Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.

This line is Garrison Keillor’s signature sign-off introducing the fictional Minnesota town of Lake Wobegon in his long-running radio monologues on “A Prairie Home Companion.” Keillor began using Lake Wobegon as the setting for comic, affectionate stories about Midwestern small-town life, and the phrase became a recurring refrain that framed each installment as a “dispatch” from the town. The wording plays on the tone of a genial hometown welcome while simultaneously signaling that what follows is satirical and mythic rather than documentary—an idealized community presented through the conventions of radio storytelling and nostalgia.

The joke hinges on cheerful exaggeration: a town where everyone is not merely decent but improbably exemplary. By claiming that “all the children are above average,” Keillor skewers a common human bias—our tendency to see our own families, communities, and memories as special, better than the statistical norm. The line also gently parodies boosterism and sentimental nostalgia for “simpler times,” suggesting that such portraits often depend on selective memory and flattering self-description. As a refrain, it establishes Lake Wobegon as a comic utopia whose perfection is itself the punchline, inviting listeners to recognize their own idealizations in the town’s impossible demographics.

1) “...where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.” (often preceded by “It’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon...”)
2) “...where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.” (sometimes introduced as “That’s the news from Lake Wobegon...”)