What state is this supposed to be set?
I get a Alabama feeling - but does it ever really say?
shareIn Season 4, there's a Chubby's van with a 203 area code, which would be Connecticut. They probably changed it from 213
"Stalker?"
"Yup, bigtime"
MovieChat Forums > My Name Is Earl (2005) Discussion > What state is this supposed to be set?
Camden County sounds a lot like Cannon County, so I'm going to say they're from Cannon County, TN. If you want to know why I say that, just take a trip through there.
shareI just watched a Christmas episode, and it was warm and sunny. So they are definitely somewhere like Florida. Even in TN we rarely wear shorts in December.
Also there was the episode with the carnival performers at home. I read an article once that said a lot of them live in Florida.
I know it's fictional, but this thread shows a lot of people think about where they live. I vote Florida.
I don't know, but it's obviously a bunch of hate filled opinionated left wing yankee morons who think it's in Dixie.
shareIt's filmed in California. The show is set in a make believe place called Camden/Camden county.
If you really want to get technical, my guess would be New Mexico.
Look at the surroundings. Looks like NM. Warm all the time. The palm trees ahown are palms found on the west coast. And if you watch episode 4-10 with the killer bees, the convenience store guy says it's okay, you can come out now, the killer bees went to Texas. Which is a good indication they border Texas.
In the 1st season, Earl returns Alex's (Christine Taylor)laptop he had stolen. Alex is a professor at Frostburg State University in Maryland (Earl: Frostburg State? Isn't that where Bullwinkle went? Randy: Bullwinkle went to Whatsamatta U. He lived in Frostbite Falls). Earl said he had to drive all night to get there, so I am guessing that Camden is in southern Maryland or Northern Virginia.
BTW: the Bullwinkle line is used in Greg Garcia's other sitcoms like 'Yes, Dear' when an employer accuses Jimmy Hughes of making up Frostburg State on his resume. Most of the characters in Garcia's sitcoms are originally from Maryland or Virginia. On Yes Dear, Jimmy, Christine and Kim are all from Maryland while Greg is from Richmond.
Also in the first season (Stole Beer from a Golfer), Randy takes a seemingly short bus to Hagerstown. It seems the area names are based on Virginia/Maryland although the weather/seasons don't quite match.
West Virginia or Western Maryland would fit the 'redneck factor' but not the all night drive to Frostburg, southern Maryland and northern Virginia fall short on the "RNF", the drive time to Frostburg/Hagerstown and the number of tornadoes ... Camden, SC might be close to a fit if it had more tornadoes and more of a West Texas/New Mexico landscape than it does ...
Camden County, Georgia (near Savannah) and there is a Camden, SC (site of one of the Revolutionary War battles shown in The Patriot)
shareCamden County, Georgia is near Savannah (that would fit in with the relatively balmy weather and palm trees) and is considered the 'poor relation' (i.e. white trash) relation to Savannah. Also Camden, SC is where the first battle shown in 'The Patriot' takes place.
shareI know a lot of people replied with a lot of things when you first asked, but here's what it really is - I researched it after I saw, in syndication, the episode with where they ruined the guy who golfs. They had to retrieve his dog, so Randy took a bus to Hagerstown, which was just a daytime bus ride away. Hagerstown is in northern Maryland, near the PA border. Since I am from that part of PA and lived all over Maryland, that is what spurred me to research.
The writers have said that it was modeled after Waldorf, Maryland, which is where they are from. That would be southeast of Hagerstown, and not too much of a bus ride away, maybe 2-3 hours, tops. Waldorf is also very redneck, for want of a better term, very much like the setting for show. People from that area would not have a southern accent like Joy's, even though she grew up in Camden, her family must be from somewhere else and have moved to there - as Earl and Randy sound more like people from the Waldorf area than she does (as can be evidenced by her "mom," played by Brett Butler, who has a pronounced southern accent, she probably is, though I forget where her parents lived). Despite being bordered to the north by the Mason-Dixon Line, Maryland kind of serves as the border between the north and the south, so you will find people who identify with both, much like the show.
So, essentially, they are from a fictionalized southeastern Maryland.