Help, I Can’t Stop Watching ‘Supermarket Sweep’

Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture. [View in Browser]( [Subscribe]( [Image] with Kevin Fallon Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture. This Week: - Grocery shopping on TV! - Thinking too much about Zac Efron’s body. - The ahmahzing Happy Endings reunion. - Were there tights on the boat? - Me, as groceries. Everybody Is Grocery Shopping Hollywood has spent actual, literal [billions of dollars]( launching [new streaming services]( with [original content]( featuring any celebrity you can think of. All of them—through circumstances nobody could have predicted—arrived while you were confined to your couch during a pandemic. Meanwhile, Netflix licensed streaming rights to a dozen or so episodes of a game show from 1990 that your nana used to watch when you got home from school, and eviscerated the competition. [Alternate text] I wish I could understand why everyone is watching Supermarket Sweep. I mean, duh, I understand it; I’ve been watching it, too. At this point you could tell Americans that a rival streaming service comes with the coronavirus vaccine and they’d still be like, “OK, but when does it come on Netflix?” Still, it’s undeniably peculiar that Supermarket Sweep, of all things, is the series that people are rabid about. By most metrics, all game shows are “of their time.” But few are as indelibly a period piece as this show. Originally airing in the ’60s before being rebooted for the ’90s revival that we casually enjoyed 30 years ago and have devoted every waking moment to watching and thinking about now, episodes of Supermarket Sweep should supplant all future history books that talk about the decade’s sociology. (Gonna cry myself to sleep over the realization that “the ’90s” is something that will be in history books.) The series is ostensibly an infomercial for Aquanet. It is an epic tangle of perms, teases, and curls that threatens to envelop the entire screen—and would, were it not for the loud, patterned vests and blouses screaming for attention as well. Then there’s the most frozen-in-time element of it all: grocery shopping. Some have surmised Supermarket Sweep’s current popularity to be a sort of televised fantasy fulfillment; in the midst of this shutdown, we’ve been trained to think of food shopping as a potentially lethal activity. Even before the pandemic, the convenience of delivery services tore us away from weekly battles with the rusty wheels on shopping carts. But I think the show is frankly too bizarre to support that thesis. I think we like it because it’s so weird. Anyone who watches the show focuses on the climactic “sweep” segment of the episodes, in which contestants sprint up and down aisles tossing products in their carts in an attempt to drump up the highest grocery bill. What is the best strategy: Loading up on hams and turkeys, or diapers and hair dye? Who is sporting the best “I’m going to have to be running, but also I’m on TV and want to be cute” athleisure wear? And what are the actual rules about how many of each item are allowed and why contestants can’t just park in one aisle and put every item they see in their carts? To me, the most captivating part of the show is the hyper-specific and completely ridiculous trivia contestants are forced to answer about groceries. Gameplay asking the etymology behind brand names or fun facts about random celebs’ food preferences are one thing. Expecting contestants to specifically know what a bottle of syrup, a bottle of hot sauce, or a container of salt costs to the cent is another. And they do. They know. I understand that shopping was a part of the culture then. Coupon clipping was a Sunday activity, comparison shopping was a survivalist hobby, and people considered going to the store to be a personality trait. I also cannot relate to it at all. My trips to Gristedes are to procure emergency items that I forgot to add to delivery shipments but need RIGHT NOW. I have no concept of what things should cost, exacerbated by the lunacy of New York City grocery prices. I go to the store to buy aluminum foil, pineapple juice, a head of radicchio, and triple A batteries, and the total is somehow $87. If you told me milk cost 30 cents or it cost $9, I would believe you. And yet I am deeply invested in Supermarket Sweep. [Alternate text]( What is weird about this dumb game show is how emotional it is. When contestants win the show, a prize of $5,000 that I am too lazy to do inflation math on, they combust into euphoric fits. I have never seen the human body contort in the ways it did when Beverly, in a seizure of tears, leaped into her partner’s arms after locating the final item, a bottle of Newman’s Own salad dressing. These truly unwarranted moments of joy are spiritual cocaine bumps for a game-show viewer. What makes the “why now” question of Supermarket Sweep so hard to answer is that the show has already been available on Amazon Prime, and with many more episodes than you can currently stream on Netflix. But I do think there is something about the current times that has us shopping for comfort food. (I am unapologetically proud of that supermarket-themed metaphor, please applaud.) My boyfriend and I have watched Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune every single weeknight since the lockdown started. We are boring people who had been home at 7 p.m. most nights before this happened, but we never watched. So why start this tradition now? I don’t know! But we did. That’s led to the mind-meld of the past week in which Jeopardy! has been airing classic episodes from when Alex Trebek first started hosting the series. They’re ridiculous! The audience claps, boos, and groans after every single question. Contestants ring in before the clue is read. Bad fashion and casual misogyny abounds. It’s wild. And yet I can’t even say that we’re craving the simplicity of these old game shows when at the same time we are watching Floor Is Lava, Holey Moley, and that [entire genre]( of lunatic, extreme series. So why is Supermarket Sweep so popular right now? I truly do not have the answer. Great column, Fallon. You People and the Zac Efron ‘Dad Bod’... I don’t like talking in hyperbole, but the worst phrase in the entirety of human existence is [“dad bod.”]