History UsefulNotes / LosAngeles

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* Music/MyChemicalRomance: "Battery City" is a ridiculously thinly-veiled version of Los Angeles in the [[Music/MyChemicalRomance "Danger Days" universe]].

* The setting of 2014's ''Videogame/BattlefieldHardline''

* ''Film/{{Quarantine}}''

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Cars}}'': The final race is at their {{Expy}} of the Los Angeles Coliseum.

* The '''Los Angeles Angels''' (MLB)... don't actually play in Los Angeles. At least, not anymore. Founded in 1961 by Music/GeneAutry, and taking their name from a minor league team that used to play in LA until the Dodgers arrived, they initially did play in LA itself until they got their own ballpark in Anaheim, at which time they renamed themselves the California Angels, a name they used for the next 30 years. When the stadium was renovated in the mid 90s, the city of Anaheim insisted on them adopting "Anaheim" as part of their name (even though the "Angels" part is a clear reference to LA). The team, at the time owned by Disney, became the Anaheim Angels, but when current owner Artie Moreno bought them, he wanted to emphasize the team as an LA-metro area team, so he brought back the Los Angeles Angels name, with "of Anaheim" tacked on to the end (and rarely used). Eventually that was dropped. The team has largely had streaks of solid years mixed between periods of middle of the pack finishes, though they did win the 2002 World Series. Current star Mike Trout is a frequent candidate for best all-around player currently in the game, and Japanese star Shohei Ohtani has achieved perhaps greater prominence for his recent performance as a starting pitcher ''AND'' full-time designated hitter.
* The '''Los Angeles Rams''' (NFL) have had a traveled history. They initially started in Cleveland but moved to Los Angeles in 1946 as the first ever professional sports team on the West Coast. The Rams won the NFL Championship in 1951 and stood as one of the NFL's most star-studded teams for many decades; fittingly for a Hollywood team, they were the first football franchise to have all of their games televised. They played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum until they ''also'' moved to Anaheim in 1979. They kept the "Los Angeles" name until 1995 when, after several years of decline and competition from the city's other sports offerings, they packed up and moved to St. Louis... just two months before their biggest competition, the Raiders, also left town. The franchise won its only Super Bowl in Missouri but returned to LA in 2016 when NFL owners approved the Rams to move back to Los Angeles after the city had gone two decades without a pro football team. The team played at the Coliseum until the 2020 opening of [=SoFi=] Stadium, the most expensive sports venue ever built, in Inglewood; the next year, they won the Super Bowl, finally bringing a Lombardi Trophy back to Los Angeles after a long drought.

** The '''Las Vegas Raiders''', played in LA from 1982-1994 and still have many Angelenos' hearts despite having moved back north to Oakland, having brought the city its first Super Bowl back in the '80s. They had also been in the relocation discussion, but with most NFL owners and executives solidly of the opinion that three teams are too many in one market, the Raiders ended up passing over the potential return to LA to go to UsefulNotes/LasVegas instead.
* The '''Los Angeles Lakers''' (NBA) are one of the city's two basketball teams. Relocated from Minneapolis in 1960s, they have consistently been among the best teams (with 12 championships in Los Angeles) and many of the game's biggest stars (Jerry West, UsefulNotes/WiltChamberlain, Creator/KareemAbdulJabbar, Magic Johnson, Creator/ShaquilleONeal, Kobe Bryant, and UsefulNotes/LeBronJames, to name just a few). The Lakers made their arena, the Forum in Inglewood, world famous before they moved to the also-iconic Crypto.com Arena (recently renamed from Staples Center) downtown.
* The '''LA Clippers''' (NBA) are Los Angeles' ''other'' NBA franchise. Their home arena is also Crypto.com Arena, making it the only venue that hosts two NBA teams. Relocated from San Diego in 1984 (hence the naval nickname), the Clippers were famous for being one of the worst teams in basketball (they've never won a championship), largely because they were owned by cheapskate slumlord Donald Sterling until he was caught on tape spouting blatant racism and was forced to sell. Microsoft co-founder Steve Ballmer spent $2 ''billion'' dollars to buy the team (which, again, was a laughing stock, second-rate team). Now they're looking at building a new arena to call their own next to the new NFL stadium and have seriously stepped up at becoming a significant player in the league (though they'll likely never fully escape the shadow of the Lakers).

