Celebrity Apprentice Smackdown: Season 2, Premiere (Mar 9)
Now, this is a two-hour show, and I’ll be here all night if I mention every single shot, but I have to mention this. In an exterior shot of Trump Tower, a man walks right in front of the camera. He has an unkempt, chest-length, white beard. He is holding a gold walking stick and wearing pink sunglasses. How the camera crew didn’t just follow this guy around instead of shooting the show, I’ll never know.
Joan Rivers immediately agrees to be Project Manager. Say what you want, but she’s got spunk. Joan’s first order of business is to not screw around with the name and just pick something. This incites immediate and lengthy discussion of that name. They finally pick “Athena” after the goddess of wisdom and/or war, or possibly because they’re Battlestar Galactica fans.
In the men’s suite, Clay is pissing and moaning about the lack of bagels. Awww, he thinks he’s still important. Also, he is wearing Uncle Junior’s glasses (See, I was thinking he looked like a neighbor of the Seinfelds from Del Boca Vista–Myndi). Rodman suggests “VIP Enterpise”, which Clint Black thinks “sounds like an escort service”. Jesse James likes “The Money Getters”. Clay finally says that in their own fields, they’re all “Kings of the Universe”. Really? That’s stretching it more than a little. Anyway, this leads to the acronym KOTU. Yeah, can’t wait to hear that over and over… Herschel says they need to pick a PM, which causes everybody to pick him. In an interview, closed captioning informs me that Rodman claims he “didn’t have no vote” in the manner, except for the part where they all went around the table and voted, I guess. With the name and Manager selected, Dennis lays down for a nap.
Both teams meet in the Boardroom the chat with Trump. This task will have them “create, bake, and sell cupcakes”. Ah, a selling challenge where they’ll all call famous friends. There is some discussion of KOTU, which Jesse hates and Herschel can’t pronounce. And get this, Clay actually bitches about the lack of bagels – directly to Trump he does this. Talk about an awkward silence. Don Jr. and Ivanka will be overseeing the task. Hi Ivanka! Call me!
At Team KOTU, Jesse says they need to be where Clay’s fans are. I’m not familiar with New York – is there a Douchebag Depot? Clay tells us that he’s the king of stand-up comedy, and nobody has ever sold more tickets than he has. You know what? I’m not entirely sure that’s true. Tom Green starts his thing where he keeps grinning to the camera. He thinks he’s on The Office. Clint Black refers to the women’s team as “Team Lady Goddess”, which really makes me laugh. Brian McKnight says that women will want to buy cupcakes from their team. Yeah, there’s a lot of sexual magnetism on that team, all right.
At Athena, Joan suggests Penn Station. Annie Duke says that proved to be a bad choice for the women in the first task last year. Holy crap, Annie’s a fan of the show! I thought I recognized her from the meetings! The women all seem to hate Annie, because she has an opinion and knows things. Brande Roderick suggests a location close to the Playboy Building. Considering that not getting Hugh Hefner to buy a hot dog got Tiffany Fallon fired last year, that’s a good move on her part. Annie says she can bring in $15,000 and asks if the rest of the team can bring in “5 or 10”. She immediately starts calling her rich poker buddies.
En route to the bakery, Tom calls Donnie Deutsch to come buy some cupcakes. How the heck do those two know each other? Weirdly, he talks a lot about Donnie. You’d almost think that guy hosts a show on some cable station owned by NBC, or something. Weird. At the bakery, they set right in to cupcake baking. Well, except for Andrew. He doesn’t believe in baking, and is afraid people will think he’s a “jerkoff”. Two decades too late, buddy. Jesse takes pictures of everybody holding imaginary cupcakes. (You can say “Jerkoff” on network TV now! The More You Know….)
Team Athena splits up, with one team decorating the van and the other learning how to make cupcakes. Khloe, Natalie Gulbis, and T-Boz get their only real appearances in this scene, nodding mutely as a baker talks. Thanks for playing, girls! They set to baking, which makes recapping easier, since it fills up screen time and doesn’t need to be analyzed. Melissa Rivers checks out their sales van, which supposedly has a giant cupcake on top, thought it’s clearly an ice-cream scoop. They are going to confuse some kids with that.
