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Celebrity Apprentice 3

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apskip:
I think an abbreviated recap is warranted for CA3. Here is one on episode 1:

Donald Trump invited 7 men and 7 women to Grand Central Station to begin this competition to show how much money can be raised for charity (I wonder it he donates his fees for the show to charity?). He claimed a key role in Grand Central Terminal renovations, which is true (see below).  He tells them that the men will start as one team and the women as another. The first challenge is to run a diner from 11am to 2pm the next day to sell food for profit but more importantly capture charity donations. Both teams are given workspace in Trump Tower and charged with selecting a first-class name and picking the Project Manager for the other team.

Next meeting is in the Boardroom. Trump asks for the names. Men are Rock Solid. women are Tenacity. The Women select Bret Michaela as Men's Project manger and the Men select Cyndi Lauper, both of whom end up doing a good job in those roles. Rock solid has an edge because they have celebrity chef Curtis Stone, who should be able to run a diner in his sleep. An important decision was choice of location. Trump offers either of two Manhattan Burger Heavens, one at 62nd and Lexington next to a subway the entrance/exit and the other at 53rd and Madison. The women pick the former, the Men are satisfied with the latter and there is no need for a coin flip. Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump (now newly married but not when this show was filmed are introduced as Trump's Eyes and Ears.

Rock Solid and Tenacity do more detailed planning and get their diners ready to open. Advertising is down with free ( I think) radio spots, flyers, posters and shills who are on the sidewalk(that would primarily be Carol Leifer and Darryl Strawberry) touting the celebrities involved, such as Cyndi Lauper and Sharon Osbourne as the 2 most famous and recognizable women's team members. Both diners get off to a slow start but it doesn't take long for both to get full. From that point on, winning the task is dependent on which team can bring in the most high rollers to pay up to $10,000 for a simple meal. In addition, trump send out Joan rivers with the special mission of deciding which team will get $10,000 as a prize for the better operation. That ends up going to Tenacity after Rod Blagoyovich, former ("they never proved anything") Illinois governor chatted up many customers before bothering to check on items to be served, including Joan Rivers' order which got cold. Trump was very adept in questioning Rod about this, but the cameras nailed him beyond any reasonable doubt. Both teams worked very hard and are satisfied that they did the best they could. They did indeed, as just a hair under $100,000 was raised for the charity of the winning Project Manager. Who will that  be?

The men raised about $30,000 more than the Women, so e3ven with the $10,000 prize from Trump Tenacity loses. The Men are excused and allowed to watch the Boardroom scene except for a short segment on closed-circuit TV from their suite. Trump is then headhunting asking every member of Tenacity who the weakest link was. Nobody wants to confess directly who that was, but there are hints that it was Carol Leifer for not using her intelligence for recruiting new customers past the point when the lines were too long for any new ones to be seated. When Holly Peete came out and talked to her Carol came inside and did a good job of serving at the counter. Cyndi Lauper in particular was portrayed as a leader interested in promoting the solidarity of her team and unwilling to offer up the required sacrifice to the gods. she should have been fired for this, but that honor of first person out of the contest went to Carol Leifer instead, as Trump made the decision on who to fire based on those tiny hints from Tenacity team members.


POSTSCRIPT
When the Pennsylvania Central railroad entered bankruptcy, Trump obtained the option on Grand Central Terminal. The 1975 deal included the dilapidated  119-acre railroad yards located on the west side of Manhattan along the Hudson River from West 30th Street to West 39 Street and West 59th Street to West 72nd Street. Although his initial plans to build apartments proved to be economically unfeasible, Trump promoted the location for a convention center. Trump was responsible for the designation and construction of the complex, subsequently named for Senator Jacob Javits.

apskip:
The second episode of CA3 is a winnrer. Trump explains that the project is to work with Kodak to publicize its dormant Share the Moments campaign through a storefront in a busy part of Manhattan. Chief Marketing Officer Jeff Hazlett and VP-Brand Marketing Leslie Doane are there to explain that the key performance mesaurements will be brand messaging and the experience the public has. Rock Solid selected Sinbad As Prlject Manager and Maria volunteered for Tenacity. She focused on the theme "What Makes You a Champion?" and imported some children from the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the charity she is supporting, for a photo shoot.

Rock Solid is off to a slow start as Sinbad is inept as a PM. He does no planning or scheduling. Micahel states that "Sinbad knows it but does not communicate well." That is not the ideal choice for a PM. Brett is showing signs of dropping out of the group, as he goes off on his own and vegatates while the others worry about him. Summer takes Cyndi on a field trip so the rest of Tenacity can get to work without interruption from her incessant questiosn.

