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Celebrity Apprentice 4

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Pedaler:
One of the all-time business scum bums, Stephen Hilbert, was featured on this past week's episode as the CEO of Austrailan Gold.  If you google him, you'll see lots of shady stuff, including some dealings with Donald Trump and NY's G.M. building years ago.

But my favorite  :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: is the story about how he met his wife who was also on the show.


--- Quote ---Stephen C. Hilbert, Conseco's chairman -- who met his sixth and current wife, Tomisue, when she leaped out of a cake at his stepson's 21st birthday party
--- End quote ---

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/26/business/poof-34-million-vanishes-on-broadway.html?scp=2&sq=tomisue cake&st=cse&pagewanted=2

apskip:
CA4, Ep. 6

The task was to, on a cold winter morning, present Australian Gold sunscreen and body lotion products in a meaningful way to highlight the theme “Live the Gold Life.” The executives of Australian Gold, Steve Hilbert, Tommysue Hilbert and Melanie Travis, would be available to answer questions and try out concepts on and they would judge the originality/creativity, brand messaging and brand messaging “outside the box” of ASAP and Backbone presentations.  The PMs selected were Mark McGrath and LaToya Jackson.

The men focused on a theme of pirates, which they felt embodied the Australian Gold experience. The women were more diffuse in their concept, but late in the preparation period LaToya decided to throw in a skiing motif to go with their original beach motif. Both teams had to display within a 10 feet cubed “glass box.”

Lil Jon was given two explicit assignments: a minor project and the responsibility to keep Gary from interfering with the work of the others. LaToya assigned Hope, Marlee and NeNe to fetch props, costumes and wardrobe while Star got graphics and La Toya herself had, as NeNe so cattily put it, “nothing.”

Ivanka came visiting during the prep period and asked how their PM was doing, etc. Ne Ne was not shy about knocking LaToya for lack of direction.

Once the displays were open, the focus shifted to Donald Jr. He inspected both teams’ presentations. He believed that the men had superior creativity and good brand integration but they still could lose if they did not hit the “sweet spot” of Australian Gold’s desired focus.

Gary lost points for his manic style with the Australian Gold executives. He had coopted Mark’s role.

The execs went to chat with Donald Trump so he knew who won. Backbone had a fabulous jingle and they had great buzz outside the box, but they failed to incorporate Surfin’ Sydney the koala bear at all and did not do a good job of integrating the “Live the Gold Life” theme. ASAP did do a great job of integrating “Live the Gold Life," with beach, volleyball and skiing motifs. However, they did not position Playmate of the Year Hope well, failing to display some of her assets to attract a crowd.

In the Boardroom, NeNe criticized LaToya’s performance as PM right out of the box. Mark stated that he would take full responsibility for the loss if Backbone lost. Ivanka summarized the pros and cons of each presentation. The last item was the way Gary put them on edge with his monopolization of their time.  The execs did not like the pirate theme, so ASAP won.

This put Mark McGrath as the losing PM behind the 8-ball. However, he now had a potential route to staying alive with Gary being an alternate target. Meat Loaf and all the rest of Backbone told Donald Trump that Gary should be the one fired. Meat Loaf stated that Gary was a big-time liability.

Trump let this play out. He then decided to fire Mark McGrath because Mark chose the pirates theme, which was the primary reason for losing the task.

Trump fired Mark.

apskip:
CA4, Ep. 7

This episode started with LaToya delivering 3 checks totaling $65,000 to the AIDS Project Los Angeles. Trump assembled the teams and teams that they would be doing commercials for Omaha Steaks. Todd and Bruce Simon, the owners of Omaha Steaks, were present to describe the most involved task yet:
1. Cook during a 30 minute live kitchen demo 3 different types of Omaha Steak items from a catalog focusing on steaks, seafood, lobster and desserts
2. Develop a unique variety pack that would combine 3 separate items

Criteria for success were brand messaging, creativity in the variety pack and overall presentation. The PMs were Gary and Hope, who was being a project manager for the first time. Trump asked her if she eats steak. Her response of “yes” was a lie since she does not eat red meat and does not cook.

