looking for an old clips from COPS
December 17, 2020 8:55 AM Subscribe
I'm trying to find an old clip from an episode of COPS. I know the show is extremely problematic in a lot of ways. This particular clip also touches on a lot of problematic issues, like homelessness, alcoholism, racism, and the less-than-enlightened police responses to those issues. So I'm putting the details inside. I want to make clear that I'm not endorsing the show or any of its problems. I just want to find this clip basically as a means of fact-checking a memory from my childhood.
In the clip, the cruiser in which the camera is filming comes across a group of three homeless men pushing a shopping cart. They're apparently pretty well-known to the officers already. One of them, an older man, is nicknamed "the General". The officers pull over to harass the homeless men, and suggests to the one pushing the cart that he should return it to Food Lion, at which point he responds with the all-time classic line that I'm trying to document: "I didn't get it from Food Lion. I got it from the parking lot in front of Food Lion."
My siblings and I found this technicality pretty hilarious. These cops were talking to the guys like they were hot shit (as cops do), and the guy just dropped it on them like "screw you, you're not as smart as you think you are". We really appreciated that, and we've kind of memed it in the years since. The problem is, no one outside of our family has any recollection of this happening. I've met people who have been fanatical fans of COPS who think I'm crazy.
This episode would have aired sometime between 1989 (when COPS first premiered) and 1994, when I was old enough to have a social life that didn't involve watching crappy tv shows with my dad. I believe it would have been after the first Gulf War, but I'm not certain. It would have had to take place in the southeastern US, because it was definitely a Food Lion shopping cart. That's a key detail. From what I can tell, Food Lion's footprint in the early 90s was mostly what it is now - the Carolinas, Virginia, maybe Georgia. But it doesn't appear that COPS filmed any episodes in those states until much later. Wikipedia tells me that Food Lion expanded to Houston in the "early 90s", and that COPS filmed in Houston in mid-1991. Could that be it?
Specificity would be appreciated. I could probably answer this question by watching a bunch of old episodes, but that's something I'd rather not do. It's... not a great show. I'm really hoping one of you would be able to point me to a particular episode and maybe even to a specific time within the episode so that I could watch as little of the show as possible.
In the clip, the cruiser in which the camera is filming comes across a group of three homeless men pushing a shopping cart. They're apparently pretty well-known to the officers already. One of them, an older man, is nicknamed "the General". The officers pull over to harass the homeless men, and suggests to the one pushing the cart that he should return it to Food Lion, at which point he responds with the all-time classic line that I'm trying to document: "I didn't get it from Food Lion. I got it from the parking lot in front of Food Lion."
My siblings and I found this technicality pretty hilarious. These cops were talking to the guys like they were hot shit (as cops do), and the guy just dropped it on them like "screw you, you're not as smart as you think you are". We really appreciated that, and we've kind of memed it in the years since. The problem is, no one outside of our family has any recollection of this happening. I've met people who have been fanatical fans of COPS who think I'm crazy.
This episode would have aired sometime between 1989 (when COPS first premiered) and 1994, when I was old enough to have a social life that didn't involve watching crappy tv shows with my dad. I believe it would have been after the first Gulf War, but I'm not certain. It would have had to take place in the southeastern US, because it was definitely a Food Lion shopping cart. That's a key detail. From what I can tell, Food Lion's footprint in the early 90s was mostly what it is now - the Carolinas, Virginia, maybe Georgia. But it doesn't appear that COPS filmed any episodes in those states until much later. Wikipedia tells me that Food Lion expanded to Houston in the "early 90s", and that COPS filmed in Houston in mid-1991. Could that be it?
Specificity would be appreciated. I could probably answer this question by watching a bunch of old episodes, but that's something I'd rather not do. It's... not a great show. I'm really hoping one of you would be able to point me to a particular episode and maybe even to a specific time within the episode so that I could watch as little of the show as possible.
I can't help with the episode but I can tell you that Food Lion was in the Dallas area in the 90s,not just Houston.
posted by CathyG at 8:50 PM on December 17, 2020
posted by CathyG at 8:50 PM on December 17, 2020
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posted by Captain_Science at 9:58 AM on December 17, 2020 [3 favorites]