Celebrity Apprentice Recap: Harry Potter

The second task on the January 23, 2017 edition of Celebrity Apprentice was to create a celebrity inspired digital brochure to promote the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. The celebrities met the Governor at Universal Studios in Hollywood where they were introduced to COO Larry Kurzweil and Xiomara Wiley, who explained that they will present the brochure to them a group of avid theme park fans. The criteria for success: creativity of the theme concept, brand integration and live presentation. Tracey Edmonds is this task’s advisor. She is the host of Extra (and Babyface’s wife). The winner gets $50K.

Team Prima Project Manager: Carson Kressley. Members: Lisa Leslie, Chael Sonnen, Porsha Williams

Team Arete Project Manager: Matt Iseman. Members: Brooke Burke-Charvet, Ricky Williams, Laila Ali

Boy George was absent for this task due to a prior engagement so the teams stood at four each. Matt is a self-described Harry Potter. He said he went to medical school but if he had to do it over again, he would go to Hogwarts. Carson said that he was once muggled at an ATM in New York City. That’s all he knows about muggles.

After exploring the theme parks, the teams go to their war rooms to brainstorm. On Prima, Porsha and Carson took the creative reins and Porsha went wild with them. Lisa felt that they were not going deep enough to connect with the “avid fans.” Chael didn’t bother to contribute. He was asleep inside even though his eyes were open, he said. On Arete, Matt was on a Harry Potter rampage and no one else knew what he was talking about. Laila felt he was not taking into consideration folks who don’t know squat about Harry Potter, like her. Well, Laila, not a whole lot of folks who don’t know squat about Harry Potter are going to come to a Harry Potter theme park, are they?

Both teams hit the theme park to get photographs for their brochures and had to deal with hordes of visitors. Team Arete members went around asking visitors to get out of their shots while Prima put them in theirs. Brooke had a hard time dragging Matt out of the park to get back to work. While Arete tried to get Matt’s overambitious “Daily Prophet” brochure to work, Prima had a genuine shocker. As the time ticked away, Chael came up with a move that could have cost Carson the whole task.

He cut the cord to the computer! Wow, can you believe that? And he thought that was perfectly fine because it created a technical difficulty that gave them 10 extra minutes to finish their task. “Sometimes,” Chael said, “Its helpful to have a gangster on your team.” Nobody actually saw him do it so it didn’t get reported until they were in the boardroom. Somehow, that didn’t seem right either, but the presentations went forward.

In the boardroom, Carson, Porsha and Lisa all told the Governor how the cord cutting went down from their perspective. Far from denying it, Chael proudly related that it wasn’t cheating, it was a great move. He explained how you get more time for a technical difficulty under the rules and felt he had been exceptionally creative. Patrick pointed out that a technical difficulty cannot be something you cause yourself. Chael’s attempt to debate that point was cut short by the Governor who said: “I will not tolerate cheaters in my boardroom.” Gasp! That was not a sentence we ever thought we would hear come out of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s mouth, post-marital scandal! He fired Chael on the spot and turned and told the others that now he was going fire someone for losing the task. Lisa was probably remembering how buddy buddy Porsha and Carson were on this one. She looked like she thought her goose was cooked.

As you probably anticipated, Matt’s “Daily Prophet” brochure and enthusiastic knowledgeable delivery won the day. Prima never had a chance against Matt’s Harry Potter mastery. The executives said they were definitely going to use the Daily Prophet. It was the first time there were no negatives. Matt won his second $50K for the Arthritis Foundation.

The executives didn’t have anything good to say about Prima’s presentation. Their creativity was predictable and the presentation was uninspired. In short, they missed the mark out of the gate. Team Prima now only had 3 members left so we went straight to the firing line.

The Governor started out with the most valuable player left tack. Neither Lisa nor Porsha even tried to say they were more valuable than Carson. They went at each other. The Governor wanted to know who was responsible for the creativity that didn’t work and Carson took the blame, even though Porsha was in charge of it. So he asked Porsha who should be fired, knowing damn well she wouldn’t be able to give a straight answer and that she had been in charge of the creativity.

Why go through all this? When he said you can be fired for cheating and you can be fired for avoiding the question, you knew Porsha was being set up. He demanded an answer and she couldn’t give it. He told Carson that if this was the first week, he would be fired, but he has been a true champion. Then he told Porsha that she failed 6 out of 8 tasks, and mostly, he was tired of hearing her talk. (In the last boardroom, he said her name is perfect because her mouth runs a 100 miles per hour!) Porsha was terminated.

Thus Team Prima was eviscerated. Only Carson and Lisa are left. Someone from Team Arete will have to go over to them next week. Carson now has a score of 1/2 on projects. Lisa has 0/1. Will they get Boy George (1/1), Laila (1/1), Brooke (1/1) or Ricky (0/1)? Maybe they will get Matt (2/2).

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