Celebrity Apprentice, 4/5/2009: A twofer

I'm switching to first names...

Task: Create a viral video to promote laundry detergent.
KOTU: Herschel, Clint, Joan, Natalie, Khloe. Clint is PM.
Athena: Jesse, Melissa, Annie, Tionne, Brande. Melissa is PM.
(Brian is away at a concert and will join one of the teams next week.)
Eyes and Ears: Ivanka and Donald Jr.
Outcome: The sponsor, who may not have watched a lot of viral videos beforehand, hates both teams' videos.
Boardroom: Clint chooses Natalie and Khloe. Tionne volunteers, and Melissa also chooses Brande.

Fired: Tionne, for volunteering for boardroom, and Khloe, for having a DUI several months before this task that Trump supposedly didn't know about.

Donation: Khloe's charity, the Brent Shapiro Foundation, gets an additional $20,000 from Trump to keep fighting the good fight.

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The teams return to the suite and feel sorry for Dennis. Herschel hopes that KOTU will start winning. This team of four may be stronger than the original team of eight!

Next day, Tionne brings the check to her charity. She hopes she can win Celebrity Apprentice and bring them even more!

Trump informs the teams that Dennis is getting "some help." (A quick Google search says that he went to rehab last May shortly after a domestic battery arrest. Was this show taped that long ago, or was this some totally unpublicized help?)

Melissa tore some ligaments in her ankle last week. A two hour show and we didn't see this? Now she's in a walking cast.

Trump decides to reconfigure the teams. Bummer - I was wondering if KOTU could win as a four-man team. The new teams are as follows:
KOTU: Herschel, Clint, Joan, Natalie, Khloe.
Athena: Jesse, Melissa, Annie, Tionne, Brande.
Brian is away at a concert, and will join one of the teams next week.

Trump makes a big deal about separating Joan and Melissa. Melissa tells us she wants to prove herself as someone who can do things without her mother.

The task is to create a viral video to promote a laundry detergent. "Renowned blogger" Perez Hilton will be involved in some way. The videos will be judged on originality, buzzworthiness, and branding.

Annie suggests that Melissa be Athena's project manager due to her experience as a producer. "It doesn't speak to me, but I can make it work," Melissa agrees. Joan thinks Clint will be a good match against Melissa, and he's produced some music videos himself.

Athena make a video

Jesse has an idea about a video about a sloppy biker. Annie thinks bikers are overused in viral videos? Her alternative is a video where Jesse gets bathed by little people. (The laundry detergent is called "Small and Mighty.") Jesse refuses, but everyone else loves the idea. Melissa suggests that it could just be called that (to get people to watch the video). Annie is miffed that he doesn't like her idea and tells us he's a hindrance.

The team meets with the execs. In response to a question about demographics, the execs emphasize that the target audience is "women with children" rather than "moms." Melissa takes the hint that the women aren't "traditional" and that the video should be edgy. They try to find out how edgy they can afford to get, but the execs don't give any clues. They agree that a good title is important in getting someone to watch the video.

Back in the war room, Annie explains her research on viral videos (which she gets from Perez Hilton's site) and shows Jesse, the doubter, how popular little people are in these things. Melissa asks Jesse again if he'll do the video. Jesse's willing to do the video, but not with little people. He doesn't want to embarrass the sponsor.

Then he says, okay he'll do it if the little people's wetsuits look like the detergent bottle! He tell us he didn't want to let the team down.

Melissa sends Tionne and Annie out for props and costumes. Melissa says this was to get Annie out of Jesse's hair.

While KOTU is practically in a state of mutiny, Melissa, Jesse, and Brande enjoy the bliss of a stress-free collaboration. Don Jr. shows up and somehow manages to describe Jesse's good fortune of being added to the women's team without actually using the word "harem." Melissa and Jesse explain their concept; Jesse uses the word "midget." Junior is skeptical that women with children won't like a video featuring little people and worries that the execs will be offended if someone uses the word "midget." (I would have thought so too, but considering the execs thought "little person" meant "toddler," perhaps it's necessary to use the old term.) Junior doesn't respond enthusiastically, which makes Brande nervous.

