The Celebrity Apprentice 5, Episode 9: A Smile On My Face and a Hand Up My Tuchus

Dayana sits and watches some more, and says she’s unsure of what she’ll be doing at the presentation. She says it’s another demonstration of how Lisa is trying to put her out of sight. From what I can see, Clay is killing it with the voice work, but his puppeteering skills are not quite up to par. Someone needs to teach him the “Henson punch.” (Props to you if you know what I’m referring to there.) Meanwhile, Dayana looks bored.

Back over to Unanimous, where the improv instructor is teaching the basics to Arsenio and Teresa. Arsenio says learning an art in one day is an impossible task, so they’d better practice. Teresa is nervous but will try her best, and is trying to be a team player, while she has no idea what Paul – the Project Manager, mind you – is doing.

Arsenio seems to have the same problem as Clay, in that his vocal work is great but the way he handles his puppet is not so good. (Henson punch!) Aubrey reiterates that Arsenio is not her favorite but his character is cute, and since he’s a comedian the two of them have to carry the brunt of the performance. Teresa and the instructor do an exercise in which they’re doing an infomercial selling cleaning supplies, and Teresa seems to forget both that she has a puppet on her hand (its mouth doesn’t move at all) and that they’re supposed to be selling cleaning supplies. Aubrey sounds far too happy as she describes how inept Teresa is, and she figures as host she’ll have to try to save it. Oh boy, if they need Aubrey to save them, then they really are doomed.

In another exercise, Teresa’s puppet is introduced as Tonya, to which Teresa says, “Hi Tonya.” In another, Teresa is specifically asked for an adjective, and she says, “Monsters!” I’ve never really understood why you’d say something is such a gruesome disaster that you just can’t look away – now I totally get it.

It’s the day of the task, and Unanimous is in the van en route to the performance. Arsenio says they’re all very nervous but very excited, as they keep trying to coach Teresa on improv. (She still sucks.) Aubrey says Teresa has a naïve, childlike personality which is bubbly and cute, but other than that she doesn’t bring much to the table.

Forte arrives at their dressing room, and Lisa for no good reason asks Clay if they had a small dressing room at Medeival Times, and says something about Debbie Gibson taking a “four-alarm dump” in theirs. She’s a classy broad, that Lisa. She says they’re hanging out and not stressing and running stuff, because she believes the death of improv is to memorize something and hope it looks spontaneous. (She’s right – I’ve seen it done and it almost never works.)

Clay broaches the touchy subject of giving Dayana more to do, and Dayana says she offered to carry the box of props to hand to the assistants. Lisa tells her she’s involved because everyone is involved, so “let’s not have drama,” which is kind of like telling Cirque du Soleil to not have anything weird in their show. So of course Lisa creates the drama herself, saying, “It’s always something,” and Clay says she went from zero to 60 in a second.

Lisa and Dayana have their weekly argument, which of course is peppered with bleeps, until Clay tries to calm them down and insist they need to be in a happy mood. It’s all for naught, as Lisa yells at Dayana that she’s a “[bleep] pain in the ass,” and claims she had to create something for Dayana to do again. Dayana tries to make the perfectly valid point that Lisa is the Project Manager and should be telling her what to do, but Lisa insists she’s not fighting about this and tells Dayana to shut up again; she’s a lot like Star Jones, in that she can dish it out but really can’t take it. (The camera spins around to Penn during this argument and he looks like he’s making a silent plea to the camera to save him.)

After Lisa’s insistence of, “Do whatever the [bleep] you want,” Dayana walks out of the room, and is shown crying in the hallway. In a stairwell, Dayana says she treats Lisa better than Lisa treats other people, and Lisa still has no decency or respect. “It’s been fun,” Dayana adds sarcastically.

Naturally, Lisa now has to rip into Clay and Penn, as she yells at them for not stepping in and leaving her to deal with Dayana’s every task yet again. It sounds like that should have been something left up to, oh I don’t know… the Project Manager?! Clay interviews he’s blown away, and suggests that maybe Lisa is jealous and feels threatened by Dayana’s beauty. I’d say he hit the nail on the head there.

Lisa complains some more about how Dayana has to be the star every time, while Clay and Penn wisely keep their mouths shut. Damn, Lisa redeemed herself somewhat in my eyes last week, and now here she is, back to square one. I hope she gets fired already, because at this point I’d rather watch Aubrey than her.

It’s ten minutes to performance and Lisa is still berating the guys for not stepping in, because for sure everyone should be willing to break up a fight between a beauty queen and an emotional, angry, foul-mouthed woman – I mean, who wouldn’t be? Penn goes to look for Dayana and interviews that when someone is loud and unpleasant, he backs away and doesn’t want to be a part of it.

Penn finds Dayana outside and tells her she shouldn’t bring the box of props on, but Dayana says it’s not even about the box; she says she’s been pushed to the side since the beginning, which is why she’s always brought back to the Boardroom. Penn listens to her vent and says in situations where someone is upset, the best thing to do is shut up and look at them – not trying to solve things is sometimes the best way to solve things. The two of them head back inside.

The crowd files in as Forte takes the stage, with all of them miked up and dressed in different clothing even though they all had less than ten minutes to get that way; once again, I call shenanigans. Clay is concerned but says now that it’s time for the performance, they’ve gotten their energy level back up and are ready to go for it.

I really wish I could watch their entire performance, because it looks like a lot of fun. Neither Clay nor Lisa is all that great at puppeteering – Lisa in particular – but the voices they both do are pretty funny and they seem to be having a ball. (Meanwhile Dayana is shown backstage several times, just watching.) We learn that Penn is an awesome host, and that Clay can’t do an Asian accent. Also, if Bjork ever comes up in an improv, it’s inevitable that someone will mention that stupid swan dress she wore to the Oscars that one time. I just want to sit back and watch this show instead of writing stuff about it (although Lisa’s puppeteering skills are seriously terrible).

Lisa and Clay get a little risqué toward the end, and Lisa says, “I don’t give a [bleep] what anyone says.” Gee, I never would have guessed that. She says she knows a live audience, and figures they killed it.

Unanimous takes the stage, and Paul says he feels no pressure because he’s on the sidelines (always a good attitude for a Project Manager) but he can feel the energy in the air. Aubrey introduces the show and dances around while wearing a tight tank top, so finally I can see what she’s really good at on this show. Anyway, the highlights of their performance: Arsenio gets “Norwegian” as a foreign language, and I really hope he’s kidding when says, “I’ve never been to Norwegia.” Also, I think the problem with having the professional puppeteers on stage as well is that you can really see how much better they are in comparison to the amateurs.

Teresa pretty much blows it, because as everyone knows, the only answer in improv is “yes,” but Teresa keeps blocking stuff by saying no. (“I’m Johnny.” “You’re not Johnny.” That sort of thing.) Aubrey says Teresa tends to win people over just by getting onstage and not knowing what’s going on, which is pretty much what seems to happen. Teresa feels like she’s an “improv-ing pro,” which is really stretching it, and in the next scene her puppet almost forces the other one (the professional) out of the frame, which kind of contradicts her last statement.