Celebrity Apprentice: Joan Rivers vs Annie Duke Round 2

Clint Black and Jesse James Showdown
NBC Sunday 9/8c 4/26/2009

Very little changed this week in Donald Trump's boardroom full of celebrities. Last week Joan Rivers and Annie Duke went to war and it did not end with one battle. After Joan called Annie "Hitler" last week, Annie dug in her heels for the finals.

After firing Herschel Walker last week, team KOTU was again short on members. Trump pulled the switcheroo and put Jesse James back on KOTU. Jesse James was not happy about the switch.

It did make Jesse James happy to deliver a check for $20,000 to his charity, the Long Beach Education Foundation, for his win last week on Celebrity Apprentice. Donald Trump is taking it easy on the celebrity little black books this year. He should, these companies are getting free advertising so let them kick in the donations. It also makes it more fair to the lesser celebrity's charities.

The Celebrity Apprentice task:
Create a 4 page advertising layout for Right Guard deoderant to run in Sports Illustrated magazine and website. The teams had to use New York Nick rookie NBA player David Lee in the photo shoot.

The Celebrity teams:
KOTU: Clint Black (Project Mgr), Joan Rivers, Jesse James
Athena: Brande Roderick (Project Mgr), Annie Duke, Melissa Rivers

With Clint Black as PM, team KOTU was in for a rough ride. Clint Black likes to work alone. Or at least he seems to micromanage every single detail of the task. This was not going to work for Jesse James. He and Clint have not enjoyed each other's company during this game. Jesse James pointed out early and often that this is what he does for a living. Clint Black was willing to accept some of Jesse's assistance, but that was not good enough for Jesse. He all but took his toys and went home.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of Jesse James this season. Joan Rivers said it best though, "Once you're on a team, you gotta work for that team..."

Joan Rivers (barring Annie Duke treatment), has shown why she has survived the predominantly male world of celebrity for 37 years. Joan has been surprisingly flexible after decision making is done. She always voices her opinion, good or bad, but if you expected anything else... you don't know Joan Rivers.

On team Athena things were running smoothly on the task. However, every woman knows that 3 girls can't get along. So Melissa Rivers immediately took the attitude that she was working with the "mean girls". Let the whispering and giggling begin.

Annie Duke showed why she is a master manipulator. Brande Roderick played the role of the dumb blond (I don't think she is, but she's way too nice for business). Melissa was the picked on 3rd wheel, put her in a fat suit and have every after school special of the 1970's. As it was she has a foot in a soft cast, and well, very little 'personal power'.

Finance guru Jim Cramer was the guest assistant to The Donald this week. Ivanca was in her ever present seat on Trump's left. I think Jim Cramer was genuinely impressed with the level of pettiness the girl fight went to tonight. Joan Rivers went after Annie Duke the minute she opened her mouth. Donald Trump of course pushed the argument to the point of it getting personal again.

Trump also stoked the fire between Jesse James and Clint Black. Jesse James had called Clint everything including stupid tonight. I give complete credit to Clint Black for keeping his cool. You could see Clint getting frustrated, but he never even raised his voice. Clint Black has passive aggressiveness down to a science.

And Clint Black and KOTU won the task without the help of Jesse James. Clint's charity (International Rett Syndrome Foundation) will receive a check for $20,000 next week.

Jesse James did finally (after being chastized by Donald Trump) give Clint Black congratulations.

Team Athena was on the chopping block. Annie Duke had placed herself in the untouchable position of 'the best friend'. Girls, you know what I mean. In every 3 girl relationship, there is one girl who both the others want as their best friend. The pureness of the pivotal girl's heart is life altering to the other two.

Annie Duke played the self assured go-getter to the tee. Telling both Brande Roderick and Melissa Rivers (in private of course) that they were her biggest help. Brande Roderick, as the PM, was completely happy to let Annie run the show. She did however defend herself in the boardroom vehemently when Jim Cramer got in her face about being wishy-washy.

Melissa Rivers did not fair as well in the boardroom. And it got ugly. Very ugly. Assuming from the start of the task, Melissa assumed she would be thrown under the bus in the boardroom. No matter the outcome of the task. In the boardroom, Donal Trump took the chicken way out and said he was firing Melissa due to he inability to bring in cash donations.

To say that Melissa Rivers left the boardroom in a huff would be.... wrong. She had a full on tizzy fit. Screaming "Whore" and calling Brandy Roderick and Annie Duke "pit vipers", with her mother firmly in tow, Melissa left Celebrity Apprentice. Though she swore to the producers (and swore at the producers) that she would not be back for interviews.... she will. Ready for another 15 minutes.

We won't know for sure if Joan Rivers comes back to the show or not. She said she would not be in "tomorrow". We saw from the previews of next week that she did not show up for the morning meeting with The Donald.

Joan Rivers hissed at Annie Duke, on her way out, "You're a poker player...a poker player... the money you bring is blood money... I know the people you work for in Vegas... it's blood money!"

I think Joan Rivers will be back on Celebrity Apprentice next week. What do you think?

Click here for more on Celebrity Apprentice.

