Game Show Newsnet | The Celebrity Apprentice: Season 9

Last week, the Donald rested his firing finger so we still have 7 celebs vying for the title of Celebrity Apprentice, but Trump has made the warning in the past and he's made it again...

Someone will be fired this week (Thank God!) and there might be more than one person getting the axe (Woot! Daily Double! oops, wrong show).

The teams meet at Trump SoHo to learn about their new task. Yes, Holly gets to deliver her check from last week to her family, and yes we get to meet her autistic son, but who really wants to inflate Holly's ego more? That's what I thought.
(No comment about the fact that she talks about the wonders the $347k will do even though she promised to write a check to Sharon's charity...)

On to the game!

The teams will be creating radio spots for Clockwork brands. Clockwork has 3 brands they will be promoting.

Ben Franklin Plumbing
Mr. Sparky electricians
& 1- Hour Air Conditioning

The teams that creates the best radio spots as chosen by the executives wins $40k. PMs are selected and it will be Bret vs. Summer this week. Mr. Trump makes a joke about the fact that Bret could never work for ClockWork as he is never on time for anything, but that Summer would be a solid choice.

There is an added bonus here. For the first time ever, in addition to Ivanka, Eric Trump, Donald's other son will be serving as eyes and ears (Man he looks young, Georgetown must not have stressed him out much)

Maybe the editors should have edited out the Bret Michaels crack considering his current health. And Trump's favoritism towards a woman and an athlete, downright shocking. (If Summer had went to Wharton it would be an automatic win.)

So, it's another creativity task, but this time there is no fundraising element (Sorry, to keep getting religious, but Thank GOD! ...or Trump.)

This is where I have to warn you that in part we are about to experience a repeat of last week ... And it's hilarious! RockSolid gets in the van on the way to their meeting space and much like the 24HR fitness challenge, they are full of ideas. Bret is telling Poopie jokes, Sharon is talking about, ahem, sucking a plunger and Maria is crying in the back seat either over the destruction of morals or out of sheer laughter (yup, she's on a reality show, can't be the morals)

Tenacity is, ahem, boring.

As each team gets to meet with the execs, Tenacity does the standard Q&A job and learns that these Exec mean business. they seem to want a straight forward sell, with no humor in the ads at the expense of their workforce (because, they are already too many plumber jokes. Remember kids, crack kills). One odd Cyndi blow up aside, it was a productive meeting.

And you can imagine based on that how the meeting with RockSolid goes...

Sadly, not hilarious. Bret, Sharon and Maria keep an even tenor for the most part and learn that they will be in trouble if they push the envelope too far on this task.

Summer chooses the route of delegation at Tenacity and assigns each commercial to one of her cohorts. Summer claims to maintain final approval, but we will see.

Summer also reads Cyndi the riot act saying that she will need to listen to all of them and keep her creativity from running amuck. It is a professional move on Summer's part to bring this up now (as opposed to last time when she threw Cyndi under the bus in the boardroom), but Cyndi doesn't take it well and thinks Summer is full of it.

Now continuing with the theme of giving you warnings, be glad that you are reading this recap. Because the additional twist to this challenge is that each radio spot is supposed to contain a jungle.

So RockSolid is messing around with themes from rock to disco... Bret has a scattered plan constantly moving his team through 1 as to the next. And then he mentions that he might want to add in a "Crack" joke in the plumber spot. He claims if he runs with it that he won't throw anyone under the bus. (Reminder: Crack Kills)

Shockingly, there is a voice of raciness at Tenacity as well. Curtis believes that their ads are becoming too wordy and that they should take a risk and spice them up a bit. Cyndi seems to be in quiet agreement saying that she is on the "Girls Don't Wanna Have Fun" team, but Summer stands pat on the conservative route.

With the jingles in full swing, Ivanka and Eric check in.

Ivanka meets with RockSolid and learns of Bret plan for "crack." As he puts it, "We plumbers know that you crack a lot of jokes at our expense." Ivanka doesn't think it's a wise play even though it may be a "minor" crack. We'll see.

