the purse.
“If my fellow citizens want to go to Hell,” Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., famously said, “I will help them. It’s my job.”
Holmes’ reputation as a philosopher-jurist and civil libertarian has long been in need of a sharp revision. Holmes was a majoritarian, and because he was a jurist during the Progressive Era, his judicial restraint—a refusal to strike down government actions during a time of government expansion—was admired by those seeking to expand the government.
But Holmes had a point. It’s not the Supreme Court’s job to stop politicians and the voters who elected them from making bad decisions so long as they don’t violate the Constitution in the process.
The problem is that after decades of the judicial and executive branches doing Congress’ job—often at the behest of a dysfunctional Congress unwilling or unable to live up to its responsibilities—judicial restraint is now seen as judicial activism. The court didn’t rule that student debt can’t be forgiven, it merely said that government has to do it right or don’t do it at all.
Whatever you think is the right policy on student debt, I think this is very good news for our politics. The accumulation of power in the presidency has fueled polarization by making presidential elections look like parliamentary elections in which new presidents have sweeping authority to do whatever they want. But our constitutional order is not designed for these kinds of zero-sum politics. The presidency is not equipped to legislate.
Executive orders can be reversed by the next executive. Because the bases of both parties don’t know or care about how policy ends are achieved, every new administration swings for the fences, trying to do as much as it can get away with, to the cheers of their partisans in Congress and media. And they’re soon swept from power as a result.
Hence the great paradox of American politics today: You can get what you want if you win more elections, but to win more elections you need to ask for less.
This cycle of overreach and correction was made possible by a Supreme Court that has long turned a blind eye to the separation of powers.
The shift toward a better politics may have already begun. On Monday, Vice President Kamala Harris told NPR, “Look, we have three branches of government. The court took rights from the people of America. Congress can put those rights back in place. We cannot through executive action. Congress can.”
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Ronald Reagan famously asked before the 1980 presidential election, “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”
What about Americans now since the 2020 presidential election? Andy Puzder answers:
President Biden is on a “Bidenomics” tour, trumpeting what he claims are his administration’s economic gains. His effort comes as no surprise. In the RealClearPolitics average of the polls, only about 38 percent of Americans approve of Biden’s job on the economy. To date, the Biden administration’s efforts to convince Americans otherwise have fallen way short of the mark. The problems lie not with Biden’s rhetoric but rather with his policies — and economic reality.
Case in point: In an effort to avoid responsibility for a still-surging inflation rate while claiming credit for slowing it, Biden’s economic team recently posted a video boldly stating, “Here Are the Facts.” The first of these purported facts is, “Under the Biden Harris Administration Inflation Has Fallen.” Unfortunately, that’s just not true.
The annual inflation rate when Biden took office was 1.4 percent. In May, it was 4 percent, or nearly three times the rate he inherited and still double the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target rate. Here’s an actual fact: “Under the Biden Harris Administration Inflation Has Risen.”Of course, what the Biden team is attempting to take credit for is the decline in the inflation rate from its 9.1 percent peak in June of 2022. The Biden video goes on to claim that “inflation is less than half what it was last summer.” That claim is misleading for two reasons.
First, inflation continues to increase, inflicting greater and greater pain on consumers. Only the rate at which inflation is increasing has slowed. Keep in mind that inflation is cumulative; much like compound interest, it just keeps adding up. After a large increase in the prior year, it is not particularly impressive that the current year increase will be lower, but that lower number comes on top of — or in addition to — the prior year’s number. For example, the 4 percent increase this May was on top of last May’s 8.3 percent increase for a two-year increase of nearly 13 percent. That’s nothing to boast about.
Second, the inflation rate slowed because the Federal Reserve dramatically increased interest rates, not because of any Biden economic policies. In reality, rather than slowing the current inflationary surge, Bidenomics was a primary cause. This surge began the very month Democrats passed Biden’s ironically named $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. Prior to the bill’s passage, Larry Summers, the secretary of the Treasury under President Clinton, warned that it could “set off inflationary pressures of a kind we have not seen in a generation.”
And it did.
