Celebrity Mound

On today’s edition of Hallmark Channel’s THE MARTHA STEWART SHOW (airs 10 AM ET/9 AM C – same day encore airing, 2 PM ET/next day airing, 1 PM ET) host Martha Stewart is joined by fashion designer and Project Runway alum Christian Siriano to create a mermaid-inspired Halloween costume. A certain undergarment and some glass bowls make for a hilarious exchange and Christian also watches as Martha shows off a pair of shoes from his designer line for Payless.

Martha Stewart on Christan Siriano’s youthful appearance:

Martha Stewart: You look, like, 12. Doesn’t he look like he is 12 years old from junior high school?

Christian Siriano: I could be.

MS: Do you feel like that?

CS: Some days.

MS: What do you have on your arm though? [pointing to his tattoo]. Twelve-year-olds cannot have that.

CS: This is a squid and an octopus.

MS: How come?

CS: We’re keeping with the marine life theme today.

MS: Is it permanent.. or temporary?

CS: It is.

MS: Oh it is permanent. Oh. Permanent. [she says sarcastically]

Christian Siriano on his fondness for Disney-inspired Halloween costumes:

Christian Siriano: I like to be Disney characters- that’s the theme… Cruella [De Vil]… I was actually a mermaid one year…

MS: What are you going to be this year?

CS: I am going to be in Barbados for Halloween this year… I am doing a show there- we are showing the collection which will be really fun.. But I’m feeling something “island-y,” I don’t know, a Hawaiian girl maybe… Pocahontas that could be good, fringe…

MS: That’s not “island-y!”

CS: Its not “island-y” but I just love Pocahontas and I want to keep with my Disney theme.

Christian Siriano on how a certain kind of undergarment and some glass bowls make the perfect mermaid Halloween costume at home:

Martha Stewart: Christian said that he would should us how to make the mermaid costume. So you start with an underbody, undergarment…

Christian Siriano: I like a body shaper that even has a little cup built in because I think that that’s easier.

MS: This is the first time that we have shown an undergarment like this on the show (Martha holds up body shaper).

CS: There is a first for everything.

Ms: And you need bowls too.

CS: For a nice base.

MS: OK, now what size are those? [Pointing to the glass bowls on the crafting table]

CS: The bowls?… It’s any size that you desire…

MS: These look large…[audience laughs]

CS: They are quite large. We love a large girl here.

MS: Mermaids should be exotic looking, right?

CS: Yeah. They should have a little something.

When Martha Stewart returned from prison six years ago, she quickly led her company into a deal-making frenzy. But, as contributing writer Benjamin Wallace explains in this week’s New York magazine, after all the commotion, her empire is still struggling:

Stewart had invented the category of lifestyle publishing and branding, but by 2008, she had a lot of younger, leaner rivals. Plus, the recessionary economy of the late aughts was far removed from the bubbly millennial environment in which Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia had gone public, and what had thrived as an aspirational brand at times seemed out of touch.

At the flagship magazine, Martha Stewart Living, one editor after another would come in and try to Real Simplify it, to make it more about hamburgers and chocolate-chip cookies and less about tassel-strewn, Venetian-themed dinners for twenty. A Thanksgiving story shot at Stewart’s stables in Bedford featured a long table and was so complicated that it became almost a comedy of errors. A child’s hair caught fire. Stewart sliced her thumb and was sent to the hospital. At the table, Stewart was flanked by Brooke Astor’s son, ­Anthony Marshall, and his wife, hardly avatars of the simple life. (By the time the story was published, Marshall was on trial for misappropriating his mother’s fortune, and the pictures had to be blurred out.) “There was an incredible divide between what Martha was interested in and what the reader wanted,” a then-editor says. “As Martha got fancier, readers were going in the other direction.”

In the boom years, Stewart’s ­extravagances could reasonably be seen as the cost of doing business. But with MSLO losing money, the clash between business imperatives and Stewart’s perfectionist aesthetic became increasingly problematic. “The entire workday would come to a halt so we could discuss the virtues of sea-foam green over more of a blue-green, and would take literally 30 minutes,” remembers an editor. “Susan [Lyne] would say, ‘I’m sure you guys can make this decision.’?” Despite the cash crunch, Stewart would not hesitate to send staff members to, say, India, to obtain a certain piece of fabric.

