Celebrity Apprentice

I wasn't going to watch, but a couple of weeks ago, I accidentally caught the last couple of minutes of The Apprentice - just in time to see Nadia Comaneci get fired. (Nadia Comaneci! I remember when she was the darling little Romanian gymnast, balance beaming in her little pigtails all the way to Olympic Gold. Now she's a washed up "celebrity" trying unsuccessfully to avoid getting "fired" by Donald Trump.)

So I went and tuned in an episode of The Celebrity Apprentice.

I struggled a bit at first, since I wasn't all that familiar with a number of the celebs.

Sure, I knew Nadia. And the guy who played Big Pussy on The Sopranos. My husband, who has a surprisingly excellent eye for spotting actors, recognized Marilu Henner, who played Elaine on Taxi. (Which shouldn't have been all that much of a surprise, given that he's probably seen every episode a dozen times.) I knew who Lennox Lewis was. And Omarosa, who became a celebrity for being on The Apprentice - talk about self-referencing - and is now, apparently, such a big celeb, that she can go by her first name only - like Oprah, or Hillary, or Rosie.

And, yes, I recognized Stephen Baldwin as one of the lesser Baldwins - although, I guess other than Alec, they're all lesser Baldwins. And I knew the name Gene Simmons, but would have recognize him better if he was in his Kiss kabuki - NOT THAT I AM NOW OR EVER WAS A KISS FAN - but I knew who he was. (I was thinking that he was invited on because his dye-job and hair-do make Donald Trump's look like an ad for Preference by L'Oreal, but then I looked up his Bio on the show's site, and he's oh, so much more. In fact, I'm guessing he is second to no one - including Donald - in his ability to self-promote and self-aggrandize).

Oh, and my apologies to Mr. Trump for referring to him as Donald. Even Jim Cramer, who was one of the judges this week, used the respectful "Mr. Trump" when addressing the master. ("It's insolence to you, Mr. Trump," he advised Mr. Trump when Gene Simmons all but dared MT to fire him by ignoring his near-command not to bring Omarosa and Jenny Finch - whoever she is - back to the boardroom for the round in which "someone will be fired.")

I looked her up and Jenny, like Nadia, is an Olympic athlete - a softball player - and she has a son named Ace. (Poor kid.)

The other celebs, well, I was at something of a loss, but was able to glean who they are on line.

Piers Morgan - tabloid editor. Tito Ortiz - extreme fighter. Carol Alt - supermodel (are all models supermodels?). Trace Adkins - C&W signer. Nely Galan - TV producer. Tiffany Fallon - Playboy centerfold.

All I can say is, celebrities aren't what they used to be in my day, when there weren't that damn many of them and you'd actually be at least vaguely familiar with who they were. In those long ago days, before there were People, and Us, and celebrity gossip TV shows, celebrities were people who were actually famous for doing something - like Conrad Hilton, founder of the eponymous hotel chain and author of Be My Guest - rather than people like Paris Hilton who are famous for being celebrities.

For those unfamiliar with the central theme of The Apprentice, the wannabe's are split into teams. Each episode, the teams are assigned to a business task - renovate an apartment and sell it; flog Trump bottled water; come up with a marketing campaign for something or another. One team wins, one team loses, on either objective grounds (who sold the most whatever), or subjective grounds (whose work did the judges like better).

The project manager of the losing team has to chose the two weakest members (or the two he/she'd most like to see fired). The three then make an appearance on camera, in camera, before Mr. Trump and his advisors to make the case why they should stay and someone else should be fired.

The series culminates with two finalists duking it out, and the winner of the final task getting an offer to work in the Trump organization.

The task on the night I watched was coming up with a campaign to promote Kodak's new ink/printers.

Two Kodak managers ruled for Team A, which had quite sensibly tried to promote ink/printers. Team B - led by Gene Simmons - had not so sensibly tried to rebrand Kodak at a very high level of abstraction.

Gene Simmons argued back, telling the Kodak folks to kiss off, stating "I'm more qualified to make a decision" about how to market their products than they were.

Well, as a marketing consultant, I do feel that sometimes the outside voice is more qualified than the insiders, but in this case...

I am not likely to turn on another episode of Celebrity Apprentice. Bad enough watching the desperate suck-ups who really want to work for "Mr. Trump", let alone a bunch of quasi-celebs who I believe are playing to make money for their favorite charities, but who mostly seem to be playing to get their mush in front of the camera, and their quasi-recognized names (and mushes) a little better recognized. (At least I'm guessing that they're not playing to actually get a job working for the Trump organization, although I'm sure a few of them could use the job.)

As for the "Mr. Trump," maybe it's just that I've spent my career in the informal halls of high technology, but - other than when I worked at Wang, and everyone called and referred to Dr. Wang as Dr. Wang - I've let to work anyplace where everyone wasn't on a first name basis with everyone else.

Mr. Trump?

I don't even entirely, 100% "get" why everyone other than wife and mother has to call the president of the United States "Mr. President" (or "Madam President," as the case may well turn out to be), let alone all this pseudo-respectful, kow-towing to Donald Trump.

Sorry, Donald.

When Jim Cramer - who must really want to get on one of the major networks in prime time to appear on this show, rather than stay satisfied with his market-hours screech-fests on MSNBC - said "It's insolence to you, Mr. Trump", The Apprentice just completely jumped the shark into the campiest of self-parodies.

In any event, that's it for me and Celebrity Apprentice. I have fired myself from watching. I don't care what half-baked celebrity is left standing - although I must say that based on what I saw in the episode I did watch, please, nobody tell me if Stephen Baldwin ends up the winner.