That inflationary pressure compelled the Federal Reserve to increase interest rates at a historic pace over the past 15 months — from near zero to a 5 percent–5.25 percent range today. The consequences have been severe, leading to three of the four largest bank failures in our nation’s history, undermining the banking sector’s integrity, threatening our financial stability, and requiring federal intervention. Buying a home or a car, paying down credit cards, or getting a small-business loan are all more difficult, which puts additional economic pressure on Americans as interest rates rise.
For that series of events, the Biden–Harris administration actually does deserve credit.
And we aren’t out of the woods. As Fed chairman Jerome Powell stated recently in testimony before Congress, “Inflation pressures continue to run high, and the process of getting inflation back down to 2 percent has a long way to go.” Powell also expressed frustration with inflation’s persistence, despite the Fed having significantly increased interest rates: “Inflation has consistently surprised us, and essentially all other forecasters, by being more persistent than expected and I think we’ve come to expect . . . it to be more persistent.” As a result, the Fed is expected to raise rates two more times this year.
Slowing the economy and bringing inflation down would be easier if the Biden administration and the Fed did not appear to be working at cross purposes. Powell regularly emphasizes the need to slow the economy to bring inflation down. Biden, on the other hand, continues to tout how his big-government spending policies — Bidenomics — are growing the economy, in effect conceding that his massive government spending policies are what’s driving inflation — but clearly not what’s causing it to slow.
The Biden video’s final claim is that, “Wages are up, accounting for inflation, that’s real breathing room.” On its face, this claim is also not true. When Biden took office in January of 2021, real average hourly earnings — that is average hourly earnings adjusted for inflation — were $11.39. As of May 2023, that number had declined to $11.03. That simply doesn’t feel like breathing room for most Americans.
Inflation is a regressive tax that hurts families more the less money they have. The fact is that Americans, particularly working- and middle-class Americans, are poorer today than they were during the Trump administration, and Biden’s approval rating on the economy reflects that reality. Bidenomics — more accurately “Spin-enomics” — is an effort to convince them otherwise, asking them to ignore their eyes and wallets. It’s a tough sell.
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Two anniversaries today in 1965: The Beatles’ “Beatles VI” reached number I, where it stayed for VI weeks …
… while the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction” was their first number one single:
Today in 1975, Chicago released its fifth album:
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Today in 1955, “Rock Around the Clock” was played around the clock because it hit number one:
One year later, Dick Clark made his first appearance on ABC-TV’s “American Bandstand”:
Today in 1972, Paul McCartney and Wings began their first tour of France:
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To be indicted for drug trafficking is not generally considered to be a good career move, but that’s what happened to Jonathan “Chico” and Robert DeBarge today in 1988:
Birthdays begin with Jaimoe “Johnny” Johanson, drummer for the Allman Brothers:
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The reported release of a Barbie movie (don’t ask why) made someone point out that Barbie apparently comes from Willows, Wis.
Where? Back in 2020 Tyler Maas wrote:
As Wisconsin was waiting to officially go blue in the Presidential Election, the Richland County locale with a population of around 500 people took its sweet ass time processing its estimated 300 ballots. Ultimately, Willow finally got around to doing so around 3 p.m. on Wednesday, the state’s 10 electoral votes went to now-President-elect Joe Biden, and the southwest Wisconsin town immediately faded back into obscurity.
Though Willow, Wisconsin’s stint of relevance was justifiably quite short, it was long enough to inform us of a strange fact that was somewhat related to the tiny town’s name. While waiting for the state to find and process its ballots, excellent Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter (and fun/informative Twitter follow) Mary Spicuzza tweeted about a fictional city called “Willows”—yes, with an S at the end—which is the apparent birthplace of Barbara Millicent Roberts. You probably know her better as “Barbie.”
We’ve written about fictional Wisconsin places in pop culture before, but this factoid about the iconic doll’s Badger State connection totally eluded us until Spicuzza brought it to our attention. Figuring we weren’t alone in learning that Barbie lore claims a fake Wisconsin city as her hometown, we tried to dig a bit deeper to learn more about Willows. Here’s what we found out.