* The '''LA Galaxy''' (MLS) has been in the league since it began play in 1996. Even before Major League Soccer developed a large following nationwide, the Galaxy was ''the'' best-known team in the country, due in part to Los Angeles' built-in fandom of immigrants from Latin America and later due to the signing of British soccer icon David Beckham. The post-Beckham years saw them pick up a few more international stars, with Sweden's Zlatan Ibrahimović the most notable. They're also the most decorated franchise in the league, with 5 MLS Cups, 4 Supporters' Shields, 2 US Open Cups, and even a CONCACAF Champions League title in 2000, making them the only American team to earn a bid to the FIFA Club World Cup (even if it was canceled that year). The Galaxy play at Dignity Health Sports Park in the outlying industrial suburb of Carson.
* '''Los Angeles FC''' (MLS) are one of the newer squads in the league, taking the pitch for the first time in 2018, but they came out firing on all cylinders, reaching the playoffs in the first three seasons of their existence and also winning the Supporters' Shield in 2019. LAFC missed the playoffs in 2021, but came back with a vengeance in 2022, not only taking the Supporters' Shield but also claiming the MLS Cup. Unlike the Galaxy, LAFC plays in the city itself, hosting their home games at BMO Stadium in South Central LA. With LAFC's strong showings thus far, it's easy to forget the ''other'' time MLS tried having a second team in the area...
** '''Chivas USA''' (MLS) was established in 2004, sharing the Galaxy's home field, but folded ten years later due to poor performance and lack of interest. The owner was the also the owner of the Mexican league team in Guadalajara, and assumed fans of that team in LA would flock to the MLS team (even the name "Chivas" is the nickname of the Guadalajara team). But between there not being nearly as many fans in LA as he thought, failing to understand that fans of other Mexican teams would actively shun a team with ties to a rival club, and advertising that was divisive in pushing away non-Mexican Angelenos, the club quickly turned into an embarrassment for the league and the owner was bought out.

* No discussion of LA sports would be complete without mentioning the two major universities in the city, the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Southern California, both of which are referred to almost ''exclusively'' by their initialisms of UCLA and USC. (Just be careful with the latter one in the DeepSouth, as it can also refer to the University of South Carolina.) The '''UCLA Bruins''' are best known for their men's basketball team, which is almost always strong but never quite as dominant as in the late '60s and early '70s, where they won championship after championship under legendary coach John Wooden and at one point had a winning streak that spanned three seasons; however, they're good at more than just basketball, ranking #2 in Division I history in both men's team championships across all sports and in women's team championships across all sports, and as such, #2 in men's and women's combined. As for #1 in men's championships? That'd be the '''USC Trojans''', best known for their football team, which has been strong for much of the 21st century, notably during a stretch in the mid-2000s that got vacated due to improper benefits given to a star player.

* ''Film/{{Collateral}}''
* ''Film/{{Constantine}}''

* The '''LA Galaxy''' (MLS) have been in the league since it began play in 1996. Even before Major League Soccer developed a large following nationwide, the Galaxy were ''the'' best-known team in the country, due in part to Los Angeles' built-in fandom of immigrants from Latin America and later due to the signing of British soccer icon David Beckham. The post-Beckham years saw them pick up a few more international stars, with Sweden's Zlatan Ibrahimović the most notable. They're also the most decorated franchise in the league, with 5 MLS Cups, 4 Supporters' Shields, 2 US Open Cups, and even a CONCACAF Champions League title in 2000, making them the only American team to earn a bid to the FIFA Club World Cup (even if it was canceled that year). The Galaxy play at Dignity Health Sports Park in the outlying industrial suburb of Carson.
* '''Los Angeles FC''' (MLS) are one of the newest squads in the league, taking the pitch for the first time in 2018, but they came out firing on all cylinders, reaching the playoffs in all three seasons of their existence thus far and even winning the Supporters' Shield in 2019. Unlike the Galaxy, LAFC play in the city itself, hosting their home games at Banc of California Stadium in South Central LA. With LAFC's strong showings thus far, it's easy to forget the ''other'' time MLS tried having a second team in the area...

** '''Angel City FC''' was announced in 2020 as California's first entry in the National Women's Soccer League, with a start date of 2022. They're sharing Banc of California Stadium with LAFC, though their home matches in the season-opening NWSL Challenge Cup are instead at Titan Stadium on the Cal State Fullerton campus. Right now, they're known for their literal army of owners, quite a few of whom have pages on This Very Wiki. The lead investors include Creator/NataliePortman and Internet billionaire Alexis Ohanian, husband of tennis great Serena Williams (who has a smaller ownership stake of her own). Other members of the ownership group include Creator/UzoAduba, Creator/SophiaBush, Creator/JessicaChastain, Creator/JamesCorden, Creator/AmericaFerrera, Creator/JenniferGarner, Creator/EvaLongoria, other celebrities who don't have pages yet, and a large cast of prominent sports figures.