The actors, Nic and Israel, show up. Junior asks them what they think. "It's better than being an Oompa-Loompa," Nic says. Israel eagerly anticipates snapping Jesse with a towel.

Annie calls, wanting to get more detergent bottles for their video, so that the bottles can do most of the branding, because if a video seems too much like a commercial, it won't be viral. Melissa doesn't want to hear this explanation and becomes irritable.

She complains to us that Annie keeps trying to make that same point; I wonder if, at any time, Melissa ever tried summarizing Annie's point to Annie. This would reassure Annie that she's been heard. Instead, Melissa basically hangs up on her, but Annie is satisfied that she got her point across.

Jesse bonds with Nic, Israel, and another actor. Tionne asks if it the correct term is really "little people," and if "midget" is offensive. Israel thinks "midget" is okay. I can't tell if Nic replies or not. He hates the suit that looks like a detergent bottle. He thinks it makes him look like an oompa-loompa or a Village People guy.

Annie is still worried about branding. Melissa tries to reassure her. They start shooting the video. We only see a little, but IT IS HILARIOUS.

While chaos continues to reign in KOTU, Jesse praises Melissa and their teammates. He's also respecting the women's opinions because women are the target audience. Even their discussion about bleeping some words is harmonious. (Most of them don't want to bleep because it won't be on TV; Brande isn't so sure, but the sponsor can always bleep it later.)

They title it "Jesse James Dirty With Midgets," which may or may not offend the execs, but Annie's research showed that having "midget" in the title will get them more hits. Melissa tells us that if they lose, it will be her fault, and she'll let her teammates decide who wants to go to the boardroom.

KOTU does a load

Joan's idea is to have lots of little people climbing out of a washing machine.

Herschel is off for a prior engagement. Great - KOTU's down a man yet again. Or are they? He gives them an idea over the phone: have the little people wash themselves in a bathtub with the detergent and hang themselves out to dry. Clint adds that "doing the wash" is a euphemism for sex, and they could show the guy in bed later telling his wife "it was a small load, I did it by hand." They all love the joke. It's also implied that the detergent will be used as a personal lubricant.

They run their ideas past the execs. There's an awkward silence after Joan asks about vulgar language. Apparently, the client sees this viral-video-watching consumer as potentially faint-of-heart, which is a somewhat different impression than Athena was left with. The execs don't give an opinion about using little people (at first they think they mean toddlers), but they do say that it's not meant for people to wash their bodies with. Dang! They stare blankly when Clint asks about sexual innuendo, but again don't give a judgment.

I wonder if these execs actually know what a viral video is. I mean, clearly they know it's a hot marketing strategy, but have they ever seen one?

Khloe fears that their idea is going to be too distasteful and they won't be able to do it. Natalie and Joan think so too. Joan suggests that they tape themselves arguing, Clint walks away, she spits in his food, he comes back and eats it, boom, viral video. It has to be outrageous and sophomoric. Two sexy women mud-wrestling. A drag queen.

Clint decides not to let the meeting with the execs scare him off the original idea. (I guess he doesn't remember a few seasons ago when one team did an ad for body wash that featured a chef sensuously washing a cucumber... pretty sure that team lost, though the other team's ad was awful too and the sponsor hated them both a lot.) Clint rejects Joan's idea because they're not "complete." (Hello, brainstorm one idea for like five minutes and see?) He doubts that a 25-yo woman would be offended by his video. Joan is frustrated because she thinks even if the consumer isn't offended, she might not be amused either, which is crucial to the spread of a viral video.

Joan gripes to Natalie and Khloe behind Clint's back. Joan's so upset she has a stomach ache. Khloe gives a wishy-washy reply that she's nervous about it but it's too late to change it and she has to support her boss. Natalie doesn't like the idea either. Joan urges them to speak up. She says she burned her bra so that women wouldn't have to cave in to bad ideas.