Willows was founded by some weirdos called the “Founding Fathers Of Willows”
Though the city’s eponymous tree certainly has an important role in the history of Willows (more on that later), we have to mention the Founding Fathers Of Willows. The guild was composed of both men and women, who apparently hid a treasure somewhere in town. There are a bunch of plaques scattered throughout the city, which serve as clues to help people find that treasure. According to a Barbie movie Wiki page, one of the plaques opens up a tunnel that leads to a cave, an underground lake, and a vault. We know that Wisconsin has a ton of lakes, but this is the first secret underground lake we’re aware of in the state.Willows is famous for its willow trees
Legend states the fictional city that’s now known for its abundance of willow trees started with but one weeping willow. However, from that single tree sprouted a great deal of others. Each year, Willows hosts a carnival-style festival called Willowfest. Riveting stuff.There are conflicting details about Barbie’s time in Willows
Since things like a consistent story arc and character continuity aren’t always paramount in children’s entertainment, Barbie’s backstory—and how that backstory aligns with Willows—doesn’t always match up. What we can say for sure is that Barbie was born in Willows and spent at least part of her childhood there. After that, it gets murky. Some story lines say Barbie and her family moved to Malibu when her youngest of three sisters (Chelsea) was an infant. Other sources suggest she stuck around long enough to attend Willows High School and be on the school’s cheer leading team. Her grandmother still lives in a quaint house in the outskirts of Willows.Willows is probably a small-ish city
In recent films like Barbie & Her Sisters In The Great Puppy Adventure and Barbie & Her Sisters Puppy Rescue, the Roberts siblings return to their former hometown. While there, they go to The Willows Museum, an ice cream shop, and City Hall (where the mustachioed Mayor Jenkins presides). There’s also a clocktower and a willow-shaped fountain that’s a popular attraction. Based on the clips we’ve seen of the movies (sorry, there’s no way in hell we’re paying to watch these!), it looks like a quaint little place with an historic downtown, some modern amenities like a dance studio, and impressive bikeability. Most buildings seem to be brick. We’ve found no mention of its location within the state or its population, but it looks to be a quaint town with a lot of charm. Like Burlington without the underlying racism or Lake Geneva without the chain restaurants and FIBs.Mattel once made a “Willows Wisconsin Series”
Wanting to “give a glimpse into Barbie doll’s life before Malibu,” Mattel made a Willows Wisconsin Series that, for the most part, served as a way to showcase Ms. Roberts in some vintage wardrobe. Beyond the classic cocktail dress and swimwear straight out of 1959, there’s also a nod to her rural roots with a “picnic” outfit complete with a cherry blouse and bluejeans. There’s also a “Busy Gal” Barbie that we don’t necessarily feel the urge to talk about here in 2020.All of that was more than I (1) ever knew or (2) cared to know about Barbie’s apparent (fictional) Wisconsin origins.
Fictional Wisconsin (a subject I covered in my previous life as a business magazine editor during a period when several films were being shot in Wisconsin) has been a setting for fiction outside of Barbie, as Maas explores because …
Despite being placed directly between coasts and in the thick of a region of America that’s commonly reduced to “flyover country,” Wisconsin manages to be cast in film and on television fairly often. Whether as means of acknowledgement from expats now making good in Hollywood, or a destination point decided in a meeting populated by half-assed executives who have never crossed into the Badger State border, Wisconsin has served as the site for dozens of TV and movie productions. Long running sitcoms like Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, and That ’70s Show are obvious ones. And yes, we remember when Bridesmaids showed the Hoan Bridge and that apartment exterior in Bay View for a few seconds.
Milwaukee Record risked the purity of our Netflix recommendation algorithm, thumbed through the public library DVD collection, and searched for a Blockbuster Video that was still in business to find 10 more Wisconsin settings—some fictional, others poorly depicted—in television and film.
