Celebrity Apprentice, 4/25/2010 (#7): Pimping Iron

Trump begins the episode by switching up the teams. He moves Stone to Tenacity, and sends Osbourne and Kanellis to RockSolid. I take one look at the new teams and decide they should be renamed.

Happy Fun Gang (okay, Rocksolid): Maria Kanellis, Bret Michaels, led by Sharon Osbourne who was the only one who hadn't led a project or won anything for her charity yet.

After School Study Club Plus Cindy Lauper (okay, Tenacity): Cyndi Lauper, Summer Sanders, Curtis Stone, led by Holly Robinson Peete who pretty much does fund raising all year round.

Task/Sponsor: Develop a workout class for 24 Hour Fitness and raise money. Donors don't have to show up in person, but each donation must be represented by a class participant. If you have lots of donors, but nobody wants to take your class, some of the donations won't count.

RockSolid decides to forget about trying to create the perfect workout, and focuses on a good concept that will attract people. The concept: a rock concert workout. Michaels promotes it, and classes are packed with his fans. The class consists of classic aerobic, calisthenic, and yoga exercises hastily slapped together with rock 'n' roll-themed names. The promotional materials are packed with typos and misspellings ("you ll work your muscle" is just one example), but it's all so much fun that nobody cares. However, the 24 Hour Fitness representatives seem taken aback by the likes of "Tour Bus Thrust" (aka "pelvic tilt").

As RockSolid predicts, Tenacity chooses a different strategy, with Stone and Summers preparing a very serious, carefully researched, balanced workout with lots of variations for different fitness levels. The name "Tenacious Buns 'n' Guns" is as frivolous as they dare to get; Stone is worried about "making a mockery" of their sponsor. Lauper reaches out to her fans on a radio show, but the team struggles to get people to attend, especially in their earlier classes. (I suspect that some of their later attendees are overflow from RockSolid's packed sessions.)

Bonus: 24 Hour Fitness donates $24,000 to whichever team has the better workout, as judged by the company. The execs are impressed with Tenacity's balanced workout and rapport with students, but they feel that RockSolid's "fitness concert" concept gives them more to work with. They can tweak the exercises as needed ("tour bus thrust" will probably not be among them). RockSolid wins the bonus!

Outcome: RockSolid raises $107,803, plus the bonus for a staggering total of $131,803. Tenacity earns an even more staggering $206,090 - low attendance isn't a problem when each attendee is representing a huge donation. Tenacity wins! It's the most money ever raised in a single task for a non-finale episode.

Boardroom: Before the winner is announced, Trump tries to get his contestants to trash one another. Peete is quick to report that before the task, Osbourne had expressed frustration with the dynamic on the women's team and wanted to go home. Osbourne says she no longer feels that way with her new team.

When Trump asks Tenacity who he should fire on the other team, Lauper again declines to bad-mouth anyone. Stone surprisingly defends Michaels this time, citing his team loyalty, and adds that Kanellis is not so loyal. But he'd also be in favor of Trump firing Osbourne since she was project manager.

Peete thinks it should be the person who raised the least money; that person was Michaels. But Osbourne takes the blame for that, saying that wasn't his task. (It's true. He actually wanted to raise money, but she had him tied up with so many other duties that he wasn't able to.) Osbourne seems tired and practically invites Trump to fire her.

Fired: Nobody, because when somebody raises that much money, you can hardly call them losers.

So Trump says, but in the past, he hasn't let stellar performance keep him from firing people on the losing team. It's just that with Johnson quitting and Ebanks being fired in a single episode, he had to skip a firing one week so as not to run out of people a week early.

Donation: To confuse the math a bit, Trump adds in the $10K that Peete won a few weeks ago when Kanellis won the free throw challenge; Peete hadn't collected that yet. That brings the total winnings to $347,893, all for Peete's charity, the HollyRod Foundation, which is building a family center for autism intervention and treatment. Peete promises to write a check for Osbourne's own charity, the Cedars-Sinai Sharon Osbourne Colon Cancer Program, which provides help for colon cancer sufferers and their families.

