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Mega Lo Mart: Encyclopedia BETA


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Mega Lo Mart

Mega Lo Mart is a retail store in the animated series King of the Hill. It is portrayed as the archetypical large American retail chain, in the vein of real-world corporate chain stores such as Wal-Mart or K-Mart. The name itself is a play on "Mega Low" (as in prices, the portrayal of which was presumably the corporation's intent), and megalomania, the desire of extreme wealth and power, a stab at Wal-Mart's business policies.

In addition to regular staple items the store also sells auto supplies, guns, hardware, and (briefly) propane. As depicted in the Season 2 cliffhanger finale, the presence of the Arlen Mega Lo Mart has a disastrous effect on local small businesses. Mega Lo Mart employees (who were depicted as unhelpful, ignorant teenagers) held positions of authority over former local merchants, who began working at the very store that ran them out of business. Mega Lo Mart tends to hire young uneducated people and then will quickly shift them around which leads to more confusion for the sales associate and customers, mainly Hank Hill.

The Mega Lo Mart corporate spokesperson is musician Chuck Mangione, who lives in the store and whose hit song Feels So Good serves as its corporate slogan.

In Episode 2.23 ("Propane Boom," broadcast May 17th, 1998), the Arlen Mega Lo Mart exploded just as Chuck Mangione was beginning to perform outside the store. Hank began working at Mega Lo Mart after the chain began offering big propane discounts, which had driven Strickland Propane out of Arlen. Upon being hired and expressing his frustration with other former small business owners (also now working at Mega Lo Mart), Hank and a few others planned to disrupt the Mangione concert with kazoos in protest of the destructive effect of Mega Lo Mart on small town businesses. The propane explosion occurred before the plan could be fully carried out. The accident was caused by a propane tank activated carelessly by Buckley, Luanne Platter's then-boyfriend and Hank's manager. Since any potential customers and most of the staff were at the concert outside, Buckley was the only casualty, although Luanne, Hank, and Chuck Mangione were slightly singed. Luanne also lost all of her hair as a result of the explosion. Strickland Propane reopened shortly after these events, and Hank resumed work at Strickland.

This incident happened in the midst of Fox's decision to move the show to California, which turned out to be a practical joke stemming from The X-Files' decision to move production from Vancouver to Los Angeles.



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