The Young and the Restless, Genoa City (1973-present)
The Genoa City that most housewives, unemployed people, and second shift workers have known as the site of their favorite soap opera since 1973 couldn’t be more different than the actual 3,000-resident and 2.3-square-mile town of the same name that’s nestled against Wisconsin’s southern border. Y&R’s depiction of Genoa City is generous—boasting the headquarters of four international corporations, a national newspaper, penthouses, skyscrapers, two hospitals, a prison, and innumerable other trappings of high society. The real Genoa City is recovering from the excitement of last week’s Lions Club Bingo and is preparing for a mock tornado drill Thursday. To our knowledge, no professional athletes have dropped by recently.The Great Outdoors, Pechoggin (1988)
John Hughes had a habit of basing the majority of his iconic films in his longtime home of Chicago. However, the filmmaker’s John Candy-starring classic, The Great Outdoors, saw his still-Chicago-based characters vacationing in Perhcoggin, a fictional FIB paradise in Wisconsin’s north woods. Locals have grown accustomed to the stereotypical Illinois tourists (portrayed expertly/aggravatingly by Dan Aykroyd), gritting their teeth as visitors support the economy of the bear-laden “hole in the earth” by go-karting, eating at the A&W, horseback riding, and sipping Point and Leinenkugel’s beer at the Potowotominimac Lodge. The entire film was actually shot in Bass Lake, California.Step By Step, Port Washington (1991-98)
This has been covered elsewhere before, but we must repeat: THERE ARE NO ROLLERCOASTERS IN PORT WASHINGTON! Unless, of course, you count actual Port Washingtonian Dustin Diamond, who has been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster since his days playing “Screech” on all incantations of Saved By The Bell.Picket Fences, Rome (1992-96)
While we’d be lying if we said we watched racy CBS drama Picket Fences during its mid-’90s heyday, we can confidently say it doesn’t reflect anything even close to rural Wisconsin morals. Based in a 2,700-person town in Adams County called Rome (but shot entirely in southern California), murder, bank robbery, and sexualized controversy saw the central Wisconsin locale burning through eight mayors in four seasons.Life With Louie, Cedar Knoll (1994-98)
For the better part of the 1990s, the comedian Louie Anderson was among the biggest names in comedy, with crossover capabilities into the realms of film, television, and even animation. From 1994 to 1998, Anderson’s cartoon Life With Louie ran on FOX. While the 39-episode series was semi-autobiographical, the show swapped out the namesake’s St. Paul, Minnesota roots for the invented Wisconsin town of Cedar Knoll. Some episodes chronicle local staples like deer hunting, blizzards, and watching the Packers, but the plotlines are usually broad and accessible. That said, it’s a family cartoon (that actually won two Emmys!) projected through a Midwest lens, complete with his folksy mother making references to fish fry, casserole, and Piggly Wiggly in her distinct Great Lakes region lilt, and his dad complaining about shoveling.BASEketball, Milwaukee (1998)
Milwaukee was no doubt selected as the birthplace of the sport of BASEketball—in the underrated 1998 sports satire by the same name—as a nod from famed comedy writer/director David Zucker to his hometown. Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s Milwaukee, though, is a cul-de-sac’s dead end that evokes more of a Franklin or Oak Creek vibe than anything. Even now, Reel Big Fish would be a pretty big get for Milwaukee Beers house band. You just know that honor would be given to Pat McCurdy in real life.A Minute With Stan Hooper, Waterford Falls (2003)
“This is the vanishing America, Molly. I bet these people never even heard of cappuccino,” Newsline correspondent Stan Hooper (Norm Macdonald) tells his wife as the couple returns to Waterford Falls, 15 years after falling in love with the quaint (and not actually real) Wisconsin burg while passing by on their honeymoon. As new residents, the Hoopers endure an array of lazy TV tropes and a dizzying number of cheese references from a quirky small town populace that doesn’t even realize he’s famous. (His segment airs the same time as The Wisconsin Farm Report don’cha know!) Stan Hooper never caught on in Waterford Falls or with television audiences. Despite shooting 13 episodes, only six aired before the rare Macdonald misstep was cancelled. God only knows the dairy puns we missed.Dawn Of The Dead, Milwaukee (2004)