Remarks:

• Bret Michaels has suffered two serious health crises in the past month. In very brief announcement at the end of the episode, NBC wishes him well.
  
  
• Lauper misses the first part of the task due to a prior engagement with Lady Gaga, but manages to get a pretty nice donation from her. I don't think Peete says a single negative thing about Lauper through the whole task, at least not that we see. On the other hand, Sanders mocks Lauper while she's gone. (Meanwhile, Michaels mocks Sanders.)
  
  
• One of Tenacity's few early attendees is Lauper's mother, who represents her own $500 donation by taking the fitness class herself. What a trouper!
  
  
• No one on RockSolid can spell "gynecological."
  
  
• Before the winner is revealed, Peete is sure that her team was at a fund-raising disadvantage compared to the star power of RockSolid. Peete raises money all year long, but Osbourne knows some seriously wealthy people too. Is it strange that she didn't win? Is she pulling a Jesse James - holding back for the finale, which she couldn't safely assume she'd reach unless by prior agreement with NBC and Trump?
  
  Osbourne sets a goal of $100K, while Pete clearly has no upper limit in mind. Other project managers have failed for not thinking big; on the other hand, $100K isn't exactly thinking small. Unless your opponent is a professional fund-raiser....
  
  Osbourne mentioned something about Ozzy being in town to promote a WWE event. Several people at the WWE made donations; perhaps those pockets have been deeper if this had been the finale.
  
  In any case, Osbourne is the only one left who hasn't won a nickel yet.
  
  
• Peete has been criticized for making statements in support of an already widely discredited belief in a link between vaccines and autism. However, there's no indication that the HollyRod Foundation uses any of its funds to discourage parents from vaccinating their children. (Please correct me and provide a supporting link if you've heard otherwise about HollyRod.)

4/22/10: Great Moments in "The Office"

Dwight: Is that the program where all those puppets live in the barrio? I love that show.

Kevin: They're making fun of Cookie Monster. I get that. But in a strange way, it feels like they're making fun of me.

Erin: My last job was at a Taco Bell Express, but then it became a full Taco Bell, and I couldn't keep up.

Michael: I asked for pickles on my burger, and there are only like five or six.

Erin: In the foster home, my hair was my room.

Dwight: Three squeezes, and I would drain you.

Meredith: I was just warming it up.

Kevin: "C" is for "suspension."

Gabe: Guys, I would even take a contrite look as an apology.

Erin: What's your real name - Lionel Frankenstein?

Andy: My chest is not naturally hairless, and my parents pay my credit card bill.

Gabe: Can I buy everyone coffees? ...or cookies?

Dwight [mimicking Gabe]: "I have to go back to the zoo, to the stick insect exhibit."

Mad Men season 4 begins July 25

And I still don't have cable, so I won't be recapping it. But at least now you know what to set your calendar to.

I have Season 3 on DVD, but when I will get around to watching it, and when or if I'll have time to recap it, is another mystery.

Celebrity Apprentice, 4/18/2010 (#6): Extremely Moderate Makeover

Rocksolid: Bret Michaels, Curtis Stone, led by Bill Goldberg who was chosen out of fairness because he hadn't led a project yet even though Michaels was the obvious choice based on the task, which was described prior to PM selection. (Trump questions RockSolid's decision immediately.)

Tenacity: Maria Kanellis, Sharon Osbourne, Holly Robinson Peete, Summer Sanders, led by Cyndi Lauper who was chosen because she was the obvious choice based on the task. (Osbourne would have been the obvious choice, but she didn't join the task until after the PMs were chosen.)

Task/Sponsor: Give makeovers, prepare press kits, and provide pre-interview coaching to boost the careers of two country music singers.

The teams evade global thermonuclear war by actually NOT both wanting the same singer for their makeover. No hotly contested coin flips or anything! RockSolid chooses Luke Bryan, and Tenacity chooses Emily West. (Peete would want me to add: LAUPER chose Emily West.)

