Thanks to our buddy Doug for the heads up.
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Media Mention: ABC Piece on ‘Whatever Martha’ABC did a piece on the awful, awful “Whatever, Martha” and, for what it’s worth, let it be noted that they mentioned the show (as they repeated the lie that Martha watches/watched it).
34 Replies to “Media Mention: ABC Piece on ‘Whatever Martha’”Commenting at Satellite News
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What makes you so sure Martha doesn’t watch MST3K?
“…little alien, creature thingys…”
Nice… Clearly the whole family are big, huge fans of MST3k. This smells of cat turds… Which I’m sure Martha could make into amazing knick-knacks.
“repeated the lie”
When was the first time Martha watching the show was mentioned?
What makes it suck so much is is they’re just mean and spiteful. Mean girls.
First of all, we all know the obvious nonsense behind the claim that she watches MST3K late at night (assuming they don’t mean on DVD or VHS, which, if memory serves, they stated explicitly that it was on TV in the original announcement of this some time ago). But what really grabbed my attention here was “[she enjoys MST3K] FOR SOME REASON…”
Yes, why on God’s green earth would she possibly enjoy a show about the “little aliens” that stayed on the air for over 10 years (and lasted that long due to the strength of the fan base), which is supposed to be the basis of what she (Alexis) is now doing (albeit so badly one can hardly even compare them)?!
MST3K may never air on TV again, yet they air this crap.
Disgusting.
Mike: Um, because it’s not on TV. :smile:
MDH1980: In a New York Times story about the show that we noted here a couple of months ago.
She said “little alien, creature things” and I just wanted to kill her. And then she said “for some reason” and I began to wonder if death was too good for her.
I apologize if the above seemed rather harsh. It’d be enough for her to go into a coma for a while.
Okay, but seriously. It’s not good, it’s not funny. They’re just commenting. It’s like narraration, except the narrarator really hates whatever’s being talked about. And she has the guts to compare it to a brilliant show she’s never watched? I haven’t felt this mad since Grease felt the need to bill itself as the “original HSM.”
(BTW, it’s around 11:00 at night…tomorrow morning I’m not going to be half as mad.)
the daughter is more stuck up than the mother
Martha IS getting up there in age so she might be senile. If she is, she would have seen mst3k on tv last night. Which means she actually saw it 15 years ago, yet she can’t think of what happened 2 mins ago. I see it all the time at work
Her daughter has all the charm of a lethally poisonous stone fish.
I would hardly call it a lie that Martha watches MST. She obviously knows enough about it to namedrop it appropriately. Just because she inaccurately suggested it was still on the air, that doesn’t disprove it. She probably watched it on DVD or VHS, or even on the internet. People often misrepresent minor details, in casual conversation.
Actually, it kind of does. It hasn’t been on the air for four years, and if she watched it on DVD/VHS then that’d mean that she cares enough to buy/rent it…but doesn’t care enough (or is too senile to recognize) that Crow and Servo are robots and not “alien…creature things.” You can’t have it both ways.
And if she watched it on the Internet…well, she cared enough to Google it, causing the same logistic problem stated above.
Even if it’s not a lie, Martha Stewart is not the celeberaty we want as the celebraty face of the MSTie community. So we’re disowning her anyway. :grin:
I dont understand the hate towards the Whatever Martha show by MSTies. No, it’s not original, neither was MST3K. The only original thing about MST3K was that it was done by professionals as supposed to just all your friends sitting around cracking wise.
Get over yourselves.
I didn’t really believe it but when she said Martha watches it cause for some reason it relaxes her, it made it seem much more plausible to me.
Also, it was Alexis who said “little alien creature things” not Martha. Something i’ve seen casual viewers say many times. I think Ebert once called one of the bots an alien in his review of the movie.
“The only original thing about MST3K was that it was done by professionals as supposed to just all your friends sitting around cracking wise.”
That’s pretty bold statement. ;)
I agree, Bobo “BuckDat” Briggs. If Martha had really never seen the series, her daughter Alexis could hardly “look down her nose” at her watching it. I wouldn’t be surprised if Alexis came across Martha watching it at some point, and took the opportunity to fling some “sass” about the lack of quality of said show.
Martha Stewart can cram it with onions. Obviously what happened was that someone who works for Martha Stewart Atrocities Inc. or whatever her corporation is called, came up with the idea of making some more money by recycling old programs and riffing them. But they also were smart enough to know MST3000 fans would cry “rip off” so they came up with the highly improbable cover story of Martha being an MST fan as a way of placating those people. But really, who cares about her or her little piece of crap rip off show? I can’t wait until the day when we stop seeing her name plastered all over MST3K websites.
Word.
There is a text version with some details not included in the video piece: .
