Category: celebrity apprentice 4

After losing as project manager in The Celebrity Apprentice 4 Episode 3, Niki Taylor pretty much threw in the towel, refusing to blame anybody else, in spite of having the support of her team (Dionne Warwick notwithstanding).

Gary Busey is convinced he’s a good leader, no matter what his team thinks. He believes his win vindicates his claims, in spite of the fact that he still doesn’t know what the task was about.

The task is to create a 30 second commercial for ACN’s videophone. 450 representatives will vote based on creativity and originality, company brand messaging, and integration of the videophone.

NeNe Leakes will be the project manager for the women; Lil John will be the project manager for the men.

Dionne’s concept is to be the star of the video, and she will be communicating with an engineer elsewhere about her studio performance. After meeting with the execs, that concept that everybody loved is now dead because it lacks emotion.

Jose wants to know from the executives whether they can communicate with aliens. Apparently, there are people on his planet he’s missing. Instead, they will be going with someone calling their grandson, who’s getting hitched to a guy. Jose’s fine with playing the gay guy. John Rich isn’t onboard with this non-traditional relationship. He justifies what seems like homophobia by saying the potential market is too small.

The women have a deaf person on their team, in case you weren’t bashed over the head with that fact yet. So they will be doing a commercial in which one of the people is deaf.

Hope is not comfortable with making the presentation because she doesn’t think she’s strong enough with Powerpoint. So what does she want to do? Go get props. Meanwhile, La Toya will be there to fill space because she can’t see. It seems LASIK does that to you. So her job is to keep time.

Gary will play the grandfather in the commercial. He’s an actor, so we’re told. Now their task is to minimize his ability to distract everybody around him.

Having returned from the prop house, Dionne doesn’t want anybody giving her any input into how to arrange furniture.

The men have decided not to tell Ivanka what they’re doing.

As the women head over to the editor, NeNe wants everybody there, even though she plans to just utilize herself and Marlee. Dionne opts to leave and go to bed. Her excuse is that she’s old. Somehow, although he’s disappointed with Dionne for doing this, Don Jr. partially blames NeNe for it.

The women got the message from the execs, and they have managed to create an emotional commercial. Taking a risk, the men don’t have much emotion, but they do have a funny video that people are actually going to remember and could go viral.

Star’s a very professional presenter, but she doesn’t know how to work the room like Lil Jon does.

The voters thought both presentations were fantastic and that neither team should lose.

Richard says Lil Jon was the best. Meat Loaf and Mark McGrath agree.

Meat Loaf says nobody was weak, and there was nothing but trust. During this discussion, NeNe starts crying, out of nowhere.

Dionne says NeNe was superb. Star agrees, and so does Marlee.

The love session soon ends with Dionne, yet again. She doesn’t understand what she did wrong when she went to sleep early. Now over to you, Star. La Toya and Hope are her targets. La Toya says she did what was asked of her, which was not much.

By a vote of 53%-47%, the men have won. Very close result, and both teams did a great job. That said, the men at least worked well together, whereas the women continue to come apart at the seams, regardless of whether they created a good product. Lil John will be receiving $20,000 from Trump and $20,000 from ACN for his charity, The United Methodist Children’s Home.

Star doesn’t like that La Toya and Hope are followers, not leaders. In response, Trump doesn’t believe they should be taking control, since they are not the project managers. Marlee says they could do without La Toya. Rather than joining the bandwagon, NeNe says Dionne. Hope agrees. Dionne does, too. Works for me.

After badgering her about it for a while, Donald Trump grants the wish. Dionne has been fired. Proving it was the right decision, Dionne calls NeNe a coward when she leaves. Way to keep your head held high.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Celebrity Apprentice 4 Episode 5, which airs Sunday at 9/8c on NBC.

Lisa Rinna seemed to be out of her depth in The Celebrity Apprentice 4 Episode 2, and the bitches she was surrounded by took advantage of that, leading to her firing.

The men’s win seems to have escaped them already, so Meat Loaf and Gary Busey exchange words before the ladies come back out of the boardroom.

Star tells the women they’re on their own next time. At least now they’ll get the font right. NeNe doesn’t buy it. Star will be back again trying to take over because that’s who she is.

