Celebrity Apprentice Season 4 – “Code Red. Money Time. Dollar Bills.”

Previously on Celebrity Apprentice:  LaToya Jackson got to come back to the show because… she asked?  I guess?  NeNe Leakes and Star Jones got into it before the task even started.  Meat Loaf didn’t let bowel movements stop him from brainstorming.  Niki Taylor showed up to help Team Backbone win a hair show, which we all pretended was an actual thing.  And then Hope Dworaczyk was fired for reasons that were largely Trumpian.  Also, Osama Bin Laden got shot in the face.

This week?  Three hours of the show.  So you can be sure that if they had to expand the episode, every single moment of the show is going to be crucial.  They actually couldn’t edit it down to a mere two hours.  It’s all killer, no filler!  Right?  Oh, you know better than that by now.

In the suite, Marlee Matlin and the men talk to LaToya, and she assures them that she fought so hard to come back.  She is not fooling those of us who saw last week’s episode.  Marlee doesn’t think it’s fair that she came back, and she is right on that.  After the Boardroom, Star decides not to hang out in the Suite.  I really didn’t know that was an option.  I know on regular Apprentice, they can’t just leave.  But, you know, they also don’t get to come back if they ask nicely.  Marlee and NeNe talk about how to make the team work going forward.

Opening Credits.  You know what?  I’m just going to say it.  The camera does not love LaToya Jackson.

Lil Jon presents his check to the United Methodist Children’s Home.  He actually presents the checks from both tasks.  The more I see of these segments, the weirder it is.  It’s not like they actually leave the show to present a check and then come right back.  Clearly, they shot these after the fact.  So why do some of the presentations double up?  Do they not shoot these until they know if an episode is running long?  Like, the episode where Lil Jon should have presented the first check didn’t have any time available, so they just did it once?  Or do they shoot alternate check presentations?  It’s been a long season, and this is eating away at me.

The ducklings gather at the Gotham Comedy Club.  Trump leads by saying he doesn’t think NeNe and Star can work it out.  NeNe says that they can, but Star says no.  So Trump does a team switch – Meat Loaf moves to ASAP, and Backbone gets NeNe.  NeNe is pissed.  Trump talks about how, in this world today, we need a little comedy.  Hence, his press conferences.  Each team is going to produce a comedy show with three comedians, and they have to sell fifty tickets.  Whoever makes the most money wins.  His wingmen this week are Ivanka and Jim Cramer of Mad Money.  I like when Jim is on this show, and I like whenever he does talk show appearances.  He’s so unhinged.  I do not particularly like him as a financial adviser, since he was advising people, on TV, to keep their money in Bear Stearns one week before it collapsed.  If he worked for an actual investment firm and made that call, he’d have been fired immediately.  But because he was on TV when he gave millions of people terrible advice, he gets to continue giving terrible advice on TV.

They huddle up to pick their leaders.  John “Kaboy” Rich says that he can bring in either Larry the Cable Guy or Jimmy Fallon.  And I’m glad Larry the Cable Guy does not become a part of this, or I would have to refuse to recap him.  Unless he is the voice of a rusted tow truck, I want no part of him.  Star mentions that she knows Tracy Morgan.  None of this has anything to do with picking a Project Manager.  LaToya takes the position for Backbone and Meat Loaf steps up for ASAP.

NeNe interviews that she’s “not in a good place” right now.  She says that she just needs some time.  Later, she’s not in the Backbone War Room.  This isn’t the next morning, either.  She disappeared in between the comedy club and Trump Tower.  She’s the tallest person on either team – you’d think they would have noticed her walking away.  Heck, you’d think they’d notice that they were no longer standing in her shadow.  They try to call her, to no avail.  LaToya whines in a way that she thinks sounds managerial, and then she calls Larry King.  However, she doesn’t believe in leaving messages.  Which is not great when soliciting funds.  Lil Jon takes the opposite tack, leaving the following voice mail – “Go, go, go.  Code Red.  Money time.  Dollar bills.”  He reminds us that the key to success in a fundraising task is “raising the most damn money”.  Ha!  I knew almost nothing about Lil Jon three months ago, and he’s really won me over.