One has to feel some sympathy for Alexis. According to this, she’s recently divorced, and spending up to $28,000 a month to get pregnant (Oh modern-day journalism! ;-))
It just sounds as though, with her thinly-veiled distaste for MST3K, she’s decreasing her chances with male MSTies….
(The link that didn’t get included in my previous message is http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=6332173).
The piece about Alexis Stewart didn’t surprise me at all. I’ve seen this before: people who aren’t familiar with the show take a quick look at it, see that there are puppets involved, and make a snap decision that it’s a “child’s show”. Clearly that’s what the younger Stewart did here, and that’s assuming that Martha’s so-called discovery of MST3K occurred back during the show’s heyday of the ’90’s, when CC played the show late at night.
I don’t think Martha is lying about taking a liking to MST; what would she gain from it? I do think, however, her liking is more casual than passionate like the rest of us. That’s all I ask from people whom I introduce the show to; I don’t expect everyone to love MST3K the way I do, but to at least enjoy its comedy style. MSTies are a rare breed, after all! :cool:
Hey, if anything, give Martha alittle credit…when Alexis mentioned “Mystery Science Theater” in her discussion, Elizabeth Vargas of ABCNews probably didn’t have a f**king clue as to what she was talking about! :roll:
Sorry, one more thing: has anyone ever noticed that when people who don’t know much about MST3K say the show’s name, they ALWAYS leave out the “3000” at the end? I don’t know why, but that’s a pet peeve of mine. SAY THE WHOLE NAME!!! lol
For some reason I don’t see Martha Stewart as the kind of person who would only casually watch MST3000 fifteen years ago, and yet still remember it fondly enough today to want to make a similar show. I’m sticking with the idea that the new show was not her idea at all, but conceived by someone who works for her, and they then made up a cover story about her catching MST3000 late at night and getting the idea to try and satisfy the MST fans out there, and also protect her public image. Anyone who liked MST3000 enough when it was on TV to still watch it regularly would know that it isn’t on TV anymore, and that a story about “catching a rerun late at night” would instantly ring false to any MST fan out there. Look at what happened with that Chris Gore gob****e when he told people not to buy the 20th ann. set because they could just watch the show on TV. It just showed everyone what an ignoramus he is when it comes to MST3000, and how unqualified to review the set he was. Yet he is always palmed off on us as some kind of film/tv/pop culture expert who’s opinion we should hold highly, and so he had to muddle his way through a review of something he didn’t know anything about. And Martha Stewart is always palmed off on the public as some kind of self made woman who is in complete control of all her empire and responsible for all it’s successes. So it’s important to her public image that everything she does appears to be her brilliant idea (unless of course it involves illegal stock trading activities, in which case she was totally clueless of course!) Well obviously Stewart is not the master of her empire any more than any other person in her position would be. Yes she started the company, but it’s now a major corporation with shareholders and all kinds of other complications, and at this point she is probably more of a figurehead who just signs off on the work, most of which is being done by her underlings. When I hear Martha Stewart make an obviously unprepared reference to Johnny Longtorso or something of that sort then I might start believing she has even seen the show in the last ten years, if at all.
I’m not a fan of Martha Stewart by any stretch of the imagination, but looking at the article objectively, it kind of makes sense that she might actually be a fan of MST3K…
At the core of MST3K you have people taking lackluster movies and merely pointing out the flaws & absurdity in them (in a good-natured way, mind you.)
…and Martha Stewart has a reputation, behind the scenes, for being a rather bitter, meanspirited person. She probably gets off on seeing things being ripped to shreds (like heads of lettuce, people’s sense of dignity, and even movies.)
Whenever she shows how to build a homemade ‘bot on her show, then I’ll believe she’s a real fan, but until then…
Don’t think for a minute that I’m a big Martha Stewart fan; I’ve always thought she was a phony who treats everyone around her like garbage. When it came to that whole stock-trade fiasco, she got off lightly. I just think that it is within the realm of possibility that she is a casual fan. She probably doesn’t remember a single moment of the show, just the set-up of it.
One thing I didn’t mention about Alexis, in regards to her “riffing”, is that Gypsy was better in her five mins in the theater than she is for an entire show. Sitting around acting sullen is probably all she’s good at.
The real truth is that Martha Stewart is a bigger fan of MST3K than any of us, and the only cover-up is that Martha was actually the one spending $28,000 a month attempting to impregnate Alexis with Hugo the dummy’s baby.
…she just wanted a collectible that no one else had.
“The only original thing about MST3K was that it was done by professionals as supposed to just all your friends sitting around cracking wise.”
Uh . . . OK . . .
How many other shows can you name where people sat in front of old movies and mocked them relentlessly?
I mean, if we want to get technical, the idea of mocking something has been around for a long time, so nothing that makes light of anything in that fashion has ever been original since the history of mockery began. Clearly, anyone who has ever made a living via parody or satire or whatnot should just get over themselves, because their work was unoriginal.
