Celebrity Apprentice: Patricia Velasquez

I didn’t post anything last week because frankly the show was boring. Tia and Lou were the team captains and I knew Tia was going to lose. Penn got under Clay Aiken’s skin by doing very little to make it happen. I am not sure if Clay is high strung or not. Penn didn’t even flex hard and Clay was all pissy.

This week the challenge was a launch party for Crystal lite. Lisa expressed her goal of getting rid of the Latin Ladies. The women picked Aubry as the project manager and she sucked up to the Crystal Lite people during her manager acceptance speech. The guys picked Clay. Then in the car they found out no one was a real party person and had trouble with a theme. I don’t get it,  a party is a lot like a show and all those guys are in show business. So, what is the problem guys? Penn was completely silent and Chopper dude was looking out the window like a homesick summer camper.

The Gingers seem to understand the core of the task and lead their teams to get to work. Penn decides to contribute less as a defense mechanism. Patricia does not bow down to Lisa so Lisa takes it to Aubrey to be her back up. Teresa gets to work because she is the ultimate party planner. They show a shot of her measuring for furniture with gusto. The guys clearly feel at a disadvantage. The difference between the groups now is the women have open hostility towards each other and the men have theirs under wraps. Both are huge scary monsters just waiting to pounce. I feel the same anxiety as when playing with  a Jack in the Box, waiting for it to pop. It is exquisite!

Ivanka visits the men and Penn is at the store with Arsenio. They suck up to her and then throw Penn under the buss. Donald Jr. visits the women and Aubrey admits a major crush on him. I take it to mean, she’d do him in a second if he opened the door just an inch. She bats her eyelids and talks about all they are doing and Donald is completely bored by their idea. Teresa points out that they may be off track from their focus about health. Crystal lite is about fun, not healthy. Donald says they are missing the fun. The men were calling everyone to invite them to the party, while the women at the same point did not invite anyone yet. And seriously, I have not seen Miss World since the tasks were assigned. 

Come back from commercial, there she is! Taking pictures of plants with Debbie Gibson. Gibson also wrote an original song however,I am thinking by saying Crystal DELIGHT, and not lite, that might work against her. She goes into the studio to produce it and get copies to give out. The guys bring in music as entertainment for the party. The pressure is on the Gingers but so far neither has cracked. Turn the crank on the Jack in the Box, one more time.

It turns out that both parties looked fun. Arsenio kept pointing to the heavier set guests and guessing correctly that they were Clay-mates. Miss World invited more  queens in order to get more good looking people there. I did not say it, she did, on camera. Execs were impressed by Aubrey. Maybe they thought there was nothing going on under all that red hair. But they felt the guys did not have enough signage.

The women lost and Aubrey cried. Mr Trump must be one of those men that are affected by tears because he still gave her $10k of his personal money. Aubrey said she should stay because she is so valuable. Finally Miss World said the truth, Lisa and Aubrey lead the ideas and yet they have only won 2 out of 6. The men had figured that out long ago.

Aubrey brings all of Venezuela back into the board room. Patricia got fired. And that was that.

Celebrity Apprentice: Adam Carolla

You can Listen to the audio of this article here!

This week it was all about cars. When picking teams everyone thought Michael Andretti was the clear leader for the men’s team due to branding of his name with cars. He deferred to Adam Carolla who “knew a lot about cars”. Debbie Gibson took leadership of the women’s team. I think she was tired of not being noticed.

The task was all about presenting the car and answering questions. Nothing special really happened. Half the men’s team was unhappy with the level of comedy Carolla wanted and Lou F. was pissed because he was once again under utilized. The ladies were divided into the cool van and the rest. The rest knew they were the unwanted and contributed like they were. The women won the task Debbie tried to make up to Teresa afterwards.

Carolla took his lumps like a man but cost the men additional team members. Trump fired Carolla and Michael Andretti because Andretti did not step up. It makes me think that there are tasks that are specially tailored for each celebrity. If the teams make the right choices, they can win the task.

The lesson this week was branding. You have to meet people where they are with your product and branding. If you name is #1 in a certain category, you want to make sure you shine and stand out. Andretti was boring. He said he the car was perfect but sounded so bored that no one believed for a moment that he would ever be caught dead in that car.

Both teams also learned that if they try to circumvent the rules, Trump would punish them.

Leave your thoughts about branding below!

Celebrity Apprentice: George Takei

This time the task is about Ivanka’s clothing line and making a nice window display at Lord and Taylor. The women had a hard time picking a project manager because 2 women wanted to be it. The men George T. because he was gay and they thought he and Clay Aiken would know all about women’s clothing. They didn’t. Arsenio picked the outfits. Clay was pissed at George again because he thought he had no clue as to what was going on. Debbie Gibson was pissed at her team because she wasn’t asked to model because she was older than the demographic Ivanka specifically identified as her customer.

It turns out no one on the women’s team was really good at what they were doing but the men had a team member show happened to be a super woodworker. He was able to finish the window design without the project manager seeing it. However, the team doing the window felt they were neglected because the project manager trusted them so much he did not check on them. Lou F. thought the midnight blue was too dark and that George T. would regret it later.

The men thought out of the box and having twins, one for each window. The women thought out of the box in asking Ivanka directly if they could also use her jewelery. Debbie Gibson seems very pleased to have come up with that one after they dissed her and declined her to be a model.

Let me say this about the commercial- it was a movie-like, long, 2 minute commercial from Cartier. I wasn’t high enough to really get it, but I did want to buy jewelery after it went off.

The women had a love fest at the trump table, the men only had Clay Aiken to dish dirt on the project manager.

George Takei leads the men to their first loss and is ultimately fired. He took full responsibility and did not act surprised. He was his same old classy self.

Lesson: Even though you trust your team to do the job right, they want you to look over their work and acknowledge what they are doing.

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