* The English translation of the Franchise/AceAttorney series is heavily implied to take place in Los Angeles, though it's never referred to by name. (The Japanese version, on the other hand, explicitly takes place in Tokyo).

While '92 was a definite low point, things generally started to improve in the city proper since then. The old rail system began rebuilding in TheNineties (construction has sped up ''significantly'' since the Great Recession) and people no longer ''need'' cars in the inner city like they once did. The subprime mortgage bust, rise of telecommuting, and creation of more jobs in former "suburbs" in Orange County and the Inland Empire have likewise helped to reorient some of the region's troublesome traffic patterns, but they have also led to greater concerns of even more people and money being drawn out of the city proper in the coming years.

* The film ''Film/LosAngelesPlaysItself'', done by Thom Anderson, takes a look at Los Angeles as it is shown in the movies -- not Los Angeles pretending to be other cities. There is a marked divide between Los Angeles and Hollywood (even though technically Hollywood is within Los Angeles city limits) - Hollywood seems to find a perverse delight in destroying Los Angeles every chance it gets - ''Film/{{Armageddon}}'', ''Film/IndependenceDay'', you name it. They'd do it more, but the dearth of tall buildings makes it somewhat anticlimactic to watch. The film also suggests that only a city with an inferiority complex would allow itself to be called L.A. so frequently.

* ''Series/AdamTwelve''

The Southern Pacific railroad managed to change all this. In 1869, a railway was built to the harbor at San Pedro and the population exploded. An arguably bigger change came in 1913, when the city completed the Los Angeles Aqueduct, securing its ability to grow far beyond its natural limits. (It's been estimated that the Los Angeles Basin, in its natural state, has only enough water to support a population of about 200,000.) The city finally came of age in 1917. That year, many local institutions were formed, Los Angeles became the largest city in California and the 10th largest in the United States. It boasted a vast metropolitan rail system (today's [[UsefulNotes/LosAngelesMetroRail Metro Rail]] taken UpToEleven) as well as a finely tuned municipal system, which together gave LA the biggest, best public transit system in the world. For what happened there, see ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit''. LA's golden age was at the end of this era, which many people know from FilmNoir.

[[folder:Stand-Up Comedy]]

* Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse:

[[folder:Stand Up Comedy]]

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** '''Angel City FC''' was announced in 2020 as California's first entry in the National Women's Soccer League, with a start date of 2022. They're sharing Banc of California Stadium with LAFC, though their home matches in the season-opening NWSL Challenge Cup are instead at Titan Stadium on the Cal State Fullerton campus. Right now, they're known for their literal [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters army of owners]], quite a few of whom have pages on This Very Wiki. The lead investors include Creator/NataliePortman and Internet billionaire Alexis Ohanian, husband of tennis great Serena Williams (who has a smaller ownership stake of her own). Other members of the ownership group include Creator/UzoAduba, Creator/SophiaBush, Creator/JessicaChastain, Creator/JamesCorden, Creator/AmericaFerrera, Creator/JenniferGarner, Creator/EvaLongoria, other celebrities who don't have pages yet, and a large cast of prominent sports figures.

** The '''Los Angeles Sparks''' are founding members of the WNBA, first playing in the inaugural 1997 season. They were originally sister team to the Lakers, but were sold off in 2006. The Sparks still share Crypto.com Arena with the Lakers and (for the time being) Clippers. Three-time WNBA champions (most recently in 2016), some of their more notable past and present players include USC alums Lisa Leslie (later part of an ownership group that sold out in 2013) and Tina Thompson, Candace Parker, and sisters Nneka and Chiney Ogwumike. The team still has a number of Lakers connections—Magic Johnson is another part-owner, and their list of head coaches includes former Lakers Michael Cooper (twice) and Derek Fisher (the current head coach), as well as Kobe Bryant's father Joe.

* The '''Los Angeles Angels''' (MLB)... don't actually play in Los Angeles. At least, not anymore. Founded in 1961 by Music/GeneAutry, and taking their name from a minor league team that used to play in LA until the Dodgers arrived, they initially did play in LA itself until they got their own ballpark in Anaheim, at which time they renamed themselves the California Angels, a name they used for the next 30 years. When the stadium was renovated in the mid 90s, the city of Anaheim insisted on them adopting "Anaheim" as part of their name (even though the "Angels" part is a clear reference to LA). The team, at the time owned by Disney, became the Anaheim Angels, but when current owner Artie Moreno bought them, he wanted to emphasize the team as an LA-metro area team, so he brought back the Los Angeles Angels name, with "of Anaheim" tacked on to the end (and rarely used). Eventually that was dropped. The team has largely had streaks of solid years mixed between periods of middle of the pack finishes, though they did win the 2002 World Series, and current star Mike Trout is a frequent candidate for best all-around player currently in the game.