The task is to create an outdoor camping experience to display Camping World’s products and RVs. They will be judged on brand messaging, originality, and overall presentation.

Niki Taylor will be the project manager for the women. Gary Busey will be the project manager for the men (good luck).

The teams will have to negotiate for which campers they want. The men like the one that looks like a tour bus, while the women like the one that looks like it’s for families, so this negotiation process is simple.

After they get done talking, now it’s time for Jose to voice his opinion. He’s not too sure about their choice. A little late for that.

For somebody who was no longer interested in being in control, Star doesn’t waste any time taking over the conversation when they meet the executive from Camping World. Everybody else would love to say something, but they’re not having much luck.

Gary and Lil Jon are already not getting along. Richard Hatch has his seat belt on, expecting a bumpy ride. Meat Loaf is confused where they’re heading.

The women have a theme picked out, a 21st century camping experience. How that differs from a 20th century camping experience I don’t know. They arrive at the Camping World store before the guys, and it’s first come, first served. As the other women run around like crazy at the store, Dionne takes her time slowly roaming around and not doing much.

John Rich comes up with an idea to create a Camping World song. Jose wants to be on record that he’s against that, too. It’s too hickish. This leads to a debate with Richard Hatch, who wants to use something other than country, for fear that its audience is perceived as less educated.

By the time the men finally arrive at the store, the women have a huge stack of supplies already outside. They have so much stuff that they start to become overwhelmed. The men, who arrived long after the women, also depart before them.

The guys decide the need trees to make it look more campy. Mark McGrath gets some trees. He informs Gary of this, telling him to set aside a few hundred bucks. Richard gets some trees, too. Gary gives him the okay as well. Mark agrees to cancel his order, at which time Gary denies knowledge of it. When Mark goes to cancel, he finds out he won’t be charged anything. I’d think they should now just cancel Hatch’s order and spend the $900 on something else, but they appear to be ready to just take both.

Star is not happy that she’s been left behind without much instruction, so she takes this as an opportunity to take control again..

Meanwhile, models Hope and Niki go off to the graphics designer. Their first order of business is to figure out what century it is.

Ivanka arrives on the boys’ RV to find Jose just sitting around. She’ll have trouble getting more than a few words out of him, certainly not anything positive.

The men still don’t have a theme. Gary is unconcerned, just sitting around and relaxing with Jose.

At 6:30, Star calls Niki to say she doesn’t know what the experience is going to be. Niki finds this amusing, responding “We’re camping.” She says they should go to Home Depot for some greenery, which Star calls “very complicated.” When she gets back, Niki sends Dionne and La Toya to Home Depot, but they want to go to Bed Bath & Beyond first.

Mark McGrath is convinced his team has lost. While he panics in the RV, Gary and Jose play catch outside, so Mark takes a video, hoping Trump won’t be so enamored with Gary’s 1979 Academy Award nomination when he sees this. When they return from the printers, John Rich and Meat Loaf don’t think anything has been done. As they carry stuff around, Jose just stays put in his chair.

Unsurprisingly, Dionne and La Toya did not end up going to Home Depot last night, so the women have settled on ballons instead of trees. On the other hand, the men have plenty of greenery, allowing Mark to think that maybe this might not be such a slaughter after all.

When Don Jr. arrives, Niki refuses to say anybody is an issue. Adding to that, she says that, if they don’t win, it’s probably her fault. Marlee’s not quite as shy, and she still doesn’t like Dionne.

While she’s giving her tour, Niki still doesn’t know what century it is.

Hope starts off the tour and shows some people around. From there, they don’t know where to go. Dionne doesn’t like that Hope is stepping on her toes, and she should be outside, rather than in Dionne’s camper. Niki doesn’t want any part of Dionne’s tirade, but Star is okay if she continues.

The Camping World exec seems to be enjoying himself watching the guys in action. Then he asks Meat Loaf what’s behind that big banner he hung up. Turns out it was a TV they never noticed.

Unlike the men, who had prominently, if perhaps inappropriately, placed banners, the women placed their signs on the outskirts where they were not really noticeable.

