Morbius star Matt Smith neither understands, nor appreciates, your “Morbin’ Time” jokes, thanks
Ah, Comic-Con, where we find out exactly how funny memes are when you drag them out into the harsh real world
Aux News Matt Smith
If there’s one thing we can probably take away from the entire, for lack of a better word, “culture,” surrounding Sony Pictures’ long-delayed, slumpishly released superhero movie Morbius, it’s that some aspects of online life should stay strictly online. Sony learned that itself when it floated a trial balloon to see if 8 million “Morbin Time” memes might translate to a couple of bucks at the box office by briefly returning the film to theaters (it really, really didn’t), and now some poor internet denizens has been served a very personal version of that same lesson today, courtesy of Morbius star Matt Smith at Comic-Con.
Smith was doing his duties as a panelist on HBO’s House Of The Dragon panel today, fielding questions from fans, when someone chose to open with an enthusiastic, “Matt Smith, it’s Morbin’ time!” To which Smith responded with a hearty, “It’s what?”
Things did not then get better, as the fan was then forced to essentially remind Smith that he “starred in a movie recently called, uh, Morbius, which was great.”(To be fair to Smith, he filmed Morbius way back in February 2019.) Said fan then attempted to tie their meme joke back into the actual topic of the panel, asking, “My question for you is how would you character in Morbius fit into the Game Of Thrones universe?”
And, you know what? Smith tried, bless his heart. “Well, I mean he’s a vampire, so I think he’d struggle first off.” (Sadly, no speculation about how said struggle would depend on when said vampire arrived vis a vis Westeros’ infamously long seasons.) But there’s only so much a man can do, even a man trying to be as nice as possible to Morbius for reasons of both etiquette and professionalism: “I don’t know really know how he’d fit into the Game Of Thrones universe. I think he would be a fish of water, in truth. I don’t think he’s got the chops to do it.” Ultimately: “But I’m glad you watched a completely different movie.”
And, hey: It’s not like Smith isn’t a veteran of nerd culture at this point; he accepted a question about his tenure on Doctor Who with good grace, explaining that he’s been taking parts in recent years to widen the breadth of his post-Who career. But Morbius clearly does not get that same consideration—unlike with co-star Jared Leto, who at least briefly embraced the memes after some monster broke quarantine and let him know that they exist. Please spare Matt Smith your Morbin’ jokes, people; maybe spare the rest of us, too, while you’re at it.
104 Comments
Forced meme is forced.
They can take our lives . . . but they can’t take . . . our MEMES!!!
I hope Matt Smith Does eventually return as The Eleventh Doctor in the realm of Big Finish. The world is waiting.
I think there’s little doubt we’ll see him again as The Doctor in the upcoming 60th anniversary special.
Yep. Him and Tenant always seem game to come back. Ecceleston is the only one who has really burned his bridges
I hate the audience questions at convention Q&As.
You don’t like hearing from a dozen dorks who sat in line for ten hours just to repeat an overkilled joke?
“In episode 2F09 when Itchy plays Scratchy’s skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes the same rib twice in succession yet he produces two clearly different tones. I mean what, are we to believe that this is some sort of magic xylophone or something? Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.”
Hoping someone got fired for such a menial glitch? Man, the Simpsons really DID predict the future, didn’t they?
The best is when some wheezing neckbeard gets “flirtatious” with some young actress who’s just realizing what she’s signed up for. Wait, when I said “best,” I meant “most painfully uncomfortable ever.”
Just let me tell my overlong tragic story so I can get pity hugs from actors!
Okay but please practice it out loud in front of a person other than your cats. Multi-paragraph monologues are harder to get through smoothly when you’re not muttering them under your breath.
But my cats are really good listeners.
If it makes you feel any better, I was at a small convention with Anthony Stewart Head back in 2007 in Sydney over a couple of days and everyone was on their best behaviour with all of their questions the entire time.
That’s cool. Similar thing, I saw Luke Perry give a talk at a Brisbane convention about 10 years back to an audience of about 15 people and he was a blast. Really funny, self deprecating and charming. And the audience asked some fun questions which weren’t chronically dumb.