Zombies are all the rage these days. George A. Romero’s 1978 cinematic classic Dawn Of The Dead was among the first bits of undead entertainment. Even the 2004 remake was ahead of the game. Unlike its predecessor that was set in a rural Pennsylvania mall, the 21st century reprisal found Ving Rhames, Sarah Polley, Mekhi Phifer, and pre-Modern Family Ty Burrell taking refuge in a Milwaukee shopping center. Though set in Wisconsin (having Green Bay-born director Zack Snyder attached to direct could’ve had something to do with that), the Dawn Of The Dead remake was filmed in Thornhill, Ontario. The difference is apparent, as the mall is secluded and massive; it offers ample parking; it boasts tons of shops, and is full of people (both living and otherwise). The Shops Of Grand Avenue, on the other hand, looks like the aftermath of a zombie attack.Mr. 3000, Waukesha (2004)
After calling it a career, Milwaukee Brewers star Stan Ross (played by the late Bernie Mack) went to live out the rest of his days in nearby Waukesha—or “WOE-KEE-SHA”—where he opened a series of businesses in one mini mall that were related to his then-assumed 3,000-hit milestone. The notion of a mini mall in Waukesha with a beeper shop (3000 Beeps), Chinese restaurant (3000 Woks), pet groomer (3000 Paws), and Mr. 3000 Sports Lounge is absolutely believable; the idea of any athlete staying in Milwaukee post retirement is nutty. Most players head to the airport directly from the locker room in the final game of each season.Lars And The Real Girl, Unspecified (2007)
Arguably the finest film about a real man falling for a fake woman since 1991’s Mannequin Two: On The Move, low-budget Ryan Gosling flick Lars And The Real Girl is just barely based in the Badger State. The heartthrob’s titular character has a Wisconsin map plastered in his work cubicle, and that’s where the direct acknowledgments in the film end. The implied host site is a diminutive Midwestern place (actually filmed in rural Ontario) surrounded by snow swept fields. There, the predominately white populace frequents bowling alleys; women in out-of-fashion sweaters gossip while eating fried food; and people attend banquets at the VFW. Oh yeah, and everybody is astonishingly cool with a dude pushing a rubber companion around town in a wheelchair. It would be insulting if the Wisconsin connection wasn’t so underscored and if the subtle characterizations didn’t ring so true to the way of life in various unincorporated pockets of the state.I grew increasingly irritated with “Picket Fences” while it was on the air because of its obvious lack of research into Wisconsin. Tom Skerritt starred as the sheriff of the “town” of Rome, even though sheriffs are in charge of county law enforcement (or parishes in Louisiana) everywhere in the U.S. In one episode a judge forced minority students from Green Bay to be bused to Rome schools. Five seconds of research even in the pre-internet days would have revealed that (1) the biggest ethnic minority in Green Bay is American Indians, not blacks, but (2) change “Green Bay” to “Milwaukee” and it would have been completely believable.
Though I was not a regular watcher of “That ’70s Show” from what I saw it did a better job of portraying ’70s Wisconsin. Red Forman, for instance, is a big fan of the Green Bay Packers, no doubt because of his being a native and from the Packers’ glory days of five NFL championships and the first two Super Bowl wins in the ’60s. I don’t recall if any episode mentioned how horrible the Packers were during the setting of the show, though.
The most famous example of fictional Wisconsin for those of us from the ’80s was when Madison became the home of “Grand Lakes University”:
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel adds some more:
The fictional Wisconsin city that was the “setting” for the long-running sitcom “That ’70s Show” is back in the sequel. Debuting on Netflix Jan. 19, “That ’90s Show” brings a new generation — literally, as in the teenage kids whose parents were teenagers in the first show — to the same town, and even the same basement. But this time, the franchise gives its biggest hint ever about where Point Place might be in the Badger State.
But Point Place is just one Wisconsin locale, real or made up, that serves as the setting for a TV show. Here are 20 cities, actual and imagined, that are homes to TV programs.
The fictional Wisconsin city that was the “setting” for the long-running sitcom “That ’70s Show” is back in the sequel. Debuting on Netflix Jan. 19, “That ’90s Show” brings a new generation — literally, as in the teenage kids whose parents were teenagers in the first show — to the same town, and even the same basement. But this time, the franchise gives its biggest hint ever about where Point Place might be in the Badger State.
But Point Place is just one Wisconsin locale, real or made up, that serves as the setting for a TV show. Here are 20 cities, actual and imagined, that are homes to TV programs.
