Celebrity Apprentice: Jingle All The Way Recap

After a quick recap leading up to Penn Jillette’s exit last week, we had to endure Aubrey O’Day’s unbridled bragging. Then right after she declared she couldn’t imagine a world where Penn gets sent home over Dayana Mendoza, who should stroll through the door but that very same lady with Clay Aiken. “Heyyyyyyy, Dayana!” chirped phony Aubrey. Clay confessed he was glad, in a way, that Penn got the boot because that will make it easier for him to win. Dayana realized she would just have to watch her back “double” now. Then we got on with the 4/29/12 episode: Jingle All the Way.

The final 6 are tasked with creating a jingle for Good Sam. Marcus Lemonis was back (remember him from last year on the Camping World task?). “For this week’s task,” he said, “You will write and produce a 90-second jingle for Good Sam’s roadside assistance product. You will then perform your jingle in front of a live audience.” At this point, who gives a shit what the criteria is? The prize is $20,000, plus $25,000 plus 100% of the proceeds from sales of the Good Sam mascot.

Donald Trump ruminated that Clay was probably the greatest singer on the show while Arsenio pointed to Aubrey. “Yeah, that’s right,” Trump said, “we think of you as — Playboy cover. It’s actually singing, isn’t it? It’s terrible to be typecast sometimes, isn’t it?” But Arsenio stepped up to lead Aubrey and Teresa Giudice on Team Unanimous.

I’m sure Aubrey would have liked to be in charge of it but she’ll just have to spend the day constantly stealing my thunder … ~ Arsenio Hall

Dayana volunteered to lead Clay and Lisa Lampanelli on Team Forte, thereby assuring she will be in the boardroom if they lose. Clay or Lisa could have stepped up, but they want to get rid of Dayana once and for all. Immediately, Lisa ridicules Dayana “on the inside’ for not knowing the difference between “jingle all the way” and “a jingle.” Really, Lisa? She’s not American. Clay bristles when Dayana suggests that they all start trying to think of rhymes when the melody should come first, but then she suggested they call Debbie Gibson. LOL. The look on Clay’s face is priceless. And he has obviously forgotten his winning strategy. Otherwise, it would be Lisa he would want to get rid of.

Bossy Aubrey immediately starts throwing out ideas. Cheerleaders and … tap dancing. Arsenio takes umbrage at the stereotype, but Aubrey brings up Gregory Hines. Aubrey can’t believe that he is nixing her concepts.

I don’t know why he doesn’t like tap dancing or cheerleading outfits. We all know he does it at home. ~ Aubrey O’Day

Arsenio sees that it will be an uphill struggle because now Aubrey has shut down after finding out that he won’t “kiss her ass.” Teresa doesn’t want to babysit the two of them. Marcus Lemonis visits them and says they can be as creative as they want, bearing in mind that they are trying to appeal to a family type audience. Good branding and incorporating mascot Good Sam into their presentation is very important. Lemonis says the “c” word — cheerleading and Aubrey prevails after all.

Lemonis pays Team Forte a visit, bringing the same branding and mascot messages. Dayana is quiet, frustrated and annoyed that Clay is bouncing his ideas off Lisa, not her. Where Arsenio reverses his position and tries to keep Aubrey happy, Clay and Lisa continue to do a great job sabotaging Dayana. We thought it was rather foolish of Dayana to volunteer to lead this task, but we have zero sympathy for Clay and Lisa. Dayana can’t ask a question or make a suggestion without suffering their abusive wrath.

Don’t come and tell me how to sing. I heard you sing. You suck. ~ Clay Aiken

But their song is coming out purty good all the same. Meantime, Don Jr. pays Unanimous a visit and they perform their jingle, which isn’t that great. Aubrey takes the opportunity to totally trash Arsenio to Don Jr. hard. He is really taken aback and can’t believe she’s taking that attitude before even knowing whether they won or lost.

It’s a problem and I don’t know that they’ll ever be able to have an effective work product. ~ Donald Trump, Jr.

Things don’t go so well on Don Jr.’s visit to Forte either. Dayana baits Lisa by saying she’s been “loud as usual.” LOL. For once, Lisa really hasn’t been loud but that remark flips the switch and she’s goes a step further than loud — uh, ballistic? She asks Clay to back her up but he won’t! Dayana sits there smirking at Lisa’s rage. Finally, Lisa storms out screaming that Dayana is out of line. Later, Dayana claims she got confused about the word and really meant strong, but we’re not so sure about that. Whatever, Lisa’s trained her guns on Dayana for real now.

You’re going down, Miss Universe ~ Lisa Lampanelli

Wow, some people might like when Lisa goes off, calling Dayana a bitch and bleep, bleep, bleep. At one point, we couldn’t even figure out the bleeps! But we like when Dayana shoots Lisa those dagger eyes. If looks could kill …. meantime, over on Arsenio’s team, Aubrey continues her campaign to be boss.

Homeboy is shifty. Like, honestly, grow some balls, bro! ~ Aubrey O’Day

Wow, when it comes to shifty, homeboy ain’t got nothing on Aubrey!

Team Forte’s performance was really great, until Dayana came out at the end to thank everyone and no one, except Marcus Lemonis and Don Jr. even knew who she was and what she was doing there. She wasn’t dressed in compatible colors for the branding and that was a downer for Lemonis. He also found their theme pretty old-fashioned. At this point, Dayana’s only hope is that Team Unanimous totally blows it.

Arsenio and Teresa start their show off with a “we are lost and don’t know what to do” skit that is absolutely senseless since they already have their Good Sam shirts on. The rapping part of the song was hard to decipher. Old granny in the audience looked confused. At the end Arsenio beat on a big drum, while Aubrey did some cheerleading and jumped in Good Sam’s arms. We like order a lot better than confusion, so to us it was a hot mess, but Marcus Lemonis loved it! He said he couldn’t get the 90-second jingle out of his head. He said that 5 seconds after he heard it. LOL. That was the craziest line of the entire episode.

She (Dayana) is the woman female Lou Ferrigno and I object to that. ~ Lisa Lampanelli

There was such a big blow up between Dayana and Lisa in the boardroom that we would have been super surprised if Dayana’s team won. Dayana and Lisa went at it tooth and nail and Aubrey chimed in to take Lisa’s side. This occurred after Ivanka and Don Jr. questioned Dayana about her “failure” to lead the team. Aubrey said there are no excuses when you’re the project manager. Now keep in mind that this is something Dayana has always said herself more or less. The handwriting was on the wall, folks.

At one point, Donald Trump asked Arsenio if he would prefer to trade Aubrey for Dayana and Arsenio declined, preferring to stick with the devil he knows. Clay didn’t have much to say but when he was finally asked to say something, he said he didn’t disagree with much of what Lisa said, except perhaps for her way of putting things.

So yes, at long last, Dayana was fired after losing count of how many times she had graced the boardroom.

She’s a quality person and she has a great career. ~ Donald Trump

John Rich, last year’s winner, and Marlee Matlin will be back to help judge the remaining contestants next week. Two people will be fired. It sure looks like Arsenio and Teresa from where we’re sitting.