Celebrity Apprentice 2: Episode 1 Recap
| March 1, 2009 | Posted by Roshawn Watson under Uncategorized |
By: Roshawn Watson
Image Credit: that dude dizz
In case you are new to the franchise, Celebrity Apprentice focuses on celebrities raising money and awareness for their favorite charities by competing against each other in several business-centered tasks. The celebs are split into two teams (typically it is men versus women in the beginning), and each team elects a project manager.
The Task
Their task was to create, bake, and sell the most cupcakes, and the team making the most money from their cupcake venture wins. Both teams learned the basics of mass producing cupcakes at the Institute of Culinary Education, and then got started. Comedienne Joan Rivers and football star Herschel Walker led the Athena (the women) and KOTU (the men) teams, respectively.
Joan’s leadership style seemed very true to her on-screen persona. She had some strong opinions (i.e. the location) and was pretty direct; she also delegated much of the mechanics of making the cupcakes so that she could work on designing the vehicle being used to distribute the cupcakes. Although she tried to keep everyone unified, there was definitely friction in her team, mostly due to Annie Duke. Annie oversaw the baking of the vanilla cupcakes. Despite being very good at making sure the cupcakes were done well and using her network of poker champions to bring in a lot of money, Annie was a real pain to work with overall. Her teammates didn’t seem to enjoy her company, and her divisive comments were remarkably reminiscent to the acerbic Piers Morgan. At times, she seemed somewhat condescending. Fortunately for Athena, Playboy playmate Brande Roderick was also pretty good. She suggested that they set up shop near one a branch of Playboy. As a result, team Athena collected sizable checks from Hugh Hefner ($5K) along with several other Playboy employees.
Herschel style seemed very muted. He was a pretty strong worker, and most of his team seemed to follow his example, with a couple of notable exceptions: Andrew Dice Clay and sometimes Dennis Rodman. Andrew was pretty clear about not wanting to bake the cupcakes, and Dennis was not pleased that Herschel was chosen as the leader in the first place. The men actually had an interesting strategy. Instead of predominantly displaying images of cupcakes on their cupcake distribution vehicle, Jesse James had images of themselves with cupcakes photoshoped on the vehicle. Also, Andrew Dice Clay and Dennis Rodman went on Sirius radio to promote their cupcake sale to the public, while the others were preparing cupcakes. Interestingly, Tom Green also got contributions and assistance from the Naked Cowboy, Tony Hawk ($1K), his agent ($5K), and Donny Deutsch ($10K). Overall, it seemed like the men used their celebrity better, and their $20 per cupcake price point helped their final numbers alot too.
Trump’s Monkey Wrench
Trump shook things up a lot by having a local cupcake bakery taste-test each teams cupcakes, and the team with the best-tasting cupcake receieved $15,000 towards their total cupcake sales. This by far was the game-changer and resulted in a lopsided victory for team Athena. Athena beat out KOTU $61K to $49K.
Lessons
Use what you got
Perhaps one of the most important lessons from the first episode is to use what you have. Both teams were willing to market themselves along with the cupcake, and they raised over $100K for a charity in a single cupcake challenge. Technically, the men earned more than the women from their cupcakes. However, Athena won because their totals reflected a $15K boost from the taste-test. This distinction is important because the men did appear to use their celebrity better than the women, or perhaps they may just be bigger celebrities overall. (This could shift the balance of power later on in the game.) Regardless, we all have resources that can contribute to great success. Sometimes, the biggest challenge is realizing what’s in our hands.
Do Your Part
It is always painful to watch teammates or employees wasting time doing nothing (i.e. Dennis and Andrew Dice Clay). Sometimes the problem is poor leadership. However, even with poor leadership, someone with reasonable work ethic will find something to do. Hopefully, Dennis will step up his game (Andrew Dice Clay got fired). It is well-known that being a project manager of a failed task can get you fired. The only thing that saved Hershel was the fact that he raised the most money on his team and that Andrew Dice Clay and Rodman made some obvious mistakes during the task. (Note Andrew Dice Clay was not particularly effective in the board room either).
Don’t Give Ground To Critics
Another important point is not to relinquish ground prematurely. Annie articulately defended her unpopular decisions because she was prepared. Dennis Rodman also refused to be the scapegoat. Sometimes, we have to be assertive, especially when we are being attacked. For some, the conflict created is not always fun but very necessary. The old sayings goes study yourself as your greatest enemy thus becoming your greatest friend. If you can defend yourself, you may live to fight another day.
Lastly, if you like this post, please subscribe (see upper right-hand corner), Mixx it, Propel it, Stumble it, and tag it on Delicious. Also, click here to get my eBook FREE.
Personally, I'm glad that Andrew got fired! I think he was an easy pick given how he behaved early in the episode. He's supposed to be working to win and raise money for his charity but he can't be bothered with that b/c Trump didn't feed him before the task. He couldn't even put his mighty ego aside for one moment to make cupcakes. I don't think the other men on that team lost any masculinity points for baking. In fact it made them more admirable. Dice ended up just looking like an idiot and a jerk. He needed to be dismissed quickly since he obviously wasn't into the spirit of the game.
I agree with you. He added little to the competition because he was unwilling to really play the game. I don't know why he agreed to do the show with such a poor attitude.
Really well written account of Celebrity Apprentice 2. Look forward to the next installment.