Remember when professional idiot Karl Stefanovic tried to do a “One with everything” pizza joke with the Dalai Lama. I wish I didn’t.
Oh god I’d forgotten about that. Yes, sadly I do remember. Fuck I hate morning TV. My parents, for all their bullshit, never watched it so it wasn’t something that I had any kind of nostalgia or interest in until I ended up working in the media.Even today, I still don’t watch any of it unless I absolutely have to.
Why/when/how would you absolutely need to watch morning TV?
Working in the media.
“Remember when professional idiot Karl Stefanovic…”Nope, is the correct answer to any sentence like this. Fuck Stefanovic. I hope he has liver failure next Logies.
That sounds pretty sweet. Everything I’ve heard about Luke Perry from people who’ve worked with him suggest he was a genuine delight as a human being.
Do people bring Taster’s Choice coffee cans for him to sign?
Smaller conventions seem to be better for this sort of thing. The atmosphere is a bit more personal and chill, and that also creates a level of social pressure to not say anything stupid.
Sadly, it’s getting more rare for celebrities to show up at smaller cons, as they just can’t offer the sort of accommodations and press coverage that something like SDCC does.
Well one thing thee threads don’t suffer from is pressure to not say anything stupid.
If it makes you feel any better, I was at a small convention with Anthony Stewart Head back in 2007 over a couple of days and everyone was on their best behaviour with all of their questions the entire time.
As someone who was adjacent to Buffy fandom, they seemed like they were really good at reigning in their more extreme members.
Same goes for live episodes of podcasts that aren’t normally live. I had to stop listening to How Did This Get Made? because they started doing like 90% of their episodes live.
They at least have the ability to edit what most of their audience hears. I’ve been to see HDTGM live and the end product cuts out the duds and the try-hards.
Live podcasts never, ever turn into anything but a bunch of people with microphones yelling over each other. Live episodes of How Did This Get Made? are especially terrible, because that yelling is usually coming from Jason Mantzoukas saying ‘THIS MOVIE, OH THIS FUCKING MOVIE!’ over and over and over again while a roomful of hipsters laugh too loud.
God yes that irritates the shit out of me.Also, did their entire back catalogue disappear from podcast apps? I went looking for one from a few years ago and it was gone.
They’re on Stitcher Premium.
Good lord. I got invited to a live episode of HDTGM. Turns out they usually cut out the part where Paul has to tell someone to remove at least 4 verses out of their “original”* Space Jam rap before they try to perform it.
And then there was a baby! Who brings a baby to a podcast taping?
*flow borrowed from the Fresh Prince theme song
Any nerd who does a meme irl should be given a swirlie right there on the spot.
I hate audience questions period.
I hate audience questions period.
Wow, you’ve been to academic conferences, too? If not, I’d like to ask how you know about how bad they are. Well, actually, it’s not so much a question about how you know that, but more of an observation based on some things I’ve been reading that I’ll talk about for about five minutes and then ask if you agree.ETA: One of my guiltier moments from my grad school happened at a reading and talk by Mark Danielewski. He was, well, what one might expect from the author of a book like House of Leaves, but during the Q&A some undergrad stood up, said he had written a term paper that helped explain some plot point or other, went on for several minutes, and ended up with some variation of “What do you think?” Danielewki responded with something not much longer than “That sounds interesting.”A very friendly and encouraging woman in the audience said, “Oooh, maybe you should send him a copy of the paper!” to which the kid replied with the most defeated “I asked him…he said no” I’ve ever heard.My guilt in all of this comes from the fact that I genuinely thought that other people would laugh, too, but nope, I was the only dick in the room, I guess.
What the poor kid didn’t know was that, as a rule, writers are taught to refuse any unsolicited manuscripts or papers to prevent allegations of plagiarism from someone who notes a resemblance between what they wrote and a character in the author’s book; even though the author never read the thing, never wanted it, was just being polite, and abandoned it in their hotel room as a tip for housecleaning.
