Where They Live
What We Know
The Darling family live in a two storey house at 44 Shadow Lane
in Evanston, Illinois 60204.
The street name Shadow Lane is fictitious, but the place is real
enough and the producers appear to have gone to some effort to
make the references authentic.
This is a lakeshore suburb of Chicago, just to the north of the
main downtown area.
This has never been stated in the programme; in fact nothing more
than the fact that they live on Shadow Lane has ever been firmly
stated.
The only other definite reference is when
Clarissa and Sam receive a summons to appear in court
from the Cook County Court House - Cook County
is the county that contains the Chicago Downtown.
Map of Chicago
The Evidence - Circumstantial
- It does snow where they live
and thus can't be in the southern states.
- It isn't in the Pacific Time Zone since in Sam's
Swan Song, Clarissa says of Seattle "That's in a whole nuther time
zone".
- It is a fair distance from New York City, since Marshall
and Janet were forced to fly there to attend
the architects convention despite Marshall's phobias.
-
In the episode UFO, one of the
possibilities Clarissa eliminates is the "Hubble satellite". From
76.60W 39.28N (Baltimore), HST will get up to
between 10 and 20 degrees above the horizon on occasion.
So it should periodically be visible from Cook County (~88N,42W).
-
Another clue, this time from a first season story (
Parents Who Say No) was that Clarissa wanted to get a job at the Baxter
Beach carnival.
For it to be a genuine beach this would make it either near one of the
ocean coasts or on the Great Lakes.
-
In The Return of Mafalda, Clarissa has
Sam's dad ask Aunt Mafalda to a hockey game. When Mafalda
returns, she mentions that the Blackhawks won. This would certainly
be a reference to the Chicago Blackhawks, the National Hockey League team.
-
The fact that they live in Chicago is further confirmed by Ferguson's
plans for their route in Road Trip.
-
In President Ferguson, we are shown a
US$1 bill on which George Washington's portrait has been replaced by
Ferguson's face.
The serial number on the note matches the pattern G 143???33 G.
The initial letter 'G' is important and provides a further clue.
From a table of Federal Reserve symbols and banks, Coin World Almanac:
Fifth Edition 1987 lists 'G' as being Chicago, Illinois.
The codes are:
Number Letter Bank
------ ------ ----
1 A Boston, Massachusetts
2 B New York, New York
3 C Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
4 D Cleveland, Ohio
5 E Richmond, Virginia
6 F Atlanta, Georgia
7 G Chicago, Illinois
8 H St. Louis, Missouri
9 I Minneapolis, Minnesota
10 J Kansas City, Missouri
11 K Dallas, Texas
12 L San Francisco, California
-
In Piper Comes To Visit, Piper would have
been visiting Northwestern University which is nearby.
-
In A Little Romance, Clarissa and Sam
discuss walking to visit a flight simulator. There are very few places
where this would be possible - Evanston, Ill. is one of them.
-
Janet works in the Childrens Museum; there is a children's museum in
Chicago, Ill. called Kohl's Children's Museum.
The Evidence - from "Road Trip"
Discussed here by David Dux:
Several of the places mentioned during this episode are real places, although
not exactly as described.
The route is described by Marshall as "all interstates and superhighways".
Ferguson's planned route has several clues:
The locations mentioned are Petro Park, which is noted as being located in
Iowa, as being the world's largest gas station. In fact, the world's largest
gas station (in terms of number of fuel pumps) is located in Iowa, it is
a huge Amoco truck stop on Interstate 80, with over 80 pumps. I have driven
by it several times, I believe it is near exit 278 or so, it is the first
exit west of where Interstates 80 and 280 join west of the Quad Cities,
if you wish to get out your atlas. There is no amusement park here,
as described in the show, but there is a truck wash and showers for
truckers caked with several days of road grunge.
Another site mentioned is a Coca-Cola can house in Okoboji, IA. I do not
know if such a house exists (I would doubt it), but Okoboji can be found
on a map in north Iowa. This would be a substantial detour if coming across
Iowa on I-80 (about 130 miles one way), but it would be possible. Granted,
it is a cool name for a town, and I assume it was chosen just for the
comedic value of having the name be said. (This could be something to
be seen on the return trip if they went on I-90 instead, as it would be
a shorter distance out of the way. I-90 also goes to Chicago, and would
be a possible alternative on the return trip by taking the 4-lane highway
from Sioux City, Iowa to I-90.)
Finally, the International Currency Museum is mentioned as being in
Kearney, Nebraska. Kearney is a real town, located on I-80. No such thing
as a Currency Museum exists there, however.
However, initially in "Road Trip", Clarissa states that it will be 18 hours
of driving to the Grand Canyon. I would suggest that 18 hours of driving
from the Grand Canyon would put you only in Nebraska somewhere, if you
followed the route to the aforementioned I-80, and assuming that Marshall
follows all state and federal laws concerning speed limits, at least when
Janet is in the car. (However, "Pete and Pete" fans know the Petes' dad
could make it to Chicago in 18 hours.) This may be one of the few times
when the parents actually get something over on Clarissa, as they know it
will in fact be a longer drive.
The Evidence - Visual
There is one overwhelming clue in the series.
It comes in the episode Educating Janet,
where Clarissa is trying to pursuade Janet to go back to working at
the children's museum.
Clarissa brings in an envelope full of letters from the young children
at the museum asking Janet to come back.
There's an address clearly visible on the envelope:
Other Places They Mention
There is a Winnemucca Lake in Nevada.
Expanding their abbreviations, the 1994 Webster's Geographical
Dictionary says it's a "lake about 20 miles
long in northwest Nevada, about 6 miles east of Pyramid Lake; often dry."
So while Winnemucca Lake is real (if not always wet), Lake Winnemucca
may be fictional.
It may not really be the same thing as Lake Winnemucca, especially
since in the pictures we've seen of it looks much smaller and more
permanent.
In many ways, the photos look much more like "The North Woods" area of
Wisconsin and Michigan State; both a relatively short distance north
of Chicago.
This would be a very popular holiday destination for families living
in the evirons of Chicago.
Choose: onwards to Clarissa's carear plans, or
back to Clarissa Explains It All front page.
Bevis King <B.King@ee.surrey.ac.uk>
24th July 1995