Back to KOTU, where they’re working on graphics for the van. Jesse asks the professional graphic designer who’s working with them, “You got Photoshop?” Jesse’s a little simple. And this makes me think that Sandra Bullock is a little simple, and this makes me think that I wasted my Great Sandra Crush of 1993-1995. Next, Jesse makes a reference to something called “Celebrity CupcakeStar Galactica”, and I can’t even begin to guess where he thought the joke was there.
Of course, Joan goes Jesse one better by asking her designer “Are you Jewish?” Apparently, “Jews like a lot of crap” on their cupcakes. Help me out here, is Joan Rivers Jewish? (Please tell me you’re kidding! Joan’s as Jewish as they come, yes–Myndi)If not, I’m really offended. If she is, I might still be a little offended, but I’m not going to make a stink over it. And really, are there any ethnicities that especially stand out in their cupcake preferences?
KOTU starts baking. Except for Andrew, who is drinking water in every shot. Scott Hamilton is hilariously excited about being in a bakery. I think I’m going to like him a lot. Andrew, for his part, decides he’s more valuable doing an interview on Sirius Radio than helping with the task. You know, to promote cupcakes. Geez. Tom does his best to talk him into sticking around and, you know, helping. Herschel doesn’t really care, because Andrew’s not helping anyway. Andrew makes it worse by taking Dennis along with him. So, ¼ of their work force is just walking away. Andrew’s fear is only that he’ll attract “too many” people. Man, it never stopped being 1986 in his mind, did it? On the way to the radio station, he keeps trying to justify himself and finally says “I hate making cupcakes” in such a way that suggests that perhaps cupcakes killed his parents. (Which, of course, is not true. His parents died of shame.)
Athena’s professional baker is impressed with their vanilla cupcakes. The chocolate cupcakes didn’t rise though, apparently because Natalie screwed up the mixing. Annie calls Joan and the rest back to deal with the chocolate crisis.
Over at KOTU, Brian and Jesse come back from the designer, and Brian totally leaves Tom Green hanging on a high five. Also, their cupcakes are “horrible”. They forgot the sugar! Their baker suggests brushing them with syrup, which the cupcakes will absorb. Tom is incredibly fascinated by this procedure. He can’t stop talking about how cupcakes soak up sugar. He probably went home and blogged about it.
The Athena baker suggests letting the ruined chocolate cupcakes cool and then adding a chocolate syrup that I can’t spell to fill them out. Annie is running the show at this point, and Claudia Jordan hates her so much that it’s messing with my satellite reception. Joan compares Annie to Mussolini, which might be a little harsh, though largely accurate. And I know it’s hacky to make plastic surgery jokes, but Joan Rivers’ mouth sort of extends beyond her actual mouth. It’s disconcerting, especially if you think about Dark Knight. (EJ: “Why does Joan River’s mouth look like the Joker’s?” Sam: “You want to know how she got those scars…?”)
Athena decorates their van with pictures of cupcakes covered in crap. Presumably, Jewish people approve. (Not all of us like “crap”. I think it’s generational; Case in Point: Florida.–Myndi) KOTU decorates with pictures of their team holding cartoon cupcakes. I’m not sure the idea that Dennis Rodman has handled a food product would sell me on it. Tom Green has a megaphone sales pitch: “Ladies and gentlemen, do you like celebrities? Come buy a cupcake!” Hee.
KOTU sells cupcakes for $20, and Scott Hamilton has a good explanation. “They come out of ATM machines. People have twenty-dollar bills.” It’s rare that somebody on this show makes you say, “Hey, good point!” Clearly, these are the end times. Athena sets their price at $5, but they’re willing to take less. That’s what we call hustle, right there.