Yes, I did go to graduate school and know too well the pain of being in a long lecture where just as the moderator is shutting things down and thanking the guest before releasing a restless audience, that one asshole audience member pipes up with a boring, nonsensical, needlessly complex question that keeps everything grinding along for another 10 minutes. You know that guy.
Oh, it was even worse than a text that could be seen as adding to a novel in any meaningful way—it was literary criticism.**-Which, if that had been written by anyone other than an English major, would have been a needless smear against the already-beleaguered humanities. Since I am an English major, it should be taken as an accurate description.
Ummm, hi, yes, umm… can you hear m- hi, yes, sooooo… You know the, uhhh… sorry, let me start over, sorry, ummm… so, this is a six part question. Well, parts four and five are really more anecdotes than questions, and part two is really a three part question in itself… I guess I can boil it down to one part, actually, ummm… basically… why do you hate questions at convention Q&As? Also, can you say “Woozle wuzzle” for us? Tha… thank you. I brought you some homemade beef, by the way, can… can I bring it up to you? Dear lord no, you said? Okay, thanks, umm… thanks!
“Get a life!’ – William Shatner
My favorite is when they make shoutouts to random internet groups. All like “First of all I wanna extend a big “It’s yours!” from the peeps on the Brides of Loki, Fans of 311 Discord! If you’d ever like to stop by I can give you our information.”My other favorite was a thing I saw happen personally, when Ryan Reynolds was promoting Green Lantern and one of the questions was about Two Guys, A Girl and a Pizza Place, and not only did the questioner gush about this elderly sitcom for like two minutes, but he wrapped up by saying he was an interviewer for his own webzine, and could he please interview Reynolds about that sitcom right now for about ten minutes?
That’s why I love Bruce Campbell panels: He shuts that shit down, is entertaining about it, and backs off before it gets too mean.Personally, one of my favorite questions is “Do you remember me? I gave you that bag of cookies in a Ziploc at the Rectumville con six years ago! I was the one who asked if you remembered me from the con in Groinhaven!”.
The Flophouse podcast has a bit they do before QA where one of them goes into a long rant about what constitutes a question and how not to do any of that other shit. Then they start the QA and don’t enforce it at all. Every question is just three injokes and a personal anecdote. It’s equal parts pointless and hilarious.
I always like it better when people turn in their questions and the presenter picks the good ones to ask.
When someone gushes over the actor and does a speech on how much they’ve changed their life. Ignoring the fact they’re doing it in front of an audience that just wants to be entertained. “But this is my chance to tell them!”. Common in YouTuber panels.
I used to go to Buffy conventions and there are a couple awkward moments I remember. One with a creepy guy asking Charisma Carpenter about a photoshoot she did for a men’s magazine. He kept asking questions and the stewards didn’t do anything about it for some reason. She left. Then the time someone asked James Marster how he felt filming an attempted rape scene and he ended up crying on stage.
If your character has one last meal, which Kardashian would they be, and do you prefer the meal to be gluten free or a juice cleanse? And if so which non GMO fruit farm in Pensacola Florida would you get that fruit from and would you leave a tip to support our troops?
Krusty knew.
“I have a statement, followed by a two part question.”
I go to a lot of film festivals, and the truth is, no matter the level, Q&As are always terrible. Audiences are equal parts people that only want to hear themselves talk and people that have no idea what to say but feel like they have to. Sometimes they’re the same people.But they’re still hugely important for everyone. Audiences would feel like they were missing something without them, and the actors/filmmakers/etc would have no possibility to interact with their audiences in a personal way.
Well for conventions, there’s typically panels and then there are the one-on-one meet and greets which are a way better forum IMO to tell Celebrity A how much their work meant to you.I haven’t been to that many film festivals, and the ones I have are certainly not as big as Sundance, but in my experience the audience Q&As weren’t as face-palm worthy as anything from a fan convention. I think the audience Q&A at a film festival has more value than an audience Q&A at a convention though.
I enjoy when it’s more of a comment than a question.