Celebrity Apprentice: Jesse James vs Herschel Walker

Herschel Walker is next victim for Trump's boardroom
NBC Sunday 10/9c 4/19/2009

With the teams dwindling down the second task tonight was easier. Despite the boardroom drama after the last task, the final 7 players got down to marketing and cooking.

The teams are now KOTU: Clint Black, Joan Rivers and Herschel Walker. Athena: Annie Duke, Jesse James, Brandy Roderick and Melissa Rivers.

The task this week was to come up with a new healthy frozen meal for Schwann's Frozen Foods to offer to their home customers. The project managers were KOTU: Herschel Walker and Athena: Jesse James.

This was a boring task. The two teams came up with decent menus. Team KOTU (Hershel Walker) made Orange Asian Soy Chicken with Green Beans and a yogurt berry dessert. The packaging was way too hard to conceive. Team Athena (Jesse James) made Triple Play Turkey Meatballs with Gluten free Pasta. They had no marketing campaign whatsoever, but the idea was simple.

Companies like simple. Jesse James won the award this week for his charity the Long Beach Education Foundation. Donald Trump gave Jesse James a hard time in the boardroom tonight, stating that Jessie seems to be skating on tasks. Then said "...you must be great in bed..." about his being married to Sandra Bullock. Jesse took it all lighthearted as it was intended.

When it came down to firing one of the three remaining KOTU members, Trump took the easy way out. He needs ratings and Clint Black and Joan Rivers are more fun to watch than the hardworking Herschel Walker. Joan cried, knowing it would not be her to leave tonight. Donald Trump fired Herschel Walker in the dignified manner of someone you have to lay off for ratings reasons.

For more info click here to go to Celebrity Apprentice now!

Celebrity Apprentice: Joan Rivers vs. Annie Duke

Joan Rivers Compares Annie Duke to Hitler
Celebrity Apprentice Season 2
NBC Sunday 9/8c 4/19/2009

The war that started last week in the boardroom between Joan Rivers and Annie Duke saw new battles tonight. Again Trump went for the ugly to get ratings. Donald Trump loves the drama that Joan Rivers brings to the boardroom. She is amazingly focused and hard-working during tasks though.

Piers Morgan, winner of Celebrity Apprentice Season 1, returned as one of Trump's sidekicks. Piers is a master at raising money, as proven by last years overwhelming win. This season of Celebrity Apprentice was going to have big problems showing up that kind of fund raising. Donald Trump said they are running ahead of last season dollar for dollar.

The task was assigned and started last week. Team Athena now consisted of: Joan Rivers, Clint Black, Natalie Gulbis and Hershel Walker. Team KOTU consisted of Annie Duke, Jessie James, Brandy Roderick and Melissa Rivers. The task: A jewelry auction selling Ivanca Trump jewelry to very rich men.

The biggest part of the task was calling in big money to mindlessly bid on jewelry... all for charity. Annie Duke had a clear advantage, calling in poker chips from Vegas willing to drop over $25,000 for a pair of earrings. Her buyers included world famous poker player Andy Bloch . The amazing thing to the poker world will be that Phil Hellmuth managed to create drama without ever showing his face! More on Phil Hellmuth later...

The auction was the big test. Clint Black failed miserably. He could not get the crowd of men excited... go figure. Finally Joan Rivers came out told the model to walk "bitch" and proceeded to get the money flowing. If there is one thing Joan Rivers can do it's work a crowd. Not saying Clint Black can't work a crowd, but not a crowd of men... looking at jewelry.

Natalie Gulbis was in charge of picking the jewelry and chose incorrectly for an auction. Natalie also did not have any big money donars to offer. She did come up with what could have been a great move. Natalie decided to call Annie Duke's rival, Phil Hellmuth, to see if maybe fill wanted to 'beat' Annie on this challenge. I was impressed. Annie found out about the plan and called Phil Hellmuth, literally this time. I was equally impressed with Annie's forceful call. Phil did not show up for the auction on either side... he folded.

Off to the boardroom where we heard that the total for the night was $245,000. KOTU, Joan Rivers' team, lost with a total of $92,000 ($83,500 on one piece of jewelry). Annie Duke won on team Athena with a total of $153,000 in the auction. Annie's charaty, Refugees International, recieved the total of $245,000.

Before anyone was excused, Trump took the chance to stir the pot between Annie Duke and Joan Rivers. People think Joan gets personal, well duh... she has built her empire around getting personal about people and making fun. Why would you expect different if you back her into a corner. Joan did not actually call Annie "Hitler", Donald Trump said that Annie was tough and Joan Rivers said, "...yeah, so was Hitler..." . That's her schtick. Melissa jumped in to defend her mother (on the opposing team) and Piers Morgan about came unglued. *Note to Piers, that chord you tripped on was theirs.

As Trump likes to say, at the end of the day KOTU had to take the loss. As the lowest earner and really no potential to bring in more money, Natalie Gulbis was fired.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of tonight's Celebrity Apprentice Season 2.

