View source for Doomed Supermarket Display

{{trope}}
[[File:ad supermarket display 1421.jpg|frame]]

There [[Exploding Fishtanks|are]] [[Ashes to Crashes|many]] [[Priceless Ming Vase|things]] you see on TV that are [[Chekhov's Gun|guaranteed]] not to survive to the end of the scene.

Supermarket displays are one of them. Rather than the shelves that are standard practice in real life, fictional shopkeepers seem to prefer to display their wares in rickety, ceiling-high pyramids stacked in precisely the place a [[Fruit Cart|runaway shopping trolley is likely to crash into them]].

Their other major vulnerability is to someone (often an oblivious young child) taking an item from the bottom level, thus causing the rest of the pyramid to collapse spectacularly.

Some supermarkets do have displays like this, but generally they consist of non-fragile items and are held up by cardboard support structures.

Compare [[Ashes to Crashes]], [[Priceless Ming Vase]], [[Exploding Fishtanks]], [[Doomed New Clothes]].
{{examples}}
== Film -- Animated ==
* The Spanish feature-length ''[[Katy, Kiki y Koko]]'' had the same problems with the ants' food hoard.

== Live-Action TV ==
* One time on ''[[The Bob Newhart Show]]'', Bob and Howard went grocery shopping. Howard took something (possibly a jar of pickles) from the bottom of a food pyramid and the stack didn't fall over, flummoxing Bob. Then a few more people did the same thing. Finally Bob took something off the top, [[Selective Enforcement|which made it fall all apart]].
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2j2O7M5Riw A classic animated sketch] on ''[[Sesame Street]]'' has a grocer stacking 12 large cans, presumably filled with tomato juice, but the first customer to pass the display pulls a can from the bottom of the stack. The stack collapses, and the grocer re-stacks the 11 remaining cans, with one extra. The same thing happens with the second customer. Finally, a boy on roller skates provides a [[Twist Ending]].

== Magazines ==
* The 1955 ''[[Mad Magazine|MAD]]'' feature on "Supermarkets" shows a malfunctioning shopping cart crashing into a pyramid of canned soup.

== Newspaper Comics ==
* Invoked in the title panel of [http://images.ucomics.com/comics/ga/1985/ga850915.gif this] ''[[Garfield]]'' strip.

== Western Animation ==
* A ''[[Two Stupid Dogs]]'' cartoon spoofing ''[[Freaky Friday]]'' had one of these. As a [[Running Gag]], it was repeatedly destroyed immediately after supermarket employee Cubbie had just finished fixing it.
* ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' had a parody of a bulk-buy warehouse that was packed to the rafters with these. A highlight is Barney knocking over a full-size human-shaped maple syrup bottle and thinking he's killed a woman.
** In another episode, when Lisa attempts to skateboard she ends up bearing down on two stacks of salsa jars - one "mild" and one "hot and spicy". "Please mild please mild please mild..."
* Happened in the ''[[The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh]]'' episode "A Pooh-Day Afternoon".

== Real Life ==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20130426151434/http://api.ning.com/files/5nn85vsYXcB8WcsG8wuiVVEnm9dwWq2ztZWAbVE485RciR68iY8v05t*VaMuus3oBMM9Eg*V55amc8lYRYR0oUxWJLzwGe8o/BestSupermarketDisplayEver.jpg Best. display. ever].{{context}}<!-- Sure, it's an impressive display of Super Mario Bros done in soft-drink cases, but how is it doomed? -->

{{reflist}}
[[Category:Comedy Tropes]]
[[Category:Chekhov's Gun]]
[[Category:Doomed Supermarket Display]]