* The '''Los Angeles Lakers''' (NBA) are one of the city's two basketball teams. Relocated from Minneapolis in 1960s, they have consistently been among the best teams (with 12 championships in Los Angeles) and many of the game's biggest stars (Jerry West, UsefulNotes/WiltChamberlain, Creator/KareemAbdulJabbar, Magic Johnson, Creator/ShaquilleONeal, Kobe Bryant, and UsefulNotes/LeBronJames, to name just a few). The Lakers made their arena, the Forum in Inglewood, world famous before they moved to the also-iconic Staples Center downtown.
* The '''LA Clippers''' (NBA) are Los Angeles' ''other'' NBA franchise. Their home arena is also Staples Center, making it the only venue that hosts two NBA teams. Relocated from San Diego in 1984 (hence the naval nickname), the Clippers were famous for being one of the worst teams in basketball (they've never won a championship), largely because they were owned by cheapskate slumlord Donald Sterling until he was caught on tape spouting blatant racism and was forced to sell. Microsoft co-founder Steve Ballmer spent $2 ''billion'' dollars to buy the team (which, again, was a laughing stock, second-rate team). Now they're looking at building a new arena to call their own next to the new NFL stadium and have seriously stepped up at becoming a significant player in the league (though they'll likely never fully escape the shadow of the Lakers).
* The '''Los Angeles Kings''' are Los Angeles' NHL franchise. Like the Lakers, they played in the Forum before moving to the Staples Center. Created in 1967, the Kings labored in relative obscurity, though they started to become well known in 1982 with the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_on_Manchester Miracle on Manchester]] and exploded in popularity when [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Gretzky#.22The_Trade.22 "The Trade"]] brought UsefulNotes/WayneGretzky, the greatest hockey player of all time, to the Kings; effectively turning Los Angeles into one of biggest cities for hockey overnight. They came close to getting a Stanley Cup win in 1993, if it weren't for Marty [=McSorley=] being [[NeverLiveItDown called for an illegal stick]]. After their ConMan manager Bruce [=McNall=] was forced to sell the team in 1994, the Kings went through a period between EveryYearTheyFizzleOut and ButtMonkey for the next 2 decades. Starting in the 2010s, they [[TookALevelInBadass took a MAJOR level in badass]], managing to win the Stanley Cup in 2012 and 2014 and become one of the most dominant teams in the NHL.

** The '''Los Angeles Sparks''' are founding members of the WNBA, first playing in the inaugural 1997 season. They were originally sister team to the Lakers, but were sold off in 2006. The Sparks still share Staples Center with the Lakers and (for the time being) Clippers. Three-time WNBA champions (most recently in 2016), some of their more notable past and present players include USC alums Lisa Leslie (now part of the ownership group) and Tina Thompson, Candace Parker, and sisters Nneka and Chiney Ogwumike. The team still has a number of Lakers connections—Magic Johnson is another part-owner, and their list of head coaches includes former Lakers Michael Cooper (twice) and Derek Fisher (the current head coach), as well as Kobe Bryant's father Joe.

* LA is also the present or future home of teams in the two most prominent women's professional leagues:

** '''Angel City FC''' was announced in 2020 as California's first entry in the National Women's Soccer League, with a start date of 2022. They plan to share Banc of California Stadium with LAFC. Right now, they're known for their literal [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters army of owners]], quite a few of whom have pages on This Very Wiki. The lead investors include Creator/NataliePortman and Internet billionaire Alexis Ohanian, husband of tennis great Serena Williams (who has a smaller ownership stake of her own). Other members of the ownership group include Creator/UzoAduba, Creator/SophiaBush, Creator/JessicaChastain, Creator/JamesCorden, Creator/AmericaFerrera, Creator/JenniferGarner, Creator/EvaLongoria, other celebrities who don't have pages yet, and a large cast of prominent sports figures.

* ''Film/TheTerminator''

While '92 was a definite low point, things generally started to improve in the city proper since then. The old rail system began rebuilding in TheNineties (construction has sped up ''significantly'' since the Great Recession) and people no longer ''need'' cars in the inner city like they once did. The subprime mortgage bust, rise of telecommuting, and creation of more jobs in former "suburbs" in Orange County and the Island Empire have likewise helped to reorient some of the region's troublesome traffic patterns, but they have also led to greater concerns of even more people and money being drawn out of the city proper in the coming years.

