In my last Celebrity Apprentice article I mentioned that I was once in marketing; what I didn’t mention was how much I hated it, although I didn’t realize it at the time. I always figured it was stress that made me pray on a daily basis for a meteor to strike the earth. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago when I left the marketing field and accepted a graphic design job that I realized how misanthropic I am. I work with only one other person in the office and I only talk to clients about 3% of the time I’m there. It’s quite the delight.
Anyway, marketing. Pfff. A job where you practically beg people to like whatever it is the company is peddling. And don’t even get me started on people who claim to be self-employed as “social media marketers” – that’s just another way of saying you sit at home and play on Facebook all day, which is another way of saying you’re unemployed. Marketers are the panhandlers of the business world: it’s all begging and pretending. Of course, this is all merely my opinion, one that is keeping me away from competing on the show. I must’ve forgotten for a minute that the tasks on The Celebrity Apprentice are all based around marketing; I don’t know what compelled me to want to be on the show. I’m quitting before I even start. Sorry, you’ll just have to find another hero next season.
So it’s episode 2 and the first task is to create an 8 – 10 minute interactive presentation that convinces people Welch’s Grape Juice is healthy and good for you. Chael Sonnen takes lead on this task (appointing Ricky Williams as his right-hand man) while Laila Ali – who is currently in school for nutrition – volunteers as project manager for the women. Laila has succeeded in this competition using her presence alone, but come time to be in charge she rules those women with an iron fist. Laila is about as delightful as a colonoscopy, and as serious as one: she’s no nonsense, no joking and there will be no fun to be had if she has anything to say about it. BUT she does manage to get the women to focus long enough to come up with their presentation, which consists of a talk show and a cooking segment – sans any humor, of course.
Chael Sonnen on the other hand enjoys entertaining. (Watch some of his interviews if you don’t believe me) The men’s presentation consists of a talk show featuring Carson Kressley and Matt Iseman who plays a doctor (fun fact: he was a physician before he began doing stand-up), Eric Dickerson hosting an exercise segment, Ricky Williams making snacks using the grape juice, Jon Lovitz doing stand-up, and Vince Neil and Boy George opening the presentation with a jingle. While the men’s presentation may have been more engaging, Ricky Williams is concerned they may not have touched enough on the nutritional facts, which is probably best since the 2nd main ingredient is sugar.
The women may not have been allowed to have fun with their presentation, and even though Lisa Leslie interrupted Porsha Williams’ segment, the women’s presentation won over the suits resulting in their first win. Chael Sonnen is now tasked with picking two people to join him in the boardroom; he decides on Ricky Williams and Eric Dickerson. Chael reasons that Ricky should be fired because he wasn’t fully on-board with the presentation, and as Chael’s right-hand man Chael found this deceptive. The Governor isn’t convinced so he switches gears and uses Eric’s own words against him by playing on Eric’s comment that he was OK being fired. And with that, Eric is terminated.
Next task: create two viral videos for King Hawaiian’s new brand of BBQ sauce. For this task the Governor solicits the council of iJustine – a YouTube celebrity. Being an expert iJustine offers up come advice for the teams: “make a video that you would want to share.” Right then. Now that the teams are knowledgeable on what makes a video go viral they pick their project managers. Matt Iseman volunteers for the men while Snooki volunteers for the women. Both teams have a rough go: Jon Lovitz gets upset that nobody likes his idea, then when it comes to filming Boy George throws a fit because he’s standing in the heat doing nothing, then Carson films his scene in which he tackles Ricky Williams, injuring himself in the process.
The women aren’t doing any better. Snooki can’t control the room, and when it comes to filming the only video that has any structure is Laila’s – this is made obvious when they show the videos and the majority of Kyle’s video features Porsha dragging Kyle around on the floor while a siren plays in the background. I’m not joking, Google it. I’m no “social media marketer” but it wasn’t hard to figure out that the women blew it.
Back in the boardroom Porsha blames Lisa for not getting the shots they needed, with Laila tag-teaming to throw Lisa under the bus, to which Lisa replies with her trademark statement: “I’m a team player.” This automatically makes her the new Lou Ferrigno; she’s replaced his weekly affirmation of “I always give 110%” with “I’m a team player”. Snooki brings back Lisa and Porsha, Porsha talks her way out of a firing and tries to convince the Governor that Lisa should be fired. And then PLOT TWIST: when asked who should be fired Snooki volunteers herself because she doesn’t feel she’s cut out for the show.
The women are dropping like flies which means it’s only a matter of time (i.e. one more firing) before they start mixing up the teams. What I’d like to see is the producers start mixing up that tasks. This can’t all be videos and presentations. What happened to the tasks where they have to beg people to try their product and give them money? You know, like a real marketer.
Photo by: Luis Trinh/NBC.com
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