 The winning contestant of The Apprentice becomes the head of one of Donald Trump's companies. The Apprentice is an American reality game show that aired on NBC. The first season aired during the winter and spring of 2004. The Apprentice is produced by Mark Burnett Productions in association with Trump Productions LLC. Mark Burnett and billionaire Donald Trump are executive producers. Trump is the host. The premise of the show, which bills itself as the "ultimate job interview", is to conduct a job talent search for a person to head one of Trump's companies. The position comes with a salary of $250,000.
Show overview
Each season begins with a group of contestants with backgrounds in various enterprises, including real estate, restaurant management, political consulting, and sales. During the show, the contestants live communally in a suite at Trump Tower in Manhattan. Elimination takes the form of one contestant being "fired" (meaning evicted/eliminated) by Trump at the conclusion of each week's episode.
Contestants are placed into teams, and each team chooses a team name. Each week, Trump assigns the teams a task. Each team selects a "project manager" to lead them in the week's assigned task. The winning team receives a reward, while the losing team faces a boardroom showdown with Trump and two of his associates (usually Carolyn Kepcher, Chief Operating Officer and General Manager for the Trump National Golf Club, and George H. Ross, Executive Vice President and Senior Counsel, The Trump Organization) in order to determine which team member should be fired.
Elimination proceeds in two stages. In the first stage, Trump confronts the losing team and requires the week's project manager to select two or three additional team members which the project manager believes were most responsible for the loss.
The rest of the team is dismissed, and the project manager and the other selected members face a final confrontation several minutes later in which Trump fires one of the three. Trump is now well known for his catch phrase "You're Fired!", which he reportedly will trademark.
The show's theme song is For the Love of Money by The O'Jays.
Seasons
International versions
Brazil
O Aprendiz, a Brazilian version of The Apprentice hosted by business man Roberto Justus, premiered on November 4, 2004. People+Arts (a cable channel that broadcasts The Apprentice in Latin America) and Rede Record (a Brazilian open network) teamed up with Fremantle Media to create the show. The show is aired twice a week with new episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. People+Arts shows the episode 8:00pm while Rede Record shows it with a two-hour delay. The last episode aired on December 23, 2004 on a live show, with parts recorded earlier (the last task and a part of the board room).
The final two were Denis and Vivianne. On the last task both of them had to organize two charity auctions. Vivianne did an amazing job, getting 45% more money than Denis. Another point that was brought up on the board room was that when asked by Roberto Justus himself to change the day of the auction, while Vivianne accept the idea right away, Denis did not.
By the end of the show, Justus decided Vivianne should be The Apprentice, and just like the american version, when he told her he hired her the whole stage opened showing a live audience and all the others candidate's as well as Vivianne's family run to hug her and gave her a tee shirt with the saying "I'm hired".
Justus then told Vivianne she wouldn't leave in a taxi like the ones who lost the show, but she would leave driving her new Class A Mercedes Benz. He also showed her in which of his entreprises she would work on her new R$250,000 yearly job.
For the grand finale, Justus told everybody that the production of O Aprendiz 2 had started.
Germany
In the fall of 2004, German TV station RTL aired an adaption of The Apprentice on German television called Big Boss. The show was hosted by former soccer manager Reiner Calmund and only scored fair to poor ratings.
Spin Offs
The Apprentice: Martha Stewart
On February 2nd, 2005, NBC announced it will broadcast the first spin-off from The Apprentice to be called The Apprentice: Martha Stewart. The show will be hosted by Martha Stewart, who was the first self-made woman in the world to become a billionaire. It will keep the general format of the original series; the show will be tailored to fit Stewart's personality.
Donald Trump, himself will be one of the executive producers of the show whose castings are scheduled for 27 cities all across the United States.
Similar programs
External links
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