People can be so goddamned awkward. Especially when they’re trying to be funny or clever. Yeeccch.
People can be so goddamned awkward. Especially when they’re British.
It really depends on the audience. I’ve been to some Con Q&As where the audience was informed and asked interesting questions. (I’ve even asked a couple myself, though I’m careful to keep it to *just* a question and not my own life’s story.) On the other hand, I’ve also seen some massive stinkers, where the celeb is just clearly wishing they could get out of there.FWIW, my worst two were one at Awesome Con last year where a fool asked George Takei (over the audience’s groans and implorations to shut up) why he didn’t just get along with Shatner, and a panel with Mark Hamill at NYCC back in 2011 (I think), back before Lucasfilm was sold to Disney. The panel was about a completely unrelated property in which Hamill was involved, and a bunch of other people were on the panel, but almost every question was about Star Wars (even after Hamill requested that people stay on topic). Well, except for the one woman who just flat-out asked for his autograph. It would have been funny if I hadn’t felt so bad for every other person on that panel, who looked wholly defeated and resigned to their fate.
In my experience four out of five people will just ask a normal question of varying quality, one person will lose all composure because they can’t believe they’re only thirty yards from the actual guy Darth Vader choked, one person will ask something difficult but ultimately not worth it to follow, and one person spots a microphone and crowd and sees their chance since they’re not longer welcome at open mic night. Guess who you remember, though?
I went to see Michael Giacchino conduct the music of ‘Lost’ with a live orchestra, and he had a Q&A afterward. There were cast members, writers, directors, lots of people from the show on the panel. Some idiot woman in her ‘20s gets on the mic and proceeds to make it into some sort of audition. ‘So I’m an actor and a writer, and…’ Intolerable. At one point she referred to Michael Giacchino as ‘baby girl’.
You have a once in a lifetime chance to ask a question of your favorite celebrity. Clearly you should use this opportunity to make a Tiktok of yourself saying a meme.
I was at an event early this year for Chuck Klosterman’s new book(which I highly recommend), and I thought it went pretty well. Chuck said he likes when people ask whatever they want, so staying on topic wasn’t a problem, although most questions were related to the book anyway. There was one questioner who did the old multiple-questions-in-one trick but Chuck just rolled with it.
I saw Kevin Smith do a O&A and of course the first dozen or so people got up and said “What’s a Nubian?” or “37?”. He just laughed and said something like “Do I even have to take any questions or do you just want to do the whole movie?”
I’ve only seen one Kevin Smith Q&A in person. He spent at least an hour answering the first question of the night. I’m not exactly sure how long because I left before he finished.(It was late; I’m old).
Actually, I don’t think I saw the one I just described in person. I have seen him live though; and yes, he’ll take as long as he wants to.
Leave the crossover talk on Reddit, pally.
The problem with the meme is that there isn’t a joke in it at all. It’s bad.
It’s not even a pun. It’s the kinda word play a 6 year old would feel is genius
No one is claiming it is a pun. It’s certainly a joke. It’s a reference to Power Rangers, so if you understand that (or even if you don’t), you clearly understand that it’s a reference to that show, and there’s no way that this line is actually in that movie. Is it funny? I actually think it IS pretty funny, so, if it’s in form, and at least 1 person (2 if you count this Q&A guy) think it is funny, sure, it’s a joke. I don’t think what he did was funny. But it’s a joke, sure.
The joke is that since no one saw the movie, they would have no idea if the line is real or not. Which of course had an incredibly short shelf life.
Which movie? Morbius or Power Rangers?I feel like both came and went with a fart lol.
The problem with the meme is that there isn’t a joke in it at all. It’s bad.
Isn’t that just memes? Are they usually meant to be funny (apart from their endless and increasingly bizarre repetition)?
You know how young children like to watch movies over and over and over again? I think that mentality carries over into when those same children turn into stupid young adults and get into memes. ‘Again, again!’
You would think so but Gen Z has this weird sense of humor where “random = funny”
I don’t think it’s just Gen Z. I mean, have you *seen* Monty Python’s flying circus?
