Matt, Meredith and Martha catch Super Bowl fever
Posted: Friday, January 30, 2009 11:56 AM by Danielle Brennan
Filed Under:
Celebs, Matt Lauer, Meredith Vieira
Super Bowl Saturday? It may not have quite the ring of the traditional moniker for America’s biggest day in sports, but Martha Stewart thinks it would do newly installed President Barack Obama well to make just such a declaration.
TODAY hosts Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira visited “The Martha Stewart Show” Friday, picking up tips for the perfect Super Bowl party from the grand dame of entertaining. Matt and Meredith also played Super Bowl Trivia (although no one was exactly bowled over by their knowledge) and plugged their upcoming Super Bowl Today Show special leading into Sunday’s contest – brought to you, of course, by NBC.
When Lauer noted to Stewart that, on average, 1.5 million groggy Americans call in sick the day after the Super Bowl, Martha offered a typically elegant solution.
“I think it has to be Super Bowl Saturday,” she told Matt and Meredith. “Then you don’t lose productivity. President Obama, here’s another good thing for you to do – change Super Bowl Sunday to Saturday, then we won’t lose productivity!”
While avid New York Giants fans Stewart and Lauer bemoaned their team’s early exit from the NFL playoffs, they also took the opportunity to rib Vieira. They noted that Meredith’s beloved New England Patriots (she hails from Providence, R.I., hard-core Pats territory) – didn’t even qualify for the post-season.
Matt and Meredith also needled each other, to Martha’s amusement. Vieira asked about game-viewing libations, since she doesn’t like the traditional Super Bowl beverage, a cold beer. “What would I have?” she said.
Lauer quipped, “You can do your normal shot of tequila.” Stewart then suggested iced vodka may good a good substitute for non-beer drinkers.
If Lauer was gentler on Stewart that on Vieira in his Friday appearance, it may be because he had used all his best zingers on her the day before, when he inducted her into the American Society of Magazine Editors Hall of Fame at a ceremony in New York. He told that event’s audience that Stewart had done so many segments with him on TODAY, they had done “just about everything except have sex.
“And if you put that damned glue gun down once,” he added to Stewart Thursday, “that might have happened, too!”
