Years ago when Marilu Henner was the host of her own daytime talk show, I was one of her producers. I was looking forward to watching her on the latest installment of Donald Trump’s Apprentice franchise, but I’ve had the flu and missed its debut last Thursday. A few days later I stumbled across a rerun of the show just in time to see the catfight in the boardroom starring Carol Alt, Omarosa and Tiffany Fallon.
Each team was selling hotdogs to raise money for charity. The guys sold $52,000, and the women struggled to bring in $17,000.
Gene Simmons is a smooth operator, so he did what he does best. He called his rich friends. Getting folks to drop thousands of dollars for a hotdog was no big deal for the guys.
The boardroom was pretty predictable. Trump voiced his regret about the failure of Tiffany, a former Playboy Playmate, to call Hugh Hefner for a large donation (duh?). And I think we all knew at that moment how the story was going to end. Tiffany was the first to hear Trump say, “You’re fired!”
Episode 2
Tonight the guys won for their cute Purina commercial. That’s two points for the guys and zero points for the women (sigh). How the women could sit there saying they thought the commercial they produced was better than the guys’ commercial, I’ll never know. Omarosa always has something up her sleeve. She tried to add a little spice to the tiresome boardroom by flirting with Lennox Lewis.
As the camera showed the women sitting around the boardroom table, the sadness on Nadia Comaneci’s face singled her out as tonight’s loser. What happened to this Olympic gold medalist? Clearly she was out of her league and appeared to have run out of steam.
Carol Alt kept tension high in the boardroom. Trump quickly let the model/actress know that she wasn’t getting fired.
Nely Gala’n, who seemed to be skating on thin ice, was overly confident. Nely thinks a lot of herself, and that’s fine. But she never said what she had to offer her team. My advice to Nely, a formerTelemundo executive, is don’t quit your day job.
Celebrity Contestants
Carol Alt - Model/actress
Jennie Finch - Olympic gold medalist, softball
Marilu Henner - Actress/author
Nadia Comaneci - Olympic gold medalist, gymnastics
Omarosa - Season one “The Apprentice” candidate
Tiffany Fallon - Playboy Playmate/Miss Georgia USA 2001
Nely Gala´n - Entrepreneur and former Telemundo executive
Piers Morgan - Editor/”America’s Got Talent” judge
Trace Adkins - Country music star
Gene Simmons - KISS front man /entrepreneur
Lennox Lewis - Heavyweight-boxing champion
Stephen Baldwin - Actor
Tito Ortiz - Ultimate fighting champion
Vincent Pastore – Actor
If you have the answer to my question, “Is anybody watching The Celebrity Apprentice?” let me know, because I have no idea. Or, maybe you want to weigh in on the show. Be my guest.
This entry was posted on Friday, January 11th, 2008 at 6:29 am and is filed under Women Entrepreneurs, Celebrity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.5 Responses to “Is Anybody Watching ‘The Celebrity Apprentice’?”
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January 11th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
YES I DEFINETLY WATCH IT, I HAVE NOT MISSED AN APPRENTICE EPISODE SINCE THE VERY BEGINNING. THIS YEAR IS EXTREMELY INTERESTING TO SEE CELEBS TAKEN OUT OF THERE CONFORT ZONE WEHTER IT BE ACTING OR SPORTS RELATED AND PUT INTO A SITUATION THAT THEY MUST USE THERE BUSINESS ABILITY. IT IS NICE TO SEE A DIFFERENT SIDE OF THEM AS MOST OF THE MEDIA THROUGHOUT THEIR CAREERS ONLY FOCUS ON WHTA THEY DO AS A CELEBRTY, AND NOT FOCUS ON THAT MOST OF THEM ARE VERY BUSINESS SAVY. THEY WOMEN WILL START TO PICK UP STEAM AND THEY SHOULD NOT BE AFFRAID TO USE THEIR CELEBRITY AS THE DONALD SAYS!
January 12th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
The first 2 episodes are perfect examples of how women don’t do well in business. Too much reliance on emotions and “feeling good” does not translate into dollars.
January 12th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
I think that Omarosa is terrible. She is not a team player. She does not take responsibility for her actions, places blame and tears her team mates down without building them up in any way. She shirks responsibility, she’s opportunistic and only thinks of her self and looking good. She is not a leader in any respect. The women are failing not as much in execution, but in working as a team and using each woman’s expertise…a leader -the project leader- should be able to pull everyone together as a team and get every one’s, “Buy-in”. I’ve worked in tight time frames and found it easier and faster to get my team’s Buy-in, use them in their strengths, train and help them with their weaknesses. The guys seem to know each other’s strengths, and using them to the team’s advantage. It was nice that one woman did try to take responsibility for failure, but did not go as far as to say she should be fired.
January 14th, 2008 at 7:29 am
Interesting article to read.
Gireesh Kumar Sharma
Recognize, Nourish and Retain Talent
http://www.empxtrack.com/
January 14th, 2008 at 8:04 am
Hi - I’ve been an Apprentice fan from way back and I didn’t think they could freshen up the concept, but this one worked. Although I’m still not an Ivanka fan (”Bring back Carolyn and George!”)
Re: the first episode where the men started dialing for dollars from the old boys club and the women didn’t want to play on their celebrity… I just shook my head. It illustrated a huge difference I see every single day in business. Men get the “what comes around goes around” bit and women are spending their time quibbling over how to divide up a lunch check. Until women figure that out (part of my mission in life … ) the boys are still going to win. My hunch from the beginning was that Mary Lou Henner was the smartest one on the women’s team.