Tallahassee in popular culture

Tallahassee has been represented well in popular culture through the years. Moreover, Tallahassee has many references on books, television, motion pictures and music because Tallahassee is home to three major colleges and universities, is a mid-to-large sized city in Florida, and also it is the capital of the state.

Books

The Seminole Manor neighborhood in southern Tallahassee is the setting for the "Neighborhood" series of young adult novels by Adrian Foeglin.

Popular music

• 1934: Bluesman Tallahassee Tight records his song, Tallahassee Women.
• 1947: Bing Crosby releases the single titled, Tallahassee, with the Andrews Sisters. Within the song are the lyrics: "When you see land all green and grassy ... sit down and rest your chassis, you're in Tallahassee."
• 1959: Freddy Cannon releases a single titled, "Tallahassee Lassie". Dick Clark subsequently used it on American Bandstand for a dance contest.
• 1963: Jan & Dean covered Freddy Cannon's single "Tallahassee Lassie" on their album, Surf City And Other Swingin' Cities.
• 1969: Johnny Cash releases the album titled: At San Quentin, the song Wanted Man with the lyrics, "Wanted man in Tallahassee."
• 1970 Bill Monroe recorded a fiddle tune, "Tallahassee"
• 1976: Aerosmith releases the album Rocks. In the song Last Child with the lyrics, "Take me back to a south Tallahassee."
• 1978: The Rolling Stones release the album Some Girls. Contains a remake of the Freddy Cannon song Tallahassee Lassie.
• 1982: The soundtrack for the film Spring Break has a song called Hooray For The City by Jack Mack & The Heart Attack which lists Tallahassee among several cities mentioned in the lyrics.^[1][2]
• 1994: The Notorious B.I.G. releases a song "Ready to Die" from the album Ready to Die, he states "I'm rippin MC's from Tallahassee, to Compton"
• 2002: The Mountain Goats release the album, Tallahassee. It is composed entirely of songs from the perspective of the Alpha couple, a fictional dysfunctional married couple who have appeared in other Mountain Goats songs.
• 2002: Rap duo dead prez mention Tallahassee in their song Sellin' D.O.P.E. from Turn off the Radio: The Mixtape Vol. 1.
• 2003: Martin Zellar records the Ballad of Tallahassee Don on his album "They Even Use the Hooves".
• 2006: Jake Owen filmed his music video for his debut song "Yee Haw" at Potbelly's, a bar next to the Florida State campus that he used to play in when he was a student there.
• 2007: T-Pain releases the CD Epiphany. The song titled Tallahassee Love.
• 2007: Akon & Friends released the song We Taking Over and the lyrics have Tallahassee in the list of the other cities: "Jacksonville, Tallahassee, Memphis TN. Holla at me then".
• 2007: Mayday Parade EP Tales Told by Dead Friends In their song Your Song - "And all that Tallahassee skylines, they keep singing out a song".
• 2007: Evergreen Terrace Titles their song "xHey Tallahassee"
• 2008: Castanets namedrop Tallahassee in the lyrics to Refuge 2 on their album City of Refuge.
• 2008: The Hip-Hop artist, Rick Ross, mentions the universities FAMU and Florida State in his song Here I Am.
• 2008: Across Five Aprils record their song "Tallahassee is for hookers"
• 2009: Molina & Johnson mention Tallahassee in the lyrics to Twenty Cycles to the Ground on their album Molina & Johnson.
• 2009: Action Item writes their song "I woke up in Tallahassee"
• 2009: T-Pain films his music video for "Take Your Shirt Off" in Frat Row in Tallahassee
• 2009: Dinosaur Jr. films part of their music video "Over It" in front of The Moon and the Benjamin Banneker Building at Florida A&M.
• 2010: DC Music released "Gold & Garnet" a spoof of Black & Yellow, which mentions Tallahassee, and Florida State University.
• 2010: Hey Marseilles - To Travel & Trunks songs starts off, "Lucy and I came from Tallahassee"
• 2010: Easton Corbin mentions Tallahassee in the lyrics to This Far From Memphis on his self-titled album.
• 2011: Go Radio LP "Lucky Street" in their song "Any Other Heart" - "Well, Tallahassee will stay gray outside instead".

Theater

• August Wilson's Century Cycle plays include references to Tallahassee in Joe Turner's Come and Gone and Fences.
• The comic opera A Wedding features two characters planning to run away and have a tryst in "Heaven, heaven, heaven, Tallahassee."

