The Rural Purge Was Still Strong With The Show
When shows like Green Gables and The Beverly Hillbillies were killed off it became known as the “rural purge,” a phenomenon in which studios killed off shows that were centered around rural settings.
When Twin Peaks was getting ready to air, the town had a population of 5,120. Studio executives at ABC demanded that the sign be changed to read 51,201. When the “Visitor’s Guide to Twin Peaks” book was released, David Lynch and Mark Frost changed the population back to 5,120. They claimed that the city’s population sign simply had made an error in reporting the correct number of people in the sleepy town.