Los Angeles began to decline in TheFifties as crime increased, inner-city neighborhoods fell into disrepair, and huge numbers of people fled to the suburbs.[[note]]Because of its vast land holdings, population nominally continued to increase, but even today there's a '''major''' distinction between the suburban ''West Side'' and ''Valley'' and the more traditional, landlocked "City."[[/note]] Tom Bradley was elected as the nation's second African-American big-city mayor in 1973 and held office for [[LongRunner two straight decades]], overseeing the city surpass UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} as the country's #2 city. However, things didn't really pick up. Symptoms of what would later be known since as AIDS would be discovered in 1981 (the city's bicentennial), and L.A. has since been one of the original top three highest reporting American cities for it--next to New York and now just before San Francisco--in descending order. The 1984 Olympics were a highlight,[[note]]Los Angeles is the only American city to host the Summer Olympics twice; the first time was in 1932, though Olympic Boulevard was named three years before that.[[/note]] but eight years later came another low point in the city's history: the 1992 Riots, which kicked off shortly after four LAPD officers were acquitted of using excessive force on Rodney King during his arrest after they were videotaped beating him by a man with a camcorder. The local and national news played this tape many, many times on TV between the arrest and eventual trial and acquittal, leading many to believe the court had let police officers get away with an obvious violent crime. The riots over it got so bad at one point that the governor of California requested assistance from the Army and Marines to restore peace, and Bradley retired not long after.[[note]]If one were to watch Hollywood movies from this time, you might suspect that the city had been irrevocably torn apart by this. In fact, it could be argued that the riots brought people together, as their scope and the perceived lack of police response (choosing instead to retreat to the richest areas) left everyone in danger.[[/note]]

* The '''Los Angeles Rams''' (NFL) have had a traveled history. They initially started in Cleveland but moved to Los Angeles in 1946 as the first ever professional sports team on the West Coast. The Rams won the NFL Championship in 1951 and stood as one of the NFL's most star-studded teams for many decades; fittingly for a Hollywood team, they were the first team to have all of their games televised. They played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum until they ''also'' moved to Anaheim in 1979. They kept the "Los Angeles" name until 1995 when, after several years of decline and competition from the city's other sports offerings, they packed up and moved to St. Louis... just two months before their biggest competition, the Raiders, also left town. The franchise won its only Super Bowl in Missouri but returned to LA in 2016 when NFL owners approved the Rams to move back to Los Angeles after the city had gone two decades without a pro football team. The team played at the Coliseum until the 2020 opening of [=SoFi=] Stadium, the most expensive sports venue ever built, in Inglewood.

* The '''Los Angeles Chargers''' were founded in the AFL in 1960, but moved to San Diego one year later. After spending the overwhelming majority of their existence there (but spending two decades as Southern California's only NFL team), the Chargers came back to LA in 2017, playing in Carson at the current home of the LA Galaxy until joining the Rams at [=SoFi=] Stadium for 2020.
** The '''Las Vegas Raiders''', who played in LA from 1982-1994 and have the only Super Bowl ever won by an LA team, still have many Angelenos' hearts, despite having moved back north to Oakland. They had also been in the relocation discussion, but with most NFL owners and executives solidly of the opinion that three teams are too many in one market, the Raiders ended up passing over the potential return to LA to go to UsefulNotes/LasVegas instead.

Los Angeles, the City of Angels, Tinseltown, La La Land, or simply L.A.-- or, its original name, [[OverlyLongName El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Rio de Porciúncula]] [[note]]The City of our Lady, the Queen of the Angels, of the River of Porciúncula[[/note]]. Regardless of what you call it, Los Angeles is one of the world's most famous cities and home to much of the United States' film and television industry. It is the second largest city in the country behind only UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity, though it gets bonus points for being the largest metropolitan area in the US contained entirely within a [[UsefulNotes/{{California}} single state]].[[note]]Greater New York is spread over '''four''' states ([[UsefulNotes/NewYorkState New York]], Connecticut, UsefulNotes/NewJersey, and UsefulNotes/{{Pennsylvania}}).[[/note]] Los Angeles County is the most-populous county in the US, with almost twice as many people as #2, [[UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} Cook County, IL]].[[note]]Los Angeles County contains 87 other cities, 15 of which have over a hundred thousand people each - Los Angeles itself is less than half of the county's population. Even if all five NYC counties combined into one, LA County would be larger[[/note]]