[3] Characterized as an upscale[4] residential area, Carefree was conceived in the mid-1950s by business partners K.T.

There were 1,389 households, out of which 14.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 66.5% were married couples, 3.2% had a single owner, and 28.3% were non-families.

Carefree is in northeastern Maricopa County, bordered by the city of Scottsdale to the south and east and by the town of Cave Creek to the west.

[1] Carefree has a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen BSh) with hot summers and mild winters, avoiding a designation of arid by being located closer to the rain-catching central mountains of Arizona, so that it receives about 70 percent (around 5.3 inches or 135 millimetres) more rainfall annually than does Phoenix.

The sundial, which points to the North Star, is made from a steel frame and covered in anodized copper.

The sprawling 160-acre (0.65 km2) desert property adjacent to North Scottsdale featured three state-of-the-art soundstages, edit bays, 35mm screening room, make-up, production facilities, western street and backlot.

The studio was also used for Paul Newman's scenes in Pocket Money, for Bill Cosby's feature debut, Man and Boy, for which the western street was built, and for Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, again the western street.

The short, silent feature Time River[15] was shot on Stages 2 and 3 and extensively on the back lot and western street sets.

In one episode, actors Janet Leigh and Robert Culp and comedians Jo Anne Worley and Alan Sues played a game of tennis.

In 1974, Southwestern Studios was the location on Stage 2 and the back lot for the filming of the TV movie, McMasters of Sweetwater,[16] starring Jack Cassidy and Loretta Ball and directed by Robert Butler.

He took the name from a section of Arizona State Route 74 in north Phoenix, to explain his mood at that time.

The highway runs from the foot of (North) Tom Darlington Drive at the South-West corner of Carefree about 30 miles westward to Lake Pleasant Parkway in Peoria, AZ.