Tenacity has its share of issues, with Cyndi Lauper being a little slow to grasp almost any concept. She eventually gets them, but it takes too long for her to go through a litany of questions. It is obvious that her learning style is not conducive to being part of a team. I predict that her team will attempt to dump her, not in this episode, but in a future one, because they are so annoyed with her. The Kodak executives visit and Jeff pronounced the "Share the Moment, Celebrate the Champion in You" theme decent.

Rock Solid decided that the way to go was to have its most well-known celebrities organized so that people can take picture with them. That means Michael Johnson (track), Goldberg (wrestling), Curtis Stone (culinary) and most of all in NYC Darryl Strawberry, both a Met and a Yankee, put in the 4 corners of the room and encouraged to display their personalities, which are truly positive to be with briefly (evenwhen limited to the miracle of television). Brett continued to feel underutilized and Sinbad told him to "just jump in". During the later judging, Michael stated that he was able to find multiple places to help out on his own, but Brett needed something more concrete. Brett put himself in a self-imposed time-out. Michael tells Sinbad "you better give Brett something to do."  The men spent hours around Manhattan in photogenic spots taking her own pictures in various combaintions of celebrities enjoying New York. I found this absolutely memorable and the pictures are used to make huge collages of photos for display around their "store". The first day of competition ends.

Sharon was sick and went home to rest day 1 and Day 2 she is still sick but comes anyway, assigning herself to handing out cupcakes. Bad choice!

The men settle on getting people in and out of the front door and Rod directing them to whichever champion they want to have their picture taken with. Rod stated that balloons are not part of their concept and definitely should be since every man (and woman too) deserves a balloom. He volunteered to go get some. When he returns he is particularly proud that he has found 
the goldenrod (do you get the inherent pun there?) color, which is part of Kodak's official colors (the women get yellow balloons) as well as other colors. I don't believe that Kodak will really cared about this fine point at juding time. Brett shows up what he claimed was 10 mintues late (I don't find that believable as Goldberg had tried to call his cell phone to get him up and out on time and failed to get an answer).  Brett apologized to his mates. Each of the Rock Solid celebrities is pumped and ready to interact with the visitors who choose to go to them. Micahel had made tentative arrangements for a 16' x 3' banner of photos, but Sinbad was responsible for the final arrangments with the printer. The printer say he just can't make one that big but has not communicated that until it is almost too late. Sinbad implores him to get done whatever he can. With 5 minutes to spare a beautiful 15' x 3' banner arrives for display on the most prominent wall. I swear that Trump  (or is is Mark Burnett the producer?) delights in pulling strings behind the scenes to provide interesting tests of survival skills for the teams and individual competitors.

The storefronts opened and the public streams (well, sort of) in. Summer had trained the prior day on how to operate all the Kodak equipment so she was available to demonstrate it. Rock Solid has paid no attention to the Kodak equipment other than to display it without any demos or attention. Both teams will have the Kodak executives visiting sometime but there are also two Secret Shoppers who will get and comunicate the real skinny on what wa going on in both stores.

The power starts going out intermittently (I suspect Trump had something to do with that too), which makes it very difficult in the women's store because the equipment to print photos cannot operate. Cyndi Lauper fills in with song and did a nice job of providing a memorable experience for visitors. The Tenacity store flow was not properly planned and there was a huge jam in front of the photo printer. Rock Solid solved this problem by giving all who got their picture taken a postcard sized set of instructions on where to go at a nearby location to get their photo printed. However, their follow through on this was poor as many (including both Secret Shoppers) did not get this card and did not end up with their photos.

Jeff provides a summary of his experiences while in both stores:
Tenacity's store had lots of chaos, with a huge line at the printer for photos.They did a great job in sharing the product.
Rock Solid's store had no branding experience, but their celebrities were well-utilized and there was great sharing. They had a brillliant concept of not bottlenecking the traffic flow in their store with people waiting for pictures to print, but their assuring that visitors got a card and knew what to do was poor.
So, how do you translate those statements into a decision on which team won and which team lost? The producers and Trump are careful to not telegraph the final outcome and ruin the suspense of this show. You can't tell at this point who will win.

