The Apprentice - October 13, 2005: A Review

I viewed only a portion of this episode of The Apprentice, as I was busy being distracted with not watching The Apprentice. I tuned in about twenty-five minutes into the show and watched the rest of it intermittently between doing laundry, cleaning out the gutters, writing my congressperson a letter about my neighbors’ trees spewing organic debris clogging up my gutters, mowing the carpet (don’t ask) and building a mechanical bite size nugget. I’m telling you, positive procrastination is the uncle of necessity. As it turns out, what I did witness of the show was plenty.

The contestants were split into two teams. Coincidentally, all of the men were on one team and all of the women were on the other team. I thought segregation was an outmoded practice in our society. Who am I to question Trump? I wonder if they were each bussed in from varying apprentice districts. Their challenge was to create a mascot and marketing strategy for Dairy Queen. I didn’t know Dairy Queen still existed. Apparently they are in the need for some strong new and exciting marketing. Being desperate, they turned to reality television to save them. If I were them, I would have waited to see what happens with the INXS’s career before making that decision. I can’t speak for the rest of the world, but the consensus in these parts is to attend the new tour to see the Lovehammers and then head back to the bar before the JDINXS hits the stage. But it may work out for them. Who knows, maybe reality television will become the newest trend in business consultation.

My induction into The Apprentice experience began with the passively hostile women’s team mitosising itself into two work groups, although I’m not sure what the purpose of each group was. From their behavior, I assume their purpose was to berate the women in the other group behind their backs. The men were portrayed in a more communal and amiable light. In defense of the women, I don’t know if I merely missed dissension among the men, due to my gutter cleaning, or if it was withheld by the editors of the show, or if there was none to be shown. I’m sure the women are all kind, generous people looking to climb up the knives in other people’s backs to the top. That’s how I got to where I am today. Actually, as I type this, I’m not sure who’s house this is, but they sure do keep their refrigerator stocked, and they own unusually comfortable underwear. But the point is I got here by back-knife climbing. I don’t know how I’m going to get back down.

The women’s team created an ice cream malformation of Inspector Gadget afflicted with Grave’s Eye Disease wielding a giant rubber spoon. This thing, named Zip, was their proposed mascot. Their presentation suggested that this milky mutant would appeal to children and teenagers alike. And by "appeal" I can only imagine they meant "scare the shit out of". The DQ marketing geniuses seemed to be a little freaked out by it themselves. As we'll learn later, it would have behooved the ladies to incorporate a giant set of hooters on Zip to help make the DQ guys stand at attention. The DQ guys didn’t buy the spiel, especially since there was no mention of the Dairy Queen brand in the character (and no boobies). One of the team members suggested that the signature ice cream swirl (barely identifiable as the body of Zip) and the behemoth rubber spoon were clear expressions of the Dairy Queen charm. Maybe if she would have described it the way I just did, she may have had a better chance of the DQ suits falling for it. But she didn’t and they didn’t.

Surprisingly, the men chose to recreate Barbara Eden as a snow genie who dispenses soft serve ice cream from her nipples. Even more surprisingly, the DQ rakes took to the idea like...uh...er...well...like a man takes to ice cream dispensing nipples! One of the team members was dressed in the coquettish costume portraying "Ginny the Genie", whose soft serve hair, shapely silhouette, plunging neckline and man hands sent ripples of hubbub through their assessors. As soon as the mascot manifestation strutted into the room, the DQ guys transformed into Pavlov’s dogs and doused the conference table with drool. The men’s team of innovators held fast to their underlying premise: everybody, especially ice cream eaters, loves cleavage. Whether that is true or not did not matter as truth plays a very small, if non-existent, role in marketing. The DQ dogs agreed, stating that the mascot gave them boners, which was all they were pretty much after, since in addition to cleavage, they felt everyone, especially ice cream eaters, loves boners. They didn’t even seem to mind that the mascot was a man dressed in fantasy drag. Speaking of which, the guy in the costume, let’s call him Genie, since I forgot his real name, refused to have his package duct taped down so as not to protrude the groinal region of the get up. Genie, sir, if I can offer some advice, don’t knock it until you’ve try it. But that’s a tale for another article. Even the bulge in the costume didn’t subdue the DQ henchmen. It helped them notice the "DQ" belt buckle on Genie’s costume, which would be easily noticed as dirty old men switched their gazes back and forth between Genie’s snow hills and her glacier crevasse. And then they’ll buy ice cream!

Amazingly, Zip the wonder whatever it is didn’t make the cut. Consequently, the men’s team won, sending the women’s team to the boardroom of death. There, Trump allowed the women to cat fight at will. I’m not sure what all the bickering was about. It was evident that Toral, a tool and dye machinist, was able to get only one other girl, a cripple who had broken her ankle trying to climb up Trump’s ass in an earlier episode, not to want to scratch her eyes out. Trump picked up on this and ripped her a new orifice. This was the best part of the show, although I think it would grow old if I saw it happen more than six and a half times. As soon as Trump smelled the blood resulting from the cat fight, he pounced. He was relentless. At this point logic was futile. Toral tried to fire back, but she had no chance. If I were her, instead of arguing, I would have kept repeating "nice hair" at him until he started to cry or until I was removed by security. Toral left in a cab telling us that those Apprentice grapes were sour anyway. The rest of the women returned to their lair to sharpen their nails for next week’s episode. Trump stopped by and finished cleaning my gutters so that maybe I could watch the entire episode next week. I don’t think so, but at least my gutters are now clean.