TV shows set in actual Wisconsin cities
TV shows set in Milwaukee
‘Happy Days’
Fonzie and friends put Milwaukee on the map, TV-wise. From 1974-’84, Richie Cunningham, Potsie and all the rest hung out a backlot version of Brew City (though you can occasionally see a Milwaukee Braves pennant on the wall). But some of the show’s creations were inspired by Milwaukee; Arnold’s Drive-In was inspired by the Milky Way, a drive-in on Port Washington Road in Glendale (now the home to Kopp’s Frozen Custard), a favorite hangout of one of the show’s executive producers, Milwaukee native and Nicolet High School grad Thomas L. Miller.
‘Laverne & Shirley’
The first “Happy Days” sequel was, like the original show, set in Milwaukee when it launched in 1976. Laverne DeFazio and Shirley Feeney even had the ultimate Milwaukee job: They worked in a brewery. But at the start of the show’s sixth season (1980), Shotz Brewery let go its entire bottle-capping department, so the girls (and, weirdly, all of their friends) moved out to California, where they hung on for three more seasons.
‘A Whole New Ballgame’
Corbin Bernsen, who played overpaid prima donna Roger Dorn in the filmed-in-Milwaukee baseball comedy “Major League,” played a former big-leaguer turned broadcaster hired by a Milwaukee TV station in this short-lived midseason replacement that aired on ABC for eight episodes in 1995.
‘Patriot’
In this Prime Video series, Michael Dorman plays a slightly unhinged intelligence officer who has been charged with nothing less than preventing Iran from achieving its nuclear aims. The agent builds his cover story by working for an industrial piping company based in Milwaukee, which splits time with all sorts of exotic locales in this series that first streamed from 2015 to ’18. …
‘Liv and Maddie’
The Disney Channel series about twin sisters — one’s a child star who has come back home after years in Hollywood, the other’s a sports-happy tomboy, both played by Dove Cameron — is set in Stevens Point. The show’s executive producer, Andy Fickman, knew Stevens Point because his grandparents lived there, and he wanted a small-town setting for the show, which ran from 2013-’17. …
TV shows set in Wisconsin Dells
‘American Dreamer’
Robert Urich played a globe-trotting network TV reporter who, after his wife dies, decides to pack up the kids and pursue his version of the title dream by heading to a small town — Wisconsin Dells, to be exact — and write about “real people” for a Chicago newspaper in this short-lived NBC sitcom. Despite a cast that included Carol Kane and Milwaukee Repertory Theater alum Jeffrey Tambor, it lasted only one season, in 1990-’91.
TV shows set in Madison
‘The George Wendt Show’
Former “Cheers” barstool veteran and Chicago comic actor George Wendt inexplicably moved to Madison — well, his character did — in this sitcom about a pair of brothers who own an auto repair shop and have a “Car Talk”-type radio show on the side. The show lasted just eight episodes in early 1995.
‘Battleground’
Set mostly in Madison, this faux-documentary series goes behind the scenes of a Senate campaign race in Wisconsin. Streaming service Hulu’s first scripted series, “Battleground,” with Madison native Marc Webb (“500 Days of Summer”) among its executive producers, ran for 13 episodes in 2012.
TV shows set in Verona
‘Adventures in Dairyland’
Mouseketeers Annette Funicello and Sammy Ogg traveled to a farm in Verona to film an eight-chapter serial that first aired on “The Mickey Mouse Club” in 1956. The Disney-produced serial was partly funded by the American Dairy Association.
TV shows set in Racine
‘Raising Miranda’
James Naughton plays a construction contractor in Racine struggling as a single dad to raise his 15-year-old daughter Miranda in this 1998 sitcom, which lasted just nine episodes.
TV shows set in La Crosse
‘Off Pitch’
This 2013 VH1 reality series gives the spotlight to the Grand River Singers of La Crosse, “the only all-adult ‘Glee’-inspired community show choir in the country.”
TV shows set in fictional Wisconsin cities
‘Aliens in America’ — Medora
A Muslim exchange student from Pakistan lives with a Christian family in Medora, Wisconsin, in this Fox sitcom, which lasted one season in 2007-’08. Oak Creek native Amy Pietz played the family’s well-meaning mom.
‘The Waverly Wonders’ — Eastfield
Football Hall of Famer Joe Namath plays, oddly, the winless basketball coach at Waverly High School, in Eastfield, Wisconsin, in this 1978 sitcom. The NBC show was sacked after just nine episodes.