John says most of his donors are tapped out after the art sale, which makes sense.  He went all-out on that one.  He calls Jimmy Fallon, his “ace in the hole”.  Jimmy agrees to help out and write a song.  Yay!  They talk more about NeNe, and really, it’s not like she’s going to be very helpful in a fundraising task.

ASAP starts making their calls.  Star calls Tracy Morgan, and she’s already decided that she’s going to get him to do a video.  I don’t know if he already said he couldn’t make it in person, or if she’s diminishing her expectations.  Marlee also says that she does some stand-up, and would be happy to do it at the show.  Man, if you guys saw the Trump roast on Comedy Central, you know that Marlee is actually really funny.  And filthy.  (Also, my friend Rachael keeps saying that interpreter Jack looks just like Gilbert Gottfried.  At the roast, they did a bit where Jack refused to say dirty words, so Gilbert had to step in as a substitute interpreter.  Strangely, my friend Becky says that Jack looks like President Obama…)  By the way, Marlee calls her routine “Deaf Comedy”, which is worth a laugh in and of itself.

Meat Loaf hits up his donors and really drives home the fact that they are making a donation to his charity.  Jim Cramer shows up to talk to them.  Meat Loaf does not spare a lot of time for him, and everybody keeps making phone calls.  Star gets a call back from a “Kenny” saying that Tracy is available in his dressing room.  In my mind, that’s Kenneth from 30 Rock that she’s talking to.  Jim isn’t impressed that they’re doing a video rather than getting Tracy in person.  Again, maybe he can’t make it that day because he’s making a TV show.  Or possibly, since we know this season was actually shot in late 2010, he’s about to have a major operation and doesn’t want to be making personal appearances.

HA!  In the shots of New York scenery, there’s a “MISSING” poster on a telephone pole showing a picture of NeNe.  Well-played, production crew.  At Backbone, LaToya appears to be the weak link when it comes to fund raising.  She hints at bringing in “somebody big”, but isn’t making any headway.  Some unnamed person does not want to fly out to New York.  Couldn’t they do like on every other fundraising task and send somebody else out with the money to attend the show?  Yes, I suspect they could.  I think what happened was that LaToya ‘s big donors don’t actually know her very well and would prefer that she stop calling.  Or they thought a preteen girl was making a prank call.

Ivanka stops by, and LaToya brags about how much money she’s trying to make.  That is a weird source of pride.  I’m trying to get a million people to read spunkybean!  How’s that?  Does that make you proud of me?  Or would it be a bigger deal if it actually happened?  Yeah.  Ivanka’s pretty irritated that NeNe disappeared.

Star visits Tracy Morgan’s dressing room.  Sadly, there are no posters for Who Dat Ninja? or Honky Grandma Be Trippin’.  However, there is a large man sitting on the couch, who I assume is the real-life version of Dotcom.  And that makes me so happy that I can’t even stand it.  Real-life Tracy actually has a hilarious entourage!  I’m going to assume that real-life Grizz is not there because he’s been sent on an errand to get shark food, for the shark that Tracy Morgan actually owns in real life.  We don’t see much of the video, but Tracy talks a little about comedy, and Star brings up how he used to play her on Saturday Night Live.  It’s kind of cute, but Tracy is funniest when he’s making somebody uncomfortable – he needs somebody to be reacting to him.  I love the man, but he’s a hundred times funnier when he’s freaking out a talk show host than when he’s talking to a disembodied voice.  However, there may be circumstances beyond his control here.  In fact, he’s got a gut here, so that means this is before the kidney transplant.  Also, and I just noticed this because of where I paused the DVR, he winces pretty badly when he stands up – this might have been just before the operation, when he was actually sick.

