Failure to Launch Recap: Trump Doubles Down

If Arsenio Hall and Lou Ferrigno were “shaken” at seeing their first team member (George Takei) fired last week, they were doubly shaken this week.

A great car — one of my favorite cars — is Buick. ~ Donald Trump

In Celebrity Apprentice – 3/11/2012, the task before Team Unanimous (the men) and Team Forte (the women) was to create a presentation for a new Buick Verano in front of a live audience and for an online audience. The presentation needs to be 10 minutes, informative, entertaining and highlight 4 key features of the Verano, and then there will be a 10 minute Q&A. Criteria: informational content, brand messaging, over-all creativity.

I don’t think that any of them would have a creative bone in their body to continue on without me ~ Aubrey O’Day

Debbie Gibson stepped up to be Team Forte’s project manager, and the women brainstormed on ways to make fools of themselves, more or less. Teresa, Tia and Dayana were “marginalized” though they should have been thankful rather than annoyed. During their presentation, Debbie Gibson decided to sing a few lines from one of her songs, so everyone would know who she was, after telling the car to start playing it. But from the look on the faces of the test audience, it sort of came out of left field. Aubrey O’Day told a “heart-wrenching” story of her mom in a car accident and she got so balled up, she called the Buick a “Verona” — twice. The Q & A was a disaster. The best part was when Teresa Guidice’s adorable children came running out with their rolling suitcases, along with their dad, to demonstrate the spaciousness of the Buick Verano. Their doggie came, too, on a skateboard!

“I lost my virginity in a Regal.” ~ Adam Carolla

But apparently, the women’s presentation wasn’t as big a disaster as the men’s. Adam Carolla headed up Team Unanimous and despite the Buick executives attempt to impress their distaste for beer and vulgarity on the comedian, Carolla wanted to do what he does best. That leads us to Michael Andretti, who Trump thought was a natural for the project leader role in this task and, in Trump Land, branding is numero uno. But Andretti wasn’t feeling that a race car driver equates to a car pitchman. What does bring Michael Andretti to life, though, is not a Buick Verano or a project leader assignment – it’s stabbing Lou Ferrigno in the back! We would have fired him just for picking on Lou. The men’s Q&A went a lot more smoothly. The worst and most inane part was Paul Teutel yelling at Adam “you suck” for no apparent reason, and then Lou had to play security and haul Teutel off. The best part was Penn Jillette getting in the trunk, but how much more cool would it have been to let Lou get green and have Penn find the Hulk in the trunk? See? — they do under utilize Lou

That could be a firing problem … that’s a bad one! ~ Donald Trump

In the boardroom, Donald Trump took Aubrey to task for the product name flubs, which made the men think they had it in the bag. But they lost and Adam Carolla refused to name two people to come back with him, although the majority of his team would have been cool with saying sayonara to Lou. Well, Trump wasn’t happy with Adam’s refusal to play by the rules, so he fired his butt. Then he lit into Michael Andretti, who was not as gracious a loser as Adam. He whined “Lou Lou Lou” — maybe he should have gotten Debbie Gibson to sing it. But Trump pointed out that the men did not lose because of anything Lou did. The executives and he were astonished that Andretti didn’t step up and that he wasn’t a more important presence. So Michael got the axe, too, and got on the elevator as Amanda gazed after him stoically. Then he got in his ride and whined about Lou some more.

The only job he really wants is to pull his shirt off and act like he’s The Hulk ~ Michael Andretti

Lou Ferrigno may get that chance next week when he’s the project manager. If he messes up, Lou’s gonna go and that would be awful, not just because we love Lou, but the men’s team has been weakened with 3 eliminations. But let’s not forget the women have now won 2 in a row, so maybe they will mess up worse next week. Debbie Gibson would probably get rid of Aubrey in a heartbeat if she got wind of that Tiffany remark.

Last Week: Bye, George