Moreover, the *style* as much as anything else was original. The premise/setting was original. The feel of it – the sincerity, the lack of bitterness, that sense of shared pain and shared perseverance – *that* was original. The whole confluence of what made the show what it is was collectively original. And even if it weren’t, it’s still vastly unlike 99% of all TV shows ever made, even of TV comedy programming ever made.
And it’s still *better* than a good 90%+ of said televsion. So when an ill-conceived slab of tripe like this Martha business has a pack of poseurs comparing it to something to which they have no right to compare it, we get a bit irked.
It’s roughly the equivalent of a high-school sports star putting himself on the level of Michael Jordan or Brett Favre or whoever. Or like the obscure author of some random blog comparing themselves favorably to widely respected novelists. Or pseudoscience voodoo bulls***ter’s claiming to be on par with real scientists.
Point being, the problem here is less the existence of this show and more the comparing it to something to which it holds no candle.
*There is no comparison.*
“Sorry, one more thing: has anyone ever noticed that when people who don’t know much about MST3K say the show’s name, they ALWAYS leave out the “3000? at the end? I don’t know why, but that’s a pet peeve of mine. SAY THE WHOLE NAME!!! lol”
Hey, I’m as true-blue a fan as they come, and I still shorten it to Mystery Science Theater in casual conversation. Or, more commonly, to just MST3k.
I do still say the full name when introducing it to the uninitiated, however. Usually.
What gets me is when people involved in the show just leave it at “Mystery Science.” Just doesn’t sound kosher.
“How many other shows can you name where people sat in front of old movies and mocked them relentlessly?”
* Mad Movies with the L.A. Connection
No one was debating the originality of MST3K.
The mere fact that Alexis Stewart & that other femme (the one that no one’s ever heard of), cites MST3K as the catalyst for their show is great for two reasons:
1. It gets the MST3K name back out there in the public’s collective consciousness, and will hopefully bring in some new fans (albeit via DVD), and…
2. It will, by comparison, show that they (Stewart & nameless femme) are talentless hacks. Some people will watch their show, then watch an MST3K episode out of curiosity, and will immediately wonder how such an abomination to the human psyche (Whatever Martha) could ever get on the air!
They should have called their show D E E P H U R T I N G ! ! !
I saw the Nightline interview and just now got around to checking Satellite News to see the response. I am seriously disappointed. I am not a Martha Stewart fan. But, she does have a large following, and I know a missed opportunity when I see one. MS fans who take the time to learn more about MST3K could read this vitriol and become permanently turned off. Maybe that’s not important to the MST3K community. Maybe it should be.
Not every MST3K fan spends hours analyzing, aggrandizing, or reciting diatribes from MST3K movies, shorts, and segments. Some fans just like the occasional 90-minute diversion from life’s challenges, possibly even Martha Stewart. I didn’t come to MST3K until I saw The Movie, years after release. I now own all the DVD compilations, but would still have to Google Johnny Longtorso. Does this mean I don’t qualify as a MST3K fan? I thought MSTies held higher standards.
(In response to Old Lady in LA):
The one thing that bothers me about your post is the line “MS fans who take the time to learn more about MST3K could read this vitriol and become permanently turned off.”
Why would any MST3K fan become permanently disenchanted with the show just because Martha Stewart & Co. are being lambasted by MSTies?
Anybody that psychologically affected & emotionally manipulated by a few critical comments (regarding Martha Stewart) shouldn’t be watching MST3K in the first place!
The whole show is built on sarcasm and criticism!
All of those hypersensitive “MS fans” would probably wind up in a mental institution if they witnessed the relentless beating taken by a Coleman Francis or Joe Don Baker movie!!!
“MS Fans” was short for Martha Stewart Fans. I should have been more explicit. Thanks for pointing that out.
– “MS Fans” was short for Martha Stewart Fans.
Okay, with that cleared up… Yes, Martha Stewart fans could be permanently turned off by the posted comments, but then again, they could be just as turned off by Martha’s own daughter “satirizing” her program as well. (Seeing that many of her viewers were not turned off by her insider trading, I’d say they seem pretty resilient to me, but that’s a whole other issue…)
As stated in a previous post, if they’re that easily manipulated by someone’s opinion they read on a fan site, then MST3K’s probably not for them. (A court appointed “helper”, however, probably is for them.)
…luckily those of Martha’s fans turned off by us uncouth plebes will still be able to pass the time making holiday wreaths out of evergreen boughs & baby’s breath, or decorative scented candles out of real bee’s wax & essential oils instead of watching MST3K DVDs!
It’s a win / win situation for all! In fact, as Martha would say, “it’s a good thing.”
lol @ Chapstick Champman. I couldn’t have said it better myself!
I’ve heard how pregnancy comments and random touching can come your way during pregnancy. I always thought that it sounded…