SHOCKER! Celebrity Apprentice 2012: Season 12, Episode 4, “Failure to Launch”

The episode starts by having Lou and Arsenio come back in from the boardroom last week and the others see that George Takei has been fired.  Lou and especially Arsenio talk about how hard it was for them to see him go, but all I can think of is, “Does Arsenio wax his face?”  Seriously, he looks like a pre-pubecent boy.  He just looks so different than when he had his own talk show.

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Anyway, just an observation.  For some reason his smooth face is distracting to me.  Wonder if he’s lost the ability to grow hair on his head and his face.

So the women won last week so Dayana Mendoza gets to give a check to her charity of choice,  Latino Commission on AIDS.   The organization provides a way for Latinos to get testing and get help from an organization where they feel a sense of community with.  Often times there is a language barrier with other organizations and local Latinos may not know where to turn for help, so this is a way they can get the help they need.   What I think is a little unfair/sad about this competition is that some tasks only have the opportunity to make $20k while others have an endless opportunity, like the first one making over $400k.  Some charities will benefit so much more than others.  But I guess that’s just the way it goes, I just wish it wasn’t such an obvious huge range.

Okay, so getting into the meat and potatoes of the show…. the task is to give a 10-minute video presentation introducing the new Buick Verano plus a 10-minute question and answer period about the new car.  So Adam Carolla and Debbie Gibson (what’s with her over-done makeup this episode?) step up to be project managers.

The most personality Michael Andretti ever showed was while he was test driving the Buick Verano.  He whipped around those corners like he was driving a race car and it was pretty sweet to watch.  It’s probably the most work he’s done on this show thus far.   He comes across as such a dull, invisible person.  Adam’s idea for the men is to have hecklers in the audience and to have Paul shout “you suck!” while Adam is giving the presentation.  The guys are all against it, but Adam is dead set and won’t change his mind.

The women’s idea is for the theme of “Love your Reflection” and each person will reflect upon how Buick has saved the day or helped them out in someway.  The women have kind of split into two groups… the cool girls with the ideas and power (Debbie, Aubrey, and Lisa) , and the more shy, meek, possibly not as intelligent girls (Tia & Teresa).   This is not a good situation to have going on.

During the rehearsals I can already tell the men are going to be way more entertaining.  Adam is hilarious and it’s a funny idea.  Just not sure it is the right kind of humor that Buick is looking for.  The women don’t seem to have their act together at all though.  They don’t have a clear vision of what they want their presentation to look like and they admitted to not having all of the specs and facts memorized yet.

Presentation time…. women go first.  The women’s presentation consists of women (planted celebrities cast members in the audience) auditioning to be Buick’s new spokeswoman.  THE Debbie Gibson auditions and it’s campy with her singing “Shake Your Love.”  Lisa Lampanelli “auditions” next as herself, a comic.  Then Aubrey talks about how she got a call one day saying her mother was in a car accident.  She gets teared up talking about it… trying to make that emotional connection with the audience.  She discusses the safety specs, it’s great, but she mispronounces the car name twice (calling it a Verona instead of Verano).  Now Teresa’s turn…. bet $100 this will be a train wreck… she has her husband, daughters, and dog come out and they all fit in the car.  Okay, wasn’t a train wreck…. oh, but wait, here comes the Q&A, I haven’t lost that $100 bet yet! First question was about safety ratings and they can’t answer it.  Other than that though, they did a decent job.  Overall, okay.

Men’s turn… Adam does a great job rattling off the specs of the car in an effective manner.  Michael does a decent job endorsing the car.  As Dee Snider pointed out, having the last name Andretti endorsing a car – can’t get much better than that.  Now the heckling starts… how are the judges going to take this?  Arsenio says he wants technology in a car.  Adam is fantastic about further rattling off SPECIFICS about the car and the FEATURES.  Something the women definitely did a poor job of doing. Penn Jillette stuffing himself in the trunk was brilliant.  However, the worst part was definitely Paul Sr heckling “You Suck!” and just hearing crickets in the audience.  That being said, that was their only flaw.  The men won this one HANDS DOWN.  No question about it.  The execs at Buick may not be thrilled with 100% of Adam’s material, but overall it was entirely more effective than the women’s.

Wow, an entire hour left and they’re already in the boardroom.  This will be a long boardroom… I see lots of cat fighting in the near future.  The men went over their strengths, weaknesses, blah blah blah, they’re fine.  The women immediately start attacking other.  Debbie attacks Teresa for not embracing who she is and not stepping up.  Debbie says she’ll bring Teresa and Tia back in the boardroom if they lose.  Tia says she’s not surprised because they were marginalized throughout the whole task.  Teresa and Tia feel that Debbie has a lack of respect when she speaks with not only them but everyone on the women’s team.  Basically the execs didn’t like hardly anything the women did.  They didn’t like the overall concept, which is huge.  Debbie should go home because of this.  It was her idea and her vision that they did not like.  The execs liked almost all of the men’s presentation except they didn’t think Michael did a good job of having the audience feel his presence.  They liked that he was up there, but they didn’t feel he exuded confidence.  The execs also didn’t think they did a good job of brand messaging… getting the Buick name out there and what Buick is all about. They also felt they didn’t get a sense of the “voice” that the car has. And the winner is….  Okay, wait, WHAT?!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The women won????!!  With THAT presentation???  Wow… I’m in shock!

Michael is being criticized for not stepping up to project manager and Lou is being criticized for not being able to utilize him in any task.  Lou feels he’s being under utilized, but they are all saying they haven’t found anything he’s all that good at yet.  The majority believe Lou is the weakest link.  Dee feels Adam should be fired since he’s the project manager.   Adam says it’s his fault, it was his idea, they lost because of him.  Trump announces they will all leave the boardroom and when they come back he will fire TWO people.  So I am assuming Adam is being fired along with one other, but I could be wrong (as I have been a lot in this episode!) Hahaha… Clay Aiken stands up to Lou (the Incredible Hulk, mind you) and says, “if you’re here next week, learning curve’s over!”  Love it!    Trump fires Adam almost immediately.  I’m very disappointed.  He did the best out of everyone during the presentation, plus he’s entertaining to have around anyway.  Michael is fired next.  Not too surprised by that.  They didn’t utilize the Andretti brand name and he just has a dull personality that doesn’t seem much like he wants to be project manager of any task.  If he was going to be project manager of a task, it should have been the car task.

Now I will tell you one additional thing that bothered me… around the 30 or 40-minute mark of the show, they showed a promo for what’s coming up on Leno this week and they said that one of the guests was Adam Carolla.  Now I didn’t want to believe it when I saw it, but why else would he be a guest on Leno unless he had just been voted off the Celebrity Apprentice.  SPOILER ALERT, LENO!!!