Spring Break
Shameful 'Supermarket'
by Daniel D. Snyder
Associate Editor
Arts | 4/21/09
Posted online at 12:08 AM EST on 4/21/09
As television sits in a nebulous limbo between the Web and live broadcast, it seems like a good time to look back and see just how far we've come. One of the wonderful things about the Internet is that it's allowed us to go back and view old media previously lost to history, material that was never meant for repeated viewing and the meticulous eye of modern cultural analysis. With everything available on the Internet, we can skip back and forth between eras, adding a Z-axis to our perception of the media organism.
At a casual gathering earlier this week, the focus of our merry group slowly, predictably turned to the Internet as the pinnacle of attention. And from the blackest pits of the Web, from the most shameful, stone portions of our hearts, we wrenched forth the beast: Supermarket Sweep, an American game show that ran on various networks from 1965 to 1967, from 1990 to 1995 and again from 2000 to 2003.
Like some bizarre sexually transmitted infection, the show periodically flared up and died, but not before being passed to another host network. The show featured women (and the occasional effeminate man) at various stages of clinical obesity answering trivia questions about grocery product slogans and wheezing uncontrollably while they ravaged the shelves of a studio supermarket in search of the most prized items. Today, the show serves as a relic of ham-handed product placement and a disturbingly recent example of the kind of blatant gender discrimination that we thought died with Rosie the Riveter.
After a short, horribly animated introduction, the announcer calls forth the poor contestants from the audience, not by name, but by the products they are holding. "Who's got the Kings Hawaiian Sweet Rolls?! OK! You're on!" he bellows. This method of participant selection hints to other losers that with the right purchase in the supermarket, they to might one day amount to something: a fat person on a daytime TV show.
The episode we watched featured an endless tirade of similar product placement. In the first game segment, our host, a buoyantly enthusiastic David Ruprecht (now a staunch libertarian who serves on the Board of Directors for the Downsize D.C. Foundation) quizzes the poor cows on their knowledge of product slogans. He reads the first half: "When Hubby cleans the bowl, he gets real mannish. He makes stains -" "Vanish!" shouts the only male contestant.
At a casual gathering earlier this week, the focus of our merry group slowly, predictably turned to the Internet as the pinnacle of attention. And from the blackest pits of the Web, from the most shameful, stone portions of our hearts, we wrenched forth the beast: Supermarket Sweep, an American game show that ran on various networks from 1965 to 1967, from 1990 to 1995 and again from 2000 to 2003.
Like some bizarre sexually transmitted infection, the show periodically flared up and died, but not before being passed to another host network. The show featured women (and the occasional effeminate man) at various stages of clinical obesity answering trivia questions about grocery product slogans and wheezing uncontrollably while they ravaged the shelves of a studio supermarket in search of the most prized items. Today, the show serves as a relic of ham-handed product placement and a disturbingly recent example of the kind of blatant gender discrimination that we thought died with Rosie the Riveter.
After a short, horribly animated introduction, the announcer calls forth the poor contestants from the audience, not by name, but by the products they are holding. "Who's got the Kings Hawaiian Sweet Rolls?! OK! You're on!" he bellows. This method of participant selection hints to other losers that with the right purchase in the supermarket, they to might one day amount to something: a fat person on a daytime TV show.
The episode we watched featured an endless tirade of similar product placement. In the first game segment, our host, a buoyantly enthusiastic David Ruprecht (now a staunch libertarian who serves on the Board of Directors for the Downsize D.C. Foundation) quizzes the poor cows on their knowledge of product slogans. He reads the first half: "When Hubby cleans the bowl, he gets real mannish. He makes stains -" "Vanish!" shouts the only male contestant.
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