HDTGM: A Conversation With Kelli Maroney, Star Of 'Chopping Mall'

Kelli Maroney has a unique skill set: she knows how to survive '80s horror movies.

Between Slayground (1983), Night of the Comet (1984) and this week's How Did This Get Made? film Chopping Mall (1986), Maroney has a real talent for making it through a slasher flick alive. So naturally, when she and I sat down to speak, I couldn't help but ask: what does it take to pull of this feat?

"You've gotta pace yourself," Maroney explained. "[You] can't lose it in the beginning, then you have nowhere to go with the movie...I don't really know how they [producers] pick 'final girls,' but I think there's just something in there like: you know what? She's gonna fight back. It's just something you know about a person, but you don't know how you know it."

To be perfectly honest, when I asked Maroney that question, I was just wondering what qualities a fictional character must possess to make it out the other side alive. But as was the case throughout much of our conversation, Maroney found little ways to go above and beyond; whether talking about acting with a spider, going undercover at Ridgemont High or the insomniatic process of filming Chopping Mall, she continually found ways to delight and surprise.

Below is a copy of our conversation...

Synopsis: When a group of teenagers gets trapped in a shopping mall after hours, their night of fun quickly turns deadly when a trio of security robots go out of control. Tagline: Where Shopping Costs You an Arm and a Leg!

Blake J. Harris: Hey, Kelli. Good afternoon! What are you up to?Kelli Maroney: Oh, [laughs] I was just sitting here thinking about Chopping Mall!Blake J. Harris: Excellent. When was the last time you saw it? Do you remember?Kelli Maroney: The last time I saw it was at a screening here [in Los Angeles] at The Egyptian: a double feature of Night of the Comet and Chopping Mall.Blake J. Harris: And what did you think, watching it that last time?Kelli Maroney: Once in a while, if I'm doing a festival or something, I will sit in just because I like to see the audience reaction and stuff like that I'm always amazed, you know, I get a little choked up at the end [laughs]. I think the music really makes it. Chuck Cirino, that score... it's 80s and it's relentless! I love the Allison theme he wrote. It's so touching. And then later when he juxtaposes it with the robot theme for the chase scenes—I think it's very effective. Big fan of the score.Blake J. Harris: So I have plenty more questions about Chopping Mall, but I'd love to start off by talking about how you got into acting. How did that start for you?Kelli Maroney: It was something I always wanted to do because I used to watch old movies with my mom. So I'd be up with her, in the middle of the night, watching these great stars—like Susan Hayward, or Betty Davis (in Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte or What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?)—and I just thought: I really want to do that. Not just watch them. But there was a problem: I lived in Minnesota and there was not a lot of theater stuff going on where I was. You know, in the Midwest, you don't go: I want to be an actress when I grow up! You just don't say stuff like that.Blake J. Harris: So, stuck in Minnesota, what did you end up doing?Kelli Maroney: I became an apprentice at the Guthrie Theater. And they couldn't pay us when I was a kid, so they gave us classes [instead]. I got to study with F. Murray Abraham and William H. Macy and Stephen Lange because they were all there for the season; a good dose of people who really loved the theater.Blake J. Harris: And did you love the theater? I mean, well, I assume you did; but in terms of theater versus film, did you have a preference at that point?Kelli Maroney: I wanted to go somewhere where I could study Shakespeare and be a "real" actor. [laughs] So then I went to a conservatory school in New York. So I was there in New York and had only $500 to my name.Blake J. Harris: $500?Kelli Maroney: Yeah, that's all I had. Not a penny more. And I was too young to get a job and too young to get an apartment. It was really pretty scary.Blake J. Harris: I'm sure...Kelli Maroney: So this woman took pity on me and said, "I could probably find you a roommate through a Roommate Referral Agency. But in the meantime, I have this friend [a casting agent] who works on a soap opera and they've been looking for a 'Midwestern Lolita' but haven't been able to find anybody." So I went over and met this agent she was talking about. I swear to God it was the scariest little office you ever saw.Blake J. Harris: Ha!Kelli Maroney: I had one photograph to my name. So I went over there and slid it under the door. Then when I was actually called in to audition, and given a screen test?! I was scared to death![The audition was for Ryan's Hope, a soap opera that centered around the ambitions of a middle class family trying to make it on Manhattan's upper west side. Maroney wound up booking the role of "Kimberly Harris" and would go on to appear in over 300 episodes of Ryan's Hope between 1979 and 1982.]Kelli Maroney: So I got the role, playing the "evil Lolita" character. She was an evil illegitimate child from the Midwest shows up and, you know, causes chaos.Blake J. Harris: [laughs]Kelli Maroney: I mean, how does an opportunity like that fall in your lap? I have no idea what would have happened to me otherwise. Then my whole ambition was to not get fired and to learn how to be on a soap opera. And again, someone else took pity on me—the woman who played my Mom—she could have had me for breakfast but instead taught me everything that she knew about acting.Blake J. Harris: What kinds of things did she teach you?Kelli Maroney: Oh, like crying on cue. Which eye do you want the tear to fall from? She just really taught me everything. And because I was on a soap I was considered a "working actor" and I didn't have to go through all the usual breaking-into-the-business things. I didn't have that casting couch stuff that girls have to endure because, you know, when people really want to work with you, they don't pull that stuff.Blake J. Harris: Right.Kelli Maroney: So it was really a godsend. Things like that don't just happen...Blake J. Harris: Do you remember that moment when you found out?Kelli Maroney: It was a phone call. The guy who drove the bus for the conservatory school had a studio apartment in Hells Kitchen and they let me stay there until he got back and then I was going to have to go. And it was on his telephone. [laughing] I couldn't believe it. I called my mom and said, "Mom, I'm gonna be on TV!" And then they took me to Saks Fifth Avenue and wardrobed me and, I still can't believe it, but I was on TV! We did the Lolita story and then we did the Lana Turner story, where my mom and I had the same boyfriend and I shot him. That's what they do. They sort of take classic movies and put a spin on them and put them in their own stories. It was a quite a ride. This is all by way of explaining how I was able to audition for things like Fast Times at Ridgemont High...