Film

• 1974: The film The Longest Yard is released. Flirting with convict Burt Reynolds, office secretary Bernadette Peters says, "I'm just as far from Tallahassee as you are..."
• 1986: The film Something Wild is released; parts of the motion picture were filmed in Tallahassee and Quincy.
• 1986:The Deliberate Stranger is televised in May of that year. The film depicts the life of serial killer Ted Bundy, who terrorized the Chi Omega sorority house in Tallahassee.
• 1991: Fried Green Tomatoes is released in theaters. In the film, the fictional town of Whistle Stop, Alabama is served by the Tallahassee & Albany Railroad running through it. This railroad never existed, a nod to Tallahassee.
• 1993: True Romance is released in theaters. Written by Quentin Tarantino, Tallahassee is mentioned as the home of Alabama Whitman played by Patricia Arquette.

HBO reenacts the December 7, 2000, Florida Supreme Court argument during filming of Recount on November 4, 2007.

• 1998: The Players Club film, Tallahassee is mentioned as the home of the character Ebony Monica Calhoun
• 1999: The Green Mile is released in theaters. Written by Stephen King and produced by Frank Darabont. The character Eduard Delacroix, a Cajun prisoner played by Michael Jeter, who is about to be executed is told that Mr. Jingles, his pet mouse, will live in Mouseville.
  • Dialogue: Brutus "Brutal" Howell played by David Morse says, "How about Mouseville?" Eduard Delacroix played by Michael Jeter says, "Mouseville?" Brutal replies, "Tourist attraction down in Florida. Tallahassee, I think. Is that right, Paul? Tallahassee?" Paul Edgecomb played by Tom Hanks says, "Yeah, that's right. Tallahassee. Just down the road apiece from the dog university." (transcribed from DVD)
• 2002: The Victor Nuñez film Coastlines features scenes shot in Tallahassee Memorial Hospital.
• 2003: The movie Manfast was fully filmed in Tallahassee, Florida. The movie was fully based around the city, and showed much of downtown. The movie box cover has the Florida Capitol Building on it as well.
• 2006: Hacking Democracy, a documentary, is released on DVD after premiering on HBO. Tallahassee became the site of the Hursti Hack proving Diebold voting machines can be hacked and altered to steal an election. Tallahassee comprises a large amount of the running time.
• 2008: Recount, an HBO made-for-TV movie, was filmed for five days in Tallahassee during November 2007, with two days of filming inside and directly in front of the Florida Supreme Court building in the Capitol Complex. It chronicles the Florida vote recounts in the weeks after the 2000 U.S. presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore, and the December Supreme Court ruling that gave Bush the White House. Starring Kevin Spacey, Laura Dern, Ed Begley, Jr., Denis Leary, and John Hurt, the movie had its broadcast premiere on HBO on May 25, 2008.
• 2009: The music video for "Over It" by Dinosaur Jr. was partially shot in Tallahassee, and features shots of the band skateboarding at FAMU and the local venue The Moon.
• 2009: Woody Harrelson starred in the movie Zombieland. The characters names in the movie are based on which city the characters are attempting to reach in the post-apocalypse United States, and Harrelson's character is named Tallahassee. The movie was also filmed at a local theme park in nearby Valdosta.
• 2009: T-Pain had a music video filmed for Take your shirt off, which was filmed in Tallahassee.

Television

ALF

• 1986-1990 - ALF, in the Season 4 episode "Wanted: Dead or Alive", ALF is watching Crime Stoppers when one of their suspects, a criminal and polygamist that looks exactly like Willie Tanner, was reported to be last seen in Tallahassee 7 years ago. The reporter also says that the State of Florida is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to his capture.

Ben 10

In one episode, Gwen was reading a list of cities where one of Ben's aliens was seen and Tallahassee was mentioned

Cash Cab

On a couple of episodes of Cash Cab Tallahassee has been mentioned in questions and answers such as "Name the most populous cities in Florida" Tallahassee was the 2nd answer on the red light challenge.

Criminal Minds

Season 5, Episode 20 "A Thousand Words" is set in Tallahassee.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

• 2000–present - Curb Your Enthusiasm, in the series, Larry David's wife, Cheryl, is from Tallahassee and often makes references that her parents still live there. This is typical of the show, which is often based in reality, as the actress Cheryl Hines grew up in Tallahassee.

Dexter

When looking into Jordan Chase's history, one of the detectives mentions that he was born in a "small redneck town outside of Tallahassee," quite possibly Monticello, Capitola, or Chaires to name a few.

Also, in Season 6, the fictional "University of Tallahassee" is mentioned frequently as the main suspect was a former professor there. Quinn and Batista also take a trip to the campus but these scenes were actually filmed in California, not in Tallahassee.^[3]

Family Guy

At the end of Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story after the credits, as Chris is walking in a hall crowded by around 5 CEOs he says "I got three guys from Tallahassee who want this deal pushed!"

"Here's Your Sign" Award

A Tallahassee swamp is shown and mentioned and won a sign award on CMT.

