Mark McGrath, Gary Busey Faceoff

Last week, you will recall, Marlee Matlin headed up the women’s team for a win that was $14,000 short of a million bucks. Donald Trump generously chose to fill that gap and we see Marlee forking over the dough to lucky charity, Star Key Hearing Foundation. This week on Celebrity Apprentice, Teams Backbone and ASAP have to showcase one of the hottest product lines in the suncare industry, Australian Gold, using a 10-foot by 10-foot glass box.

On the roof of Trump Tower, Donald Trump congratulates everyone on all the money raised last week (the men were no slouches, with a bit over half a million). He lays out the new challenge and the Australian Gold execs are on hand to explain the purpose of the 10′ x 10 ‘ box. The teams will be judged on creativity, originality, brand messaging and how well they advertise the theme “Live the Gold Life” within that box. La Toya Jackson and Mark McGrath will be team leaders. The prize is $40,000.00 for their charity.

The men come up with a Pirate concept. Gary doesn’t think it’s a great idea, and he’s actually right but not because he’s never seen Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow put on sunscreen, or Geoffrey Rush or Orlando Bloom — because who in their right mind would choose a pirate theme with Gary on their team? Mark McGrath, that’s who. John Rich also thought it might be wise to change their concept after meeting with the execs, specifically asking if they ever used pirates in their marketing. Team leader Mark had the last word. Mark said he will go home if it doesn’t work out. So pirates it is, and they get some positive feedback from the Trump kiddies.

La Toya isn’t having an easy time coming up with a theme and Marlee and NeNe Leakes aren’t happy with her indecisiveness. The executives pop by to say the main message they want to convey is having fun in life.

The executives actually talked to both teams about their surfing Koala, Sidney, “the coolest dude anywhere he goes.” They wanted “tons of buzz” around Sidney. One female executive said something about “treasured moments that you’re on vacation.” This was like a sign from God to Mark McGrath that he was on the money with the pirate theme. “She said ‘treasure’!” Then she talked about how children and teen-aged boys love their products. “It gives you a sexual feeling,” Gary Busey offered.

“He looked right at Tommi Sue and basically, he was saying, it makes me horny,” Mark McGrath said as Meat Loaf shook his head in disgust. They were sure she did not like that, but she didn’t look offended to us. She looked more like she was thinking: “now there’s two words that don’t go together — sexual and Gary Busey.”

The women finally settled upon a beach theme: fun in the sun, the gold life and all that jazz. The men had feared the asset of Hope Dworacyzk, a Playmate of the Year, on the ladies team, but La Toya chose not to let Hope model. But she did kick it up a notch by adding a winter aspect to the whole thing because people have to wear sunscreen in both seasons.

NeNe Leakes was stressing the whole time, thinking the ladies didn’t have a chance of winning thanks to La Toya, but if they did “that means the men sucked!” NeNe was dressed up as the Koala, Sidney, but still found some time to take her head off and badmouth La Toya to Donald Trump, Jr.

The women’s presentation went off well, even though it wasn’t the world’s most creative theme. When the Australian Gold executives arrived at the men’s presentation, Gary took them away to pitch himself as a spokesman, offering to promote their product for a fee to be negotiated. John Rich, Lil Jon, Mark and Meatloaf had to get their attention back by drowning Gary out with their Australian Gold chant.

When the executives meet with Donald Trump, they inform him that the they liked the buzz the men created, but they weren’t happy the men forgot about that cool Koala, Sidney. They also thought the women loused up by not having Hope show more skin.

In the boardroom, NeNe spouts off to Donald Trump about La Toya before even finding out who won. Trump wants to know why Hope was covered up, and we’re like what’s the mystery? Since when have these women made proper use of their resources. You get the feeling they’re just used to cutting each other’s throats, not just on this show, but anywhere.

Trump wants an explanation on the pirate theme. Mark talks about some “bounty” stupidity, when even he knows it’s pirates booty, not bounty. He does say if the pirate theme was a flop, he’s willing to take full responsibility and leave. Trump then brought up the missing mascot. Backbone chose to dispense with the super important mascot altogether rather than present a different color one.

This was a deal breaker for the Australian Gold executives, who loved the men’s message and public interaction and their “Gold” chanting. They were also unhappy with Gary’s antics. The women were complimented on their messaging and dual theme, but their public interaction came up short. However, they did use the mascot, so they won.

Trump tells NeNe that she can apologize to La Toya since the women won, but NeNe snottily refuses and later attacks La Toya, saying she’s over 50 and needs to act her age, calling her “Casper the Ghost,” and — oh, low blow — saying “the only reason why you’ve gotten this far is because of your family name, and you faked it for 50 years.” We can’t say we’re big fans of La Toya, but at least she has some class. She refused to stoop to NeNe’s trashy level.

In the boardroom, Mark is on the firing line as the theme creator but the other men, John Rich, Lil Jon and especially Meat Loaf, want to get rid of Gary. So they blow up the “sexual feelings” remark and how Gary “handcuffed” the executives and basically was worse than a weak link — he’s a genuine loose cannon. Everyone agrees that Gary can somehow control himself in the boardroom, and as for Gary, he flat out denies he said the word “sexual” or tried to pitch his services at the presentation.

Trump tells Mark to go pick two people and come back to the boardroom with them and then he’ll fire somebody. But Mark only chooses Gary, for all the good it did him. Trump then wanted to know why Mark went from taking full responsibility to joining the other men in ganging up on Gary. Mark’s new tune, he stands by the concept, isn’t playing well.

“They didn’t like the theme,” Donald said.

“Right.” Mark said and Donald replied: “Mark, you’re fired.”

John Rich was actually in Houston, TX, hosting a viewing party for this episode at Pub Fiction. “I love Texas, I’m from ‘Amarilla,’ and it’s just great to be back in my home state.” he told the local news. Not a typo — that’s how real Texans say Amarillo.