Along with FBI agents Scully and Mulder, Kansas City co-starred in Sunday night's episode of "The X-Files." Chris Carter, the show's producer and writer, gave viewers a smoky, blue-collar, down-and-dirty version of Kansas City. Sound like your hometown? Not to "X-Files" watcher and entertainment writer Ken Bussanmas, who's lived in the area 15 years -- long enough to get to know the place. "Completely wrong," was his ruling on the program's portrayal of the old hometown.
    There were errors, for sure, like a reference to "the Kansas City Penitentiary." Say what?
    And the episode was set in Kansas City, Kansas. You have to wonder if Carter knows about the whole KCMO/KCK thing.  Then, as Bussanmas noted, the song "Goin' to Kansas City" popped up a couple times, once in a bar scene and once during a professional wrestling match. "I don't think I've ever walked into a bar here where `Kansas City' was playing," he said. "I think it's almost an unwritten law in this town: Don't play `Kansas City.' "
    All in all, it was a pretty grungy picture of our town, featuring yahoos who wrestle, hang around smoky bars at noon and work at photocopy stores. The writers did give a nod to the city's art museum through a character who referred to an exhibit "that traces the influence of Soviet art on American pop culture."
    Oh, and on the more wholesome front, there was the initial scene involving a couple of door-to-door religion vendors ... the Bible Belt, you know. Bussanmas, who lives in Olathe, said: "A lot of it just smacked of the typical sort of L.A. mentality of what the Midwest is. If it's not Chicago, it's farmland, fields and hayseeds." If the show's producers really wanted to capture the city visually,'` `they would have shot a shuttlecock," Bussanmas said. "And I don't think I saw one person in a Chiefs shirt. That probably would have meant licensing with the NFL. If there's nobody in a Chiefs shirt, you've got it wrong."
    But then again, he said, makers of "The X-Files" make a point to place their stories in locales all over the country, not just in big coastal burgs. "At least they spread it around," Bussanmas said. "I guess they can be forgiven for not getting it right."