Gary used an imperious style. Without consulting Lil John, Jon and Meat Loaf, he named Meat Loaf as chef, the center-point of the Backbone presentation. Rod and Bruce came to visit Backbone, but the time was wasted as Gary frittered it away with irrelevant questions. His teammates felt that Gary was acting in a manner to have their team self-destruct. ASAP was going with a specific concept of what would be cooked, then at the last minute they changed it so that she cooked steak rather than filet mignon. LaToya was upset, not by the actual decision but by its timing. I felt this was  
A “tempest in a teapot,” not really worth air time (but due to the 2 hour format a lot of marginal things get air time). Gary’s communications style to John was “Shut up, boy, and listen to me, boy.” It’s clear that Gary has been to a very advanced version of “How To Win Friends and Influence People.”

Ivanka came to visit Backbone. Her conclusion about the obvious infighting was “I just walked in on a group therapy session.” She stated out of earshot of Gary that he make decisions firmly and communicate clearly. Donald Jr. dropped in on ASAP but nothing significant happened.

Preparation and the actual event took place at the Institute for Culinary Education in New York City. Meat Loaf, who does not cook in real life, got many tips from the ICE chef assigned to Backbone. He listened well and was later able to project an understanding far beyond his real knowledge. Backbone discovered at the ICE a serious mistake, leaving lobster off the menu, the responsibility of Gary. Also John confronted Gary over his use of the derogatory term “boy” the prior afternoon. He told him to never use it again. Gary apologized and asked if he was forgiven. John said no. ASAP practiced and Hope was worried that LaToya’s tiny voice would not project well

ASAP presented first and Hope emceed both LaToya and Star (who had a good line about how the petite filet mignon at 4 ounces was just right for her after open-heart surgery. Next, Marlee emceed for NeNe. NeNe started a trend of saying just “Omaha” instead of the proper “Omaha Steaks.”

Backbone presented and Gary would turn it over to Meat Loaf for specified cooking demos. Meat Loaf did a fantastic job, but Gary as emcee left a lot to be desired. He rambled on with a kite analogy that few in the audience would understand. The one good thing he did was get an audience chant of “Omaha Steaks” going on cue. It was clear to me that Backbone had lost once again.

Rod and Bruce told Donald Trump that ASAP had done a decent job, with good brand messaging except for the substitution of “Omaha” for “Omaha Steaks” by NeNe and insufficient live cooking. Also, it was not clear what John or Lil Jon had done since they were not involved in the Backbone presentation but Meat Loaf had done a super job of cooking and obviously understood their products and Gary had told stories for too long and bored the live cooking demo audience.  
  
In the Boardroom, Trump went through the usual calibration questions. It came out that Gary was viewed by his team as incompetent at time management.

The moment for the reveal showed that ASAP had won. Hope got $20K for her charity. Backbone got to stay in the Boardroom. Gary called John Rich back in with him, but it was no contest. Gary’s weird ways on Celebrity apprentice are over. Backbone had to breathe a sigh of relief.

This leaves the headcount ASAP 5 Backbone 3. That is too much of a difference, so I predict that Donald Trump will do one of two things:
1.   Merge the teams (but I think it’s too soon for that)
2.   Send one woman to Backbone. If he lets the women decide, then it could be LaToya since they consider her their weakest link. If he decides it could be Marlee or Star, the two strongest players for ASAP.

TexasLady:
I thought this was a subjective move by Trump because by all accounts the men should have won this time. I found it exceedingly strange that bringing the audience up to sample the food was considered to be a bad move. The men got the audience involved by repeating the phrase "Omaha Steaks" while the women consistently used only "Omaha" in their presentation. We don't know how long Gary blathered on about the kite.)

I also find Nene irritating which is probably her role on the show and blaming LaToya for having a soft voice was asinine. She could and should have been mic'd up so there would not have been a problem with her presentation. I hope Trump does shift the teams around but as you say apskip, it may be too soon.

All that said, Gary Busey was rightly fired and should have been fired several episodes back. We'll never know how the men would have done without him dragging projects down as he did with last weeks episode with Australian Gold. I thought it was wrong when Trump allowed Marlee to persuade him to keep Busey (He was kept for the drama, just like NeNe. IMHO.)

apskip:
It's clear that Trump has been focusing on the individuals most likely to create conflict and keeping them (NeNe, Gary until the most recent episode) around. I am waiting for the confrontation between Marlee and Star in a future episode. That will be interesting to see.

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