She tries to talk to him one last time. He walks out on her just as she's about to suggest something. Heh, I felt sorry for him when McKnight shut him out of the videophone concert, but he shut out Tom Green once when he wasn't even PM and he's shutting his whole team out now.

Daniel, the actor, arrives. I'm not sure if he's actually been briefed on the joke, and he needs a lot of direction with his lines. Khloe and Natalie wonder if they're going to have to mud-wrestle after all. Instead, Clint sends Daniel home without arranging for a new actor. Joan gripes behind his back some more.

Now Clint is going to do the role. This means their video will just be a lame laundry joke with no "little" connection whatsoever. Joan, Natalie, and Khloe shudder as he repeats his line, "hey sweetie, wanna do some dirty laundry tonight?" monotonously, as if it's going to sound better if he says it the same way a hundred times instead of just once. Clint ignores the team's pleas to explain what's going on.

Joan insists. Clint talks to her like she's a baby and tries to brush her off. She stands up and demands that he speak to them. He says he'll "explain" in a minute. She says don't explain, discuss. She just wants to know what the team is supposed to be doing. He whines to us that she's being insubordinate. And he wants one of them to put on lingerie and be the "wife" for the commercial!

No, fortunately there's a model. There's nothing for the women to do at all. Joan wants to knock his hat off. Natalie is bored. Khloe is confused. She worries that any of them could be fired.

Herschel comes back and Khloe tells him what's going on. He doesn't get the "small load" joke right away. Ivanka checks in and isn't impressed with the idea either; she gets the joke but thinks it will offend and won't even work without the little person. She wonders why Joan, the comedian, was not included. Khloe can't wait to hear this story told in the boardroom.

Joan predicts that they'll go to Editing and do nothing there too, but she's wrong... but we're not there yet.

Clint shuts Herschel out too and goes to shoot the rest of the commercial. He delivers the punchline in an even sorrier monotone than before. Herschel is mystified, especially because Clint's in bed and there's a box of tissues next to him, which goes well with the masturbation joke, but he's reading Trump's book, which... okay, actually that is a little funny, but nobody's going to be able to see that in their little YouTube window. Also, he's fully clothed, not even in pajamas. At least he took his hat off.

Joan's mood doesn't get any better. As they go to the studio to edit, Herschel suggests little pop-up captions to enhance the joke. Clint shrugs noncommittally. At the studio, he LOCKS THEM OUT so that he can work without them. He confides to the editor that he's not happy with what they have. He hopes that the women are pleased to have been left out. Outside, Joan jokes with the rest of the team that captions would be a great idea... captions from each of them disavowing the video!

Eventually he finishes and calls in the rest of the team for their opinions. (What good is their "input" going to be now?) Herschel again recommends pop-up captions, because the video makes no sense. Clint's not interested. Joan says it's slick but it's not funny. Khloe finds it cheesy.

They still have 90 minutes. Joan proposes that she do the pop-ups and then let Clint decide. Natalie is laughing. Clint tells us he'll have to take Joan to the boardroom if they lose. She says she doesn't ever want to see him again after this task.

Judgment

KOTU's finished video has pop-ups. These are a huge improvement, which is to say that the video now sucks only a little, still falling far short of "so bad it's good" territory. The execs force a laugh.

Athena's video starts out funny but then ends on a bizarre note, with one of the little people throwing down the detergent container and cursing. Bizarre=viral, baby!

The execs turn it over to famed blogger Perez Hilton, who finds KOTU's video disappointing and unbuzzworthy and not funny. He didn't even want to finish watching it. On the other hand, he laughed all the way through Athena's video.

One of the execs asks about demographic appeal. Perez says it appeals to him as a gay man, and he thinks young straight men would like it too, but maybe not women with children.

The exec is unhappy about this, but you know what? MEN DO LAUNDRY TOO. And they probably want their laundry setup to be as compact an unobtrusive as possible. Just a thought.

