“Fruit Cart!”
An expletive used by knowledgeable film buffs during any chase scene involving a foreign or ethnic locale, reflecting their certainty that a fruit cart will be overturned during the chase, and an angry peddler will run into the middle of the street to shake his fist at the hero’s departing vehicle. (Of all the definitions in the glossary, this has become the most popular. It has been gratifying to be part of an audience where people unknown to me have cried out “Fruit cart!” at appropriate moments. The movie SKI PATROL even contained a “Siskel and Ebert Fruit Cart.”)
–from Roger Ebert’s Glossary of Movie Terms
I wish I could find the Siskel & Ebert clip when they first talked about fruit cart cliches in the movies. I haven’t seen a fruit cart in a film without yelling “Fruit cart! Fruit cart!” in the theater since.
Chatter Random Friday Gene Siskel roger ebert Siskel and Ebert