Tony Hawk visits KOTU, and everybody watching with me thought he was Lance Armstrong. We’re so old. He gives Tom $1,000 for a cupcake. The men sign autographs and pose for pictures. (Dennis is on his cell phone the whole time.) There’s a young man who says he’s a big fan of Herschel, and he’s wearing a Georgia hoodie and carrying a helmet. There are two possibilities. Either he saw the van, ran home and changed and grabbed his Herschel Walker memorabilia, or else he just walks around like that all the time. But I guess now everybody who wasn’t toting a football helmet around looks like a dope, so there. The Naked Cowboy arrives to play guitar on top of their cupcake van. That is a sentence I never thought I’d type.
A Playboy Bunny arrives at Athena with a corporate credit card tucked into her bosom. You know what? I like boobs a whole lot, but that just made me sad. She actually had to walk down there wearing a bowtie and rabbit ears. That’s just wrong. I really don’t get Playboy culture. Don Jr. stops by to talk to Melissa about the team. She tries to get a sightseeing bus to pull over. It does not.
Andrew and Dennis wait inside the van rather than going out to sell. Scott interviews that “he relaxes well”. Tom tries to physically pull him out, which doesn’t go well. Dennis mumbles that he’s too big of an attraction, and that he would distract from the cupcakes. Ivanka visits and is not impressed with Dennis. I knew I liked her.
Claudia Jordan’s friend, Eric Benet, swings by for some cupcakes. I think he’s married to Halle Berry, but I don’t actually know (He was. It did not end well, if I recall–Myndi). I could look it up, but who has that kind of time? Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb buy cupcakes, and I am disappointed that they aren’t taking swipes at each other the whole time. Poker players show up with some serious rolls. Man, Annie is bringing in the donations.
Trump appears onscreen to conference call the Project Managers. He tells them to send a member of their team to Crumbs Bake Shop for a cupcake taste test. The team that has the best cupcake wins an additional $15,000. Nice. See, this way, it’s not all about who brings in the most rich people. Nice move, Trump! (Yeah, like it was his idea…) Melissa picks one of the screwed-up chocolate cupcakes, a procedure she actually likens to Sophie’s Choice. Because picking a cupcake out of a box is exactly like deciding which of your children to turn over to the Nazis. KOTU sends Andrew, since he’s useless anyway. Melissa does describer her cupcake as “homemade” to the judges, because she lives in a bakery. Andrew explains to us that the judge’s “eyelids went up, and her eyebrows went up” when she took a bite of his cupcake, indicating (to him) that she liked it. This fall, Andrew “Dice” Clay is The Mentalist.
Annie Duke starts to worry that they’re running out of cupcakes. So, when a couple of Brande’s friends show up with a lot of money, Annie would prefer to ration them. It gets all awkward, and this generous gesture turns into something weird and mean-spirited. Annie finally agrees that $9,000 is worth a box of cupcakes. Wow, way to absolutely ruin charity, lady.
Things pick up at KOTU, with several $5000 donors, and another with $7,200. With seven minutes left, Donnie Deutsch hasn’t materialized yet, and Tom is freaking out. With less than two minutes, a pretty blonde woman shows up on behalf of Donnie, with $10,000 for one cupcake. And that’s the task right there. Who’s ready for the Boardroom?
Commercials. I can’t decide if Kings looks ridiculous or not, but the power of Ian McShane compels me.
The whole motley crew shuffles into the Boardroom. Joan gets to business by calling Brande the “star” of the team, which rankles Annie to no end. Claudia calls out Annie as the weakest member of the team, which is pretty silly. She ran the show and got some donors in. Outside of the Rivers Duo, Annie, and Brande, we didn’t see anybody else sell anything. They snipe at each other, and in a moment I find hilarious, Claudia starts to call herself a “grown woman”, but she stops and corrects herself; “a grown ass woman”. Ha!
