The Celebrity Apprentice – Uncola “nuts” and rock and roll

Hypothetical situation for you, boys and girls:

You’re a player in a game against other contestants. You are to complete various tasks working within teams made up of your fellow opponents with a couple goals in mind: Continually win so you can climb the ladder of success in the competition, avoid being eliminated at all costs and make as much money as you possibly can for a charity you’re to representing. The tasks are many and varied and your fellow contestants are sometimes ruthless task after task. They’ll work with you one moment and sometimes back stab you the next. Eventually, you become one of four players in contention for the final chapter of the game. You go into an interview where you are grilled with questions about how you’ve done and who you are and how you got as far as you have and who do you think deserves to win.

What should your immediate answer be to that final item?

No brainer, right? One would think. But to Lil Jon who was one of those very people in the above scenario it wasn’t. Put on the spot and asked who should be going against each other in the finale by past winners Piers Morgan Joan Rivers and Brett Michaels, he chose John Rich and Marlee Matlin, leaving himself and Meat Loaf hanging out to dry. Incredible. Nary a mention of himself being one of those two people. Tactical mistake of monumental import. In that singular moment, I said to myself: “Lil John just fired himself.”

And sure enough, come board room sitdown on The Celebrity Apprentice, that’s exactly what Donald Trump did: he fired him. Lil Jon might be a humble, upstanding guy, but he’s got loads to learn when it comes to strutting his stuff in this competition.

And despite being “… locked, loaded and ready to go with more energy than another of the others,” Meat Loaf got the shaft, too, with Trump noting the emotion Meat often wore on his sleeve — and which manifested itself in waterworks aplenty during the season — was not conducive from a business standpoint. The Loaf had passion, but he couldn’t escape his feelings which turned out to be his Achilles heel in the end. And afterward, as The Loaf huffed his way out of the board room, did I catch a camera shot of The Donald misting up a bit his ownself? Maybe it was just a trick of the camera, but I would have bet dollars to donuts I saw him get a bit verklempt for the briefest of moments.

So … we have the set up going into the final competition with Marlee Matlin and John Rich going head to head against each other. And rather the cool competition it is, if I don’t say so myself. Create a campaign revolving around 7-Up Retro for the 7-Up company: Manufacture a campaign for the product, come up with attractive packaging for it, write and produce an accompanying commercial and produce a star-studded event for the product. I found myself smiling a few times at some of the promotional things both teams were devising. Team Marlee procured Geoffrey Holder, the singular voice of the ’70s and ’80s Uncola Nut series of commercials for 7-Up as one of her teams key standouts while Team John went with Dee Snider of Twisted Sister performing in their retro commercial, both spiffy concept ideas for each team.

While it appears all went swimmingly well with Team John in acquiring the services of Dee Snider, leaving us cliffhanging are Team Marlee’s efforts in procuring Geoffrey Holder’s iconic image and voice (video below) for their promotion. Release form details seem to be standing in the way of their success in getting him on set to do his thing. All a set up for the grand finale next Sunday where we learn who ends up on top.

I’m jonesing for the conclusion to this season. How ’bout you?

Clacked by Michael Noble
on May 16, 2011 @ 13:20 EST5EDT