‘The Brighter Day’ — New Hope
This inspirational-themed daytime soap opera centered on the doings of the Dennis family, led by Rev. Richard Dennis. The show started on radio in 1948 and made the jump to television in 1954. For much of its TV run — the daytime drama aired until 1962 — it was set in the small town of New Hope, Wisconsin.
‘Dead of Summer’ — Stillwater
Camp Stillwater, a summer camp in the fictional Wisconsin town of the same name, is the setting for this 1980s-set horror series, which lasted just one season on Freeform in 2016.
‘My Talk Show’ — Derby
Cynthia Stevenson plays the host of a local cable talk show whose program — shot in her living room — unexpectedly gets a national syndication deal in this quirky sitcom set in Derby, Wisconsin, “the hat capital of the world.” The syndicated show, launched in 1990, ran for 65 episodes.
‘Women in Prison’
A comedy set in a women’s prison? Sure. This 1987-’88 Fox sitcom follows a woman (Julia Campbell) who’s sent to “Bass Women’s Prison” somewhere in Wisconsin after her cheating husband frames her for shoplifting. Even with a pretty impressive cast — among them, Peggy Cass, CCH Pounder and Wendie Jo Sperber — the show lasted only one season.
‘Hoppity Hooper’ — Foggy Bog
A frog, a bear and a fox get into some sometimes-shady adventures in this animated series by the great Jay Ward (“Rocky & Bullwinkle”), with an incredible voice cast (including Paul Frees, Hans Conried and Bill Scott). Sponsored by General Mills, the Saturday morning cartoon show ran on ABC for 52 episodes over three seasons.
‘Araiguma Rasukaru’ / ‘Rascal Raccoon’ — Brailsford Junction
Edgerton, Wisconsin, writer Sterling North’s beloved book “Rascal,” about a small-town boy who adopts a baby raccoon, was adapted for Japanese television in 1977. Like the novel, the animated series is set in Brailsford Junction, Wisconsin, which is based on North’s hometown of Edgerton. The 52-episode series reportedly has been blamed for an exploding raccoon population in Japan.
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Today in 1967, the Beatles released “All You Need Is Love” …
… which proved insufficient for the Yardbirds, which disbanded one year later:
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The Wall Street Journal:
Republican-run states are cutting income taxes to make themselves more economically competitive, but Wisconsin’s Democratic Gov. Tony Evers doesn’t want to play. On Wednesday he used his line-item veto to strike $3.325 billion in tax cuts for residents and small businesses from the state budget.
Republicans in Madison last month passed a two-year $100 billion budget that would have used half of the state’s $7 billion surplus to reduce all personal income tax rates. Under their plan, the top rate would fall to 6.5% from 7.65% while the two middle brackets would collapse into a new lower rate of 4.4%. The bottom bracket would also decline to 3.5% from 3.54%.
Reducing the top rate is especially important for the more than 90% of Wisconsin small businesses that pay taxes at the individual rate. About 55% are taxed at the top rate, which is higher than nearly all of its neighboring states, including Michigan (4.05%), Iowa (6%), Indiana (3.15%) and even Illinois (4.95%). Only Minnesota’s 9.85% top rate is higher.
Iowa last year passed tax reforms phasing out its nine-bracket progressive tax that had a top rate of 8.53% to a flat 3.9% in 2026. Even Democrats who now control Michigan this spring backed off their plan to stop the state’s flat income tax from falling to 4.05% from 4.25% under legislation Republicans passed in 2015.
According to a University of Wisconsin analysis, the Madison Legislature’s plan would have boosted capital investment by 1.5% and economic output by 1.25%. This would certainly help the Badger State amid a manufacturing slowdown. The Institute for Supply Management reported this week that its manufacturing index dropped to the lowest level since May 2020.
Mr. Evers surrendered to progressives who claim tax cuts for middle and higher earners will reduce money for education, never mind that the Legislature’s budget increased funding for public schools by $1 billion. While vetoing reductions to Wisconsin’s two top rates, he kept the cut for individuals earning less than $27,630. This will help few small businesses.
The only beneficiary of Mr. Evers’s veto will be Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who won’t have to worry as much about businesses and people in his state moving north.
Except for businesses that don’t want to deal with the endemic corruption of Illinois.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 