That’s the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.

This line is Garrison Keillor’s signature sign-off from the long-running public-radio variety show “A Prairie Home Companion,” delivered in the persona of a genial small-town reporter from the fictional Minnesota community of Lake Wobegon. Keillor used it to close the show’s “News from Lake Wobegon” monologues—comic, affectionate sketches that mimic local newspaper items and porch talk while gently satirizing Midwestern manners, boosterism, and nostalgia. The refrain became widely recognizable through decades of weekly broadcasts (beginning in the 1970s) and later tours and recordings, functioning as a ritual ending that returned listeners to the show’s invented hometown world.

The humor hinges on deliberate impossibility: in Lake Wobegon, everyone is exceptional—women “strong,” men “good-looking,” children “above average.” Keillor parodies the self-flattering myths communities tell about themselves and the universal human tendency to believe one’s own circle is special. The line also works as affectionate satire rather than cruelty; it evokes a cozy, idealized Americana while exposing its exaggerations. As a closing refrain, it suggests that storytelling itself can make a place feel better than it is—turning ordinary lives into a shared legend—while inviting listeners to recognize the same wishful thinking in their own hometown narratives.

1) “...where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.”
2) “...where the women are strong, the men are good-looking, and the children are above average.”
3) “That’s the news from Lake Wobegon, Minnesota...” (often with the state inserted before the familiar triad).