Perhaps it’s because it’s up against Lost or perhaps it’s the scandal, but Martha’s Apprentice spinoff is tanking. I think they just got the wrong host.
Who would you give an Apprentice spinoff to? In this thread as in real TV production, you can time travel and or use fictional characters. Apprentice: Norma Desmond- only one will be her new kept boy. Projects include: Make Madame think she has been officially declared a goddess by the Vatican, make Madame think that Stephen Spielberg wants her to star as Mata Hari in his new LINCOLN picture, and make Madame think that she does indeed have perkier boobs than Britney Spears. Each week that week’s loser is shot into the pool. Apprentice: Michael Brown- each week the teams are given a new disaster to mismanage. Whoever mangles it really badly has to think of reasons it’s the other team’s fault. One will be voted off with “You’re framed!” and taken away in a water logged schoolbus.
Apprentice: Goodfellas- each week it’s a new challenge- create a new line of crack for kids and market it, send a message to the Bonannos, etc… The loser: “You’re fuckin’ dead!”
Apprentice: Rome- one week your team has to turn back the Parthian invasion while another week it has to find a way to unload slaves at top dollar in a market glutted by the sack of Israel. Who the megalomaniacal emperor will choose may or may not have to do with how they performed their task (and of course perform too well and you’ll be deposed as a rival). Each week the loser is dragged behind a chariot and crucified.
Apprentice: Vader. Do you have what it takes to join the recruits of the most fearsome empire the galaxy has ever seen? See if you can manage a batallion of stormtroopers, navigate a star destroyer through an asteroid field, or increase efficiency on building that new Death Star so much that the new one takes a small fraction of the time the previous one took. At the end, Vader himself will reward the winner with not force-choking them to death. And the losers? “You have failed me for the last time.”
Apprentice: Government Quango - each week, the candidates are given an important government project to oversee; the ultimate winner will be the candidate who embezzles the largest total of the allocated funds, avoids the largest share of the responsibility for any task and, when the project catastrophically fails, manages to divert the greatest proportion of the blame away from his/herself.
Instead of being ‘fired’, the loser each week will be awarded a six-figure lump sum, a fat pension and will be appointed to a non-executive position on the board of a large pharmaceutical company or financial institution.
The Apprentice: Straight Dope - Handle the oddest factual questions in a semi-sarcastic manner, while running a message board under appropriate control. Losers: “You’re banned!”
(Which, come to think of it, sounds a lot like the infighting in regular reality shows.)
Up to now, everyone’s been doing jokes. But there are some real people I could imagine doing new “Apprentice” style shows.
SPORTS: There are millions of men who dream of having a job in the front office of a major sports team. And there are plenty of egomaniacs who own sports franchises and would love to have their own TV shows. I could see George Steinbrenner or Jerry Jones hosting a show in which people embarrass themselves for a chance to work in the Yankees’ or Dallas Cowboys’ front offices.
SHOW BIZ: There are loads of people who want to work in the entertainment business (not as performers, but as execs). Why not have someone like David Geffen host a show in which people try to win a job working for him?
THE REAL WORLD OF BUSINESS: Uh… no, this would never work. A REAL executive of a REAL Fortune 500 company would never answer ROb Burnett’s phone calls.
I mean, if Burtnett called up someone like Michael Dell and asked him to host an “Apprentice” show, Dell would probably snarl, “Look, I have a business to run. I don’t have time for your nonsense. And what’s more, if I hire someone to be an executive with my company, it’s going to be someone with a real background in manufacturing and/or computer science. NOT somebody who wins a bunch of silly parlor games on a TV show!”
A group of non-surfers, from all walks of life, are given a brief demo on tow-in surfing. Each week they go to a different big wave hot spot; Maui one week, Tahiti the next, etc. One by one, they are pulled into the 30-50 foot waves. The ones that don’t die make it to the next week. Last one standing wins a ten bedroom, beachfront mansion in Hawaii.
Steve Irwin. Contestants have to wear shorts, say “bloody” a lot, and learn how to handle all sorts of deadly creatures. Tagline: “You’re reptile chow.”
If he can be unthawed (yeah, I know), Walt Disney. TV, movies, theme parks…a photogenic businessman with a large empire if ever there was one. Possible kiss-off lines: “You’ve been erased,” “The dream ends here,” “Back to the mousehole for you.”
For once, I’d like to see an Apprentice show highlighting creative types. Like… cartoonists.
SHOW: Apprentice: Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
PREMISE:
Take a bunch of snarly, sarcastic web-comic artists, graphic designers and flash animators and have them do battle in a series of tasks dealing with different aspects of animation, commerical illustration, graphic design and advertising. Two teams will eventually winnow down to two creative types, who will, for the final task, have a week to produce a six-minute Flash cartoon featuring original characters with previously fired task members that must appeal to two very different test audiences: college freshmen and kindergarten students. Lent to both teams in the final task will be veteran voice actors from The Simpsons and Star Trek: TNG, each assigned a number and chosen at random. Winner will get director co-credit in Parker and Stone’s next film.
KISS OFF LINE:
Parker: Oh, my God. We fired [Contestant]!
Stone: We’re bastards!
The APPRENTICE: O.J. Simpson. Convince O.J. to tell the truth, then convince everyone that he’s lying. Sort of a reverse of his trial. Tag-line: You’re slashed!
