In case you were looking for another reason to love Leslie Jones, allow us to present this anecdote about the time she auditioned to be on Supermarket Sweep.
Because some three decades before the Saturday Night Live vet was tapped to host this fall's hotly anticipated revival, she was an unemployed dedicated Pax channel viewer, hoping to score a slot on the '90s version of the 1965-1967 game show. You know, the one you watched on days off from school, imagining how fun it would be to dash through the aisles of a supermarket, piling your cart with the comically large hams and giant packages of diapers any fan worth their sweatshirt knew would net the highest tab and, thus, a shot at the $5,000 prize.
"That was my show," Jones recently told People of her tendency to power through an entire block of four episodes in one sitting. "All I thought was, 'Hey, I ain't got no money maybe I could get on this show, win five thousand and become famous.'"
Spying a commercial seeking contestants, she heard that beep and couldn't help but think of all the fun she would have on Supermarket Sweep. "Are you joking? This is my time!" Jones recalled of her reaction. So she recruited her roommate and gave her a crash course on all things grocery. "I started recording so when she would come home from work I would make her watch like four or five episodes in a row," Jones said. "And then we'd practice. I even made question cards."
Having put all her eggs in that basket, her work paid off. "They was loving us because we had personality...we were just clowning," she shared of their audition. "So we get to the final contestants, there's like four groups left. I didn't know that she was on the phone with the boss of her job. She looks at me and goes, 'I got to go to work.' 'What? You got to go to work? This is five thousand dollars.' She thought that we was going to be finished with the audition in time for her to go to work after I had told her specifically to take the day off."
Unable to push forward on her own, "We left and I talked about her so bad," she continued. "'We will never be friends again.' I wouldn't even ride with her. I wouldn't even get in the car with her. 'I'll catch the bus.' Then I realized that I didn't have bus fare so I had to sit at the bus stop for a little while and figure out how I was going to get on the bus."
Some 30 years later, the comedic actress signed on to host and executive-produce the reboot even before it had found a network. As she put it in the January press release, "Being able to bring the iconic game show back to life on ABC is my ultimate redemption story!"
Well, you know, that and the whole finding fame and millions of fans through her scene-stealing skills on SNL and in Ghostbusters.
But knowing Jones was one of us back in the day, correctly guessing the price of Jello mix and urging contestants to find those secret shopping list items, has made us even more stoked to check out the game show's Oct. 18 premiere. (Also we're already imagining the jokes she'll have the first time they ask hopeful contestants, "Who's got the Charmin?")
And we can think of no better way to prepare for this epic shopping trip than by piling our metaphorical carts with fun facts about the original. Are you ready to play?
All right then, who's ready to play Supermarket Sweep?