Celebrity Apprentice Recap: See’s Candy Challenge

At the end of the Kawasaki Challenge, Arnold “Governor” Schwarzenegger remarked that the teams were getting switched up some because they were now very uneven in size, with the ladies having lost 4 out of 5 challenges. So he sent Vince Neil, Chael Sonnen and Carson Kressley to Team Prima. Laila Ali and Brooke Burke-Chavet were sent to Team Arete.

The task was to create a new celebrity candy for See’s Candy. Reps for each team would make a special trip to Omaha, Nebraska to meet Berkshire-Hathaway’s candy-loving CEO, Warren Buffett. He was going to taste test both candies and cough up an extra $25K for the one he liked the best. Fund-raising was a big part of this task and Buffett’s donation would count toward the final tally. The winner of this task gets all the money they raised plus all the money the other team raised.

Vince Neil stepped up to be project manager because he loves money and chocolate, and what with his big name rock connections, the other team members were fine with that. On Team Arete, Ricky Williams and Brooke vied for the role, but Ricky claimed he could raise $200K-$300K to Brooke’s $100K so it went to him.

Now on Team Prima, Chael suggested that they research Warren Buffett’s tastes in candy since $25K was riding on him liking the candy. They learned that the billionaire has a weakness for dark chocolate and peanut brittle types of candy. Laila Ali took over candy creation on Team Arete. She’s been cooking since she was 9 years old but she didn’t look into Buffett’s chocolate choices. Right then, we were saying Chael’s got the edge.

Arete had some problems: Matt Iseman worried that he would come up short against all the other team members in the fund-raising department as he did not have big celebrity contacts in comparison to the others. Jon Lovitz argued with Ricky over the candy. Ricky decided to send him to Nebraska just to get Jon off his back. Brooke didn’t think Ricky was going to come through with all those donations he claimed he could get.

Lisa wanted to take the Prima celebrity candy sample to Omaha but Chael insisted that he should go because he read 3 Warren Buffett books plus he’s a shareholder (as if any of that is going to come up). So Chael and Jon went off to Omaha. Warren Buffet tried Jon’s sample first after asking what was in it. Chael was delighted to learn that Arete put raspberry in their candy. “Oh, they ruined it,” he said, “If you ever had a box of chocolates, the raspberry’s good but it’s also the last one eaten.” We were surprised that Buffett didn’t take a drink of water or something before going on to try the Prima sample. The mogul said he loved them both and the fellows headed back to L.A. Buffett skyped with the Governor but we would have to wait til the boardroom to find out who got Warren Buffett bucks.

Ricky finally managed to get some donors to come through, while Boy George was making money hand over fist at the candy store, taking pictures with fans. His manager donated $80K. Matt managed to get some $10K donations and it was only Jon Lovitz who did poorly with a mere $500.

In the boardroom, it was revealed that Prima raised $378,533, approximately $13,000 more than Arete’s $365,745.00. So that $25K from Buffett was going to be the deciding factor. Chael’s research paid off as Buffett had to go with his favorite: dark chocolate. So Vince Neil got over $769K for his charity, Keep Memory Alive. What a big difference between the $50K the teams split in the Kawasaki challenge, eh?

Ricky chose Jon and Laila to face the firing squad, Jon because of his $500 and Laila because the candy was her baby. They debated Ricky’s failure to raise the $200K-$300K he had promised. We thought that was stupid. He raised $119,000, exactly as much as Boy George raised, and more than Brooke claimed she could raise, so what was the big deal? It wasn’t like Ricky took the spot of someone who could have raised more money. Laila pooh-poohed suggestions that her candy recipe made them lose, even though it could have brought in another $25K. In the final analysis, she also brought $49K in donations to Jon’s $500, so Jon and his dog, Jerry Bruckheimer III, were sent to the chopper.

It was very comical when Jerry tried to escape termination but was bundled into the chopper. Then Jon thought he would make a break for it, too, but into the chopper he went with Jerry. We like Jon but he was kind of a wet blanket throughout his entire stint on this show so we’re not exactly sorry to see him go.

Now we think the strongest apprentices are Chael and Porsha on Team Prima and Carson and Laila on Team Arete.

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