Craft Corner Death Match, Oh How I Miss Thee
By Twistie
Does anyone else remember this show?
It didn’t last long, but it made an indelible impression on my mind and my heart. For those of you who blinked and missed the five or six episodes back in 2005 on the Style Network, it was sort of half summer camp crafts lesson, half Wrestlemania, with a side of demonic Martha Stewart.
The premise was simple. Two ordinary crafters go head to head in two timed crafting challenges, and are judged by a panel of professional crafters and minor celebrities (one judge’s claim to fame was that she had appeared on The Apprentice). The crafter with the highest aggregate score was then declared the winner, won a selection of crafting supplies, and was forced to face The Craft Lady of Steel, Jocelyn Worrell. If by any remote chance the challenger beat the CLoS, he or she won a scrapbooking cruise. Yeah, it even happened once or twice.
But this simple description entirely fails to catch the goofy charm of the show. Between the Mad Max sensibility of the craft cage, Jason Jones‘ manic hosting, Worrell’s icy demeanor worthy of the Terminator himself, the gloriously disheveled and disinterested Amber (sort of an anti-Vanna who was charged with bringing out the crafting supplies), the crazed screams of the crowd as crafters tried to create art out of whatever junk they were handed, and the breezy yet informative filler talks about various common crafting materials, there was a magic in the air of that cage. Part of me longed to go up against the Craft Lady of Steel… and the rest of me knew I would lose all intestinal control, should that happen. She scared the ever-lovin’ guano out of me.
Alas! Almost as soon as it started, it was over. Now it’s nothing but a sweet memory. Still, I hear the dulcet cry of Jason Jones’ wind-up tagline:
Remember, it’s cheaper and easier just to buy stuff.
Perhaps, but it’s so much more fun to dig into a pile of random crap and make it sing.
November 2nd, 2010 at 10:13 am
my husband and I adored this show! I wish they would at least show reruns of it once in a while- it was genius! and we still say the tag-line to each other from time to time, too. there is so much truth in that. thanks for making me realize we were not the ones watching this show!
November 2nd, 2010 at 11:10 am
It really was brilliant, wasn’t it? I wish it had run longer.
But if you search around the web, you can probably find all the episodes.
November 3rd, 2010 at 1:58 pm
I. Loved. This. Show.
If pro wrestling can exist why not this lovely bit of whimsy?
Probably started on the wrong network….
(sigh)
November 6th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
I ADORE you, Twistie! Thank you for the (re)memory lane…
This was so good – I looked forward to Friday night, 9 pm HGTV Canada… sigh… it was so very very good… why do all the good ones go so soon! Anywhere we can watch them online? Purchase all 6 episodes?
Another good irreverent crafty show we had up here in the Canada was “She’s Crafty” | http://www.facebook.com/pages/Shes-Crafty/56588531856 which had the “who’s who” of the cool crafty world on it AND YOU CAN BUY THAT ONE from http://www.ohmycrafts.com/
This is officially the longest blog comment I have ever left… craft corner death match strikes a passion in me like no other 🙂
<3 Dana
November 7th, 2010 at 10:52 am
@dana: If you follow the link at the end of the article, you’ll see an entire episode on a site where I think they may have more of them. I’ll definitely have to check out She’s Crafty.
I can’t tell you how delighted I am to discover that there are others who miss Craft Corner Death Match as much as I do. I wept when I realized it was no more, and I’m not ashamed to admit that.