Monday, March 26, 2012

Celebrity Apprentice Hair Recap - Ep 5 - I'm Going to Mop the Floor with You

I'm a week late, but can you blame me? What were Mark Burnett Productions and Donald Trump thinking, going up against the new season of Mad Men on Sunday nights? After a 17-month hiatus for Mad Men, I guess NBC programming forgot all about Sunday-night ratings. Either that or they just don't care much about Celebrity Apprentice, its desperate host, his offspring, the cast, or their charitable causes.

None of that explains why I'm so late with this hair recap. It's just that Mad Men does a good job of "leaving them wanting more," whereas Celebrity Apprentice is like slow reality-TV torture. If I fall behind it's because those boardroom antics are painful to sit through, just like many business meetings featuring Teresa Guidice, just sitting there, staring straight ahead blankly. Plus the hair is getting thinner as one by one, C- and D-list celebrities fall to Trump's scowling demeanor and firing pointing finger.

On this episode, the teams had the unenviable task of making a viral video for O-Cedar's somewhat-disposable mop. As anyone who hangs out on the Internet or who mops a floor knows, that's a tall order. But Lou Ferrigno and Tia Carrere step up as project managers due to their being called out on their under-the-radar status each week.

Highlights include Clay Aiken successfully getting under Penn Jillette's skin by calling him "condescending." Clay is good at stepping up for a challenge when needed, as when he gives Lou speech guidance for the video, or undermining a strong teammate like Penn, in order to make himself out as a leader type. I'm putting my money on Clay. The male rep for O-Cedar pops by and tells the women's team to make the mop "sexy." The female rep tells the men's team to make the mop the hero. Penn condescendingly explains to Lou that she doesn't mean to make the mop a superhero, just ever-present in the video. Both teams are told to come up with a catch phrase for their video.

Paul Teutul, Sr. throws out, "I'm gonna mop the floor with you," and Lou decides to star as himself against type by wearing a frilly apron, dancing with mop in hand. Dee Snyder, gigantic finger cast aloft, directs and edits. Everyone else pitches in or stands around, like in a typical video shoot. Except for Penn, who sulks after shooting down all of Lou's ideas beforehand.

Meanwhile, the women's team is squabbling and clique-ridden. This time Lisa Lampanelli, Aubrey O'Day and Debbie Gibson band together against pretty much everyone else on the team, including Tia. They argue that they are the creative force for all their challenges (most of them lost) and the other ladies are pretty useless. "Huh? News to me!" says Tia in the boardroom, who was under the impression she had a true team behind her. Yeah, Tia! Sisterhood!

The women settle on the idea of how many lovers they've had, comparing the lovers to mops. It's dumb. But it means they almost all get to be on camera, spouting innuendos about sex and mopping. There is dissidence of the underhanded sort that ends up in a boardroom of fussing and fighting. Aubrey, especially complains, saying she and some others are just sitting there throughout most of the shoot. Welcome to the world of filmmaking, Aubrey; now visit the crafts service table and shut up.

O-Cedar picks the men's video as the winner. Lou's charity, the Muscular Dystrophy Association will get a $50,000 donation. Good deal. Tia takes it on the chin and volunteers to be fired, rather than name two members who sucked at the challenge. She will not back-stab in the name of charity. A victory in real life—a loser on this show.

Let's get to the hair!

With her cutting remarks ("O-Cedar's been around for 100 years, and so has Tia."), and camera-hogging, Aubrey O'Day is the true villainess of the show. Since an AVClub commenter once noted that she looks like a bad anime drawing, I can't get that image out of my head whenever she has screen time (which is often). So here's Bad Anime Aubrey—long may she reign.


Could be a fight coming up between Clay Aiken and Penn Jillette. Clay fights with psychological warfare and nervous laughter. Penn with sarcasm and furrowed brow...
 

Lisa Lampanelli did some weird things with her hands to describe how her teammates (namely beautiful Miss Universe Dayana Mendoza) are desperate for camera time, saying that just because you have a face, it doesn't mean you get to talk, or something like that. I can't do her hands justice. Trust me—it involved her smooshing her face with her fingers splayed in a tentacle-like fashion. Patricia Velasquez had an off-part-thing going on with her flat-ironed hair during confession time. Both ladies weirded me out this week in different ways. Good work, ladies!


Trump offspring, Eric, has perfected the slicked-back "American Psycho" look, perfect for big-game hunting in Zimbabwe with brother, Donald Jr.


Trump—how much more can I draw of this guy's scowling countenance? He kind of reminds me of The Thing from Fantastic Four, so here's Trump as The Thing. I feel for whatever comic-book artist is in charge of drawing The Thing week after week. The guy is made from orange rocks and he's very detailed for a superhero. Imagine if he had to deal with Trump's hair on top of everything else?



I'm not going to draw Lou and Tia again even though they both have very nice hair. Here's the viral videos instead. Which one makes you want to tell your friends about the O-Cedar ProMist Spray Mop? First up, Lou.



Here's Tia's team.
 

Lou's video has 2,000 views. Tia's has almost 200 views. I think the winner is clear. None. None is the winner, especially our nation's landfills with all these disposable and semi-disposable cleaning products filling them up in the name of profit margin. Now, let me climb down off my soapbox (actually, I'm sitting on a vinyl exercise ball) and say this: I wish Tia had stuck around longer and showed Trump her stuff. I'm talking about fire, witchery and never-say-die attitude, as seen here in this clip from "Kull the Conqueror." I'm talking: invincible Tia.

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