The Celebrity Apprentice Episode 1

After last year’s poor ratings, lame have/have not concept, and Trump quitting the show (ironic considering he blasted a contestant for doing the very same thing), the show’s future for a season 7 was uncertain. However, the powers that be got together and came up with a celebrity concept that will allow it to go on for now.

The Celebrity Apprentice cast is composed of: Trace Adkins, Carol Alt, Stephen Baldwin, Nadia Comaneci, Tiffany Fallon, Jennie Finch, Nely Galan, Marilu Henner, Lennox Lewis, Omarosa, Piers Morgan, Tito Ortiz, Vincent Pastore, and Gene Simmons. These are all actual celebrities. Or so we’ve been told.

The teams are divided between males and females. Omarosa speaks up right away and volunteers to be the first project leader, primarily so she can cover herself and say she took a risk. People don’t have a lot of trouble saying they don’t know/like her. Nely Galan’s more interested in dressing up with hats. While discussing Spanish words, though, they decide on a team name of Empresario. For the boys, Gene Simmons comes up with the name Hydra, which for some reason the others like.

Omarosa gets her way and is elected project leader because she’s been there before.

The Trump spawn are back. At least bring back Bill instead of either of them. After a poor showing from LA in general last year, we’re back to New York as with the first five seasons.

Stephen Baldwin is the project manager for the guys.

The first task is to sell hot dogs on the streets of New York.

Carol Alt, who’s from New York, selects the location for her team. Omarosa wants to sell based on solid business concepts and would prefer to ignore the fact that the other people on her team are celebrities. She puts her foot down and refuses to listen.

The other team realizes that it’s not about the product. It’s about the fact that they’re celebrities. They want to sell the hot dogs in conjunction with autographed photos. Gene Simmons proves what the value is behind it, making a call to request a purchase of a $5,000 hot dog. He gets a yes pretty easily. After that, they make a bunch of other calls as well, with some success. Omarosa better start praying with her $5 hot dogs.

Eventually, after getting bigger and bigger offers, the women start to receive requests to pay more money, starting at $10, $20, $100, $200, eventually up to $500 for their hot dogs. Obviously, their celebrity plays some role, but they’re not hitting people over the head with it, allowing them to do more volume with sales of lower priced hot dogs.

For the guys, it’s unclear whether the phone calls they made earlier will pan out. Not willing to deal, they’re shooting people down left and right because, even though they’re willing to pay for the hot dogs, they’ve only got a few bucks to do so.

Despite the shaky initial start, they turn things around and begin selling hot dogs for $100 without much problem.

In the middle of the task, Marilu Henner decides to ignore Omarosa and starts making some calls to her contacts. A little late for that, but she meets with some success, selling two waters for $5,000 each.

Gene’s contacts show up as promised with some $5,000 and $10,000 buys. Piers Morgan gets worried that if the girls get just one big name, though, this won’t end up mattering. With 10 minutes left, Jennie Finch’s call to David Wright pays off, and he buys out the rest of their cart (for an undisclosed amount, so it’s obviously either way too little or way too much).

Empresario made $17,000. Hydra made $52,286. Considering Omarosa’s lackluster strategy, the girls did pretty well, but they got killed. Piers already identified Omarosa as the weak link on the other team. She defends herself by saying she learned from the first season, where they were criticized for using sex to sell.

All the money that was raised goes to Stephen’s charity, the Carol M. Baldwin Breast Cancer Research Fund, since he was the team leader of the winning team.

The winning team can watch the boardroom session from the TV in the house.

Omarosa says Marilu, who used her celebrity status (contrary to Omarosa’s orders), did a great job. However, Tiffany, for not selling herself, is considered a weak link. Hypocritical since she just got done saying she didn’t want to sell with sex. Hiding her team behind hats didn’t help make them look any sexier. Tiffany’s not particularly aggressive at defending herself. If that doesn’t cost her tonight, it will eventually.

Trump thinks it’s about celebrity, not hot dogs. Nely thinks Omarosa’s a good leader, even if she made a disastrous decision that lost them the task before it began.

Carol, who picked the location, which Trump doesn’t think is very good, says she deferred to the team leader on the decision.

With that said, it’s obvious that Carol and Tiffany are going back to the boardroom with Omarosa.

Trump asks Tiffany if she’s intimidated by the other two. He seems to want Carol to hate Omarosa and is unhappy with answers that she doesn’t. When questioned, Omarosa tells him he should fire Carol because Tiffany’s got an open mind.

Again and again, they bring up Hugh Heffner, saying that Tiffany should have called him (despite Omarosa insisting they not use their celebrity status). This is ultimately the reason Trump gives for his decision, and Tiffany’s the first person to be fired. Who did Omarosa or Carol call?

Not entirely surprising. Omarosa should have been fired early in season 1 as well, but he kept her around because he felt it would mean ratings. She’ll be around for a while, no matter how miserably she screws up.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Celebrity Apprentice episode 2, which airs Thursday at 9/8c on NBC.