Jeff was asked by Trump who did the best job among the women and Leslie responded that Summer did. Sinbad got the same opportunity at the start of the Boardroom and he nominated Goldberg and particuarly Darryl. Trump asked him which team he played for was the benefactor of his true allegiance. Strawberry hit a home run by answering "New York." Michael stated that Rock Solid was disorganized at the beginning, which I assume to mean the entire first day, and excellent on the second day. Rod was asked about his role. He was proud of being "the balloon man" and rightly so. Trump then did his ususal b.s. of having each side comment on the "product of" (pictures taken by) the other team. Each one does not want to admit that the other team might have done a good job, so we always get ridiculous platitudes when this comes up.

Trump has reached the moment that he is going to share with the teams who won. It is Tenacity, who was strongly preferred by the Kodak executives. They had fewer highs than Rock Solid but many fewer lows, so I guess that is why they did. The women are excused and Maria (who some of the women did not initially believe had the wisdom and experience to take on the PM role properly) is congratulated for their success and will take a check for $20,000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Tenacity is excused.

The men hunker down to find out who the person eliminated is. The odds on favorite is always the PM and Brett had a lot of negative press from his actions or non-actions. There was a lot of desultory conversation about who was most responsible for the loss, but ultimately the system took over and Micahel, Curtis, Darryl and Goldberg were exscused as they had all perfomred well. Sinbad chose Brett (obvious) and Rod (no reason in my opinion to have him in the Boardroom so that and this poor decision may have contributed to what happens). In the end, it was the PM who had to walk the plank for the loss. Sinbad was eliminated.

TexasLady:

--- Quote ---With 5 minutes to spare a beautiful 15' x 3' banner arrives for display on the most prominent wall. I swear that Trump  (or is is Mark Burnett the producer?) delights in pulling strings behind the scenes to provide interesting tests of survival skills for the teams and individual competitors.
--- End quote ---

I think you're 100% correct. Thanks for an excellent recap!

This is going to be just as good as the first season. I like the way Trump is using "secret shoppers" to get a better idea of how each team is doing. Teams will be aware now though but figuring out who they are will still be difficult.

apskip:
CA3 episode 3 was another barn burner. We saw the usual gibberish to highlight personalities of the individual competitors at the start after the recap of the prior week. Marisa was shown delivering a $20,000 check to the cute male 5 year old representative of the Make A Wish Foundation. He told her his wish is to meet Donald Trump. She responded that he will be flown to New York City for the grand finale and meet not only Trump but the entire cast of CA3.

So Trump has a terrible lead-in to the day's challenge, which is that identity theft is a big problem and you can use a new combination of a Lifelock Identity Theft Protection product (represented by Todd) and a Norton 310 software system (represented by Janice). The task is to create a 4 page advertorial to support the product introduction of combined Lifelock/Norton product/service. So, what is an advertorial? That is a key question the women just swept under the rug and the men grappled with, but it eluded them. The standard definition of "advertorial" is an advertisement written in the form of an objective article for presentation in a printed publication, usually designed to look like a legitimate and independent news  story. Which team does that best? The criteria are creativity, celebrity usage and quality of the presentation. Don Jr. and Gavin Maloof (owner of the Sacramento Kings) will be the Eyes and Ears for Donald Trump. Ivanka must have been away getting prepared for her recent marriage. The winning Project Manger will get $20,000 for their charity.

Summer and Michael are named as Project Managers. Meetings with Todd and Janice, the executives who will judge the outcome, do not go well as Cyndi Lauper needs a zipper on her mouth to prevent her from asking irrelevant (to the immediate task) questions and Brett is out somewhere in left field. Cyndi, Brett, and Rod are all incredibly colorful characters and all of them are out of control almost all the time. However, Mark Burnett knows the value of such characters and so does Donald Trump, so we will be subject to those 3 on a continuing basis until about the middle of CA3. At that point, their ratings impact will have worn off and they will be swiftly eliminated as already deserved. Come back to look at this thread in mid May and see how many of those three are still competing. My belief is that it will be zero.

Summer and Michael promptly choose Sharon and Curtis as the Celebrity Spokesperson for their team. Both decisions were criticized, it is not clear how publicly, by other team members. Michael knows that Brett will be a special challenge for him to manage and Summer knows the same about Cyndi with her constant disruption of meetings with her need to know non-relevant information. Rod just can't help himself trying to buttonhole everyone he meets with self-promotion. They will not be on your jury of public opinion, Governor, so stop it.Summer deals with Cyndi to send her off with Marisa to do some manual (but honest) labor carrying carpets for the photo shoot.

