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FakeNoose

(32,343 posts)
Wed Jan 2, 2019, 12:38 PM Jan 2019

More tales from the Dark Side of Trump's show "The Apprentice"

I know, you were all munching on fruitcake and enjoying your holidays, so you may have missed this story that was posted on Yahoo News. Someone interviewed producers of the old show "The Apprentice" and got a few nuggets.

Title: Donald Trump's 'Apprentice' had to be 'reverse engineered' because he'd fire people at random

Link: https://uk.news.yahoo.com/donald-trumps-apprentice-reverse-engineered-hed-fire-people-random-114540012.html

Working as an editor or producer on Donald Trump’s US version of The Apprentice sounds like it was a bit of a headache. According to staff on the show, the sequences of events had to be ‘reverse engineered’ in the final cut, because he’d fire people ‘on a whim’. That meant that people who might have performed well on the show were just as easily fire-able as anyone else once in the boardroom.

As such, sometimes showmakers would have to go back through footage, and edit it to highlight any mistakes the fired contestant may have made to make it look as if they’d messed up tasks.

In a profile on Trump and Apprentice creator Mark Burnett, six-season editor Jonathan Braun told The New Yorker: “I find it strangely validating to hear that they’re doing the same thing in the White House.”

Another of the show’s producers, Katherine Walker, added that they would also have to edit Trump’s own performance on the show to make him appear more ‘coherent’. “We cleaned it up so that he was his best self,” she said. “I’m sure Donald thinks that he was never edited. We didn’t have to change him — he gave us stuff to work with.”

In the profile, other staff members also speak out on how unpopular Trump was to work with. “There were no Trump fans on the set, I don’t know a single person who worked on the show who voted for Trump,” said one.


- more at link -

At the end of the article, someone states that if there really were a tape of out-takes where Trump says the N-word or other disgusting things, it probably would have been circulated by now. On the other hand MGM lawyers may have such a tape and nobody's talking.

It's interesting that they edited the audio and video for The Apprentice occasionally because Trump wouldn't (couldn't) follow a script. He just made stuff up and sometimes it couldn't be used on the air. Sound familiar?

The full article is originally from The New Yorker Jan. 7, 2019 issue and can be found here:
(link) https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/01/07/how-mark-burnett-resurrected-donald-trump-as-an-icon-of-american-success

However this may be behind a paywall. (?) The full New Yorker article focuses on Mark Burnett the executive producer for The Apprentice.


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GusBob

(7,286 posts)
1. OH YAY! The WH is just like their TV show!
Wed Jan 2, 2019, 12:43 PM
Jan 2019

These fucking creeps packaged Trump for us.

Anyone who watches their dreck is a flipping idiot

no_hypocrisy

(45,771 posts)
2. An example: Teresa Giudice, the table-flipping Real Housewife of NJ.
Wed Jan 2, 2019, 01:22 PM
Jan 2019

Trump was quite impressed with Giudice's "performance" at the restaurant and contracted to get her to be on his show as a contestant.

She kept messing up, didn't bring in any money, and acted unnaturally subdued during her run. And Trump kept her on week after week by "firing" other contestants who were doing much better than she was.

He finally had no choice but to let her go, but not for the obvious reasons the viewer would pick up on. Trump later complained to Jr. that he (Jr.) threw him a bad pitch by recommending Giudice, that he thought that she would continue to flip tables (or worse) and instigate more cat fights which would be "good television".

Trump has thrived on conflict and controversy television and in the White House.

FakeNoose

(32,343 posts)
3. That's a good story and it highlights how fake the show was
Wed Jan 2, 2019, 01:33 PM
Jan 2019

There was never any rhyme or reason as to who got fired and who "won" the show. I stopped watching after the first year so maybe my memory is a little vague on the details. But in the 3rd or 4th season a black guy "won" the Apprentice and Trump refused to have a black guy come and work in his company. I think they had to really finagle it but the black guy (who had an MBA from an Ivy League school) got paid a full year's "salary" anyway.

I wish the producers had given more details like these back before Cheeto got elected.

klook

(12,134 posts)
4. I could never watch more than 2 minutes of that show. Never understood the appeal.
Wed Jan 2, 2019, 03:47 PM
Jan 2019

Hope the current series, The Pretend President, is cancelled before too much longer.

Jimbo S

(2,953 posts)
5. After a few seasons, I stopped watching the boardroom portion of the show
Wed Jan 2, 2019, 06:17 PM
Jan 2019

I was finding his reasons for letting people go each episode was inconsistent and he would seemingly contradict himself one show to the next.

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