Thank heavens, it’s the advertising task! The task that previously brought you the creeping horror that was Pantsman is finally here, and along the way we learn a whole host of fun new phrases, find out where flu is from, and destroy feminism in 30 seconds. Hooray for the advertising task! Throw your hats gaily into the air and join us!
The Good Lord descended from his boardroom heavens to walk among his disciples’ crusty socks in the Apprentice townhouse at the leisurely hour of 7:30am, calling an immediate impromptu meeting.
This left the candidates in quite the tizzy, all lining up bleary-eyed in their jimmy-jams faintly worrying that they had not sufficiently dampened their morning wood. All except Luscious Liz, who turned up perky as a chilly stripper’s nipple in full make-up and Juicy Couture velour.
Clearly someone had been up since 5am practising her best corporate smile and lacing her opponents’ porridge with Ex-lax. The Good Lord stopped playing Angry Birds just long enough to inform the teams that this week, they would be branding and creating TV and radio ads for cleaning products.
Because that’s what you do in the uber-glamorous Sugar world of business! Next week, the teams will be each allocated a horse and cart and judged on how much scrap metal they can con out of householders in Bermondsey just using an old school bell and the phrase “Any old iron”.
After a nice, lingering look at a red Y-fronted Alex clambering into his trousers, the teams whisk themselves off to allocate leaders. On Apollo, after a brief challenge from Stuart “The Brand” Baggs, Alex emerges as project manager due to his expansive advertising knowledge, which he has proven week after week to be utterly useless. But that’s OK, because who needs actual skills when you can excitably yap the sentence “if I was an apple pie, the apples would be orange” and think it’s the mantra of a winner?
On Synergy, Christopher becomes PM by default and scares the bejesus out of Britain by revealing he was a Marines sniper who “takes that killer instinct into business.” Ha! It’s terrifying because he literally means it!
Onto choosing a brand name for their citrussy bleach-water, and after quickly consulting his dog-eared GCSE business studies textbook, Alex sets up a brainstorming session, making sure he’s in charge of the pens and the flipchart. Monotonal misery-guts Chris pitches the radical idea of The Germ-o-nator, which is shot down in flames by Alex, whose attempts to goad more ideas out of his bunch of sulky teens go largely unnoticed. A cabal against Alex forms in the minicab of moan, with The Brand, Chris and Sandeesh all agreeing that Alex is a knobhead and if it’s destroyed it’s still true.
Meanwhile, Synergy opt out of decision-making themselves, preferring to descend upon a yummy-mummy playgroup, all perfectly decorated cupcakes and two-year-old boys called Oliver and Dominic with girl’s hair – and nick their ideas from under their Gucci sunglasses. Christoper, Stella and Liz all leap upon the concept of a mum-octopus, suggested by a yum-mum flicking through her Farrow and Ball swatches. A limb in the dishwasher, a limb in the bread-maker, two limbs shooing the au pair into the laundry room, and you’ve still got four left to centre your chakras! Amazing stuff! And so, Octi-kleen is born, complete with “Hey, kids! Come and chug me!” friendly cartoon character and inviting brightly-coloured bottle. No problems there, then.
Stuart, Chris and Sandeesh don’t do so well with their focus group of the cream of Mumsnet, who all guffaw themselves giddy over the idea of The Germi-o-nator. Alex and Laura – by now wearing the weary expression of the girl at the party who’s got stuck talking to the desperate, boring guy with ketchup stains on his comedy tie – raid the shelves of a local Asda to try and work out the secret of Cif. A moment of pure inspiration causes Laura to suggest Blitz as a perfect, and topical, brand name, but Alex hushes her up with his assertion that it would be unsuitable as the Blitz was a “big bombing thing”.
Alas, with no better ideas, Apollo is forced back into the absurd arms of The Germ-o-nator. Chris actually looks up from his shoes for the first time all series when expounding his ideas for the TV ad – there’s this big guy, he can’t clean his laminate worktops, then this kid comes in, who’s The Germ-o-nator, and cleans them, like, really easily!
“Great idea, Chris, especially when Mr Muscle did it about 20 years ago,” everyone else on his team somehow fails to say. The Germ-o-nator deal is sealed when The Brand unleashes his finger-guns and smirks “Hasta la vista, gravy,” and they all fall about laughing like morons.
Off they pop to design their bottle, coming up with a delightful red-and-black colour scheme, a Reservoir Dogs-style label and inexplicably sticking a picture of a lesbian who looks like Justin Bieber on the front for good measure. A perfect cleaning product, in fact, for getting rid of those stubborn bloodstains from your recent mob kneecapping.
