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Celebrity Apprentice: The colossal collapse of Gary Busey, finally

By April MacIntyre Apr 18, 2011, 15:17 GMT

03/05/2011 - Gary Busey, Hope Dworaczyk - "Celebrity Apprentice" Season Premiere Cast Party at Surrender Nightclub in Las Vegas on March 5, 2011 - Surrender Nightclub at Encore Las Vegas - Las Vegas, NV, USA © PRN / PR Photos

My Sunday began and ended with Donald Trump, a guest on CNN's AM political morning show hosted by Candy Crowley.  Trump talked about how the world was eating our lunch and we should tell the Arab League to stuff it and pay us $5 Billion for going in to Libya.

He didn't go "birther" in this interview, but noted that his purse was bigger than Romney's, a "small business guy" and he was seriously mulling a run for POTUS.

After this interview, NBC execs released soundbites to Drudge Report saying this was "Donald being Donald" and he was not going to run, as "Celebrity Apprentice" is one of the biggest cash cows the network has.

Well, at least we have "The Donald" just as host of a reality TV show this year, the year of Gary Busey, the off-kilter, facially askew passive-aggressive "saboteur" who makes John Rich's steady dead eye gaze twitch and Lil Jon's cap go all kinds of left-right as his eyebrows do the talking (we cannot see his eyes ever, thanks to permanently attached sunglasses).

This week's The Celebrity Apprentice sees the aftermath of the beloved Mark McGrath exit and how the men "welcome" Gary back as the women cackle and know that they are so going to beat the dwindling male team Backbone. Team ASAP may have chinks in the armor, but they smelled the blood when Busey walked through the door.

La Toya handed over $65 large to AIDS Project LA and they were delighted, hugs. Kind of underwhelming response actually.

Challenge of the week was Omaha Steaks, as Todd and Bruce Simon ask the teams to produce and star in a cooking demonstration in front of a live studio audience using their products with three dishes and create a gift package to sell. They will be judged on marketing, originality and presentation.

Hope and Gary are the Project Managers.

The men get together as Meat Loaf is already showing signs that he needs Atavan stat, and Lil Jon and John are joined at the hip for their mutual disdain, and Gary knows it. The team is not together and Gary does not even ask who can cook or assign the Johns anything to do, he makes Meat Loaf chef, a Bat out of Hell who does not cook.

For one of the themed gifts, Gary goes off in a tangent and suggests kids bring dad a branded kite. Everyone thinks this idea is too far-fetched. Meat Loaf has a Herculean task in prepping and designing three menus. The Johns let Gary hang.

Gary comes up with Omaha's Multi Flavored Steaks, and we lose about 6 minutes as the men explain to Gary there is no such thing. No matter how much Gary says the idea.

Ivanka visits and walks into a "therapy session."  This is when I notice Ivanka's makeup, and her cheek shading is not blended enough. Ivanka, you have a lot of money, get a better makeup artist.

Gary and Lil' Jon shop, John and Meat Loaf go to the test kitchen. John is quite angry that Gary called him 'boy' the day before in a lecture.

Back at Team ASAP, Star takes over as PM understudy and Hope's face is showing the pain. Star keeps interrupting. NeNe is annoyed by this, in a chain of many things that set her off.

At the meeting, Star talks about her open heart surgery and designs the "heart healthy" meal of a petite fillet, but let's be real, if you have heart issues, you should never eat red meat. Period.

NeNe will do the lobster grille with Marlee and and La Toya will do another steak meal. For the package, they decide on a poker night package which will have burgers, steaks. NeNe adds condoms, cut to Star Jones pained, thinking those "my people my people" thoughts.

In the kitchen, NeNe has Hope change the gameplan and La Toya will flip a burger instead to give their show more variety. La Toya is swamped by this eleventh hour change. Hilarious, as Hope tells her this is no big deal.

La Toya is useless, and does not cook, NeNe's nerves are worked eight ways to Sunday over this. Really La Toya, as NeNe pointed out, you are an "old lady" and grew up in Gary, Indiana. Never made a grilled cheese eh?

NeNe and Marlee are sent out to run errands. NeNe is annoyed again because she thinks Star gets out of any real work by hanging over a computer.

Don Jr. visits and Star shows off and runs the meeting. Don thinks she will eventually be held accountable for taking over everything.

Side note: Star's b-roll interview where she is wearing the fox faux fur thing around her neck... great makeup job, have that person see Ivanka.

Meanwhile La Toya causes a kitchen fire, flaming the burgers and once again, NeNe is annoyed thinking she may wind up burned like Michael Jackson at a Pepsi commercial shoot.

At rehearsal, Hope gives La Toya the prompt to project her voice, but the baby talker keeps on keeping on.

After the presentations, to the boardroom.

Gary thinks he was a good project manager.

Meat Loaf looks down, and says he likes Gary, but he cannot even articulate words correctly at this point.

John says it was a "colossal collapse of time management."  Lil Jon agrees. Meat Loaf is ready for a Valium drip.

Typo time! Ivanka and Trump point out two typos and the wrong menu print up for the men. Don Jr. asks Ivanka if she has ever had "Key Lim Pie." They chortle. I love how these silver-spoon offspring of the Donald cluck over such things, really. This elitist Wharton-Harvard "right people" stuff is what we have to look forward to if you bring back the eighties, electing Trump to a political office.

Gary is left stunned in the wake of mass hatred from his teammates, and he rambles and looks defensive during the presentations.

Lil Jon thinks that while he "likes" Gary, Gary exists off planet Earth, and perhaps is orbiting in outer space.

Hope and the women are beaming, despite the La Toya edge they know they did a good job.

Star tells Trump she would be proud to be Hope's mother.

NeNe and Marlee also are thumbs up on the experience.

Don Jr says Omaha Steaks liked the women's branding, the healthy meal and the poker night theme. However, they didn't like they called it simply "Omaha" and that there should have been more live cooking.

The women win.  Hope gets $20,000 for her charity and her meals will be sold with portions of the money going to Best Buddies.

The men await the firing. Meat Loaf is upset and frustrated, still. Lil' Jon says he would have asked who knew how to cook and made a schedule. John is Texas twisted still over the boy thing.

Gary won't bring anyone back for the firing, and Trump fires him.

What did you think of this week's Buseyectomy?

(Side note: Is anyone else seeing a physical and mental decline with Meat Loaf? He seems ready to be sent away somewhere clinical for "exhaustion" in this series).

Ep 407: Gary’s Kite Story Gary confuses the audience with a story out of the blue.
Ep 407: Gary, You’re Fired Trump decides to make Meat Loaf very happy.

Ep 407: Gary Busey’s Exit Interview Gary admits his failings, and takes the opportunity to thank his teammates.

Next On: Bitter Suites The teams create an ad campaign for the Trump Hotel collection.