Goldberg quickly hands over the entire task to Bret Michaels, who is still distracted by his daughter's health problems and must be pretty exhausted by now. Luke Bryan seems to go along with their ideas for a while; there's a hilarious moment where all the men have him trying on their clothes. But after the photo shoot (during which Goldberg repeatedly orders Bryan to "SMILE!!!"), Bryan gets cold feet. He's not comfortable with the new clothes, and he hates the neck-chain, and he's unhappy with most of the photos they've taken. Furthermore, even though Michaels coaches him NEVER to tell an interviewer that he's "tired," that's pretty much how Bryan opens with the interviewer from People Country. He's not particularly articulate, and things get worse when he yawns multiple times during the interview.

Trace Adkins (guest ear/eye) convinces Bryan to wear the neck-chain, and evidently there was a baseball cap that they convince him to stop wearing too, but his overall look isn't much different.

Emily West is a much more cooperative subject for Tenacity. She seems willing to try out anything they suggest, and she is calm and poised during her People Country interview.

Relations within the team are less harmonious: Lauper, the one who complains that Peete is "bossy," rules the task with an iron fist. Peete grumbles a lot and thinks that Lauper should show more respect for what her teammates have achieved, but she also says the PM should have the last word. The real trouble actually comes from Maria Kanellis, who feels that Lauper should take her advice because she's done some of these things before herself and she used to dance to "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" as a kid. When Osbourne finally returns from sick leave, she assures us that Lauper's expertise and experience in this area are certainly sufficient: Lauper does this kind of stuff every day. (Literally every day. For a living. Not as a hobby or a once-in-a-while thing. That anyone would whine about an actual expert taking control of the task just boggles my mind.) Adkins agrees with Osbourne.

Outcome: The execs, and indeed even Tenacity, feel that RockSolid did a better job with the press materials for Bryan. (The photos of West weren't even touched up; Lauper felt it wasn't necessary to touch up photos of such a young woman.) However, they also felt that West received the more transformative makeover, and that's what they were really looking for. Tenacity wins!

Boardroom:

Before the winner is announced, there is a lot of wincing when Kanellis tells Trump that Lauper had once been her idol, but no longer was. Osbourne tells Kanellis that they're on the show to do a task, and not to be fans. Later, Lauper counsels Kanellis never to meet her idols. (Excellent advice for the starstruck of any age!)

The Rocksolid boardroom meeting is mercifully short. Michaels says he would fire himself. Stone eagerly, oops I mean somberly, agrees to this, but all in vain, because Goldberg has committed himself to a death spiral. Goldberg tells Trump that he gave 95% of the task to Michaels... then 90%... 87%... 70%... finally he admits he's been hit in the head too many times to do the math. But that's not even the point; Trump says he should have taken the lead on a previous task instead, or at least let Michaels take this one.

Fired: Goldberg, for picking the wrong time to step up.

Donation: $20,000 plus the first month's profits from sale of the songs on iTunes goes to Lauper's charity, the LGBT equality outreach organization Stonewall Community Foundation for True Colors.

Goldberg's charity, Communities 4Kids - One Good Turn Ranch 4Kids which runs camps for kids who have lost a loved one due to military action, gets nothing from this show that we know of.

Remarks:

• Curtis Stone gets a nice surprise when he finds out that Right Guard added another $20,000 to his winnings from last week's task.
  
  
• Due to scheduling issues, I usually watch the second hour of each episode before I see the first. When I saw Luke Bryan and heard him speak, I thought, "he's a cross between Elvis & Gomer Pyle." Then I played back the first hour and heard someone else describe him the same way. Golllllllllly! Unfortunately, he has the charisma of neither.
  
