little. yellow. different. A weblog by Ernie Hsiung

martha, she who eats the souls of children

By the way, did you watch Martha’s new talk show? It was so good, my Tivo wouldn’t let me delete it. This Thursday’s episode, no lie, has Sean Combs teaching Martha to rap, and afterwards Martha teaches Sean to wrap presents. It is its own punchline.

…

We just watched Tuesday’s episode, and she had prison recipes.
She made David Spade core apples with a plastic knife. She explained
how she made crabapple jelly with crabapples that fell on the ground
and her pillowcase. She used her contraband prison cheese grater that
she made out of a sardine tin. And then she made a salad out of wilted
dandylion leaves and weeds. She’s batshit insane.

- Bill in an e-mail

Seriously, I could just leave Bill’s comments about Martha Stewart’s new talk show as is and my weblog could just blog itself. But no, I had to record two episodes and watch it for myself anyway.

• The opening sequence is ridiculously, disturbingly joyful; baby pictures of Martha, Martha making fun of herself when she was a 20something model, Martha holding her dog, which, I swear to god, looks like one of the koosh balls you find at novelty stores. All the while, Dusty Springfield’s Swing Out Sister’s “Am I the Same Girl” is playing in the background. It’s a really happy song, and I would have figured they would have chosen a song more appropriate, like, say, something in a minor key. Or the theme from “Newhart.”

• I’m finding myself watching the show for all the wrong reasons - not because I want to make a Christmas wreath or a flat-leaf parsley pesto (because that’s the right reason to watch Martha, duh!) but because I fully expect her, in the middle of what I presume is a live show, for her to go stone-cold, flat-out, apeshitcrazy.

  Martha: (trademarked deep voice) Today we have special guests - we’ve scoured far and wide to find the four worst cooks in America. In turn, I will teach them how to make lemon merangue.
  Ernie: (screaming at the television) RUN, BITCHES, RUN!

  Guest #1, who looks remarkably like an audience member from Oprah: I’ve never been to produce aisle of a grocery store before! [ed note: The guest actually said this]
  Guest #2: I’m a black man wearing a pastel shirt!
  Guest #3: What’s an egg white? We have to do WHAT with the WHO?!
  Guest #4: Martha, can you help me out a little bit.. what do I do with…
  Martha: ENOUGH! ME MARTHA, MARTHA EAT SOULS OF YOU AND YOUR BABIES, USE YOUR BLOOD IN MY LIFE STEW WITH SIDE OF RISOTTO!!

  (Television quickly cuts to another commercial for “Trading Spaces”.)

  Ernie: Damn. Prison done changed her some.

Between this and the Apprentice, I can’t wait to see her bite someone’s head off after removing her mask and revealing she’s the crazed Alien queen everyone assumes she is.

Screw the moonlanding; Martha chasing screaming 30-something soccer moms will be the best ten seconds ever shown on television.

She was on Letterman on Monday and it was obvious she didn’t want to talk about prison and he just wouldn’t let it go. He made her squirm a little and it was really fun to see.

I seem to remember years and years ago reading an interview with Stephen King. He was asked what he watches on Television for fun, and he replied the CBS Evening News. He explained that he thought Dan Rather always looked on the verge of cracking on air and blurting out missile silo locations and such.

Yet she talks about prison ALL THE TIME on her show, Timmy! Clearly she has some kind of dissociative personality disorder.

Did anybody watch yesterday when she had 164 people named Martha Stewart in the audience? It was like an interdimensional vortex of insanity, H.P. Lovecraft style.

My favorite is still the first episode. Martha is chatting up some nice old Luigis from Long Island, whose wives and aunts were cooking a big old-fashioned Italian dinner with Martha. The old-timers were playing cards with an Italian deck, and Martha sat down to learn a little. “I know all sorts of card games,” Martha told them. “I had a copy of Hoyle’s rule book in Alderson.” This was the first explicit prison reference on the show, and Tino and I did what we always did:

1. Scream “OMG! No way!”

2. Rewind the Tivo.

3. Listen again.

4. Scream “OMG! No way!”

Repeat as necessary.

By the way, Ernie, you’re totally right about the opening sequence. I think it’s Swing Out Sister. I’d love it even if it didn’t have pictures of her in her prison outfit. But it does anyway. Thank you, Martha!

I CANNOT wait for her Halloween episodes. You know that she’ll have O.J. Simpson on, and they’ll carve jack’o'lanterns while Martha asks “What’s your favorite type of knife?”.

Swing Out Sister: So that song would be the Top Ten UK hit “Breakout”?

Sorry.

I’m waiting for a recipe for a chocolate cake…with a file in it.

Yes, it’s all Martha, all the time. I just finished watching Martha’s Apprentice, and it swung between very awkward and scripted (the opening sequence) and the more relaxed Martha (the conference room).

“You don’t fit in here” doesn’t cut it. People want blood! I suppose unhinging your jaw and decapitating people with your inner set of teeth is strictly prohibited by the terms of her probation.

Eric in Seattle

Bwah! “USE YOUR BLOOD IN MY LIFE STEW” is cracking me up. I could totally see that happening. I guess I need to watch her show, is what this means.

Is it ‘breakout’? or is it actually the 1992 stiff ‘am i the same girl?’, which spent 12 weeks in the chart starting in September 1992, but still only rose to number #45 on the pop charts.

And now… On with the countdown.

I think Cardyhouse is making a “joke” about Swing Out Sister being one hit wonders, or else is just dumb. The opening credit song is “Am I The Same Girl?”, and is an all-time favorite of mine.

Nice blog.I like this.
Nick

Sean “what’s his name NOW?” Combs cannot rap.

NOOOoooo!!!! I’ve been assiduously avoiding watching The Everybody Loves Martha Show, but after reading your blog post about how horrible it is, Ernie, I am now going to HAVE to watch it for myself! Waaahhhh!