In another totally fake scene, Trump demands that his assistance contact NeNe.  And then we hear their completely fabricated phone call.  Trump:  “I’ve never called anybody.  I’m calling you.  I think you have great ability and you shouldn’t quit.  If you quit, it’s going to follow you for the rest of your life.” NeNe complains that he accommodated Star over everybody else, but here’s the thing – the issue right now is whether or not they could work together.  If one person says yes, and the other says no, then they can’t work together.  I don’t think that’s giving Star preferential treatment, and it’s a pretty stupid reason to quit.  However, I think Trump overstates the importance of quitting this show, and I also like this assertion that he’s never called anybody before.  Trump’s phone is a one-way piece of technology.  Sometimes, he has something he wants to tell his wife, and then he just has to wait for her to call him on an unrelated matter.  It’s a sad life, I bet.

Backbone continues to complain about NeNe, but all they’re doing now is making fundraising calls.  Her presence wouldn’t matter.  LaToya finally gets a text from NeNe saying that she’s quitting.  John is irritated that she didn’t even say good-bye to her team.  But, you know, Backbone was her team for literally five seconds before she quit.  They didn’t form many bonds in that time.

The teams audition their comedians, and this is honestly kind of stupid.  Nobody’s funny in front of seven people – there’s no real reaction to feed off of.  And snippets of comedy aren’t funny in and of themselves.  Hey, somebody’s saying words into a microphone!  I don’t know the context, but I bet it’s hilarious!  Each team gets three comics, and there’s no indication that either team wanted the same person, so this scene actually accomplishes nothing except to show us that there will be comedians at the comedy show.  Thanks, three-hour episode!

ASAP makes some more calls, and Meat Loaf keeps emphasizing to his donors (including Billie Jean King) that this is money for Painted Turtle.  He’s also playing with Star’s dog as he calls, which is pretty cute.  He starts bringing in some big donations, and then interviews that he suddenly realized that if he loses, that money is going to LaToya’s charity, and not his.  And he hates people with AIDS!  No, not really.  But he sold his donors by saying they were giving money to a specific charity.  If he loses, that’s not true.  And he seems to have gone after people who have worked with Painted Turtle in the past.  It is kind of a bad position that he put himself in.

Over at Backbone, the Jo(h)ns are bringing in money, but LaToya is not doing so well.  She gets a donation from the Hiltons.  A thousand dollar donation.  Damn, the Hiltons do not like her very much at all.  Paris has more than a thousand dollars worth of cocaine in her purse right at this very moment!  John interviews that the Jackson family is connected to everybody.  Well, Michael was.  And Janet probably has some connections.  But that doesn’t mean LaToya wields the same degree of influence.  It’s not like they’re the Wilsons, where Owen and Luke are exactly the same amounts of famous.  They’re more like the Baldwins, where one is a huge name and one is so desperate that they have to go on Celebrity Apprentice to be noticed.

The next morning, in the ASAP van, Meat Loaf’s breakdown begins.  He’s crying and saying that he can’t gamble the money that he raised.  Now, he has a point, but he created the problem.  If he’d done what everybody else on this show has ever done and said it was going “to charity”, this wouldn’t even be an issue.  This was money that Painted Turtle didn’t have before, so if they lose, they’re not out anything.  And by and large, I think people donating money aren’t going to be like “Oh, it’s going to a food kitchen instead?  You, sir, are a liar and a cheat!”, before challenging Meat Loaf to a duel of honor.  He’s making this an issue, but we all know that Meat Loaf feels things bigger than the average person and he has no emotional filters in place.  But he is openly weeping here, and thinking of rejecting his donations.  Marlee suggests that maybe Trump will let each team keep their money like in the art task.  Star says she’ll make the argument to Trump, and that seems really dangerous.  “Remember when you did something really nice and out of the ordinary?  We demand that exact same thing again!”