  
• Goldberg is the second of TWO PMs who have attempted to offload all authority to Bret Michaels. RockSolid has lost both tasks that Michaels ran as unofficial PM, and teammates have gone after Michaels in the boardroom because "he was responsible," even though someone else was PM. Nevertheless, they still turn to him because he's the only one who has these skills. Plus, he never says no; I think Stone is hoping that will be his undoing.
  
  
• Kanellis felt that it was "mean" of Lauper not to want her advice in an area in which Lauper makes a living, especially because Lauper was once her idol. What, if anything, do our idols owe us? They make stuff, and we buy it. If you get your money's worth from their CDs, movies, books, etc., what else can you reasonably expect from them - especially on a personal level?
  
  However much mental real estate you choose to dedicate to your favorite celebrity, that choice is yours, and they don't get a say. You can't expect more from them, especially at the cost of their professional integrity (like taking advice from a relative amateur when there's a win at stake!). If they somehow manage to measure up to your high expectations when you meet them in person, that's a bonus. Not a debt. Sheesh!
  

Celebrity Apprentice, 4/11/2010 (#5): Making a Stink

Rocksolid: Bill Goldberg, Michael Johnson, Bret Michaels, led by Curtis Stone. It's not clear whether Stone volunteers, is nominated, has to argue with Goldberg, etc., but the decision is made very quickly.

Tenacity: Maria Kanellis, Selita Ebanks, Summer Sanders, and sort of Cyndi Lauper, led by Holly Robinson Peete. Again, it's not clear how this decision is made, and Tenacity seems to take longer to make this decision than RockSolid did, but since Peete is the only one present who hadn't been PM yet, she's a reasonable choice.

Sharon Osbourne is out sick, and Lauper misses much of the task while visiting the White House for the presidential signing of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. (The signing took place October 28, 2009, so these episodes have been in the can for nearly six months!)

Task/Sponsor: Create a 30-second ad for TV and a 10-second viral Internet ad. Ads will be judged by creativity, brand integration, and overall presentation. The executives state that the focus should be on young males. Basketball greats Scottie Pippen and Clyde Drexler will appear in the ads. (Tenacity gets Pippen; RockSolid gets Drexler.)

Bonus: Whoever sinks the first basket from the free throw line wins a $10,000 personal donation from Trump for their Project Manager's charity. Kanellis manages to do this in her crazy spiked heels, so Holly Robinson Peete's charity gets the 10K.

BONUS EXIT!!: Michael Johnson quits after the task, but before the judgement, due to a private family situation. He asks Trump if he can return after the problems are ironed out. Trump says no (boo! BOO!!!), and Johnson leaves the show with no money that we know of for his charity, the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation ("using the positive influence of sport to tackle society's most pressing challenges worldwide").

Outcome: The execs feel that Tenacity's ad, in which Scottie Pippen portrays the "Godfather of Funk" and puts deodorant on smelly pubescent boys, is more entertaining than RockSolid's. (It is completely hilarious.) However, because Tenacity's ad focused on moms rather than the target audience of 13-18 yo males, and because their 10-second ad was just an edited version of the 30-second ad, RockSolid's also-funny ad is deemed a better fulfillment of the task. RockSolid wins. Finally!

Boardroom: Trump questions whether Osbourne is truly sick.

After Tenacity loses and Peete takes the blame both for the ads' direction and the decision to make the short ad a mere edit of the long ad, Ivanka points out that a dominant PM who makes all the decisions is usually the one to get fired. However, the fact that Ebanks disappeared to hang out with Pippen instead of helping carry props onto their set gives Peete a way out. So does Kanellis's accidental or on purpose (it's hard to tell) last-minute sound editing change.

Sanders suggests that Peete should choose Osbourne and Lauper for the boardroom. Trump categorically forbids this, since Osbourne is ("supposedly," he says) ill and Lauper had an appointment at the White House. (Later, Sanders says that Peete is their strongest player, but refuses to say who's their weaskest, and is all sweet and friendly with Lauper after the boardroom meeting ends.)

Trump, Ross, and Ivanka all note that both Peete and Kanellis are fighting to stay in the game, while Ebanks isn't really defending herself. Ebanks finally throws some blame at Kanellis (why not Peete, who made all the decisions?), but it's too little, too late.

Fired: Ebanks is fired for lacking "fire."

Donation: $20,000 for Curtis Stone's charity, Feeding America (fka America's Second Harvest), a nationwide community food bank network. Bonus! The following week, it's revealed that Right Guard makes a matching donation. Feeding America gets $40,000 total! Holly Robinson Peete gets $10,000 for her charity, the HollyRod Foundation.

Remarks:

You would think that Michael Johnson's out-of-the-blue exit would be the most memorable happenings of the night, but it was actually among the more low-key moments. There was plenty of drama and hilarity, and believe me, I AM keeping this short:

Ebanks says Tenacity won three tasks in a row because they were cohesive and respectful. (To be fair, she was on a plane to Orlando when the Lauper-Peete-Osbourne-Sanders came to a head.). And Michael Johnson says that Bret Michaels is the reason RockSolid's been losing. Hmm... does Johnson not remember who was the project manager for their one and only win up to that point? Seriously, Bret Michaels won as much money in Week 1 as everyone else so far combined, including personal donations from Trump, so gimme a break.

Bret Michaels discovers that his daughter will likely be diagnosed with diabetes, and is distraught and distracted during the task. Eventually, he has a total meltdown in the van. The guys are at least superficially supportive. Stone asks the cameras to give Michaels a few minutes of privacy.

Curtis Stone, who might be one of those people who picks up emotions from other people, is a nervous wreck through a lot of this task as well. You can't blame him, given that Michaels changed his mind about the direction the ad should take multiple times throughout the task. Oddly enough (or perhaps not), Stone is at his calmest when he's trying to reassure Michaels.

Holly Robinson Peete continues to mock and complain about Lauper, even when Lauper is not involved in the task. Alas, she does give Lauper an assignment to be part of the presentation, and Lauper screws it up. Accidentally? On purpose? Is it normal for Lauper to become so flustered and unfocused in front of an audience? Earlier, Lauper made it pretty clear (to us, but not openly to her teammates and executives and eyes and ears that I've noticed) that she doesn't like Peete any more than Peete likes her, so her lukewarm performance is no surprise.

When Lauper offers to add some cool effects to the Funky Godfather soundtrack, Peete takes it the wrong way and is insulted. Hilariously, Sanders vehemently agrees with Peete as usual. However, Peete calms down when she sees that the result is a harmless improvement. Later, in the boardroom, Peete looks really annoyed when Trump invites Lauper to sing the "Funky Godfather" song from their commercial, and who can blame her - considering Peete wrote and performed it?

With the sound editing, Kanellis seemed a little too happy about Peete's refusal to review the work beforehand, but Peete really didn't want to be bothered, and even complained when people asked what they should be doing; so she didn't have much to stand on when something wasn't quite right. On the other hand, I think Kanellis knew full well what had happened and was playing "gotcha." In any case, the discrepancy was irrelevant and wouldn't have changed the executives' decision, so she wasn't at great risk of being fired, regardless.

Blowing off a task to hang out with a basketball player is more serious, and so is failing to look alive in the boardroom, so I'm not heartbroken that Ebanks was fired. Still, if she'd wanted to, she probably could have offed Peete. But Ebanks isn't the first celebrity to lose interest after winning some cash for her charity; Gene Simmons didn't knock himself out either. I can see why Trump is going back to non-celebrities next season.

Celebrity Apprentice, 4/4/2010 (#4): Revenge of the Muggles

Rocksolid: Bill Goldberg, Michael Johnson, Bret Michaels, Curtis Stone, led by Rob Blagojevich, who was nominated by Johnson as a way to put the team's weakest player on the chopping block.

Tenacity: Maria Kanellis, Cyndi Lauper, Sharon Osbourne, Holly Robinson Peete, Summer Sanders, led by Selita Ebanks, who volunteered.