The exec liked that the women had a high level of knowledge. La Toya could get a job as a salesperson for the company. The lack of branding, however, was a problem. For the men, John Rich did a good job with music, Jose was playing catch with fans, their landscaping was good, and they had a lot of signage. However, they neglected the inside, which looked it was decorated by men.

Niki does not want to pick a favorite. She’s not sure they won, though.

Hope thinks she was a good project manager, and everyone got along. Even Star was happy with how well they worked together.

Needless to say, Dionne is the sour apple of the bunch. Marlee thinks Dionne works when she’s given a task, but doesn’t go beyond what she’s asked.

Richard does not think Gary was a good leader. John was disappointed. Meat Loaf thought he was good, in situations. Mark says the team was strong enough to overcome his inadequacies. Lil Jon thought they lacked direction, and it was a train wreck.

Gary feels he’s being ganged up on by a group of people within his team, who may have an alliance. He believes Lil Jon is the weak link because he was difficult to communicate with.

On an unrelated note, Marlee noticed that Gary had trouble hearing, so she set him up with a doctor, who made him a hearing aid. Turns out he’s been legally deaf for 22 years.

Ivanka points out Jose’s lack of energy. He claims it was just a 5 minute break.

Having heard positive things about John’s performance, Trump asks him to sing his theme song in the boardroom.

In spite of the men having dug apart their project manager and having another airtight scapegoat in Jose, they have won the task. Gary will receive $20,000 from Trump plus $20,000 from Camping World for his charity the Center for Head Injury Services, which he supports since he had a traumatic injury in 1988 after he was thrown off his motorcycle without a helmet.

The men may have won, but they are already bickering before they even get back to the suite.

Niki accepts responsibility for her team’s loss. She refuses to blame anybody else. You don’t have to fire her because she quits, in spite of the fact that she’s one of the stronger people on her team.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Celebrity Apprentice 4 Episode 4, which airs Sunday at 9/8c on NBC.

As much as he wanted to sink Richard Hatch for physically violating him, in a story that got more severe each time he told it, David Cassidy just didn’t have the fight Trump was looking for in The Celebrity Apprentice 4 Episode 1 and was the first person to be fired.

The guys predicted the outcome as it went down and were happy to see Richard Hatch back in the fold. Jose Canseco, however, is not happy.

Having been called a little girl, Lisa Rinna realizes she can’t trust anybody.

As the winning project manager, Star Jones is able to give the task’s money to the man who she credits with saving her life, since he diagnosed and treated her heart problem.

Ivanka’s got the week off, so that means we get Eric instead.

This week’s task is to write a children’s book based on at least one member of their team. They will be judged on originality, presentation to the kids, and age appropriateness. They will be judged by a book publisher and Holly Robinson Peete (what?).

Meat Loaf will be the project manager for the men because nobody else wants to. Lisa Rinna will be the project manager for the women because the others insist. NeNe says they chose her because she won’t be able to handle it, so they can just get rid of her now.

Mark McGrath and John Rich will be the writers for their team. Mark’s idea is that Lil John turns into a super hero.

Unlike the men, the women do not have clearly defined roles, which just means they’re yelling over each other.

When they meet with the book publisher, the men are told to stay away from rhymes unless they have someone who really knows how to make it work. John Rich takes this as a challenge.

The men dismiss Jose’s ideas. He finds this offensive because he wrote two books. Well, let me know how you can apply Major League Baseball steroid abuse to children, and we’ll talk. He proceeds to rant about why he dislikes what they’re doing, but he has no idea how to correct it.

After much discussion, the women finally come up with a concept, a little lion who doesn’t know how to roar. They’re desperately trying to tie this in with deafness and sign language. Whether they have a deaf person on their team or not, Dionne’s concern is that this is not age appropriate for 4 and 5 year olds. Lisa finally makes a decision, opting to go with a fun story rather than a heavy moral one.

Meat Loaf sends Jose and Gary to the wrong address with the props. Offering up a critique of himself, he says he’s doing horrible as a project manager. When he realizes it, he either fails to leave a voicemail, or Jose just doesn’t check it. Regardless, Jose and Gary have spent half an hour in the wrong place. So then Jose calls up their contact and starts arguing with her, leading to both of them having a power trip. He’s famous (or was at one time), and she’s the boss.

