Where was I? This week's episode has the teams making a commercial for coupon pushers, Entertainment.com. But first Arsenio Hall Skypes Magic Johnson to tell him about $50,000 he won for Johnson's foundation. They bump heads against their computer screens as a sign-off. Awww. This reminds me of one of my favorite bits on the Pee-Wee's Playhouse Christmas Special when Magic Johnson is hanging out inside Magic Screen. Pee-Wee exclaims, "What are you doing in Magic Screen?" To which Magic Johnson replies, "Magic Screen and I are cousins!"
Magic Johnson displays more charisma in his brief talk with Arsenio than anyone on this show has to date. That reminds me, Teresa steps up as team leader of team Forte while Dayana volunteers for Unanimous. Previously Arsenio and Lisa had a tiff after he describes Aubrey (who had left due to all the negativity) as a bitch and a whore. Lisa blew her top, telling Arsenio YOU DON'T F*beep!* CALL A WOMAN F*beep!* BITCH AND WHORE! Or words to that effect. DON'T TELL ME WHAT WORDS TO USE WHEN I'VE BEEN DISSED said Arsenio. WELL YOU'RE GOING TO ALIENATE WOMEN AND YOU ARE REPRESENTING YOUR CHARITY AND SO DON'T F*beep!* DO IT! said Lisa. And so on and so forth.
Let me say this about the usage of the words bitch and whore. I've heard women call each other bitch and whore. I've heard men call each other bitch and yes, whore. There's a long history of people calling each other bitch and whore. In the heat of the moment, someone might be inclined to call Aubrey a bitch and maybe a whore. Mostly she's really negative and catty, so whatever words work to that effect.
Anyway, she doesn't want to be bullied since she's representing an anti-bullying organization (poor them), so she confronts Arsenio and they work it out. Arsenio tells her she doesn't know what he was going through but it was bad (his cousin had recently died of AIDS) and she should understand that he was in a terrible place at the time. Basically he doesn't deny that she's a bitch or a whore, but she accepts his explanation for the time being. Arsenio regrets using those words, but personally, my sense of womanly solidarity is not threatened by Arsenio Hall. Perhaps I am embracing my inner bitch and whore.
After all this hoopla, the teams get along surprisingly well. Even Lisa and Dayana work well together, despite Lisa insisting, to their faces, that Lou and Dayana are brain dead and useless. It's a testament to both of them that they hold it together throughout the gulfstream of mouth pollution that comes from Lisa Lampanelli's maw.
Teresa's team produces a risque ad featuring Aubrey and an actor as teens doing stuff in her bedroom that "father" Paul (done up in fatherly nerd drag) mistakes for sexual shenanigans. Dayana's team does a more traditional ad with a couple going through dating, marriage and settling down while using Entertainment.com coupons throughout their adult lives. The clients pick Teresa's commercial as the winner and so we get a seemingly endless segment of Lisa raking Lou Ferrigno over the boardroom coals because she's tired of Lou's lack of ideas. Dayana wisely stays quietly beautiful while Lisa and Lou have at it, thereby avoiding being fired. Dayana is smarter than Lisa thinks.
Lou does seem fairly out of his league in these business and marketing situations. He's admitted several times throughout the season that his hearing impairment tends to temporarily affect his ability to listen and understand what's going on with his team. What seals his fate is that when asked by Trump which commercial he prefers, he answers honestly that he likes Teresa's better. Oh, the disloyalty to his losing team! He's then unable to stem the tide of Lisa's raging onslaught on his abilities and is fired. At one point Lisa proclaims that Lou uses his hearing loss as an excuse when it's convenient for him and that makes him manipulative.
This is the one of the worst things I've ever heard anyone say on a reality show. Even if it's true, how is Lisa to know? She can't experience the world as a deaf person who must read lips to communicate with others. So it isn't her place to make this offensive accusation. Lisa has managed to offend me more with one sentence than all the bitches and whores that have been said in reality TV history. Go figure. Teresa's charity The NephCure Foundation will receive a large donation. Good deal.
It's the lack of loyalty to his team that got Lou fired, claims Trump. Trump spawn, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, both agree before trailing their father down the hallway in slow motion like the Borgias, to scheme and plot to the top of the heap for another day. In the town car of purgatory Lou says he's proud of himself for playing the game and doesn't regret his honesty regarding the quality of the two commercials. "And my team lost, so I was right!" he exclaims, smiling big. Don't ever change, Lou!
I'm going to honor Lou's 1977 to 1982 run on the TV extravaganza, The Incredible Hulk, because it's 110% better than anything Donald Trump has starred in. My brother watched this show every week and so I did too. Bill Bixby's sympathetic and physically unimposing Dr. David Banner would morph into the mentally challenged, snarling Hulk two or three times in every episode. Shirts ripped, pants shrunk, loafers split and there appeared Lou—a mean, green raging machine, swinging telephone poles across oncoming Mack truck grills with impunity. Yet he was sensitive and able to pantomime very effectively for such a big guy.
According to interviews, the Hulk makeup took more than three hours to apply and another hour to wash down at the end of the shoot. Then it was off to the gym to pump iron for an hour before dropping into bed in order to wake at 5 A.M. to do it all over again. He loved the character and gave it his all. So hat's off to you, Lou.
A quick sketch of The Incredible Hulk, ready for a day of rampaging crime fighting.
A one-liner of The Incredible Hulk in a pensive mood. A one-liner is just what it says it is—a drawing made with one line.
A scribble-sketch of The Incredible Hulk emitting his catch-phrase, "AARRRRRGH!"
Although Lou didn't "Hulk out" on Donald Trump in the boardroom, he did say, "Take it back. I don't want to be fired," before shrugging it off and entering the elevator of shame. Imagine the following scene with Trump as co-star and I think you'll agree—that's entertainment.
Towel-snapping bullies vs. Hulk's alter-ego David Banner (the late, great Bill Bixby). Stupid jocks—only brute force will work on them. Featuring tight shorts and steam-room rage.
The softer side of The Incredible Hulk as he goes shopping in what appears to be either a mall or a mad house. (HULK SMASH ANNOYING TOYS.) And falls in love with a mannequin.
The Hulk takes on a high-security mental institution. I'm sure Lou felt like this several times throughout the course of Celebrity Apprentice. Now that he's fired, he's free, truly free.
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