'Celebrity Apprentice': a.k.a., Who Has the Fattest Rolodex?

Let's start out by admitting, right up front, that when The Donald intoned the following ridiculousness at the start of last night's first episode of "Celeb Apprentice" -- "featuring 14 of the world's most famous celebrities! -- I was thinking:
a) what world? Kathy Griffin's D-List? and;
b) this is going to be hideously painful.

Oh, so wrong we can be in our initial judgments about the world of cheestastic TV.

Best celebrity stunt casting in the history of reality TV since Ozzy Osbourne: Gene Simmons. The dark glasses, the scary-pasty skin, the hair that needs so much product it's beyond repair and, best of all, the unabashed 1980s I'm-Mr.-Super-Cool attitude. (Second best thing about Celeb Apprentice: Vince Pastore. Really, it makes me think I
should cut my own tongue out for suggesting this is a D-list cast. Then again, Sal "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero might do it to me first.)

But we digress. If there is a television deity looking out for all of us suffering through the writers' strike, Simmons will ride this puppy for weeks and weeks. Which, if Episode 1 means anything, directly relates to how deep and how rich and how beholden Simmons' contact list proves to be.

Yep. Turns out, in "Celeb Apprentice," Trump not only condones the contestants calling friends for help, he expects it -- actually assumes it. The whole point, it appears, is to get a whole lot more famous people (many of them, it seems from early teases, more famous and more rich and more interesting than the actual cast) to show up and pony up a boatload of money for charity to help one of their "Apprentice" pals win a task. So this week, when the task was to raise the most money selling hot dogs on an NYC street corner, the fastest brain on the block -- Gene Simmons! Imagine that!!! -- pulled out his cell and started dialing buddies and coercing them into showing up to pay $5K (yes, $5,000) for a dirty dog while Omarosa was over with the women pontificating about management strategy and quality product and putting the Playmate of the Year in an ugly white shirt with a hot dog on the front.

Yes, yes, Omarosa. How did I wait so long to get to her? Sorry, but I did feel the need to fill you in on the basics. Anyway, in the category of love-to-hate stunt casting, Trump dredged up Evil Omarosa from the original "Apprentice," declared her a celeb based upon the infamy she received from her first "Apprentice" incarnation and inflicted her on the women's team (teams have been intitallly divided boy v. girl) for a
maximum hate-fest. Yes, she's just as nasty as ever, only now she's all Ms. Justified in her nastiness, given that "Celeb" label and all, and her previous "Apprentice" experience, which just makes her even more deliciously irritating.

Depending on how the show was cut, it certainly looked as if Omarosa deserved to get fired this week, given that she dismissed the idea of using celebrity to sell (um? whole point of the show? did you even read the title?) then had herself saved from a massive embarassment by the ever-calm Marilu Henner, who ignored
Omarosa's initial instructions and dialed up her rich friends in the crunch and sold $11K of the team's $17K+ profits on the fly.

Of course, the Boys score mored than triple that because Simmons was smart enough to think about lining up his favors a day ahead of time, and they sold their dogs with a promise of a pic with a celeb attached. No-brainer? Of course. Also, it didn't help that contestant Tito Ortiz is going out with porn star Jenna Jameson, who declared on air she would do anything to help her man win.

Yipes? Yeah. Ratings spike!

In the end, sweet Tiffany Fallon (I confess, I had to look her up pre-show, little did I know the roster of Playmates of the Year, but she came across as so innocent and nicey-nice!) got fired because she was too vulnerably pathetic to stand up to Omarosa and, more to the point, she really annoyed Trump by not calling up his buddy Hugh Hefner --who presumably is in Ms. Playmate's speed dial -- to hit him for some serious dough.

So, onward to poll questions. In the future, should our weekly poll be about:

A) Best Simmons line of the episode?
B) Best put-down of Omarosa by another cast member?
C) Nastiest Omarosa line to a fellow teammate?

In this episode, Simmons, in my opinion, takes A & B in one fell swoop: "Omarosa is a survivor, like a cockroach. No matter what you do, you cannot kill her."

As for C, Omarosa's best put-down came when she dismissed Tiffany's meager yes-woman comment with the snap-snap reply: "I'm glad you're picking up what I'm putting down."

-- JENNIFER FREY

Michael Cavna  |  January 4, 2008; 10:28 AM ET Celebrity Apprentice
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