Kelli Maroney: I was probably on that show 4 if not 5 days a week, but when I got out here [Los Angeles] it didn't count as what they used to call "film on yourself." It doesn't count! They don't want to see a soap opera! I mean, people knew who I was and stuff—the fans and like that—but the business people didn't really care.Blake J. Harris: But eventually, you were able to get an audition for Fast Times. Tell me a bit about that process...Kelli Maroney: I read for Stacy and they auditioned me, Phoebe Cates and Brian Backer. It was on a Saturday and we went and auditioned with [writer] Cameron Crowe, [director] Amy Heckerling and [producer] Art Linson and Don Phillips, the casting director. And we read the whole movie several times.Blake J. Harris: That's a pretty long audition...Kelli Maroney: At one point we just all said, "We're dead, this is actor's purgatory, we just don't know we're dead; we're just gonna audition for all Eternity." Because that's what it felt like!Blake J. Harris: [laughs]Kelli Maroney: I think that they probably already had Jennifer Jason Leigh [for the role that Maroney auditioned for], but of course they weren't going to tell me that! Anyway, they asked me if I would play the cheerleader, and I was a little surprised by that. You know, I had this soap opera [under my belt] and then I had played a psychotic killer in Slayground—so far I had only played juvenile delinquents!—and you want me to play a cheerleader? I couldn't get over it. But of course I said I would. So I ran around, as soon as I got to California, and blended into the high school...[By "blended into the high school," Maroney is referring to the few hours she spent spying on high school students at Canoga Park High School prior to shooting the pep rally scene.  There, along with other cast members, she got a firsthand look at teenage life in the San Fernando Valley. In particular, this experience enabled her to study the infamous "Valley Girl" accent.]Kelli Maroney: Before the movie, all I knew about Valley Girls was from the [Frank and Moon Zappa] song, and I thought: well, they don't really want me to sound that bad. But I did want to capture how they actually sounded, so I had to get the accent down.Blake J. Harris: What was the undercover process like?Kelli Maroney: Oh, I was just blending. You know, trying to get a grip on the accent. And at the school, the girls there didn't have any reason to think I was suspicious, but then they saw us shooting that scene in the gym. The one where I have the speech about "it takes a lot of courage"[This is the speech: "We just want to say that we're not Spirit Bunnies anymore. We always hated that name. It bugged the heck out of Dina and me. We know you've got a lot of spirit, everybody, right? [literally squeaking with excitement] And we're gonna destroy Lincoln next week! All right! [defeated] You know, it takes a lot of courage to get up here and do something that you know people will make fun of."]Kelli Maroney: They saw me doing that and they were mad. Because they thought we were making fun of them and we were kind of making fun of them, that's the thing. All those characters in the film are based on real people that Cameron Crow met when he was undercover in high school. And so I was playing a cheerleader and she'd actually delivered most of that speech, but she delivered it homeroom by homeroom. So they felt betrayed and stuff.Blake J. Harris: Wow.Kelli Maroney: Yeah! That stuff about not being "Spirit Bunnies" anymore? That was absolute fact. They would turn a guy down for a date if he didn't have 'enough spirit."Blake J. Harris: [still laughing]Kelli Maroney: But they ended up to be pretty good sports, though. After the fact, she was interviewed by Variety (I think) and she came out and said, "They were absolutely right, I was totally like that" and she had a good laugh. So she took it really well.Blake J. Harris: I'm sure. I'd probably have been furious.Kelli Maroney: Yeah, me, too!!  I'd be freaking out myself. Can you imagine if someone went back in school and wrote a movie about you and then somebody else played you?  I don't blame them actually. [laughs] So that was Fast Times. You know, that movie almost wasn't going to come out. Universal hated it.Blake J. Harris: Really?Kelli Maroney: Yeah, they hated it. [imitating an executive] There's an abortion in this?! We're not gonna have anything to do with this thing. So it almost didn't even come out. I remember getting a call from Pamela Springsteen (who's standing next to me, she's the other cheerleader) she said, "It might not come out!" Yeah. So that was a thing for a while. Thank god they changed their minds because now we're in the Library of Congress!Blake J. Harris: That's awesome. Well let's talk about a movie that most certainly has not been enshrined in the Library of Congress...Chopping Mall. Do you remember how you first heard about the film?Kelli Maroney: Well I heard about it because I got a call. [Producer] Jim Wynorski  had seen me in Night of the Comet and went: that's the girl I want in my movie! At the time, I was doing this thing called the Zero Boys—talk about How Did This Get Made?!—and, you know, you're broke in Los Angeles and you're just taking work. Because you're thinking: I'm making money at what I do and no one's ever gonna see this. Well, then the internet came along and now everyone's seen everything. So the joke is really on us! I thought: no one's ever gonna know I did this. And then when I get to work with Meryl Streep I'll be all warmed up! Blake J. Harris: That's fantastic.Kelli Maroney: Anyway, I went and met Jim Wynorski. And I'd been up all night filming that Zero Boys thing (where I'd be running around in the woods being chased by a killer), so I was super relaxed and everything. But then I went back to audition for Julie Corman and I started to get nervous. The script was not like Night of the Comet—there wasn't a lot of dialogue in Chopping Mall—so I started getting nervous. Jim asked, "What's the matter with you?" Because people always expect you to be that person that you play—with all the bravado and stuff—but you're not, you're an actor. That's the character, but they think that's going to be you. So they're always surprised if you get nervous or if you get quiet or something like that. People really believe that you're the characters that you play.Blake J. Harris: Interesting...Kelli Maroney: Anyway, I ended up getting the part. There was actually another woman who Julie was probably going to cast but she [the other woman] was a Mormon and she didn't approve of the script. So she dropped out. Needless to say I'm glad...or I think I'm glad!

Kelli Maroney: So that's how I ended up in Chopping Mall. But the way the movie got made—before I was ever involved—was Jim Wynorski. He was the advertising director for [famed B-moviemaker] Roger Corman.Blake J. Harris: So prior to Chopping Mall, Jim hadn't directed any films?Kelli Maroney: He had done one movie [The Lost Empire, a low-budget flick about three beautiful women who "battle a male genius with diabolical plans"] but Roger didn't like it, and to hear Jim tell it,  was never going to let Jim do another one. But then Roger was asked to produce a movie about a "killer in a mall," and Julie [Corman] suggested they give Jim another chance. So Julie said to Jim, "If you write this for me, you can direct it." So he and his friend Steven Mitchell sat down and wrote it and they made the killer a robot and he got to do it, for $750,000.Blake J. Harris: That's a pretty sizeable budget...all things considered.Kelli Maroney: Well, you know there's lasers in it? That the robot is shooting with? That cost $50,000 back in the day. And they had to spring for it because otherwise, what's the robot doing? Nothing.Blake J. Harris: That's a great point.Kelli Maroney: Robert Short who did Daryl Hannah's tail in Splash (and a whole bunch of other really cool special effects) did the robots. But there was a problem with the lasers: the robots couldn't fit on the escalators at the Beverly Center. So we ended up shooting at the Galleria. But if you look at the film, that's why the opening scene is set at the Beverly Hills Center (before the Galleria took us in).Blake J. Harris: And what was production like?Kelli Maroney: It was super low budget (we couldn't afford to have them shut down the mall) so when everything closed for the night we would go in there and shoot until the morning. And then we'd scramble to put everything back where it was in time for the mall to open. Barbara Crampton [who plays Suzie] had never done a night shoot before so she didn't know that a night shoot meant we were gonna shoot at night [cracks up] I was like: what'd you think? She was like, "Working at night? How are we gonna sleep and stuff?!"Blake J. Harris: [laughs] So prior to Chopping Mall, you had experience running away from psychopaths. But a robot is a different sort of monster. Is it challenging to, you know, be afraid of a robot? To make those scenes believable—when there's not actually a person chasing you—is that any more difficult?Kelli Maroney: Well, you always use a substitution as an actor (just to get into some pretentious actor speak for a second). So it doesn't matter what you're supposed to be afraid of, you dig up something that you're afraid of as a human being and you make it that. Because half the time as an actor when you're "looking" at something, there's nothing there. They're just shooting your close up and you're not really looking at anything.Blake J. Harris: Good point.Kelli Maroney: So most of what actors do is stuff they made up in their own mind. To get the desired shot that they're looking for; you can do that any way you want, as long as they get what they want. And also: you do all that preparation, but we live for those times when you're just really in the moment, really in the movie; we do all that work just so that it gets to be really easy just to pretend.Blake J. Harris: So before you actually saw the scope of this film—whether it was what you expected, or not what you expected—on the scale of doing this "to pay the bills" versus "working with Meryl Streep" where did this movie fit into that for you?Kelli Maroney: [laughs] When I took this movie it was called Robot. When they hired the cast we all thought we were doing a movie called Robot. And the pitch was Robert Short's doing the robots—the guy who did Daryl Hannah's tale!—so we didn't think it was going to be "Chopping Mall." We really didn't.Blake J. Harris: Right.Kelli Maroney: Now today had I read that [script] I would have realized: oh, this is going to be Chopping Mall. But back then: no.Blake J. Harris: Sure.Kelli Maroney: So I wasn't really judging it like: oh this is gonna suck, or anything like that. Or is this the kind of movie that I want to do for my next project? I wasn't think of my "career" long term, none of that. It was like: I got a movie, great!Blake J. Harris: That's the very appropriate response to have. It would be kind of weird if you were that young and thinking that way about your career—Kelli Maroney: —it would be scary. I really would be that evil Lolita.Blake J. Harris: [laughs] Right.Kelli Maroney: But we didn't know. Then they came out and said, "We're gonna call it Killbots." And I was kind of mad. Killbots? I had not seen any of it yet. That sounds awful! And then little did we know they were going to name it Chopping Mall after that. And the reason they did that was because it wasn't testing well. And Roger Corman, you know, he can sell a movie before it's made. And part of that is the title. So it wasn't testing, nobody was buying it as Killbots and they didn't know what to do. So somebody (who had nothing to do with the movie) somebody that was like cleaning up in the office, they said, "Why don't you call it Chopping Mall?" And everyone went: that's a great idea! Never mind that nobody gets chopped in it. So, yeah, that was the title. And to this day, it's so Google-able—Chopping Mall!—you just have to stop and see what this movie is. It's like a car accident.Blake J. Harris: Yup.Kelli Maroney: I had no idea that I'd be talking about Chopping Mall in 2017.Blake J. Harris: Well why do you think you are? Aside from it's "Google-bility?"Kelli Maroney: It got a release and the reason people went to see it was...so Suzee Slater's  head explodes in the movie and they played that over and over and over again in front of the theater in New York. Just the head exploding. I don't know how long it was in the theater, but then it was on cable. You know, cable TV is what really hammered home a lot of the stuff that we did in the 80s.Blake J. Harris: Absolutely.Kelli Maroney: People will tell me: you were my babysitter. My mom had to work at night, so she put on Night of the Comet. Stuff like that, really touching stuff. Some guy came up to me recently and said, "the first time I ever went to see a movie for myself I took the bus in from Jersey to see Chopping Mall." I mean, people love that movie, Chopping Mall; and obviously slam it to pieces too. But it's astonishing how many people really love it.Blake J. Harris: That's great!Kelli Maroney: So people attach...I mean, that's the meaning of life right that. That you've affected somebody; that somebody enjoyed what you did. That's the only reason, I think, why anybody does anything, is to contribute. And I took so much ribbing for this movie. I remember one time I ran out of money and was waiting tables. Chopping Mall came on...and I want you to know that everyone on that staff mocked me and ridiculed me. And then also I had a meeting with a big agency and this woman...I don't know if she'd not looked at my resume before or what, she looked at my resume and saw Chopping Mall and bust out laughing. That was pretty much the end of the meeting. [laughs] I had taken so much crap for this movie.Blake J. Harris: Oh man...Kelli Maroney: And I thought: god, I was only trying to earn a living. Who knew this was going to happen? So the fact that people are still loving it all these years later. I mean, we don't get to know what people are going to like, you know? You can have the best director, the best script, the best actors, all the money in the world and it just doesn't click for some reason. And no one knows why. That's part of the magic about it—the magic of the movies!Blake J. Harris: Yeah.Kelli Maroney: A movie with no money, everybody's doing what they can and boom: it's something that endures for decades. That's magic.Blake J. Harris: That is magic.Kelli Maroney: There's no other word for it.

