This week's episode of The Celebrity Apprentice was entitled "Failure to Launch," which I find to be a rather appropriate title for a show that can't quite seem to pique my interest in any real way, no matter how many times Donald Trump makes his "I'm a constipated baby" face. Things did pick up a little bit once we were in the boardroom, with the first ever Martyr Card being drawn, as one project manager threw him/herself on the sacrificial alter. Trump no like. Trump no like at all.
The task this week was to conceptualize and execute a launch for the Buick Verano, including a ten minute presentation and a ten minute question-and-answer session. Trumpleton made it very clear to the men's team that Michael Andretti, the famed race-car driver, should be taking point on this challenge, but the team chose Adam Carolla as their project manager instead. SPOILER ALERT: This was a bad call. The women chose Debbie Gibson, and for a few fleeting moments I was hopeful this challenge might bring about her demise, and I was practically glowing.
Watching these women work together reminds me of my days spent as a camp counselor where I was in charge of a gaggle of 11-year-old girls. Those girls could fight about ANYTHING. "She touched my toothbrush!" "Well she sat on my bed without asking!" "Well she took my favorite cereal at breakfast!" "Well she knows I like Jonathan but I saw her talking to him behind the flagpole and she TOTALLY fake laughed at his jokes so he'd ask her to be his date to banquet instead of me!" Et cetera, et cetera. The two that most brought me back to those torturous days were Debbie Gibson and Aubrey O'Day. And to some extent Lisa Lampanelli, but I think that's because she reminds me of the scary head cook that sweat in the bug juice. Debbie split the women into two vans, and Aubrey aptly described them as the "cool van" and the "uncool van." As dearest Aubrey put it, "I've always been one of the members of the cool van." Problems I have with this in general:
1) One cannot be a member of a van.
2) In what world is Lisa Lampanelli in the cool van and Miss Universe in the uncool van?
3) Aubrey has single-handedly ruined the word "cool" for me. And I totally used it a bunch.
If Aubrey O'Day and Debbie Gibson are cool, then call me Steve Urkel.
Sidebar—I love the descriptions of the celebrities that pop up under their names, lest you forget who they are (ya know, like the rest of popular culture did…) like "Late Night Legend" or "Pop Icon." You know, those terms begin to lose their meaning if you just throw them around all willy nilly like that.
ANYWHO. The presentations themselves were contrived and weird. The women did ok,with the exception of Aubrey calling the Verano the Verona while also cheaply using personal tragedy in order to further her personal goals. Shocking, I know. But they did utilize a majority of their team.
The men, on the other hand, put all their eggs in one Adam Carolla-sized basket. But Adam had the sense to let the race-car driver test drive the product, and I loved watching Michael race around the parking lot in that Buick. I love a man that can handle his… stick shift. (ZING! SEXUAL INNUENDO!) Michael Andretti made an appearance in the presentation here and there, but this was the Adam show, which ultimately served as the downfall for the men's team.
When Trumpapalooza announced that the women had won the challenge and asked Adam who he would bring back into the boardroom, Adam chose to not bring back a single soul in a stunning show of moral fiber and idiocy, causing quite a ruffling of some Trump feathers.
You know what, I take back that idiocy line. I have a lot of love for Adam Carolla for standing up to RumpleTrumpstein, even though it ultimately bit him in the behind. Also, it's interesting that no one has ever taken responsibility in the way Adam did, angering Mt. Trump to the point of firing not one, but TWO "celebs" this week. Life is so hard.
Here's the thing. If it were up to the contestants, Lou Ferrigno would've been sent packing. No one on his team likes him. And quite frankly, he's been acting like quite the petulant child. But Donald will NOT be told what to do. This is HIS show, and he will fire WHOMEVER he wants. So, in an act of total power abuse, Trump fired both Adam Carolla AND Michael Andretti, neither of whom was picked by their teammates as the weakest link.
Which all brings me back to the conclusion that this show is just an excuse for a bored Donald Trump to play puppet-master to all of these sad, career-less has-beens.
Hey. If you're stupid enough to go on reality television, you automatically subject yourself to my verbal whiplash. Check your contract—IT'S IN THERE.
Thanks for reading, and as always, thanks for watching KPRC Local 2!