Both teams are tasked with making radio ads for their cleaners, which they do with all the charm and sparkling wit of the overnight shift at Halifax FM. For Apollo, The Brand shows himself to also be The Voice, giving life to all the various germy characters in their Germ-o-nator world, asserting that “Influenza is cockney!” and leaving Laura with very little to do other than bask in his glory and whine about being under-utilised.
Back to Team Octopus, and it’s time to sort out their TV ad. Christopher casts himself as the dad of the wholesome family unit and makes no bones about the qualities he is looking for in his plumptious young wife. Lying on his casting couch, puffing on a cigar and massaging himself gently, he eventually settles on the blank-faced starlet who auditions in the smallest clothed surface area. His grand concept for their advert? Women are there to clean and copulate, in that order, and by golly, they’d better not keep their husbands waiting for the second while they do the first.
Wimmin’s champion Nick is absolutely flabbergasted at such 1960s attitudes and virtually flings his burning bra at Christopher, but the misogynist marine will not be moved. In the crowning scene of the advert, he reclines on his wholesome family sofa, fake wife propped up against his chest like a freshly Octi-kleened Real Doll, and smarms “Eight hands are definitely better than two.” A nation brings up a little bit of sick and wonders what the other team are up to.
Creating The Germ-o-nator, that’s what!
Chris the investment banker takes the directorial helm on an effects-laden (well, they had a fog machine) masterpiece starring a big old cockney geezer dry-humping his aga in a desperate attempt to rid it of gravy stains, and a terrified-looking young boy in shades wielding the serial-killer cleaner. Everyone seems inordinately pleased with themselves, thinking they have created the next Barry Scott with their pre-pubescent hero and stupid catchphrase. This confidence does not bode well for Sandeesh’s pitch in front of top advertising executives, who watch the completed advert in wordless horror, and then ask in a loaded fashion “How funny do you think that was?” Very very, comes the answer from Apollo. We respectfully disagree, reply the ad execs, turfing them out on their ear.
Synergy make an equally insanely bad impression with their woman-hating campaign, sticking a rotten cherry on top with their claim that it is statistically proven that men will not…ahem…do their husbandly duties unless the house is spick and span, as anyone who has got an elbow in yesterday’s chow mein at an inopportune moment will attest to. The ad execs let that slide, instead choosing to focus on the image of a woman absurdly dressed as an octopus being what most viewers would take away from an Octi-kleen ad, along with a deep urge to shower immediately. Little Miss Octo-woman, the execs suggested, is not the greatest of selling points in the world.
Despite that, it seems that Synergy and Octi-kleen were the lesser of two absolute catastrophes. Back in the boardroom, the Good Lord crowns them “not losers” and treats them to an hour of karaoke in the middle of the day, which must have set him back about a tenner. Tough times indeed.
In the Losers’ Cafe, Alex magnanimously tells his team he didn’t blame any of them, and pathetically asks whether they have any feedback on his leadership. No-one seems willing to be the first person to kick the dying puppy-dog with the sad eyes onto the motorway, so he is greeted with a wall of silence and guilty tea-sipping. When faced with the wrath of the Good Lord, however, Chris, Stuart, Sandeesh and Laura don’t feel nearly as charitable and ferociously lay into Alex for his lack of creative input and bottle-design boo-boo. Alex responds by yelping like an affronted hyena, accusing Laura of being a mardy cow, then abruptly U-turning and bringing in Chris and fellow weak-link Sandeesh for the final cull.
The Good Lord takes this very badly indeed, because he’s been around the blaady block and you can’t blaady pull the wool over his blaady eyes. Seeing through the obvious ploy, Lord Sugar sends Sandeesh scampering back to the townhouse, tells Chris to stop taking on jobs he’s not qualified to do, and finally gives Alex a little tickle under the chin and puts him out of his misery.
He couldn’t manage, he couldn’t advertise, he was made of orange pie, but what a nice bloke he was. Here’s to you, Alex; you made us laugh, you made us cry, but by Christ, we’re glad you’re not our boss. The daily dose of pathos as you tripped over your desk and your trousers fell down to reveal your bright red pants would be unbearable.
Harry Hill TV Burp moment: toss up this week between two contenders for everyone’s new favourite ringtone – Alex intoning “thick, rich, meaty gravy” and Nick’s brilliant invention “you were on it like a tramp on chips”. But which one is better? There’s only one way to find out…
Next week: looks pretty dull, to be honest. We’ve changed our minds! Bring back Alex!
John McNally says
Which one of these 3 cleaning products would you buy?
Germ-O-Nator, Blitz or Octi-Kleen?
Alex could have won the task with the Blitz name alone, but in a politically correct management decision, decided to save sensitive Londoners from memories of something that happened 70 years ago! That’s all those viewers 80 plus then.
Both adverts were laughably bad and only worked properly as parodies. Alex deserved to get the push, and luckily for him Oranges are not the only fruit.
John