I have to be honest. I remember watching advertisements of 10 Items or Less back in 2006. I was not interested. The commercials reminded me of Saved By The Bell – a show I was addicted to as a kid but hate as an adult. Now that I’m all grown up, the stupid, lame jokes of Saved By the Bell make me wish I could shoot myself instead of enduring another half hour of Zach and gang. So, to avoid being suicidal, I didn’t tune in for 10 Items. After watching “Turkey Bowling”, the 10 Items or Less season premiere, I realize how misleading marketing can be and regret not giving the show a chance 2 years ago.
The show is goof-ball. The humor is quirky, odd. The characters are exaggerated, but loveable. It’s perfect escapism humor. I mean, a manager bowling turkeys in his own store? The whole precept is hilarious. 10 items is shot on location in Reseda, California at a real working grocery store. John Lehr, as Leslie, leads the cast as an inept but good-intentioned manager, trying to keep the family store afloat amidst attempts by the large, corporate SuperValueMart to shut down the store. The show is at it’s core improv comedy guided by a loosely written script.
Season 3 opens with Leslie, the Greens & Grains manager, facing a new foe with Mercy P. Jones, the new SuperValueMart general manager known as the “Velvet Hammer”. She’s determined to shut down Greens & Grains for good and bets Leslie he can’t bowl 3,000 frames of Turkey Bowling without leaving a single pin standing. Carl the maintenance man and Todd the Butcher join in as gambling fever take over the store and the employees of Greens & Grains devolve in an unsupervised mess.
10 Items or Less returns with Season 3 on January 6th at 11 eastern time. Tune in and let the mad-cap, escapsist humor take your mind off folding banks and credit meltdowns and whatever else you might be facing in 2009.