Producers had to heavily edit The Apprentice to stop Trump from looking like a 'complete moron', authors claim

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: The Independent

11 hours ago


Donald Trump was so bad at picking who to fire during his stint hosting The Apprentice that the producers of the show would retroactively edit the show to make him look better. “Our job then was to reverse-engineer the show and to make him not look like a complete moron,” a member of the production team told the authors of new book Lucky Loser, New York Times journalists Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig.

The producers of the program would have to go back and edit the show to make the person who Trump chose to fire look bad, even if they had performed quite well during the tasks at hand. Buettner noted that one of the unexpected firings was that of David Gould, a medical doctor with an MBA.

The co-author told CNN on Tuesday night that Gould was a “really amazing guy who a lot of the producers thought was going to win that whole series, that season. He would just run the whole gauntlet. But Trump fired him the very first episode.

“And people in the control and producers are like, ‘Oh, my God, what do we do with this now?’” he added. “But they had this other moment because it was entertainment, not reality, that ‘oh my gosh, this is really great because this is so unpredictable,’” he added. “So that quality that was really bad for him in business was solid gold on the show. Then they would just re-edit everything.”

Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-the-apprentice-lucky-loser-moron-b2615226.html

[NJCher]

1. This is mind boggling

But let me see if I can recap it:

The biggest loser ever, Donald Trump, would pick the winners to fire. His instincts were so bad, he would actually choose highly competent people to fire.

The show’s producers would then have to go back through footage for oddball tidbits of behaviors of the winner to construct a narrative that made the winner look like a loser.

It kind of operates like sanewashing, only it’s loserwashing.

———————

At this point I have to say that I think there’s a greater force at work here. It’s like poetic justice for capitalism.

It’s saying look, American people, your economic system is so effed up that it can turn out a freak like Donald Trump who can then spin his loserdom into being the leader of your entire country! And do it on TV so you can all watch it!

This force, whatever it is, is spelling it all out.

The ultimate irony is that the majority of the country is sane enough to dump this fool but the minority is so corrupt and bereft of common sense (the SC and Mike Johnson) that he could actually be president again!

[NJCher]

2. One more thing...

I regret that the authors of the book entitled it The Lucky Loser. Labeling the sick phenomenon of how other humans enable this pitiful, sick individual as “luck” is totally wrong.

We all know what it is: it’s that humans who don’t have large sums of money have to kowtow to those who do. That is psychologically cruel— in this case to the producers of the show.

The producers of the show then went on to create this monstrosity of a myth that trump is a successful businessman. This led to a large faction of the electorate to vote for him as president.

And, as they say, the rest is history.

[blm]

3. It's sickening.

[MagickMuffin]

19. Perhaps the title is THEY were lucky

In the sense that they didn’t have to be subjected to any other kind of cruelty the convicted felon could bestow upon them.

I never watched the show as I was repulsed by the felon and how he was hoisted into the public square.

Some of the media to blame

Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous 🤢🤮
People Magazine 🤢
Entertainment Tonight 🤮

These producers MADE Donald trump!
I saw thru him back then and never understood what the “attraction” was.
He just oozed over rated millionaire.

[yardwork]

13. It really does say a lot about our culture.

[Prairie Gates]

15. Definitely a chickens coming home to roost feel about it

Like, this is actually you, the mirror held up, this is the system you created and imposed on the world, this is the perfect encapsulation of your evils reflected back at you.

[hlthe2b]

4. Once again, why I have NEVER understood why ANYONE would WATCH ANY "REALITY TV"....

ALL of these shows are manipulated bullshit. Anything with Trump, especially, but all of them.

[jfz9580m]

6. Yeah I really never got the appeal of reality tv

Not even as a guilty pleasure. It is so boring - even the scripted appeal to the lowest common denominator doesn’t give that stuff even a trainwreck quality that makes it worth watching.

I recently finally watched 15 mins or so of one of those Kardashian things just to see what that damn stuff even is. And I didn’t get it. It was a bunch of uninteresting people sitting around talking about what sounded like the dullest drivel imaginable. Why would anyone watch that stuff? (Maybe it was 10 mins. It was unbearable).

[sakabatou]

22. I do/did like Faceoff (make-up, prosthetics, and costuming)

And there was Iron Chef (Japanese version).

[hay rick]

5. I confess. I watched the show the first season or two.

I thought it was obvious early on that the show was unserious about objective business competence and kept a lot of contestants around for additional episodes just because they were "interesting." Trump's "You're fired" speeches were pompous irrelevancies from the very start.

[NBachers]

7. Never watched it

On edit: I am, however, going through the seasons of JAG, which I watched a few episodes of when it was on. You decide how I'll be judged.

[Aristus]

17. JAG? Catherine Bell at her most breathtakingly beautiful?

I judge you to be of extraordinarily good taste!

[NBachers]

21. Well, yes, that is an incentive

[oldsoftie]

8. Taking out Trump; this describes ALL reality shows for the most part.

The PRODUCERS are more in charge than anyone else
The biggest difference here is that they gave Trump more control than they'd ever give anyone else.

When the first black bachelorette wanted to send home 2 guys who were always at each others throats, she was told by the producers that she couldn't because they were the last two black guys. Even though SHE didnt WANT them there anymore she had to keep them.
Most of the "home Reno" shows are bullshit
I'd say the ones with the most "reality" are the competition type shows like Ninja Warrior & to a lesser extent Amazing Race

[wnylib]

9. The book, Lucky Loser, covers more than The Apprentice.

It describes Trump's family, his upbringing, his years at the military reform school, and his association with Roy Cohn.

NPR's Terry Gross interviewed the authors on her program, Fresh Air, a couple days ago.

[dalton99a]

10. Kick

[Aussie105]

11. Not unusual for a 'reality' show

to record 100s of hours of video to be trimmed down to one or two episodes.

With the behind the scenes motivation of the editors, an individual can be shown to be an angel or a demon.

Or in Trump's case, a competent human being and a sharp businessman. Or a fluffball moron.

It's all in the editing.

[iscooterliberally]

12. I remember being bombarded with the commercials for this "show".

I'll I could think was, "boy, I can't wait to miss that."

[tanyev]

14. Of course the first guy Trump fired was amazing.

He hates competent and qualified people. They make him look bad even worse.

[travelingthrulife]

16. I hope Dr Gould can sue them.

I have never watched this show but it sounds as though they are admitting cheating this man out of a chance of winning.

[FakeNoose]

18. These stories about Chump's failures on "The Apprentice" have been leaking for years

The biggest failure of all was that the show was supposed to be about multiple "billionaires." Each season was supposed to focus on a different business mogul - people like Steven Spielberg, Jeff Bezos, etc. - but no other billionaires agreed to do the show.

Only Chump came back year after year and they were stuck with him. They had to jump through hoops to keep him happy and make him look good. Of course they knew he was a failure, he couldn't even follow a TV script. Chump just made up his own lines and that's why they had to edit everything backwards.

It was a totally dumb, ridiculous way to run a reality show.

[Aristus]

20. The only people Trump never looked like a moron to is other morons.

Now known as MAGA.

Anyone with more than two functioning brain cells has always known what a shithead he is.