Without getting to snobby and “old man yelling at clouds”, I would argue “absurdist” humor is different then the current meme randomness like “Morbin Time”
Eh at it’s best Monty Python is making a point, but having gone back and watched some recently (esp the Flying Circus episodes) there’s quite a lot of “random ha ha ha” in there too.
You totally made it sound like he went off on someone.
I wouldn’t have blame him if he had.
“But I’m glad you watched a completely different movie” is a beautiful response, because it makes the respondent do the work: either throwing a tantrum or or eating shit.
The only “joke” in here that’s remotely funny is that it inexplicably took two of you to write this article!
That was painful to read. And the GoT follow up question was even sadder. He should have leaned in a bit and followed up with if you/your character was in Power Rangers what color and animal zoid would he have.
My god. Did security at least escort the person who asked about “Morbin Time” out by his underwear and proceed to stick his head in a toilet and flush it several times.
It’s swirlin’ time!
It’s toilet time!
Morbin’ time and anything related to it is just pitiful hipsters that don’t think it’s cool to actually like anything. Most of them are content watching movies on a phone and can’t even afford a movie ticket. They are probably too busy review bombing a movie like losers to even watch something in the first place.Don’t get me wrong, I’m not defending Morbius by any means.
Did he shave off his eyebrows for morbin’, or is that a… choice? ‘Cause please don’t do that if you want to look like a human.
Matt Smith’s now-you-see-them-now-you-don’t eyebrows have been the subject of speculation and debate for more than a decade.
It took two motherfuckers to write this
I’m not even sure these motherfuckers’ mothers would fuck them.
It would’ve taken four dickheads or three shitcunts.
I think a single bell-end could have pulled it off
I clicked this for that very reason
Jesus that guy looks like a monster.
I do so love Matt Smith.He comes across so nice in interviews and behind the scenes stuff and the like. And I always enjoy his acting too (tho I haven’t seen, and probably won’t ever see, Morbius lol).From the quotes, it seems like he tried to be nice about something he didn’t know about and was cool about it.I would like it if he didn’t turn out to be another Hollywood dick/sex abuser.
And I’d also like it if he got more cool roles!
Yea really hate all those dick abusers
Matt Smith is the most boring name for an actor.
“But I’m glad you watched a completely different movie.”Right to the bone.
Dang, sounds awkward. If he’s not aware of the internet’s ironic fondness for Morbius he probably only knows it didn’t perform well critically and any jokes about that are probably just salt in the wound. I think Power Rangers aired in the UK, and Smith is about the right age to get the reference, but without connecting context (and given that there’s no real punchline to the joke even if you get the reference) it’s not terribly shocking that he didn’t find it amusing.
Has he not been to any of these cons? Does he not know a chunk of it is nerds nerdin’ it up?
Doctor Who nerds approach their nerdery from love of the source material in spite of the low budgets and often-cheesy writing.There are no Morbius nerds.That said, if you wanted to impress Matt Smith and compliment his acting range, ask something like “Could Prince Philip handle a dragon?”
I may be in the minority here, but I know Matt Smith from The Crown, not Dr. Who.
My wife is a Dr. Who fan and a couple times I’ve watched with her I just keep asking “People really unironically love this goofy show?”
I know Jodie Whittaker from Broadchurch, not Doctor Who. But I accept her as the first female Doctor, just as I did Matt Smith as the then-youngest Doctor in his first major role.
Maybe Dr. Who fandom is the least toxic.
The trollish backlash against Jodie Whittaker was a step in the wrong direction.
“But I’m glad you watched a completely different movie.”That’s stone cold, and I love it.
Matt Smith read the script and the fans paid money to see morbius. This is just the universe balancing itself out. Justice is done.
“Sony learned that itself when it floated a trial balloon to see if 8 million ‘Morbin Time’ memes might translate to a couple of bucks at the box office by briefly returning the film to theaters (it really, really didn’t)”As I recall, it DID translate to “a couple of bucks”