Trump fires Khloe Kardashian and Tionne Watkins

Trump cuts the chord on Celebrity Apprentice
Joan and Melissa Rivers split up
NBC Sunday 8/7c 4/05/09

The Celebrity Apprentice night started with a recap of Dennis Rodman's sad firing last week. Donald Trump told Jesse James that he had spoken to Dennis and Dennis said he was going to get help with his drinking problem.

Then Trump shook things up. With the men severely lacking manpower after so many losses, the Donald started shuffling. The final results were:

Athena

Brandy Roderick
Melissa Rivers
Annie Duke
Jesse James
Tionne Watkins


VS

KOTU

Clint Black
Joan Rivers
Natalie Gulbis
Khloe Kardashian
Hershel Walker
Brian McKnight was not available (at least make them clear their schedules for the whole show). Hershel Walker was also missing on a prior engagement for the first day.

The task was to create a viral video for laundry detergent ALL. The keywords were: small and mighty.
Project Managers:
Athena: Melissa Rivers
KOTU: Clint Black

Joan Rivers has made no secret of her dislike for Clint Black. He is passive aggressive and she is loud and aggressive. The two do not mix.

Jesse James had landed himself in a world of women. Careful what you wish for. Jesse wanted bikers for the video. The ladies wanted Jesse James to be bathed by midgets, some how, in the video. He was not going for it.... then he grinned. "As long as they are wearing sparkly bottoms... " Jesse was in.

Clint Black opted for ignoring Joan Rivers and most of his team to make his own video. Joan could not even speak... but she did. The camera spent more time on her and the ladies than whatever PM Clint was off doing.

Athena was definitely a more relaxed atmosphere. Donald Jr. and the officials from ALL were not impressed with their idea of using LPs.

Then the 'cast' walk in for KOTU... an LP. Hmmmmm. As Khloe Kardashian explained, he was to be the 'masterbater'. He was not good. This guy was such a bad actor, he was unbelievable as an LP. They fired him, and moved to plan B.

Plan B turned out to be Clint Black sitting in... so out went the little jokes. (Though Joan Rivers assured us that Clint is small). Joan finally went off. Clint called her resistant to his leadership. He called her insubordinate and said it was grounds for termination. I think Clint is a true man... of few words. You know the ones that demand you be in the car before you know what you are late for.

Clint wound up dismissing the women. He told them there was nothing to do.

The LPs on Athena's team were alright with scrubbing down Jesse James, but were not into the "oompah loompah" type outfits. Jesse was awesome and comical. The whole thing was funny if more than a little (sorry) politically incorrect.

By the time Hershel Walker got back to team KOTU things had gotten worse. Clint Black was now the start of a bad joke. A viral video must be funny. Or at least extraordinary. This did not even look like a chuckle. Hershel Walker came up with the idea of using 'pop-up' dialog boxes to help it along. Clint locked the entire team out of the editing room and said he hoped they took it as an action of good will.

Things just seemed to be going too well for team Athena. Jesse James has women cackling over his antics with the LPs. "Jesse James dirty with midgets" was the name they came up. I'm guessing it will suck. We shall see soon.

Um...they both pretty much sucked. Though I did giggle through the Jesse James beginning. Perez Hilton gave a celebrity review. Perez loved the Jesse James commercial and said that neither appealed to women with children (the focus group).

Why did Clint not write a funny song?

The ALL management like the relaxing atmosphere of the KOTU (Clint) ad, but found the cheating husband factor (added by Clint later) was a bad image. They found Athena's ad offensive from title to ending.

In the boardroom, Clint Black and Joan Rivers went right at each other. The women were on Clint. Hereshel Walker stood behind them nodding. Joan took it and made it very personal. Clint kept it professional. Melissa Rivers jumped in to defend her mom, but also said she can be a pain.

The boardroom was in full agreement that women love Jesse James.

The problem was still the offensiveness.

The executives hated both videos so there was no winner tonight. There would be six coming to the boardroom and two would be fired.

Melissa chose Tionne Watkins and Brandy Roderick.
Clint chose ... Khoe Kardashian and Natalie Gulbis (just to prove to Joan Rivers that he was not being personal.)

Clint also said that he would fall on the sword since he made all the decisions for the project.

Donald Trump laid the hammer down fast. Tionne Watkins volunteered to come to the boardroom and he fired her for it. Melissa felt awful. Trump reminded us all of Branford, one of the original Apprentice contestants who volunteered to come to the boardroom. Trump fired him for the offense immediately.

This was pretty harsh, but maybe taught Tionne Watkins a life lesson (I'm sure she didn't need to learn it in front of all of us, but thanks Trump).

Trump went on to ask the players of KOTU who wanted to go home. Trying to goad them into quitting. Then he went after Khloe Kardashian. She was absent last week due to classes of a DUI charge. Trump was not happy. He went on to say he hates people who drink and drive. Donald Trump said he would have never asked her to be on the show if he knew she was convicted of a DUI and missing time. He donated $20 thousand dollars to her charity and fired her. Hopefully she has to go back to jail. Khloe said she has been "paying for that mistake every single day" as her chauffered car took her to pick up her designer bags and go to the first class waiting area at the airport.

You can watch an All small and mighty vid for charity here.