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.