Blake J. Harris: I'm sure you're proud of all your work, but as we've discussed there was that stigma that came from doing films like Chopping Mall. At what point did you feel like that started to change; that it was something you were proud of, or at least proud to have brought up? Or was it just a gradual thing that you didn't necessarily notice?Kelli Maroney: I didn't really necessarily notice it. But I will say that once everybody was on the internet, people would call and say, "Did you know that there's this and that about you on the internet?!" And I'd say, "Nobody remembers any of that stuff." Well: yeah, they did! And they still do every day.Blake J. Harris: Ha.Kelli Maroney: I was shocked. I would have had no way of knowing that. And then when I did a convention or two and I didn't know those people were out there and that it meant so much to them. And then after that I thought: well, laugh it up. [laughs] You know, when you do something that lasts decades and people are dying to see it, you'll know just how I feel.Blake J. Harris: Yeah. Well I thought what you said earlier was really beautiful and poetic: that all any of us are trying to do is make something to contribute.Kelli Maroney: Yeah. To influence somebody else's life and they have a memory about it. I mean...you can die happy knowing that happened. Some people never get that chance. I mean, when you think of what it's all about...not that I'm like: well, I did Chopping Mall so it's all okay!Blake J. Harris: [laughing] Yup.Kelli Maroney: I'm not gonna go that far, but you know what I mean!Blake J. Harris: Looking back, what are some of your fondest memories from the production of Chopping Mall?Kelli Maroney: Oh my god, we had the best time. One thing: it was a riot shooting that movie because it was so out of control. Everyone was punchy because they were so tired, it was the middle of the night. We had the world's worst caterer, it was Mama Cajuns; and I can say that because I'm sure she's out of business now! But we'd look at this food and have no idea what it was, so we made up names for it. Oh, that's a "Possum Patty." That's a "Weasel Strip." So they got rid of her. But anything they happened, we just laughed our butts off. You had to, you just had to! That's the main thing I remember. I just remember laughing a lot. More than anything else.Blake J. Harris: Was there any particular scene or aspect of the shoot that you remember being particularly challenging for you?Kelli Maroney: Anybody who's had to do this knows what I'm talking about: when there's a dolly shot—which is when the camera is kind of on railroad tracks—you can't outrun the camera or you'll blow the shot. So you gotta act like you're really trucking with all your might, but you're practically going slow motion so you don't screw the shot up. Because the DP will hate you and scream at you.Blake J. Harris: Ha.Kelli Maroney: So I had a ton of that stuff to do. Fortunately the movie before—where I didn't know how to do it and got screamed at a lot—was Zero Boys. They would wet down the forest and the cameraman would folly me on this dang dolly. I would run and blow the shot. But that experience set me up for the rest of my life to be able to do that. If you ever want fake running like crazy in slow-mo, I'm your gal.Blake J. Harris: Awesome. That's a great skill set.Kelli Maroney: A lot of people think that the pet shop scene where I had the spiders and snakes on me was scary, but it wasn't.Blake J. Harris: Really? It looked pretty creepy...Kelli Maroney: Well first of all, Wynorski said "I'm not gonna ask you to do anything that I wouldn't do myself." And this guy, the animal wrangler, had a scorpion. So everyone's saying, "I don't know about putting that scorpion on Kelli." But I didn't' really know enough about scorpions at the time to even know...I'm from Minnesota! So they threw it in Wynorski's lap and he freaked out. So he said: Okay, no scorpions. But the spiders and snakes, the guy was so good with me. He came up to me and said, "This is Delores, the head tarantula, she's been in the business for years, she's worked with all the greats. You're in good hands!"Blake J. Harris: That's so funny.Kelli Maroney: She was like a co-star to me. I was happy to have them have off me, but I wasn't freaking out. No, not at all.Blake J. Harris: The last thing I wanted to ask you was: what does it take to survive a horror movie? What are the qualities and characteristics that you must possess to make it to the end of the movie alive.Kelli Maroney: You've gotta pace yourself. See, I was always the final girl. It can be kind of easier if you're one of the people who comes in and dies. Because you have an honest reaction to what's going on. You know? Like if someone came after me with a knife, I'd be losing it. But because I'm the final girl, I have to pace those reactions. I can't lose it in the beginning; then you have nowhere to go with the movie. You have to serve the movie as a whole.Blake J. Harris: That's a great point I never thought of but it makes so much sense.Kelli Maroney: Yeah, so if you come in and die; you just freak out and then you're dead (which is what would really happen to us all). But not if you're the final girl! You pace yourself and everything gets a little more scary and a little more scary and then you find the points when you're brave—where the audience can see you're putting on a brave face but you're really scared. [pause] You get mad, that's what you do. People who play final girls, I think they instinctively pick an actor who's response, when they're put in a corner, is just to get angry. I don't really know how they [producers] pick final girls, but I think there's just something in there like: you know what? She's gonna fight back. It's just something you know about a person, but you don't know how you know it.Blake J. Harris: Well I'm glad that the producers of Chopping Mall saw that in you so you could give us a film to remember...Kelli Maroney: You know...there was a time when I used to go: why oh why did I do things like Chopping Mall? I had to pay the rent, right? Well, maybe I should have slept on people's couches, or something. I should have done something different. But now I think it's funny. I mean, you have to own your crap. If you don't own your crap, you can't move forward. Everyone knows its out there and they think it's funny and people love it. You know, those of who've made these kinds of movies, we know. [cracks up] We know. You're not gonna be offending us by saying it's a piece of shit. We know!