By the time Eric arrives, he’s there to watch the fireworks between Meat Loaf and Gary and Jose.

Niki remains concerned about the direction the women are going, still too old for their audience.

Star thinks she’s been assigned to too many tasks. Along with NeNe, she will be writing, illustrating, coloring, and picking the font (picking the font, really?).

At the costume shop, it’s Mark’s turn to babysit Gary. Meanwhile, Jose will be dressing as a woman, and so will Hatch.

Don Jr. has concerns that the women don’t have an original idea, one of the three key criteria he gave them at the start of the task.

While the rest of the team is elsewhere, they call Star to get a cover printed. Lisa has not approved a cover, and Star refuses to do so in her absence, nor will she print one until it’s approved. Before Lisa approves the cover, Star would like a favor. Not content with the team getting credit for the book, Star wants her name on the cover. Lisa shoots this idea down. Good. If she wanted her name, she should have made the cover rather than being difficult just for the sake of being difficult. Dionne pipes up. She wants her name on the cover, too. What’s wrong with these chicks? After much bickering, Lisa is told by Star to make a decision, so she repeats what she’s already said 12 times. It’s a team effort. It will say Team ASAP. Accept it and move on. Lisa realizes she’s the captain of the Titanic, but regardless she doesn’t want to be taken down by a bunch of bitches.

Based on size alone, Jose has been assigned to be Mrs. Canseco. Meat Loaf later realizes that he’s given Jose a very large part with a lot of words.

At the presentation, the women manage to put their bickering aside, and they deliver a presentation that everybody is receptive to. The men have been far more cohesive throughout, so it’s no surprise when they likewise deliver a good presentation.

Meat Loaf says his whole team consists of stars. Nobody negative, not even Jose.

Gary thought Meat was incredible. Richard liked his project management style.

After beating around the bush, Trump asks a question Meat Loaf’s more willing to answer: who was the hardest one to handle? Gary has trouble focusing. As they’re talking about Gary, he asks whether they’re talking about him. Well, that about sums up his lack of focus.

Dionne thought Lisa had a lot to learn.

NeNe was surprised at Lisa, in a bad way. This from the woman who expected Lisa to fail from the beginning.

When Trump tosses the books across the table, the men struggle with a simple problem: they can’t read the other team’s book.

The judges liked the way Lisa held up the book and showed it to the audience, La Toya in her role, the repetition in the story, and the audience participation. They didn’t like that the lead character was not as fleshed out in the book as it was on stage, the font (that Star claimed as one of her main responsibilities) was too small, and the theme was too sophisticated. So basically what was lacking most was what Dionne and Star insisted on taking credit for, very vocally.

As for the men, they thought the story was incredible, the rhyming was terrific, and it was age appropriate. However, Jose was very stiff, they didn’t like his character, they thought the confetti may have scared the children, and Meat Loaf should have held up the book while narrating.

The men’s team wins. As the winning project manager, an emotional Meat Loaf gets $20,000 for his charity, The Painted Turtle. Additionally, Trump will get their book published, and that will also go to the charity.

Lisa says that she received physical support from her team, but not emotional support. Dionne did not. Star did, in the way she does, without kindness.

Lisa acknowledges she has much to learn, to which Star giggles.

NeNe thinks everybody is wrong, although she agrees Lisa was not a good project manager.

Trump says that they lost largely because of the theme, which would fall on Dionne, but Star does not think Dionne should be fired. Niki objected to the theme, agreeing it was not age appropriate.

Star’s defense is that the theme and the book may not have been great, but at least they had something.

Marlee would fire Dionne. Not because of the theme. She’s intimidating.

Star and Dionne will be going back to the boardroom with Lisa, which we’ve seen brewing since about half way through the episode.

Lisa says that she won’t fight dirty, and she’s not used to this kind of negative energy. She realizes they want her fired.

It’s pretty obvious how this is unfolding. Whether Star and Dionne screwed up and were overbearing throughout, Lisa’s lack of fight is going to be her undoing. That said, Lisa has been fired.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Celebrity Apprentice 4 Episode 3, which airs Sunday at 9/8c on NBC.

