Various movies and TV shows from the early 90s seem to have this joke where someone will ask where something came from, to which someone else will reply “Sears”. What’s the deal with this? Is it a reference to a slogan from Sears commercials or something?
Moved to Cafe Society.
Title edited to make subject clearer.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
You will have to be a lot more specific. What joke about Sears? Because as you’ve written it, there isn’t any joke there.
If you are asking why people said something strange “came from Sears,” why wouldn’t it? Sears was a company that stocked just about everything in those days.
At one time you could buy almost anything at Sears. Their catalog was 3 to 4 inches thick and back in the 50’s and 60’s they had rifles and shotguns, their own brand of car, and I seem to remember a couple of house plans. It was the Walmart, Target, Home Depot, and Amazon of its day.
There’s a joke about a “seersucker suit from Cox, or a ****sucker suit from Sears”
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Got to admit I had never heard that one!
Not just house plans, entire do-it-yourself houses.
I can see possible jokes based on incongruity with someone asking about some exotic object and being told it came from someplace as prosaic as Sears. But without more information we can’t really know what the joke was.
As others have noted, Sears used to sell nearly anything and everything. But much of it was considered cheap, generic, nondescript, low-quality stuff.
Oh, nobody would laugh if you bought your dishwasher and your fridge at Sears. Nobody would laugh at a tool kit from Sears. Nobody would laugh at tires or car batteries bought at Sears.
But if I got my new suit, my new sofa, my new dining room set, or my new carpeting at Sears, people would assume (probably correctly) that I was a tacky lower middle class type with no taste or imagination. If I wore a Sears suit to a job interview at a Wall Street firm, I’d never get hired.
Closest to that that I’ve heard was some ventriloquist (I think) asking if a suit or shirt (or something along that line) was seersucker because it “looks like you got it at Sears, sucker!”
Is that a real poncho? I mean… is that a Mexican poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
Sears was a pioneer in “on-line” shopping, except it wasn’t on line in those days.
You looked through their catalogue and phoned in an order.
Pretty leading edge, especially in Canada.
(Sears Canada just filed for bankruptcy and is closing all stores.)
Damn it, why wasn’t I informed back in 1964? No wonder I never got that stock broker gig.
Dennis
And when you were done, the catalogue became toilet paper. Sears *invented *recycling.
Dennis
Twice! 1908 to '12 and '52 to '54. Also scooters & motorcycles.
I think the joke is that something unexpected appears or is noticed. So a character says “Where did that come from??” out of surprise or expecting a genuine explanation for why it’s there.
Instead they get a literal answer as to where the object was originally purchased.
First thing I thought of too.
Classic! 
I knew about the Allstate/Henry J. car but I didn’t know about the Lincoln.
I wonder if I can still order this one at list price?
Could that have come from the Twilight Zone episode with Jackie Cooper?