Celebrity Apprentice Recap: Puppet Up

Puppet Up (4/15/2012) began with some scenes from last week. Lisa Lampanelli and Dayana Mendoza were shown returning to join the rest of the cast members after the boardroom. Everyone knew Lou Ferrigno was fired, whereupon Lisa announced: “We did it.” Clay Aiken told Lisa she was acting like she had “some accomplishment of some kind.” Lisa warned him not to start with her and she said (if she was him presumably) she’d keep it shut. Aubrey was shown saying she can’t stand Clay and Lisa was …

the first person here that’s been able to shut Clay Aiken up ~ Aubrey O’Day

Looks like we were wrong about Arsenio and Clay will be the lucky one to be on Lisa’s team this go round.

At FAO Schwartz, Donald Trump reminisced about his childhood adventures in the ritzy toy store and announced it was celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. Jim Henson’s son, Brian, was on hand to tell the contestants what their next task would be: they have to build two original miscreant puppets (with builders at Jim Henson’s Creature Shop) for the live adult puppet show, Stuff and Unstrung, and put on a performance in front of a live audience working with cast members from the puppet show. Yeah, that foreshadowing stuff — Trump sent Clay over to Team Forte. Eric Trump informed them that Brian Henson and Patrick Rizzo, creator and director of Stuff and Unstrung, will judge them on puppet design, the overall quality of their puppeteering and improv and total live performance.

Lisa chose to lead Team Forte (Dayana, Clay and Penn Jillette):

It’s really important that I step up for this one because I am one of the only people who hasn’t won a task and gotten money for their charities ~ Lisa Lampanelli

Paul Teutul was elected to head up Team Unanimous (Aubrey, Teresa Giudice, Arsenio Hall), even though he said he didn’t care. Wow. Would you elect someone to lead your team after they said they didn’t care? Then Paul threw his back out and pretty much let everyone else take over the task.

I just took it on the fly because nobody else really wanted to take it. It’s not my thing at all, y’know. ~ Paul Teutul

Lisa assigns roles that make the most sense – with Penn as the host because it’s what he does best and, at 6′ 7,” he is too tall to man a puppet. She and Clay will do the puppets, because Dayana’s accent makes her too hard to understand, even if she has studied improv for a year. Dayana’s desire to be part of the show is all that is needed to put an end to their meeting of the minds from last week. Lisa blows it way out of proportion and Penn isn’t having the best time either.

“I’m multi-tasking. I’m sewing horns on a monster, and I’m contemplating suicide.” ~ Penn Jillette

Lisa’s attacks Dayana for wanting to be in the spotlight, which was never the case, then reads out Clay and Penn for not supporting her. Penn says he wasn’t about to support her because she was “unpleasant,” a nice word for nuts. Clay thought it was Dayana’s killer looks that were eating away at Lisa.

I was blown away by the blowup in the dressing room. You know, Lisa might be jealous of Dayana. She’s beautiful — screw beautiful — she’s stunning. Maybe that made Lisa feel threatened. ~ Clay Aiken

Dayana excels at her menial task, all the same, so much so, that the builders claims they would hire her, and Lisa, Clay and Penn shine at their given roles because it is, after all, their fortes.

Meanwhile, Unanimous does the best they can without a leader and with a ditzy Teresa trying to become a puppet master in a day, while struggling with two syllables in the word ‘seven’ and trying to recall the words to the Jack and Jill nursery rhyme. She has 4 children, mind you, and doesn’t know Jack and Jill. Ya. Her puppet is what else? — a caricature of a trashy Jersey girl and Arsenio makes a rocker with a mohawk.

Forte’s show is a blast but, confusingly enough, they are taken to task for a little blue language that supposedly crosses the line. How do you cross the line in an adult puppet show? Their other weakness was that Penn Jillette enjoyed the show so much, he became a part of the audience, neglecting to cut the skits short when he was supposed to.

Teresa broke all the rules of Improv 101, using the no word when you are supposed to always say yes. The judges found their puppets lacking in versatility and it didn’t help that the first improv cast Arsenio as a Norwegian dentist.

I’ve never been to Norwegia ~ Arsenio Hall

In the boardroom, Lisa faked crying over “her” plight with Dayana. She doesn’t want to be a villain who makes little girls cry. We mean, this was twice as phony and ridiculous as her lighting into Dayana unfairly and expecting Clay and Penn to cosign on that. Lisa is just not as good as an actress as she thinks she is. LOL. Anyhoo, it hardly mattered since Team Forte won.

Paul Teutul said he would bring Teresa back because she took so long to name her puppet. Actually, Arsenio came up with its name, Fabulina. Teresa strenuously objected to getting thrown under the bus by a project manager who did nothing but sit around throwing out f bombs. Trump strenuously objected to Teutul giving Arsenio a pass and putting Aubrey in what should have been Arsenio’s place. That was also Paul’s fatal mistake as far as strategy goes, because bringing Arsenio back might have helped him get rid of Teresa, even if she did name one of her daughter’s after Trump’s wife, Melania.

So Paul Teutul Sr. got his walking papers and now we are down to 7 contestants. And the best part was after he left, Donald Trump said “He will be missed,” and made that mad Donald Trump face that didn’t look like he would be missed at all. LOL.

There was no matching funds to go with Lisa’s triumph today, so although she won, others have won much more than her. Lisa and Aubrey have touted themselves as the elite players throughout this whole season. Nothing could have gotten done without them. We wouldn’t pick them, Dayana or Teresa to win, so that leaves Clay, Penn and Arsenio. Clay or Penn will have to be the project manager on Forte next week, won’t they? So we’ll see.

On Unanimous, it’s supposed to be Aubrey vs. Arsenio, Round 2, so maybe Aubrey will be project manager next week. The last time they tangled, Arsenio was.