That I don't remember... but then, K-Mart was always a more basic Wal-Mart, and back when I was coming up
they didn't have a Subway or an on-site ophthalmology center. They do now. Man, now I have a hankering for a teryaki chicken sub with sweet purple onions. This was, like, 1992 I'm talking about, keep in mind, and about half of y'all weren't even hanging onto your mother's nipple yet... According to my research some select K-Mart locations did start putting in food courts and delis about that time, though I was off at college then, and most of them were shuttered just before the store declared bankruptcy in 2001. Most surviving holdings were soon subsumed by Sears. There are three remaining independent K-Mart locations, but only one in the contiguous U.S: Kendale Lakes, Fla.
So, speaking of old ad campaigns I miss, how about the "Baddest Bugs in Town" number?
I loved these [
bleep]ing guys. I remember watching these spots as a boy, seeing a houseful of happy giant singing dancing insects having fun, and I'm all, like
Hey, those dudes look like they're living it up. Look at that guy; he's swinging off a light fixture. I want to party with them,
man. And then the guys in white coats come along, bust up the festivities, and load them all into the back of a truck. Was I the only one rooting for the bugs? The Terminix guys were the enemy, not the bugs, right? Also, they're
six feet tall insects. Why don't they bite the men, sting them, make them itch, drain one or two of all their blood in their veins--something, anything, to defend themselves? No, these poor s.o.b. s give up and just march quietly into the back of a paneled's exterminators truck. And if a roach is human-sized and sentient, wouldn't taking him and his buddies away somewhere to be gassed or whatever be a tad too close to
murder? Like a bug-man Holocaust?
...But, y'know, maybe I'm overthinking it. Say, this might be a good idea for a
Family Guy cutaway... or
Rick and Morty's new "Interdimensional Cable 4" episode.