Backbone arrives at their trailer outside the comedy club.  In the ASAP trailer, Star calls Trump to ask if they can keep the money in the event that they lose.  It’s completely ridiculous, because you’re making the argument that one charity should get money over another because the alternative would make Meat Loaf sad.  Trump correctly (and uncharacteristically) says that isn’t the premise.  It would take away the incentive to win, and he makes the point that if Meat Loaf wants to make sure Painted Turtle gets the money, he’d better go out there and win.  Of course, considering that Trump is lecturing them about the rules the week after he brought back a fired contestant for no reason is pretty funny in and of itself.  Maybe “funny” isn’t the right word.  Oh yeah, “hypocritical”.  Anyway, Meat Loaf cries like me at a Pixar movie.

Lil Jon demands “Where’s my money” in a Fat Albert voice.  He is seriously going to be the voice of the pimp when I make an animated series about the seamy underbelly of the big city.  John Rich explains the task to us again.  Lil Jon reports back on donations, absolutely gleeful anytime more money comes in.  Some guy pays for two tickets with $20,000 cash, which is pretty cool.  Jimmy Fallon arrives with a $10,000 check and a song.  It’s a Trump-themed song called “Yer Fired”.  It’s kind of funny – not in a “Hey, I want to buy this on iTunes way”, but in a “that gets a couple laughs” way.

In the ASAP trailer, Marlee and Jack give Meat Loaf a pep talk.  It seems to work, because once they’re done talking, he seems like he’s in a much better place.  They rehearse for the show, and Meat Loaf is still a bit of a mess as the MC.  He seems scattered and nervous, and Marlee is starting to panic a little now.  Backbone also rehearses, which consists mostly of LaToya telling everybody the performance order over and over again.  Which is more than a lot of people running comedy shows can do, frankly.  The number of times where I’ve done stand-up and the performance order isn’t anything close to what I was told ahead of time…  There is surprisingly little professionalism amongst people who tell wiener jokes for a living.

You guys, Kevin Kline is at ASAP’s show!  The camera keeps settling on him, leading me to believe that he’ll play a role in the conclusion of the episode.  However, he does not.  Also, it serves as a reminder that he voices the landlord in Bob’s Burgers, which was airing at the exact same time as this scene.  (Seriously, you should watch Bob’s Burgers.)  Meat Loaf takes the stage, and he’s pumped.  He’s natural, and he seems like he’s at ease.  It’s really fun to see him working the crowd.

Not much point in recapping the comics, because again, we see disassociated snippets of their performances.  They’re not cracking me up, but I’m not really seeing the whole bit.  Meat Loaf introduces the video, and he maybe oversells it a bit.  Everybody seems a little disappointed, but it’s not his ideal format.  I’m not going to keep bringing that up, though.  Marlee comes up for her routine now, and she’s quite funny.  There is nothing Marlee can’t do.  She is like if Batman were a deaf lady.  (And that would make for an awesome issue of Batman, Incorporated right there.)  Everybody seems like they enjoyed the show, so good for them.  Not like quality is a deciding factor though.  Still, I’m happier when people enjoy comedy.

Commercials.  You know that ad for America’s Got Talent where there’s a unicyclist holding a flaming torch and putting his hand on Howie Mandel’s head for balance?  That’s pretty much Howie’s doomsday scenario right there – he can’t recoil from the touch of a human being as is his instinct, because that would send him right toward the flame.

And now it’s Backbone’s show.  LaToya is weird and offputting on stage, which should not surprise you by this point.  Once again, the show goes over pretty well.  After the three comics, Jimmy Fallon brings his guitar on stage to perform his song.  And that guy knows how to work a crowd – I always get the feeling watching his show that it’s probably a fantastic show to see in person, even when it’s only average on TV.  Also, he gets bonus points for rhyming “mimosa” with “Omarosa”.  Another happy audience!

