Lesson 2: On the Other Hand, Dont Judge a Book by Its Cover
Any given season of Celebrity Apprentice is going to feature some unexpected turns from its contestants, but this years returning All-Star batch delivered some particularly memorable Who-wouldve-guessed surprises up their well-tailored sleeves, especially since a couple of them performed so markedly different their first go-round. For example, who imagined former soap-actress/pretty face Lisa Rinna would have had the chops to make it to the final four after shed gotten booted off in the second episode of the 2011 season? Then there was rapper/hype-man, Lil Jon, who came in 4th place in the 2011 season, but still seemed destined to be remembered by mainstream audiences solely for his ability to wear a diamond-studded grill over his teeth and shouting Yeah! over and over in the Usher hit of the same name. Instead, the guy was not only his teams primary idea man this time around but the go-to director for the teams ads. He was so talented and so well-liked that Trump felt obliged to cough up an extra $100,000 for his charity in Sundays season finale. Then of course, there was Gary Busey, whose penchant for untethered outbursts of absolute weirdness always makes it seem like hes going to be the next one kicked off any given episode and eventually got him fired for his insistence on playing a mechanical dog
of the future in an ad for a home entertainment system. Believe me when I say it actually makes less sense when you actually see it play out. However, this season he somehow managed to stay in the game in ways that were always plausible, especially when you consider the challenges where shrewd project leaders figured out a way to make use of his space-oddity strangeness in ways that resulted in making the ads better (like having him play cupid, craft his own hip-hop dance for comic effect or reprise his signature role as Buddy Holly) than you would have imagined.