So a new season has started and as usual I turned in to see what they had to offer this time around. One point that I kept reading from people was how the show seems to be running out of celebrities to bring in and there were some chats about what exactly defines a person as a celebrity nowadays. One example is how one contestant is a podcaster who to most people isn’t as immediately recognizable to the general public and so people debate if that person qualifies as a celebrity.
As usual, it was set up to be a men’s versus women scenario to start the season off. The cast this season consisted of the following people on the men’s team who named themselves “Unanimous”:
Adam Carolla
Arsenio Hall
Clay Aiken
Dee Snider
George Takei
Lou Ferrigno
Michael Andretti
Paul Teutul, Sr.
Penn Jillette
The women decided to call themselves “Forte” and it consisted of the following people:
Aubrey O’Day
Cheryl Tiegs
Dayana Mendoza
Debbie Gibson
Lisa Lampanelli
Patricia Velasquez
Teresa Giudice
Tia Carrere
Victoria Gotti
The project manager for the men was Paul Teutul and for the women it was Patricia Velasquez. The task itself was pretty straight forward as the two teams had to create sandwiches which they would then sell to raise money. The teams who generate the most sales would win. Team Unanimous had a good thought from the start as they focused on branding where they decided to name every sandwich a “Chopper” while simple calling it things like a meat or vegetarian Chopper for people to easily identity what kind of item it was. However, right from the get go they had a surprise as Michael Andretti wasn’t able to attend as one of his friend died in an accident. Instead, his father would arrive to take his place in the meantime.
Team Forte appeared to focus a lot with the exterior design of their store to try and woo in a crowd by using a red carpet type of theme. They had an interesting obstacle as there was a person who was willing to buy a sandwhich for $10,000 and he was a vegetarian. They didn’t plan any vegetarian sandwiches and made an interesting comment to the customer where they asked him if he wants to simply take the chicken out of a pita. That was a boo boo as most vegans usually don’t even want any kind of meat to touch their food. They did eventually make him a custom vegan sandwich though.
There was a bonus in the middle where each team was invited to bring their best sandwich to Rachael Ray, who has a daytime cooking show of sort, where she would taste and evaluate which sandwich she thought was the best. The winner would get an additional $35,000.
There was one very funny and awkward moment when the teams arrived in the boardroom to hear the sales results. As usual, Trump asks the project managers who they thought was the weakest and who they would fire if it turns out that their team lost. When Paul Teutul, Sr. Was asked that question it took him a long time to think but eventually he said it would have to be George Takei and Arsenio Hall. A joke was then made how it was kind of an interesting response as coincidentally he happened to pick all of the people who are visible minorities.
The two teams were then given the results. For the Rachel Ray contest she chose the men’s sandwich as the winner. For total funds, the women raised $126,962. The men however raised $332,120. With the bonus $35,000 it was $367,120. I guess you can say they demolished the women. The main factor was that apparently Paul Teutul raised $305,000 from just one person.
The main debate for the women on who should be fired came down to who held back the most in terms of raising money and general personality for these kinds of business environment. The interesting thing was Cheryl Tiegs was implying herself that she didn’t know if his was right for her as she was more of a quiet person. Essentially I guess you can say more of a behind the scenes person as opposed to facing conflict face on. In the end, personality seemed to be the biggest factor and Cheryl Tiegs was fired. It didn’t seem to be a tough decision for anyone.
That incident with the vegetarian sandwich incident was interesting this episode. I can’t imagine how awkward that would be in a real business if you didn’t offer the option that your big purchaser would want. As well, that incident about the visible minorities makes you wonder if in that case it truly was a coincident or if they just stuck out from the rest of the crowd where they would be the first people you would think of. I have often seen though in those cases people are more sensitive in getting rid of visible minorities in that kind of scenario for fear of being ridiculed that the organization doesn’t hire certain types of people for example.