NBC made the ill-fated decision in the fall to bring back regular The Apprentice, which flopped pretty badly, but perhaps they can do better with the celebrity version and a group of has beens (or never weres), who conceivably some people may have heard of.

The women: Hope Dworaczyk, La Toya Jackson, Star Jones, NeNe Leakes, Marlee Matlin, Lisa Rinna, Niki Taylor and Dionne Warwick.
The men: Gary Busey, Jose Canseco, David Cassidy, Richard Hatch, Lil Jon, Meat Loaf, Mark McGrath and John Rich.

The women name their team ASAP: Actors, Singers, Authors, and Professionals for a Purpose. If you have to explain it, it’s not good. After enough people volunteer Star Jones to be the project manager, she agrees.

The men name themselves Backbone. Could be worse. They nominate Richard Hatch to be their leader, aware he’s always thinking.

When asked to explain her team name, La Toya gets it wrong. Repeatedly.

Each team will run a pizzeria. Trump has two locations on offer. The women would like to go with the theater district, while the men will go with the college area.

Hatch realizes that this isn’t about location. It’s about who you can bring in. Jose Canseco says he doesn’t know anybody in New York, and since he’s called out baseball players for using steroids, he can’t call the Yankees either. If he’s going to be this useless in fundraising tasks, what purpose is he serving?

Jose is not alone in thinking Hatch is difficult. David is getting snapped at and told to be quiet.

While her team is back in the kitchen, Star is out front. They question why it’s taking her so long. Lisa doesn’t think she likes to get her hands dirty. She’s got people for that. The men have a similar problem with their project manager.

Hatch has decided to limit deliveries to large donors only.

David Cassidy seems a little overly sensitive to what he deems Richard Hatch’s inappropriately pushing him.

Dionne Warwick is on the cash register. That technology is apparently a little too advanced for her.

Hatch is calling up his Apprentice and Survivor buddies, including Ethan Zohn, who founded the charity he’s playing for. John Rich manages to get someone in there to buy a slice of pizza for $15,000. Seeing Meat Loaf and Lil John also getting donations, David gets worried he’s going to be seen as not having contributed.

Curtis Stone has come down to taste the pizzas. Whoever makes the best pizza will win an extra $35,000.

Unlike the men, who reserved delivery for big donors, the women end up on a $300 delivery run. Star’s next delivery order, $40,000 worth, makes a lot more sense. After that, they get a call from Curtis telling them Niki’s pizzas have won the taste test and have to deliver 8 pizzas to the fire station to get their prize.

Feeling she can’t serve the line and deliver the 40 pizzas for $1,000 each, Star decides to close the doors with 2 hours remaining.

NeNe asks if maybe the large donor would accept 20 pizzas instead of 40. Star calls and is told they just need to make 1. Now they just have to wait for the women with the delivery van, who are stuck in traffic over the $300 delivery order.

They return in time to deliver the $40,000 pizza. With 25 minutes left, they’re cutting it close to make that fire station delivery, which they have no idea how much it will pay. In the end, they can’t make it to the fire house. Lisa’s intuition tells her she’s going to be blamed for this.

With minutes remaining, David finally manages to get a small donation from his daughter Katie.

As the women are arguing whether it was Star’s or Lisa’s fault that they missed that last delivery, Gary’s cell phone goes off.

Jose says that Richard is lucky he’s gotten this team he’s gotten. He feels Hatch is a bully, and he wants to defend the underdog.

Meat Loaf likes Richard, but he was short with everyone.

The men raised $54,104. The women raised $115,268, more than double. As the winning project manager, Star will get this money for her charity, the American Heart Association. Trump asks who the star was, and Star says chef Niki, so the $35,000 will be going to the American Red Cross.

Gary would fire Richard. John would as well. Mr. Loaf would, too.

David and Jose will be coming back into the boardroom with Richard. Jose didn’t raise anything. David raised very little. He would fired David over Jose.

Don Jr. points out that he sees that Richard wants to be there, but he’s really not getting that from David.

When David does finally start talking, he just paints himself into a corner. Since he doesn’t have the same passion as the other two, David Cassidy is fired.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Celebrity Apprentice 4 Episode 2, which airs Sunday at 9/8c on NBC.