Moving the Merch

After Kathy Griffin and her mom, 89-year-old Maggie, have an intimate talk with their financial idol Suze Orman, Kathy realizes she needs to start thinking about her and her mom’s financial futures. This means she needs to push her book sales to the next level and start exploiting a vast untapped natural resource – Maggie’s skyrocketing popularity. It's time for Maggie to earn her keep, so Kathy arranges a book deal and looks for other Maggie merchandising opportunities. Kathy sets up a meeting with Robert, the ghostwriter who helped Kathy with her own best-selling book. Maggie begins rewriting history with stories of the wonderful meals she cooked when Kathy was little, and her love of doing laundry. Kathy interrupts multiple times to remind her mom of the facts. Furthermore, when the head honchos from Hyperion (the book publishers) arrive for a meeting, they’re shocked when Maggie lays out her demands: No travel further than Santa Barbara, nothing scheduled before noon, and most importantly, she gets three days off for every one day worked. When it comes time to shoot the book cover, Maggie refuses to put on the outfit she wears every day – a muumuu, or as she calls it a duster. In an attempt to trick Maggie into wearing one, Kathy dons a muumuu herself and is surprised to find it very liberating. Kathy has a new idea – why not make a special Maggie Muumuu and sell them that at her stand up shows? Hmmm… Wanting to get some expert advice for creating a fashion line, Kathy calls on budding designer Lauren Conrad for help. Kathy, Maggie and Lauren decide that a muumuu has limited appeal whereas a “wearable drinking blanket with arms” has blockbuster potential. By the end of the meeting, Maggie and Lauren have become BFFs and make private lunch plans that don’t really include Kathy.