Jericho

• 2006-2008 - Jericho (2006 TV series), in the episode, "Black Jack", it was noted on the news board that Tallahassee, Florida survived, because, as the capital of Florida, it was supporting the president in Montgomery, Alabama.

Episodes

1. What Kate Did. Series episode #33. (Production Code: 209). Season 2, Episode 9. Aired November 30, 2006. Kate Austen played by Evangeline Lilly is buying a bus ticket and says, "Tallahassee one-way, please." Another character responds, "Tallahassee? I spent a week in Tallahassee once. It's all strip malls and Waffle Houses. What's a pretty girl like you going to do down in Tallahassee?"^[4]
2. Lockdown. Series episode #41 (Production Code: 217). Season 2, Episode 17. Aired Wednesday March 29, 2006. Dr. Jack Shepherd played by Matthew Fox and James "Sawyer" Ford played by Josh Holloway are playing poker. Sawyer says, "Okay, I'll call you with the aspirin and raise you with a bottle of Amoxicilin." Jack says, "Do you even know what Amoxicilin is?" Sawyer replies, "You may have been to Phuket, Doc, but I've been to Tallahassee. Let's just say something was burning and it wasn't from the sunshine."^[5]
3. The Man from Tallahassee. Series episode #61 (Production Code: 313). Season 3, Episode 13. Aired March 21, 2007. The man from Tallahassee is Anthony Cooper played by Kevin Tighe, father of John Locke played by Terry O'Quinn. In the episode, Ben played by Michael Emerson says to another man from his hospital bed, "Bring me the man from Tallahassee." Later John Locke says, "The man from Tallahassee - what is that? Some kind of code?"
4. The Brig. Series episode #67 (Production Code: 319). Season 3, Episode 19. Aired Wednesday May 2, 2007. Inside the land bound hull of a mid-19th century British slave ship, The Black Rock, James "Sawyer" Ford played by Josh Holloway confronts Anthony Cooper played by Kevin Tighe. Sawyer says, "How did you get here...to the island?" Cooper replies, "To the island, huh, huh, (chuckles). OK, I'm driving down I-10 through Tallahassee when 'bam' somebody slams into the back of my car. I go right into the divider at 70 miles an hour the next thing I know the paramedics are strapping me to a gurney stuffing me in to the back of an ambulance and one of them actually smiles at me as he pops the IV into my arm. And then nothing. Just black. And the next thing I know I wake up in a dark room tied up gag in my mouth and when the door opens I'm looking up at the same man I threw out a window, John Locke, my dead son." (transcribed from DVD)

• In an ABC podcast, two of the executive producers, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof, said about Tallahassee: "It just happens to be a nexus point where many of our characters have crossed paths." "Like a hellmouth?" Cuse asked. "Yeah, like a hellmouth," Lindelof replied. (Jeff Burlew, Tallahassee Democrat, March 23, 2007).

The Office

In the television series The Office, Dunder Mifflin now belongs to Sabre Corp, headquartered in Tallahassee, Florida. It is referred to as a place without much coal, "just alligators and some of the worst Chinese food you ever tasted."

Once Upon A Time

In one episode, Regina mentions that Emma had never remained in the same place longer than a year...except for one city. "Tell me, what did you like so much about Tallahassee?". Furthermore, the 6th episode of Season 2 is called "Tallahassee".

True Blood

Tallahassee in mentioned in "Post Mortem." "Over a few bad mortgages in Tallahassee?"

The X-Files

The X-Files was a drama that followed the unusual cases of Special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson). Mulder is an FBI profiler and strong believer in the supernatural. Scully is an MD and skilled at postmortem examinations.

1. The List. Season 3, Episode 5, Mulder and Scully visit a prison in Leon County, Florida. In one scene the warden tells an inmate that he will have his case looked at again, and "pull a few strings in Tallahassee."^[6]
2. Detour. Season 5, Episode 4. Mulder and Scully investigate an incident in the Apalachicola National Forest on the southwest side of Tallahassee where surveyors were attacked.^[7]
3. Millennium. Season 7, Episode 4. The opening scene takes place at a memorial service in Tallahassee, Florida, December 21, 1999, for a former FBI agent who possesses the unique ability to see the world through the eyes of serial killers. This episode features veteran actor Lance Henriksen who was the lead in Chris Carter's Millennium which ended its run on May 21, 1999.^[8]

Verification of The X-Files episodes at: HuluPlus. The X-Files series.

BoJack Horseman

One of the characters in BoJack Horseman visits Tallahassee while on a book tour in Season 2, Episode 7.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

Tallahassee is referenced in a joke in Season 1, Episode 8 of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Rebecca's client Calvin says, "I have attorneys in major cities all over this world. Cincinnati, Shreveport, Tallahassee... And you are numero Uno."

References