SUPERMARKET SWEEP Team on Reviving the Iconic Game Show

SUPERMARKET SWEEP is back, with Leslie Jones as host, as three teams compete against each other in the hopes of being the last one standing to have the chance to win $100,000. 

Though the series was a mainstay in the 90s and early 00s, it’s been off the air for more than a decade and a half.

“When I came into SUPERMARKET SWEEP, my main goal was to update it, because the show—there’s nothing wrong with the game-play or the show itself and the format, But I wanted to update it,” Jones told reporters. “Bring some new music to it, bring some color to it, bring some jolts to it, bring activity to it. I also had the feeling of, like, wanting to make people feel what I felt when I used to watch the old show. So, it was always, like, ‘Oh, okay I can do this. The questions are not that hard. I can actually win this game. Oh, okay. Wait, wait. You gotta work at this. This is a plan.’ So, you want everybody at home feeling that…that’s what I wanted to bring to this show, just the element of excitement and also my element, which is everybody loves to see me live Tweet. Everybody loves to see me have a raw reaction. So, I wanted to bring that because people love that. And just happiness, you know.”

But, of course, believing you can win and actually doing it are two different things. “It is absolutely the best part of the game because…before the sweep, [the contestants] have all kinds of strategies,” Jones said. “They are talking to each other. They are coaching each other. But as soon as I say ‘On your carts. Get set. Go,’ it’s like they forget the whole plan. I can see them out in the store, like, ‘Oh, my God.’ But I will say that there’s some that came in there that were ready. I’m telling you one of the best parts of the show is watching everybody strategize. So it’s so fun.”

“It’s so fun because everybody is different, too,” she continued. “Every team was absolutely different. We were just in the back going ‘Okay, how is this going to happen? What’s going to happen? Who is gone?’ Every time the sweep was over, we would come out and go ‘Okay. What do you think about what’s his name? Who did this?’ It was so good.”

Of course, this show is also happening in the midst of a global pandemic, which has not only made production challenging, but has made the experience of going to a grocery store feel drastically different.

“Listen, we shot this show at the end of July, early August,” executive producer Alycia Rossiter admitted. “And we were one of the first shows up to do it. And we put in a huge COVID protocol. Leslie and [the team] were amazing at abiding by it and encouraging us and our entire crew to keep the rules and to do the right thing. Everyone was tested. Everybody was retested. Everyone’s temperature was taken every day. We cleaned that store like crazy in between every round. We stood so far apart. The only people that were allowed to have their masks off were Leslie and her contestants. We wore shields and masks if we went near Leslie or the contestants. We Purell-ed our hands so much. And we felt safe, and we were joyful. And I know that sounds cheesy, but we had been cooped up in our apartments and our houses for so long. The team was so appreciative to be outside having human contact with each other.”

“We want it to be received with fun and laughter and joy and a little escape from the mask of it all,” Rossiter continued, though the team stressed the importance of real customers wearing masks in the world. “The grocery workers in the States have kept us alive for the last six months. They went to the store every day. And we see our store as a place of celebration. And I can’t celebrate our team enough for the hard work they did to keep all of us safe. We had no incidents.”

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SUPERMARKET SWEEP, Series Premiere, Sunday, October 18, 8/7c, ABC

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