Boardroom Time!  Ordinarily, this is exciting because it means I’m in the home stretch of recapping.  But remember, three hour episode.  Trump immediately asks Meat Loaf about his weepy phone call, which makes Meat Loaf weep.  Trump explains it to Jim and Ivanka.  Meat Loaf cries more, and Jim Cramer has a hilariously bug-eyed reaction.  This Boardroom is full of reaction shots of Jim, and they’re all over-the-top.  I feel like these were all pick-up shots.  Like he couldn’t really make it to the Boardroom, so they just had him sit there beforehand and told him to make faces.  They asked him to react the way he would if he saw an alien ship, and then they drop that in to a scene of Meat Loaf crying.

Meat Loaf talks about Painted Turtle and how emotionally involved he is with it, and I think he’s a little crazy but he’s such a sweet guy.  He compares losing the task to a father going to Las Vegas with the rent money and the grocery money.  Or like an elderly couple taking Jim Cramer’s investment advice, I guess.  I feel like this scene was kind of interesting in person, since presumably Backbone and the wingmen didn’t know any of this, but on TV, it’s two people talking about a phone call that they had, which was also on TV.  Meat Loaf has kind words for his team, and makes a point of saying how easy it is to work with Star.  I wonder if that will be ironically overturned later.

Trump asks “Beautiful Marlee” how it went to work with Meat Loaf.  Yes, that’s what he calls her.  Quit being gross and weird!  People don’t talk the way that you talk!  Stop it!  Anyway, Marlee calls him “a gem”.  She was impressed with his fundraising and his stage performance.

Jim weighs in on ASAP, and from what we saw, he was there for forty-five seconds and nobody talked to him.  Thus, his insights are minimal at best.  He actually talks about “empowerment”, which is very important in a fundraising task.

And now, NeNe.  Trump says that when people quit the show, they have always come back and said it was the worst decision they ever made.  Really?  Herschel Walker thinks that leaving for a family crisis was the word choice ever?  Darryl Strawberry said that leaving a game show was the worst decision he ever made?  That’s odd, because I would think he’d cite “all that cocaine” as his worst decision.  And seriously, like anybody talks to Trump after the show is over.  I suspect that when they finally get out from his presence, they don’t look back.  Though it’s really funny to imagine, say, Khloe Kardashian or Lennox Lewis calling Trump for a chat.  “Mr. Trump, I have T-Boz on line two…”

Trump tells NeNe that she’s fired, even though she’s not there and she also quit.  It just seems childish and petulant.  I have as much power to fire her as Trump does at this point.  Also, “Star Jones kicked your ass, whether you like it or not”.  Well, she made it one task farther, at any rate.  Sigh.  Jim Cramer has another awesome reaction shot.  (“Hey Jim, pretend you just noticed a turd on the Boardroom table!”)  Then there’s a long discussion about people who have “potential”, and Trump and Jim agree that when you hear somebody has potential, it means they’re a loser.  Huh.  Good thing Jim doesn’t go on TV and advise people to invest in companies that have potential, right?

And now attention turns to Backbone.  LaToya says the Jo(h)ns are both real stars.  Trump says that Jimmy Fallon is a great comedian, and I wonder if he’s ever seen Fallon’s Trump impression.  Also, at this point they drop in a shot of Jim Cramer pretending somebody gave him a puppy.  They talk about Jimmy’s song and how great he is, and they go back to talking about people who are actually on the show.  Lil Jon talks about what they did to get ready for the show, and now I’m confused.  We literally only saw them audition comics and make fundraising calls.  Was there more to do?  Did they have to do setup?  Could it be that a three-hour episode actually isn’t enough time?  Trump tells Jim Cramer about how he didn’t think much of LaToya, but she turned out to be really solid.  Jim’s reaction suggests that somebody at an afterparty congratulated him on his Oscar win.  Trump says this show will be fantastic for LaToya, and really brought her to a new level.  I can honestly say that everything about LaToya this season has been completely consistent with the image I had of her before the season started.