Herschel doesn’t want to name a weak link, but Andrew jumps in because he knows it’s him. He leads with “I don’t believe in baking…” Like, religiously? Or is he skeptical as to its existence? Andrew had to “invent” a job for himself, which was to amuse everybody. He’s turning into Michael Scott before our very eyes. This leads to his “impressions” of John Travolta and Sylvester Stallone, apparently during sex. So, you know, timely. Trump says Dennis is the most recognizable of the group, which brings up the whole thing about how Dennis spent the whole task hiding in the van.
As for the taste test, the women won. Apparently, the men’s was “disgusting”. But, her eyelids went up! Are you telling me that Andrew “Dice” Clay isn’t any good at reading women? Ivanka tells us the men made just over $49,000. Damn, that’s a lot of cupcakes. Athena sold $61,000, for an easy win. Now, Don Jr. actually says that they sold that many, which would indicate that the $15,000 wasn’t factored into that total. If it was, that means the men actually edged them out in sales. Not that it matters, but I like to have all the numbers. Trump sends Athena back to their suite, where they can drink and watch him tear into the men.
It begins with Tom saying that they needed to bring in more donors, and Jesse arguing “My friends don’t have no money’. Hee. And you just know that Sandra Bullock’s agent is doing everything he can to keep her the hell away from this show. Andrew claims he’s not to blame for the disgusting cupcakes because he didn’t even help make them. Nice. He cuts off Ivanka, which leads to Trump razzing him, and Clay actually seems irritated that he has a reputation for treating women like crap. Yeah, preconceptions based on things people actually say and do can be so unfair.
And then Andrew starts complaining that people think Dennis is the most recognizable star on the team. You know, that thing somebody said like an hour ago? He goes on about how he “sold out every arena in this country”, which I’m pretty sure is not true. Yes, his defense consists of “I didn’t really help all that much, and also I don’t like how you think other people are more famous than I am.”
Jesse cites Dennis as the weakest member of the team. Dennis’ defense is entirely incomprehensible, in terms of both logic and diction. He and Andrew both claim Herschel wasn’t a good leader. They both openly defied him and he had to work around their uselessness, so I’m not sure how that’s his fault. Clint Black is sad that they’re turning on each other, because country singers on this show are always nice guys who are way less screwed up than the lunatics surrounding them. Clint takes a whole commercial break to determine that Andrew was the worst member of the team. Andrew claims that his Sirius interview got people down there. Well, clearly it didn’t, or they would have won. Also, Sirius is national, so the majority of the audience had no way of coming to Times Square to buy a cupcake. And as another also, nobody has Sirius anyway.
Andrew’s breakdown continues, and he offers to quit because people think he wasn’t doing his job but he was and he can’t handle that. He clarifies that he’s not a quitter, but he wants to quit. And then he says Scott was the weakest member of the team, which surprises everybody, because really, where did that come from?
Trump asks Herschel to pick two people to come back to the Boardroom, and Dennis butts in with “There’s a no-brainer”, which leads into a marble-mouthed speech about he’s “always a victim”. Right. He has millions of dollars and at one point in his life he decided “You know, I think I have had just about enough sex with Carmen Electra”. Classic victim’s story.
Herschel brings Andrew and Dennis to the Boardroom, because why wouldn’t he? In the lobby, Andrew asks out the receptionist, and she wants none of that. Seriously, how is it even possible for him to date? Even if he hid his personality, eventually he’d have to tell you his name, and that would be it. The nice receptionist’s private Hell ends when Trump calls them back in.
Right off, Dennis incoherently makes the case that Herschel didn’t use him correctly. I love that his logic gives him a free pass for not even trying to help. What follows is a lengthy scene of Andrew and Herschel talking over each other, with Herschel finally calling him a “has-been”. Oh, snap! Ultimately, Trump likes fighters (and athletes), and Andrew offered to quit, so he’s fired. Yeah! I mean, it’d be better if he were fired for sucking, but fired is fired.
In the Taxi Cab of the Damned, Andrew busts out one last Sylvester Stallone impression. Yeah, that was pretty much his act. That and swears.
I am ridiculously excited about this season, and next week it gets even better when the retarded gerbils have to create their own superheroes. It’s like they’re living inside my head!
