Celebrity Apprentice - Episode Nine

I still have a lot of questions about Dial Yogurt. Is it really yogurt? Is it a dairy product? Can you eat it if you get hungry in the shower?

Due to the weirdness of the product (even the Dial representatives seemed less than enthused), I'm not surprised Empresario struggled to come up with an innovative campaign. Carol Alt got it right when she decided to keep it "sexy" and simple. Sure, Hydra's "Day in the life of a regular woman" approach was pretty boring, but it looked smashing. Empresario's ad, on the other hand, was contrived and nonsensical. I get the whole desert/dry skin thing, but who eats yogurt in the desert? There were too many things going on there.

Tito Ortiz didn't help matters. He was a terrible project manager, deferring to Stephen Baldwin on every decision. Honestly, I don't know why an ultimate fighting champion would step up to lead a task centered on developing a soap ad for a magazine aimed at Middle American housewives. Omarosa really should have volunteered. After all, she was telling everyone that she was tapped to appear in a shampoo commercial a few years ago. Maybe she's scarred for life because that never came to fruition.

That said, Omarosa didn't force Tito to be PM. She did tell him that she had been PM recently, but she didn't tell him to take the job. Besides, as Tito pointed out in the boardroom later on, the Big O did contribute a lot to the task. Maybe she should have voiced her concerns about the cowboy approach, but, as she pointed out, the men's wacky ideas (think Antony and Cleopatra) have paid off in the past. If only Stephen had agreed to include the picture of shirtless Trace Adkins! Redbook readers would have bought the soap based on that fantasy material alone!

Speaking of fantasy, Carol's "raunchy" photo shoot was fabulous. You have to give her credit for pulling out all the stops for the team. I still think she's a bit of an airhead, but she knows her marketing and she's game for anything. Of course, she looks fabulous. Hydra can't afford to lose her based on that attribute alone.

Tito, on the other hand, was totally off his game last night. I felt bad for him when he spazzed out during Empresario's presentation, but come on! He didn't seem very well prepared. There's just no excuse for choking like that. If he was that nervous, he should have asked Omarosa or Baldwin to handle it. Of course, they would have used it against him in the boardroom, but they might not have wound up in the boardroom if they had done a better job of selling their vision to the executives from Dial and Redbook. (Side note: I loved how the Donald tried to create suspense after the presentations by telling the execs they were torn between the two presentations, even though they clearly weren't. Very subtle.)

Unlike the Serta executive who loved the guys' campy Antony and Cleopatra window display, last night's judges seemed put off by the less conventional cowboy approach. There were a couple of surprises in the boardroom, starting with the fact that Tito said Omarosa was the hardest worker on the team. I just can't figure out that woman. She runs hot and cold. I also didn't expect Trace to say he would fire Tito if he were Mr. Trump. He was very diplomatic, but it must have pained him to say anything bad about a teammate. In the end, the Donald had no choice but to fire Tito. He seems like a nice enough person, but he's a bit of a dullard. I thought it was odd that the Donald kept telling him how "special" he is. It seems like he was struggling to come up with a compliment.

Some highlights from this week's episode: George's face during the biting segment of Hydra's photo shoot, the execs' reaction to the resulting photograph(they need to loosen up), and the Donald's obsession with the whole biting scandal. He pretended to be shocked, but he loved it.

Hydra is clearly the team to beat. Yes, Lennox is a loose cannon, but with him and Carol as potential models and Piers Morgan's brains, the trio is unstoppable. After this week's poor judgment on Baldwin's part, Empresario's fate seems shaky, especially considering Omarosa's moody behavior. Right now my money is on Morgan. He toned down his behavior this week and seems to be recovering from his battles with Omarosa and Vinny Pastore. I guess we'll find out!