[Minutes after our call end, Maroney emailed me to say that she had forgotten to mention one very important thing that she learned about only after filming of Chopping Mall had ended. So I called her back up to uncover this key detail...]Kelli Maroney: Okay, so I noticed this when I first saw the screening of it, but it was kind of hoping that nobody else would notice it. But everybody notices it. One of the things that really upsets me about the movie is I go through the entire film with severe camel toe. I mean, severe camel toe. It's all you can look at!Blake J. Harris: Ha!Kelli Maroney: No one said a word to me during the shoot. Now, Jim Wynorski, I can understand why he wouldn't say that. But the costume lady? One of my friends? I mean, I watch the movie and all I can think is there's another camel toe shot! And it's not just me. You know, I was hoping: okay, I noticed that but nobody else is gonna notice that! No, it's all over the internet. The camel toe!Blake J. Harris: Quite an honor there, to be remembered for that.Kelli Maroney: So I just want everyone to know: I know. [laughs] I know. And not only that, but nobody told me. But can you believe that?Blake J. Harris: Why do you think they didn't tell you? They didn't notice or they would have felt uncomfortable?Kelli Maroney: I don't think anyone had time to notice? But nobody would have felt uncomfortable.. Maybe they liked it.Blake J. Harris: [laughs] Probably.Kelli Maroney: So that's my defining characteristic of the character?? It's like I based my whole character of Allison in Chopping Mall on the camel toe, but I didn't, I swear!!