Eric checks in with Tenacity and like the sound that they are coming up with. Cyndi seems to be doing a great job directing the musicians and vocalists, but Eric is concerned that the overall sound might be too generic to cut through the other ads on the radio today. Hmm...

One final warning before the presentations. They are live. That's right, each team will only get one take at each of their ads and the Clockwork execs will listen to them the first time around no matter how good or bad they may be.

RockSolid gets in there and jams their commercials out. Bret Michaels delivers a surprisingly competent and calm performance as a VO artist. As a whole the RockSolid ads are creative, but not excessively entertaining. Nor do they sell every aspect of the three brands. You could hear them being run during AM talk radio though. Most importantly, there were no problems with the live performance.

The execs do question Bret's "crack" joke. Saying that , "We plumbers know that you like to crack a lot of jokes at our expense," was clearly not desired, but will it truly cost them.

Tenacity gets ready to go live and Summer is pressed with a tough last minute decision. Cyndi thinks her voice is back up to snuff and that she should sing the jingle. Summer eventually thinks to herself, "this is Cyndi Lauper," and she tells Cyndi to step up to the mic.

Cyndi hits her cues and sings very well, so that ends up being a positive decision. Similar to RockSolid, Tenacity performs their commercials cleanly. Their commercials are much more wordy than RockSolid, but as a result they pack in more information. Did they lose some of their catchiness though?

In the boardroom, not everything is as happy go lucky and "we're gonna win" as usual. Cyndi decides to drop the pretense and tell Trump that she can't believe the execs were so tight when they named their plumbing company after Ben Franklin who while he kept his bathtub with him at all times apparently did many naught things in that tub with many naughty ladies. Ahem.

Everyone cracks up, Bret says "he's broken."

Then Trump interrogates Bret about the need to include the crack joke and Bret stands by it saying that he doesn't think the joke was really an attack on the plumbers (and I'll agree)

And after Trump plays back some of the ads. We have a spat between Curtis and the Maria/Sharon tandem. Curtis says RockSolid's message were a little off brand and Maria/Sharon both call that rubbish.

But who cares, give us the verdict. Trump says one team was ok at best and the other team verged on exceptional. The winner? RockSolid!

They celebrate and then Trump asks Bret who he thinks should be fired. Bret says Summer for competition reasons. Sharon when asked picks Curtis saying he is too smug. Maria agrees saying that she wants to punch him. Curtis finds this incredulous as they have never worked on the same team.

RockSolid departs the boardroom and we are down to 4.

Summer and Holly both praise Cyndi for staying on task and reigning in her creativity. considering their friendship and mini-alliance, this makes it clear their target is Curtis. Ivanka questions Summer's decision to delegate each ad to an individual and asks her opinion on which ads were the best. Summer puts the 1 hr heating and air conditioning ad on top (Cyndi's) and calls the others equal.

Curtis is then asked who he would fire and he puts it on Summer. Summer then is asked who should return to the suite and she chooses Holly. That should be suspect. Trump asks if that was because of past performance and Summer says for everything.

I'll speed this up. Holly leaves. and Upon re-entry to the boardroom, Cyndi is told that she is not going to be fired and can head back to the suite. That leaves Curtis and Summer.

Trump asks Curtis why he didn't fight more aggressively against Sharon and Maria when they bad mouthed him earlier. He says that he is a gentleman to ladies and was trying to be nice. Trump then asks Summer who should be fired and Summer balks. Trump tells her that she has to answer or she will be fired. Summer finally says Curtis but only because he wasn't as strong as Cyndi or Holly.

Curtis is asked why he shouldn't be fired. He states that he was the one pushing to make the commercial more edgy. Summer confirms this and Trump points out that maybe Summer should have listened. There is more posturing and both seem to have difficulty throwing each other under the bus. This is arguable the most painfully nice boardroom in ages.

But in the end, very few if any compelling arguments are made to get rid of either party. As a result, Trump has no choice...Summer, You're Fired!

Curtis Stone lives to fight another day, but with only 6 celebs left, things are going to get really heated. More next week.

To see this episode in its entirety, visit the official website at www.nbc.com/the-celebrity-apprentice.