Martha: It's OK to not love muppets.

So I woke up in the middle of the night last night and wasn't really in the mood for a detective show. (TheCSO is in California on business.) I decided to check the "suggestions" category on my tivo, where the tivo saves a few shows it thinks I might like. I had an episode of the Martha Stewart show where she did a segment on composting with Oscar the Grouch.

As we all know, morbid curosity is the only reason I get out of bed at all some days, so I had to watch.

Martha does not like muppets. That much was clear.

I feel for the woman, because here she is trying so hard to improve her public image and be this sweet motherly person and it is so not working. She has no chemistry with muppets whatsoever.

At one point, Martha holds up some carrot tops in front of Oscar and asks:

"At the store, they often say 'Do you want the carrot tops or not, ma'am?' What do you say when they ask you that?"

Oscar responds "I say 'Why are you calling me Ma'am?"

I laughed out loud, but that answer really seemed to throw Martha. I strongly suspect the line was an improv just because her reaction was sort of weird. It made her nervous and suddenly she was talking really fast and looking down. A control freak discovering that Muppets are sort of inherently unpredictable?

I realize given Martha's audience, she does have to be to some degree sweet and snuggly, but it annoys me that she can't just be her cranky bitchy self and just be really good at what she does.

At the end of the segment, Oscar admits that he kinda likes pretty flowers, but asks Martha not to tell because he's a grouch by trade. She admits that she can be grouchy too sometimes and Oscar starts hitting on her, which was again really funny. Martha handled it a little better that time.

Go for it, Martha. Embrace the grouch.

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