Mega Lo Mart
From King of the Hill Wiki
Mega Lo Mart is a hypermarket in King of the Hill. It is supposedly based on Wal Mart. Its spokesperson is Chuck Mangione, who plays the flugelhorn. It was believed that Mega Lo Mart had a rat problem, until Dale was hired to exterminate the rats. He discovered that Chuck Mangione was the real culprit, having fed off of the products at the store.
Mega Lo Mart is a retail store in the animated series King of the Hill. It is portrayed as the archetypical American </topic/united-states> big box store </topic/big-box-store> chain, in the vein of real-world corporate chain stores such as Wal-Mart, or Kmart </topic/kmart>. The name itself is a play on "Mega Low" (as in prices, the portrayal of which was presumably the corporation's intent), and megalomania </topic/megalomania-2>, the desire of extreme wealth and power.
In addition to regular staple items the store also sells auto supplies, guns, hardware, CDs, DVDs 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.
The Mega Lo Mart employees (who were and are still 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. The 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 </topic/slogan-1>. The Mega Lo Mart jingle, as heard in a television advertisement in an early episode, says "Mega Lo Mart, where you'll be shopping for the rest of your life." The jingle is not connected to or performed by Chuck Mangione. 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 the Mega Lo Mart after the chain began offering big propane discounts, which had driven Strickland Propane </topic/strickland-propane> out of Arlen. Upon being hired and expressing his frustration with other former small business owners (also now working at the Mega Lo Mart), Hank and a few others planned to disrupt the Mangione concert with kazoos </topic/kazoo> in protest of the destructive effect of the Mega Lo Mart on small town businesses. The propane explosion occurred before the plan could be fully carried out (as Hank was ready to use his "ultimate weapon", an air horn). The accident was actually caused by a propane tank activated carelessly by Buckley, Luanne Platter's then-boyfriend and Hank's manager, a result of Buckley's refusing to listen to Hank's safety advice. (Ironically, due to his hatred of the Mega Lo Mart, everyone seemed to believe Hank had caused the explosion, though only temporarily). 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 (which gradually grew back) as a result of the explosion. Since the Mega-Lo-Mart decided to not stock propane upon re-opening (after reconstruction), the Arlen branch of Strickland Propane reopened shortly after these events, and Hank resumed his assistant manager position there.
This incident happened in the midst of Fox's </topic/fox-broadcasting-company> decision to move the show to California </topic/california-cta-blue-line>, which turned out to be a practical joke stemming from The X-Files </topic/the-x-files>' decision to move production from Vancouver </topic/vancouver-british-columbia> to Los Angeles </topic/los-angeles-california>.
