ASAP suffers third loss in a row …
The latest installment of Celebrity Apprentice 4 had Backbone and ASAP creating a 30-second video phone commercial for ACN, a home-based marketing company.
The teams were judged on creativity, originality, and branding. Company leaders, who met separately with the two groups to provide some direction prior to the task, were emphatic that the commercial message should evoke emotion.
The men were led by hip hop artist Lil Jon. They took a risk by putting together a video short that they titled Tommy Gets Engaged. The scene featured parents, dressed in bathrobes, opening a gift from their son. It is a video phone with instructions to plug it in and call their offspring for a surprise message. Tommy introduces them to his fiancee — another man, portrayed by Jose Conseco.
The women took their marching orders from NeNe Leakes. They cast a daughter in France phoning her parents back in the U.S. The mother is played by deaf actress Marlee Matlin, who speaks and signs her obvious love for her foreign exchange student daughter.
The ads were presented to 450 ACN salesmen. One hundred of them were able to vote for their favorite commercial and the results were very close. ASAP received 47 votes, while Backbone squeaked out their third win in a row with 53 votes. Lil Jon received $40,000 for his charity United Methodist Children’s Home.
Back in the boardroom, NeNe Leakes got teary-eyed, even before finding out her team had lost the task. Two players quickly rose to the surface as least effective.
LaToya Jackson, according to Star Jones, lacked the necessary skill set to be of any real help and was relegated to the role of time keeper. She struggled with that lightweight job because her vision was blurred by a Lasik procedure. Donald, a huge fan of the Jackson’s, didn’t seem inclined to suck her into a war of words.
Dionne Warwick was faulted for leaving an editing session because she wanted to go to bed, while the rest of the team stayed to oversee the completion of the task. In the end, she got huffy with Trump, and challenged him to fire her. It didn’t take him long to make up his mind: “I had no choice. You’re fired.”
Upon leaving the building, Warwick turned on NeNe when she tried to give the veteran singer a parting hug. Diva Dionne hissed: “You’re a coward.”
Preview’s for next week’s episode show a huge blowup between Meatloaf and Gary Busey that causes the musician to go into serious meltdown mode.
Check out the commercials below: