Tales of the City (and its sequels) follows the soap-operaish lives of the people living in 1970's and 1980's San Francisco, and are based on Armistead Maupin's novels. The show centers around Anna Madrigal, the eccentric landlady at 28  Barbary Lane (who welcomes her tenants by taping homegrown joints above their doors), her tenants and the others implicated in their lives. Tenants include Mary Ann Singleton, a naive midwesterner who moves to California to start a new life; Mona Ramsey, a "fag-hag" with a special connection to Mrs Madrigal; Michael "Mouse" Tolliver, a gay Floridan who moved to California to avoid letting his parents find out he was gay; and Brian Hawkins, a horny straight guy trapped in a gay city...  People involved in their lives are Beachamp Day, Mary Ann's boss, and his wife DeDe; Edgar Halcyon, Anna's boyfriend, and his wife, Frannie who are DeDe's parents.