Read on: http://nymag.com/news/features/martha-stewart-2011-8/

The woman who created her own media empire – television, magazines and more – is getting a biographical treatment in her own comic book next month.

“Female Force: Martha Stewart,” a one-shot issue from Bluewater Productions Inc. to be sold in comic book shops, bookstores and online, will focus on how Stewart rose to become of the nation’s best-known purveyors of home decor, cooking and confident but practical living.

It’s the latest in a line of titles from the Vancouver, Wash.-based publisher, with previous subjects in the “Female Force” family of titles focusing on Hillary Rodham Clinton, Michelle Obama, Barbara Walters, Sarah Palin and Margaret Thatcher, among others.

Publisher Darren G. Davis said the comic, written by C.W. Cooke, will look at all sides of Stewart, including her rapport with fans as well as her conviction on insider trading.

“Our goal is to show the behind-the scenes machinations – many of them ignored by the mainstream media – that resulted in Martha Stewart becoming the phenomenon she is,” he said.

A comic book, he said, was the perfect way to do that.

“A visual medium provides perspective that is not only accessible but more relatable to the average person without losing any of the information involved,” Davis said.

Cooke said he wrote the issue because Stewart embodies the “American Dream” and “sounds like a superhero,” too.

“I am writing Martha Stewart as both icon and from a perspective of someone who might see her as callous, calculating and scheming,” he said.

Cooke notes that in addition to being a businesswoman, entrepreneur and famous brand name, Stewart has been a model and a small business owner.

“She’s been to jail and she’s come out unscathed,” he said. “She sounds like a superhero, but really, Martha is an amazing human being and I hope readers love learning about her as much as I did.”

Many of us remember him as Beverly Hills 90210’s boy next door, Brandon Walsh, but Jason Priestley turns to the dark side on today’s edition of THE MARTHA STEWART SHOW (Hallmark Channel, 10 AM ET/9 AM C – same day encore airing, 2 PM ET/next day airing, 1 PM ET). While Jason joined Martha in the kitchen to make a perfect Easter brunch of Waffles Florentine, he dished about leaving the faultless Brandon behind for his latest role as a morally corrupt villain on DirecTV The 101’s Call Me Fitz, “Bad guys are more fun cause there are no rules…There were too many rules with Brandon, he was too good!” Martha couldn’t agree more with the long awaited transformation, “In those days we all liked good so much and now we all like bad so much. We want bad!”

ON JASON’S NEW ROLE AS A BAD GUY:
MS: And you like playing the bad guy?
JP: I do. I like the playing the bad guy. Bad guys are more fun because there are no rules. Right? There were too many rules with Brandon, he was too good.
MS: Yeah he was too good. In those days we all liked good so much and now we all like bad so much.
JP: Yeah, exactly.
MS: We want bad!

ON JASON AND HIS WIFE’S KITCHEN COMPETITION :
MS: So I understand that you like to cook and you cook a lot for your wife and two kids.
JP: I do, yes I do. I love to cook.
MS: And your wife disputed that. I heard on the telephone. My producer was talking to you and your wife overheard.
JP: We compete a lot in the kitchen.

ON THE EASTER BUNNY AND JASON’S DAUGHTER :
MS: Are you the bunny?
JP: No, that’s not me in the bunny suit but my daughter last Easter was completely enamored with the Easter bunny. That was the first time my daughter left me for another man.

ON LUKE PERRY AND HALLMARK MOVIE, GOODNIGHT FOR JUSTICE:
MS: So your co-star Luke Perry was here?
JP: Yeah he was here and cooked with you just about a couple months ago.
MS: Yeah he was and he made a movie for Hallmark that was the highest rated movie of all time for Hallmark.
JP: Yes, Goodnight for Justice. I directed it.
MS: I know! Are you going to do another one?
JP: Hallmark just ordered a sequel to the movie so we’re going to shoot it this summer.