( The word “moist” is found shaking. There are dissertations that should be written and then read by every human being who consumes pop culture about the ways in which female celebrities’ bodies and images are judged, policed, and exploited. As a footnote to that necessary work, though, here are my thoughts on Zac Efron’s “dad bod”: I HATE IT! [Image] Here’s the backstory: You people are asinine. Here’s the backstory to that: The Netflix series [Down to Earth With Zac Efron]( that y’all binged once you ran out of Supermarket Sweep episodes has become very popular this week. In this show, Efron for some reason travels the world to explore culturally specific environmental sustainability tactics. (Sexy!) I didn’t so much learn that it exists as I was assaulted with hot takes over the assertion that this previously chiseled handsome man’s physique had apparently evolved into a “dad bod.” It all started with [a New York Post article]( that aggregated reactions from fans who called out Efron’s body as “looking a bit huskier and labeled him Daddy, slang for an attractive older man,” which is unquestionably the most heinous sentence to ever have been published. In the series, Efron, who had previously maintained an obviously unhealthy sculpted gridiron in lieu of a human form, displayed a slight bloat to his hitherto nonexistent body fat ratio. The result was still an inhumanly muscular torso, but one that wasn’t as lean as the last time we had seen him shirtless. [Alternate text] Most of the reaction was still in celebration. Would 10/10 people still masturbate to a Google Image search of him? Yes. But there is something about the “dad bod” label that construes negativity, like a judgment on him and his fitness. And that’s what set Twitter on fire. Part of that is the lunacy that anyone without a six pack has a body that has to be qualified in its praise. Part of that is the lunacy that a male celebrity should be criticized for eating what appears to be one slice of pizza over the course of seven years. Part of that is the lunacy that the phrase “dad bod” even exists. It’s all the worst. These are already hard times. Let people lust over Zac Efron in peace. Very Happy About ‘Happy Endings’ One weird quirk of the pandemic has been every single TV show you ever watched coming together for some sort of reunion. Some have been great. Some are [30 Rock](. In any case, the only right answer to the question “what show did you love that was prematurely canceled?” was revived for an original new episode acted out on Zoom this week: [Happy Endings](. [Alternate text]( The writing was so smart and the acting was so fantastic that when there’s a meta joke midway through the episode about how ABC fucked around with its scheduling and essentially manifested its doom, you’ll seethe with hilarious rage. But that’s all secondary to the best joke, indisputably my favorite joke of the week that involves a cup. “It’s not just a plain cup. It’s a Busy Philipps cup, from the Busy Philipps collection, Fill Ups by Busy Philipps.” If you watched the show, can remember that it aired at one point adjacent to Cougar Town, and can recall the similarly epic “Angela Bassett collection, Bassett by Angela for Angela Bassett” line from the series, you know why it’s so genius. If not, it’s all on Hulu. Go watch. Still Thinking About ‘Gaslighter’ “Cuz boy you know exactly what you did on my boat…” Well after listening to [The Chicks’ new album Gaslighter]( roughly 47 times in 24 hours, I thought I knew. Especially since there was a song titled “Tights on My Boat,” a vengeance anthem about lead singer Natalie Maines’ ex-husband having an affair with a woman and getting caught when she left her tights on the boat Maines paid for. (Big [Grey’s Anatomy]( “whose damn panties are on the bulletin board” energy.) Well, Maines was [a guest on Howard Stern’s radio show]( this week and explained that, due to a NDA agreement with her ex, she couldn’t explain the specifics of every story about their relationship on the album. The tights on the boat? “I hate to disappoint, but that’s not true, that’s just fun,” she said. She elaborated that the essence of the story is real, just not the details. [Alternate text] The Ultimate Combo A boxed wine of rosé/white cheddar Cheez-Its combo pack was briefly on sale this week. This is me as a grocery item. (It sold out immediately.) [Alternate text]( [Image] - Room 104: The room where it happens, indie anthology version. - The Weight of Gold: Remember the Olympics? - In My Skin: A charming British coming-of-age dramedy? Real original. (But actually, this one is.) [Image] - Canada’s Drag Race: Premiering on Logo this week, more “meh” than “eh.” - The Kissing Booth 2: You shouldn’t watch everything on Netflix! Advertisement [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( © Copyright 2020 The Daily Beast Company LLC 555 W. 18th Street, New York NY 10011 [Privacy Policy]( If you are on a mobile device or cannot view the images in this message, [click here]( to view this email in your browser. To ensure delivery of these emails, please add emails@thedailybeast.com to your address book. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, or think you have received this message in error, you can [safely unsubscribe](.