![]() And though his face may change, his polite demeanor, which I suspect masks a deeply veiled hatred of his life, job, and the contestants themselves, is unwavering. By the end of the episodes, he looks increasingly like someone who would be adopted by Liberace. As the show goes on, Ruprecht becomes more and more unrecognizable, as he gets tanner and more Botoxed. Viewers can also mark time passing by the ongoing renovation of the supermarket soundstage and David Ruprecht’s face. Mostly, the ladies’ lipstick shades turn darker and darker to that ruddy brown that everyone wore in the mid-1990s for some unknown reason. With the fifteen streaming episodes consisting of an assortment from the 1990s, you can observe the show’s progression solely through the evolving fashion choices of that grunge-laden decade. But that doesn’t enter into your mind as you’re salivating at the International Bread section! Sure, that decade was also defined by crises like the ongoing AIDS pandemic and the Gulf War, just as the original aired during the Vietnam War and the various clashes of white supremacists (and their supporting institutions) and Civil Rights activists. ![]() Like the 1960s, the 1990s was a time of considerable economic growth, resulting in the thoroughly American impulse of shop until you drop. Let’s face it, Supermarket Sweep is basically Pop performance art for a mass audience. Airing from 1965 to 1967, the original Supermarket Sweep celebrated that same capitalist glut of shelves upon shelves of repetitive consumer products as the Pop artists of that era did. Though associated, at least in my mind, with the height of game show schmaltz in the 1990s, Supermarket Sweep actually originated during the era that birthed the trash aesthetic as we know it today: post-World War II America with the boom of mass production and expansive supermarkets. Recently, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly,Ruprecht revealed that ever since the streaming service resurrected his cheesy career, he’s been receiving some…um…interesting requests on social media: “I will say, I’ve noticed in the last three weeks, my Facebook friend requests, I mean holy shit…Pardon me, but I used to get maybe two or three a week, and now I’m getting 20 or 30 a day…They keep wanting to know: ‘How are you doing today?,’ ‘Where do you live?,’ ‘Can I get a picture with you in bare feet?’ It was one of the most bizarre requests I had ever gotten.” Sorry! I was just curious, David! The fifteen episodes that sparked my delirious descent into purchase psychosis come from the 1990s incarnation of the game show, which was broadcast on Lifetime from 1990 to 1995, featuring the appropriately wholesome, plastered-on grin of host David Ruprecht, otherwise known as the “Baron of Brand Names.” From the first episode, with its intoxicating mix of era-defining, ill-advised fashion choices and a strong whiff of hairspray, I was hooked.Īnd I apparently wasn’t the only one. Bounce! Hi-C! Carefree Sugarless Gum! I’m ready for the Round Robin game! ![]() I find myself muttering brand names in my sleep. ![]() Ever since watching the fifteen episodes of merchandise madness streaming on Netflix, I’ve been stuck in a shopping spree reverie like a food-fixated fever dream out of which I can’t wake. Did you think I was kidding when I mentioned writing an essay on this tacky television classic last week when stanning over Nick Cave? Well, I wasn’t. I’m talking about my newest obsession: the height of competitive consumer culture, the pinnacle of the trash aesthetic, the summit of shopping cart chaos, the apex of American capitalist mania, Supermarket Sweep. Is there anything more beautiful than the dual glee and panic of a boxy silhouette of tapered jeans and blinding billowing Technicolor sweaters hurtling down a supermarket aisle as if shot from a cannon in search of a specially marked bottle of Tide? Is there anything more inspiring than a blur of Dep shellacked and spackled bangs and long crunchy permed hair flying through the air, tangling in its own self-perpetuated velocity, toward the dry goods? Is there anything more ecstatic than the jarring bright whiteness of athletic sneakers against the skin-tight black leggings slip-sliding on the shining linoleum of the cereal section? ![]()
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