Season 5 Episode 22: You Better Shop Around (2)

The second half of the supermarket story, and the half with the Cart of Death in it. Having been declared winners of a shopping spree at the end of part one, Al and Peg now have to actually run it, and the store has decided to make a contest of it by putting a second team in the aisles against them. That team is Marcy and Jefferson. What follows is a parody of Supermarket Sweep conducted with no regard for any of the rules that show operated under, because the Bundy tradition on winning anything, as Al explains, is to cheat. To that end Al has built a shopping cart out of salvage. It incorporates parts of Peg’s car, pieces of the side of the house, and components taken off the lawnmower, and it is armed. Al calls it the Cart of Death and he uses it as a weapon. Oil gets squirted on the floor. A turkey gets rolled down an aisle like a bowling ball. Jefferson is forced to push a regulation store cart with uncooperative wheels. Marcy physically plants herself in front of the checkout to stop Al from reaching it, which works about as well as any plan Marcy has ever had involving Al Bundy’s momentum. Running alongside the carnage, Bud and Kelly spend the episode tormenting Jerry Mathers, appearing as himself and working the store on a promotional appearance, mostly by refusing to accept that he is not Opie. It is one of the most physically destructive episodes the show ever shot, and the fact that it was filmed inside a working grocery store makes the chaos land harder than any soundstage version could have.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: April 21, 1991
• Season and episode: Season 5, Episode 22
• Overall episode number: 102
• Written by: Stacie Lipp
• Directed by: Linda Day
• Taped: March 15, 1991
• Production note: Conclusion of the two part story begun in “You Better Shop Around (Part 1).” Both halves appear on volume one of the Most Outrageous Episodes DVD set.
• Production note: The contest is a direct send-up of Supermarket Sweep, which Lifetime had revived the year before.
• Title note: From the Miracles’ 1960 single “Shop Around.”

Guest Cast

• Jerry Mathers as himself
• Alan Oppenheimer as Mr. Foodie
• Bruce Jarchow as the store manager
• Bobbie Brown as Nibbles
• Jodie Mann as the cashier
• Brent Corman as the boy

You Better Shop Around (2)

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