Trump asks Kaboy if they missed Meat Loaf, and he says the three of them had really bonded on previous tasks.  John’s not sure if they beat Meat Loaf, and Trump talks more about how devastated he’ll be if they lose.  Ivanka comments on Backbone, and she basically just says they’re solid.  Trump talks about how Lil Jon being good on the show will ruin his image and then points out his grill to Jim.  (“Hey, Jim Cramer!  Act like you couldn’t understand what somebody said to you, but you’re humoring them anyway.”)  And then John Rich sheds the “Kaboy” nickname once and for all by promising Meat Loaf that, if ASAP loses, he will personally match whatever money Meat Loaf raised for Painted Turtle.  That is actually awesome.  There are things I don’t like about John, mainly that he seems to have picked a side in a culture war that nobody else is fighting, but that is a very cool thing to do and I really respect him for it.  Meat Loaf bursts into tears of happiness, and he talks about how great John and Marlee both are and how they made him want to be a better person.  Trump says that “the world is really gonna love this guy” about Meat Loaf.  Um, excuse me?  The world already loves Meat Loaf, sir.  Need I cite each and every track from Bat out of Hell?  Or perhaps “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad”?  “Everything Louder Than Everything Else”?  “Life is a Lemon (And I Want My Money Back)”?  The spoken-word “Wasted Youth”?  His duet with Cher?  There is nothing more that Meat Loaf can give to the world, and our love for him is assured.  Good day to you.  I said good day!

Jim reveals that ASAP raised $102,080.  Which is pretty good for fifty tickets.  Also, that eighty dollars is weird.  It’s like a negotiation went awry.  Backbone raised $82,500, which means ASAP wins and the kids of Painted Turtle are going to be farting into gold pajamas.  (Is that a saying?  Can we make it one?)  Trump says “impersonal” when he means “impartial”, Meat Loaf cries, and ASAP is dismissed.

In the suite, Meat Loaf tearfully calls his wife, and he calls this one of the three best moments of his life.  Now, I love Meat Loaf, but I imagine his wife probably gets about six tearful phone calls a day.  “Honey, I played with a kitten (sob)!”  “Sweetie, I just saw Thor and I think Natalie Portman’s performance was lifeless (choke)!”

Back in the Boardroom, Trump says there are no losers here.  Except for Backbone.  LaToya says they had tapped out their donors.  She says the Jo(h)ns raised a lot of money, and it was a wonderful experience working with them.  She can’t pick which one was better.  (“Jim Cramer!  Solve this expert-level Sudoku puzzle!”)  Lil Jon says that in a case like this, it falls on the Project Manager, as well as the person who raised the least money.  (“Jim Cramer!  You just found out that you were adopted!”)  Trump tells LaToya how great she is, but she’s fired for the second time.  She takes this pretty well, because she knows she can come back again later.  I think she’s going to be the Kenny of this show, and she’ll just get fired in every episode.  (“Oh my god, they fired LaToya!”  “You bastards!!”)  As she walks out of the building, the music shifts to a non-actionable “Beat It” soundalike, and each square of the pavement illuminates as LaToya steps on it.  HA!  That is almost as great as when Big Pussy got fired to the tune of “Don’t Stop Believin’” and the screen cut to black.

Everybody assembles back in the Suite, because we are only at the halfway point of the episode!  Per John, this is where they separate “the boys from the men”.  Presumably, the women should just voluntarily leave the show right now, out of respect to testicles.  Everybody talks about Meat Loaf for a while, because he’s still delicate and I think everybody realizes that hearing nice things will get him back on his feet.

We’re going to break right here to keep this recap from running too long.  (I know, that ship has already sailed.)  Come back Monday for Part Two, in which a company that used to use Batman as a spokesperson assumes that Star Jones can come up with a better hook than that.

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