Andy DehnartWe all know how much Donald Trump hates quitters, but we’ve also learned how much Donald Trump cannot criticize his celebrity cast members, which is perhaps the worst part about The Celebrity Apprentice.
The typical firing goes something like this: You absolutely sucked at this task, you wrecked the sponsor’s product, but I love you, you’re great, but you did awful, but you are amazing. You did such a horrific job that you’re fired. But you do great work and I love you. But I had no choice. No choice. I had no choice.
The two collapsed on the third episode when Darryl Strawberry essentially quit the show, though he didn’t use that word, and instead volunteered himself to be fired because he was tired, saying, “I’d rather take a hit than [project manager] Michael [Johnson] take a hit.”
He had nothing to do with the men losing the task, though, so after a lot of back and forth, Trump said, “Are you taking the hit, Darryl, because you’re loyal to your team, or because you want to get the hell out of here?”
Trump finally got Darryl to admit that he wanted to go home “a little bit,” and in his car service ride of shame said, “I was pretty exhausted.”
First, though, when Trump realized what was happening, he started to rant: “Over nine seasons, I’ve had two people that quit. And those people have never forgotten it, and they’ve really regretted it. And they apologized; I said, you’re a quitter. And they never have lived it down. I mean, they call me, and they write me, doesn’t matter. But they quit.”
I’m quite sure those quitters, whose names I can’t even remember without looking them up, are so devastated they still call to beg Trump’s forgiveness.
Although any rational person would have let someone else take the fall, Michael Johnson, the project manager, had to go and show integrity by throwing himself on his sword, telling Trump, “Let him quit, but still fire somebody.” He added, “I don’t want to stay here because he quit.”
Trump found a way to spin all of this by firing Darryl Strawberry but then insisting that Michael Johnson was saved by Darryl, telling them to leave before he changed his mind.
But Trump didn’t eviscerate the former baseball player like he would have one of the nobodys who appeared on the regular season, which is one thing we can look forward to when it returns this fall.
My other favorite moment in the episode came when Bret Michaels was critiquing his team’s advertorial, and said to Trump, “As a graphic designer…” Trump interrupted and said, “Are you a graphic designer?” Bret said, “No.” And Trump asked why he’d say he was if he wasn’t.
Bret Michaels is becoming the Cyndi Lauper of the men’s team, babbling incoherently, like when he asked the Norton and Lifelock executives about the economic collapse, and totally confused everyone, especially us when he insisted, “I love the ladies, I can’t help it. And I’m having fun. But I’m not a creepy guy. I’m not a creeper.”
Didn’t he have three VH1 dating shows precisely because he’s at least somewhat creepy?
Anyway, I think he’s trying to so hard to act smart that he looks like an idiot, while Cyndi is just on her level of existence that sometimes overlaps with ours, sometimes not. I love when it does and she says things like, “Now I know why Dennis Rodman started drinking.” Awesomeness.
Speaking of funny behavior, Rod Blagojevich told his team they were “prematurely ejaculating” and needed “more foreplay,” but while he knows what those things mean, he doesn’t know how to use a Mac.
Or, apparently, anything with a keyboard, because watching him search for keys to press with single digits was hilarious, if depressing.
That makes Barack Obama’s Blackberry addiction and technical literacy seem even more like a virtue.