Photographers arrive at both teams really before they are ready for them. Rock Solid is closer to being ready while Tenacity still had no concept of what they were trying to accomplish. Rod is assigned by Michael to do some extremely simple word processing, but Rod is no wizard at this, finishing one paragraph in about one half hour. Michael has the last word on this: "My 9 year old can type faster than Rod." He has to be given some other menial work so like a toddler he does not get into trouble, so Darryl in charge of props for the photo shoot is to supervise him. Tenacity finally comes up with the theme of Sharon as The Protector who prevents bad things from happening. She gets high marks for her presentation in the photo shoot. Rock Solid features Goldberg bare-chested with growls and grimaces, Michael in his sprinter's uniform and Curtis being all-around Family Man. Everyone likes the photos except Brett, who does not like the focus of them. Goldberg at the end of his shoot embraces Michael and Michael claims there is "Goldberg Goo" left all over his best shirt. That's a really good one!

The teams each have a graphic designer assigned to them to do the grunt-work in translating their design concepts into real images on the PC. The women's is not shown but the men have Lee, a sexy young woman as theirs. She gets a LOT of camera time. Michael and Brett duke it out over the difference between ad and advertorial. Michael said a campaign Brett developed on his own is an ad, not an advertorial, and that Brett does not understand what they were trying to accomplish. Gavin comes by to view their progress and Michael notes that Gavin looks confused (that's not good). Gavin states that Rock Solid has a good concept and a clear message but is too wordy and not simple and concise. My own observation is that pages 2 and 3 of their advertorial at that time was very compressed, impossible to see piles of information instead of a few bullet points that summarize Rock Solid's message. Tenacity's presentation was too airy/fairy, with lots of white space and little content, but their image of Sharon Osbourne as Mother, Manager and Protector was much stronger than how Curtis came across. Holly had responsibility for putting all the details of the Tenacity presentation together and she has no idea whether she succeeded in getting the last-minute changes in properly (She didn't.).

Right from the beginning of the Tenacity presentation, Sharon does a good job but Summer saved the day. She has memorized the presentation good enough that she gives it effectively without any notes or on-screen slides. The 4 pages of copy are easy enough to see stand-alone. Rock Solid presents and Brett says he can't read the screen for pages 2 and 3. That is all too true as nobody could. Page 4 finished with a large picture of Curtis and his photogenic family. It is obvious that neither team has given a first-class presentation, so who will win?

The executives give Trump a summary of what they observed (women succeeded in establishing an emotional connection; men had much more information but some of it was suspect) but the outcome was not revealed until the Boardroom. We have the usual b.s. of having the men looking at the hard copy of the women's presentation and the women looking at the hard copy of the men's. Michael said that the Tenacity presentation was an ad but not an advertorial. It did not matter. Trump stated that the executives chose Tenacity's presentation as the winner. The Men's team does not appear to be rock solid right now. Michael started with a preemptive move by saying that Rod was not the reason Rock solid lost. Trump gets to say nonsensically that Rod can't attack Darryl, but Michael was somehow right on top of that one and immediately quipped "and Darryl is bigger than him." Trump raised the question of "who should have been the Rock Solid celebrity spokesperson?" He thinks Goldberg would have been better because of his massive physical presence conveying the image of security. I think he was right. Summer as winning PM got the $20K plus an unnamed percentage of the sales of the combination product/service for her charity Right to Play.

Michael says the team as a whole was the star and "Brett wasn't as hard to mange as I expected" and also "Darryl may not appear to be contributing but he gets it done." to preempt potential attacks against Darryl. If you look at the men's team on this, Goldberg and Curtis are safe due to having done good jobs, Rod and Brett would be chosen for the Boardroom but be judged to not deserve elimination and Darryl was a nonentity this episode and would not have been affected. That leaves Michael as Project Manager to take the hit and be eliminated. He clearly believed that he deserved it. However, fate intervened and it did not happen that way.

Darryl volunteered to "Let me go." Trump asked him if he was tired of Celebrity Apprentice 3. That was true, but not the real reason, which is that he believed his teammates had outshined him in desire and effort, particularly Michael. Darryl did not want Michael to be eliminated if he could take his place. Trump's incisive questions brought all of this out, no doubt aided by knowledge of things said on camera that did not make the telecast but that he had reviewed before the Boardroom. Trump told Michael that he is very lucky and just has to accept that and become worthy of the sacrifice Darryl was making. And Trump fired Darryl.

I believe Darryl made the right move. His lack of energy, enthusiasm and motivation made it apparent that he would never be the winner of CA3. He thought Michael could (he's right) and so he sacrificed himself to make that possible. I call that a real classy move and I applaud Darryl for making it.

TexasLady:
Another great recap apskip. We were babysitting and missed a lot because my son's TV is on its last picture tube, this helps fill in what we missed.

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