Smallscreen News

Celebrity Apprentice recap, Selita chopped, Johnson excused and Lauper's Obama pass

By April MacIntyre Apr 12, 2010, 12:32 GMT

Cyndi Lauper -New York City, NY, USA © Sylvain Gaboury / PR Photos

Nobody can accuse the NBC "Celebrity Apprentice" of being boring this year.  Everybody's jumping ship before the Donald tell's them "you're fired."

Darryl Strawberry was pooped from his whirlwind year, so he bows out for his team. Sharon Osbourne has been sick damn near every episode, absent last night. Last night saw two family dramas unfold, which sent Michael Johnson home to San Francisco to deal with his son, and Bret Michaels to weep about unknown test results for his daughter Rain who may have Diabetes (Type 1) like him.

Then the epic love-hate between Cyndi Lauper and Holly "Peete Robinson whatevah" is blossoming, as Lauper was given a hall pass by the Donald to meet with President Obama and congratulate him on passing the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Amendment. Holly took charge of the women and produce an ad for Right Guard with Scotty Pippen, a Basketball great. 

In the end, lady-like Selita Ebanks got the chop, but not without parting shots at wrestling Diva Maria, who channels Chili from the old Marvel Milli and Chili comic books to a "T".

Donald Trump's excuse given to Michael Johnson that he must quit and it wasn't fair "because people will be fired" didn't fly with me after Sharon Osbourne has been a man down pretty much the whole gig, except when she was telling Summer and Holly that watching them was akin to ice melting.

The episode challenge was to create two different commercials, a 30-second spot and a 10-second spot, for Right Guard Total Defense deodorant.

Funk was the theme for the women to fight those first stinky pit moments a kid has when he hits puberty. The message was delivered in a funny jingle that Holly Robinson-Peete gave a "blaxploitation" feel. It was clever.

The men did slapstick with a couple of teenage boys, that involved hitting their Basketball legend in the gut with a ball. It was lame.

Cyndi nearly botched team Tenacity's presentation; public speaking is not her strong suite. She forgets "the middle part," the way Kevin Kline did in a "Fish Called Wanda."

There seems to be a theme with the unctuous Bret Michaels, who now has the crisis with his kid looming. He seems to be on emotional physical high alert at all times.

This time the men won despite the fact that their commercial was not as good as the womens, but the poobahs at Right Guard saw their brilliance, and apparently I am not the target audience. Yet, I don't know too many 15-18 year old boys who actually go to the market and buy deodorant; they get what they get from mom who unloads the groceries.

Selita, the lovely model, sashayed into the elevator and took a claw-ful of Maria K, but she was part of the ice melting brigade, and we are going to see the women finally heat up as Lauper, Osbourne, Kanellis, Robinson-Peete and Summers duke it out as Queen Bee, while Goldberg and Curtis calm Bret down for his 19th nervous breakdown.