Clean up on aisle 9… Some Iowa shoppers got a big surprise when David Letterman worked a shift at a Hy-Vee store in Des Moines recently. According to NBC Chicago, the midwestern supermarket chain welcomed the former Late Show host as he returned to his grocery bagging roots. And there’s video.
In the three-minute clip, Letterman explained, “I spent a considerable amount of my life in a grocery store in Indianapolis. It was the last of the singular, independent owned grocery stores, and I loved it. And if I can give something back to the marketing community, I would like to do that, but I don’t have all day, of course.”
Long before the comedian made it big on television, Letterman worked at Atlas Supermarket in his hometown of Indianapolis. The locally-owned independent grocer went out of business in 2002 after 55 years in business. While he was a high school student in the 1960s, Dave stocked the grocery shelves for Atlas.
At the Hy-Vee supermarket, Letterman was able to relive those formative days by restocking canned goods, bagging groceries, and chatting with customers. And, yes, he messed around with the intercom.
Why was Dave there in the first place? Letterman was in Des Moines for the Hy-Vee Indycar Race Weekend, July 21-23. In addition to hosting the Netflix series My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, Dave is a partner in the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. They had three cars running over the weekend.
David Letterman has a history of crashing other people’s jobs. Back in the 1990s, he used to frequent fast food drive-thrus and serve up comedy gold. Lets look back at some vintage video, along with his recent supermarket stint, below.