As Junior predicted, the execs don't like the word "midget" or the surprising ending with the foul language, but they are happy with the branding. In KOTU's video, they don't like the cheating husband, but they like the pop-ups and the "relaxing" music. (I'm now convinced these people don't understand viral videos. Videos don't get forwarded for their "relaxing" music.)

The postmortem

Clint admits to being worried. Joan is ashamed of the video but offered to help and was rebuffed. "Nobody even used the product for a happy ending," she adds, which she may or may not have meant the way it sounds, and Junior smirks. She never wants to see Clint again and will throw out all his CDs.

Natalie explains that after meeting with the execs, they all thought they'd start over. Junior thinks maybe they shouldn't have considered this joke in the first place, considering the audience.

Herschel says it was silly and he wouldn't send this video to anyone.

Ivanka asks if it was ever too late to do something else. Clint's answer is basically that he wanted to do it his way. Joan is still upset. She explains that it's important to her that things are the best they can be. Melissa is offended by the way Clint is talking. Trump is amused and jokingly fires Joan. Trump teases Melissa about being obnoxious. She claims that she is merely sarcastic, and maybe Clint shouldn't have tried to tell Joan Rivers what is and is not funny.

Trump plays KOTU's video first. The Athena folks look confused, especially when it ends just like an ordinary TV commercial that would be FF'ed through. With prejudice. And the wife in the video doesn't look she's ever had a child, so she's not going to appeal to the demographic.

On the other hand, Natalie laughs out loud throughout Athena's video, and the rest of KOTU likes it too. Joan thinks women will forward it because of Jesse.

Trump asks Jesse how he felt about working with all these women. Jesse says he loved it. As for the weird ending, they all agreed about it (I doubt that Brande did) and it's the difference between "bad commercial" and "viral video." Melissa also defends the use of "midget" because it is among the top five search words for videos.

Trump says the client hated both videos. Everybody loses. He's going to fire one person from each team.

Melissa says that no one else on her team deserves to go to the boardroom, so she asked for volunteers, and Tionne volunteered. Melissa then randomly (maybe not so randomly) chooses Brande to accompany her as well.

Clint chooses Khloe and Natalie, but reassures them in the lobby that he won't let them be fired.

In the boardroom

Athena: Melissa reiterates that Tionne and Brande did nothing wrong. Tionne and Brande say she was a great manager, and that there was no arguing. Melissa points out that Perez liked their video.

But Trump is thinking about something else: Bradford, from several seasons ago, who once volunteered to go to the boardroom, assuming that there was no reason Trump would fire him. Trump fired him because he hates it when people put themselves at unnecessary risk. Now Tionne is fired too. "Never volunteer for execution," he says. Melissa wants to talk some more about this, but Trump explains that if Tionne hadn't volunteered, Melissa would have been fired.

Melissa, Brande, and Tionne leave. Tionne tells us she believes in taking chances.

KOTU: Natalie points out that Clint fought Joan for two full days but didn't bring her into the boardroom. Clint claims full responsibility for their loss.

Trump asks Clint if he'd like to go home now so that he can continue selling records. Clint says no.

Trump asks Natalie if she'd like to leave now and participate in some big golf tournament in Asia. Natalie says no, she made a commitment to do this show.

Trump says that the reason Khloe missed part of last week's task is because she had to take some classes as part of a DUI sentence. He didn't know that she had a DUI. Trump hates drunk drivers. They talk about her charity, the Brent Shapiro Foundation, which fights drug and alcohol dependence. He's going to give them another $20,000, but Khloe is fired.

In the taxi, Khloe says this isn't the way she wants people to remember her.

My MVP

My MVP pick for this episode, not that it matters, :-) is Melissa Rivers. Apparently, Annie is as annoying to Melissa as Melissa was to Claudia. The big difference is that Melissa didn't scream at her, insult her, make fun of her personal appearance, or mock her to her teammates behind her back. This may be the first time I've seen a personality conflict handled properly this season.