Funny man Jimmy Fallon grabbed a late night snack with Martha on yesterday’s edition of THE MARTHA STEWART SHOW (Hallmark Channel, 10 AM ET/9 AM C – same day encore airing, 2 PM ET/next day airing, 1 PM ET). In a long awaited reunion, Jimmy finally returned to Martha’s kitchen to celebrate the introduction of a new Ben & Jerry’s ice cream – called Late Night Snack, this new flavor is a tribute to Fallon which he says he “now eats for breakfast, lunch and dinner.” Speaking of tributes, Martha couldn’t help but ask Jimmy to reenact his “brilliant impression” of Charlie Sheen – which Fallon said he introduced right after “ he [Sheen] went crazy that one day and we made a cologne commercial of Charlie Sheen’s own cologne called Winning.”

On how Jimmy’s Got His Ice Cream Flavor:

MS: How did you get your ice cream?

JF: Here’s what happened, we did a sketch, not a sketch but like a bit on our show, on late night we where Ladysmith Snack Mombazo.

MS: Oh I saw the picture.

JF: Me and The Roots, we are all kinda like Ladysmith Black Mombazo except we are all just singing about things that we like to eat like hot pockets, stuff like that, we do like “Hot pockets, hot pockets are so good…” you know, and so we ended up doing Ben and Jerry’s and we were just talking about the different flavors of Ben and Jerry’s and stuff like that. We didn’t get paid from Ben and Jerry’s; we just did it because we liked the ice cream. But then they heard about us and they came and they gave everyone in the crew free ice cream and they were like “Hey if we ever work together, we would love to do something together with you.” and I’m like “Lets go.” So we actually came up with some other ideas for names of the ice cream but they were too dirty. Well we had a song; we had songs that were protest songs because all the tar balls were coming up on the shores of the south from the oil spill. So we had a protest song called “Don’t Swim in the Ocean, You’ll get Balls in your Mouth” and we…

MS: That’s funny.

JF: Yeah..so we were going to call the ice cream balls in your mouth and they were like “Yeah, no.” Both Ben and Jerry didn’t like that, so yea we ended up going Late Night Snack and it’s a potato chip, potato chip ice cream, I’m so excited. It’s weird and it’s cool.

On Jimmy Fallon’s Notorious Charlie Sheen Impression:

MS: We also have something else that you did that was so hysterical and kind of timely, that Charlie Sheen thing.

JF: Oh my gosh, that was ridiculous.

MS: This is a brilliant, brilliant impression, done with just a moment’s notice really, I mean you just picked it up and…

JF: Yeah, we wrote it that day…the fun thing about having a daily show is that you can be the first person on the joke. You are the first person to get the joke out, it’s super fun. So we didn’t have a wig but we have great hair and make up and wardrobe on our show.

MS: Well you look a little bit like him.

JF: I didn’t know that I looked like Charlie Sheen but I can…so it’s like with this camera here I pull my hair down like that and then I just go like…

MS: Yea, get that little wild eyed look.

JF: Yeah, like a crazy look, and [Fallon does impression]. We ended up just shooting this thing in front of a white background and we made it, it was right after he went crazy that one day and we made a commercial, a cologne commercial of Charlie Sheens own cologne called “Winning.”

Jimmy Fallon on Martha Stewart’s Tweeting Language:

JF: Alright now why are we doing this?

MS: So we can get it out, well this gets it out faster.

JF: Okay.

MS: Use your little “spatch.”

JF: Oh “spatch!”

MS: Your little “spatch.”

JF: How much time are your saving by not saying “tula”? Spatula.

MS: Whatever…

JF: Why don’t you just say “whatevs?”

MS: Whatev. I’m not tweeting.

JF: I tweeted you this morning.

MS: I have more then 140 characters to speak to you.

JF: How are you doing with the twitter?

MS: Oh I love it. Now you have how many millions of followers now?

JF : I don’t know, I know that when we started the show I said that if I have more than 300 followers I’d be psyched.

MS: Yeah.

JF: And now I have like 3 million.