Task/Sponsor: Create a "3-D interactive display" (i.e. walkaround exhibit) for the Harry Potter attraction at Universal Studios Orlando in an 8' x 14' space (smaller than most living rooms). Efforts will be judged by a focus group of young fans.

Guest Eyes/Ears: Erin Burnett and our ol' pal George. Bret Michaels luvs Erin Burnett!

Outcome: The focus group of young fans comment that the RockSolid display was less true to the Harry Potterverse, but funnier and more entertaining. The Universal executives are disappointed that neither team did a great job of pushing the park attraction. (Actually, there had been some photos at the RockSolid display, but Blagojevich didn't like them and covered them up.) Overall, the fans thought Tenacity's was better; the women win for the third week in a row.

Boardroom: Blagojevich, who had driven Michaels crazy trying to teach him the right terminology to use around the Harry Potter fans, gets them all wrong in the boardroom - reinforcing the focus group's claims that RockSolid wasn't true to the books. Blagojevich, who had left Michaels in charge of the project while he was in Orlando, inexplicably refuses to bring Michaels back to the boardroom and doesn't give a clear reason why. (The reason he could have given: it wouldn't be right to leave Michaels holding the bag when Blagojevich was supposed to be leading the task.) Instead, he chooses Stone and Johnson.

Stone and Johnson insist that Michaels should be in the boardroom instead. Trump gives Blagojevich a chance to change his mind, but he doesn't. Blagojevich says Stone was the weakest team member. But Stone and Johnson agree that Blagojevich is not a good leader.

All of this discussion seems rather pointless, and Stone's additional jabs at Michaels are fruitless, because Trump eventually points out that Blagojevich was the one who went to Orlando to learn about Harry Potter; and Blagojevich was also the PM. Blagojevich is fired.

Fired: Blagojevich, for lack of leadership. (Even when Johnson asked him specific questions about the task, Blagojevich answered only "use your judgment." Evidently, he learned nothing from the Sinbad debacle in week 2. Frankly, I am mystified as to how Illinois didn't get burnt to the ground, eaten by locusts, or invaded by Wisconsin during his governorship. Kudos to the people of Illinois!)

Donation: $20,000 to Shine on Sierra Leone, which provides education, mentoring, and nutritional support for schools in African diamond mining communities, where, Ebanks says, 1 in 8 women die in childbirth. This money will go towards the construction of a hospital.

Blagojevich's charity, the Children's Cancer Center, which assists kids with life-threatening diseases and their families, gets nothing from this show that we know of.

Remarks:
The project managers are sent to Orlando immediately to be briefed on the project. Ebanks keeps her team informed by constantly emailing and texting notes, instructions, diagrams, and photos. She composes much of the team's presentation on the way home. Meanwhile, Blagojevich names Michaels "acting project manager" while he's away, makes only a few vague phone calls from Orlando, and sleeps on the plane ride home.

Upon returning from Orlando, Blagojevich is taken aback when he sees Stone and Johnson enjoying a nice dinner in another room while Michaels and Goldberg are hard at work on the display. Later, Blagojevich doesn't mention this when asked why he chose them for the boardroom instead of Michaels. (Or maybe he does and it's edited out. Or maybe the lunch break wasn't what it appeared; maybe those two had worked on the display while Goldberg and Michaels took a different break.)

Meanwhile, the tension grows among the women of Tenacity: Robinson-Peete continues to be openly hostile to Lauper. Osbourne takes her to task. Kanellis tells us that she feels stuck in the middle between Osbourne/Lauper vs. Peete/Sanders. Personally, every time Peete or Sanders cuts Lauper down for showing some enthusiasm, it's like seeing someone kick a puppy: it's mean, it's unproductive, and it makes them look like gigantic assholes. Is anyone impressed by their mean-girl behavior? How far will it get them? And didn't I say I was going to refrain from long editorials about this kind of BS? I'll stop now and try to be good with tonight's episode!