Apprentice 5: Dead Man's Chest

Cereal! Who doesn't love cereal? No-one. Kids love it! The unemployed love it! Other less recognisable groups also probably quite like it! King Alan's giant IMAX head especially likes cereal. "MARKET ME SOME BHLADDY CEREAL!" it screams. Imagine being in the contestants shoes: dragged out of bed at the crack of dawn, dragged across town during London morning traffic, only to be seated in front of a three storey high image of King Alan's grumpy head. Pre-caffeine head fuzz and swamp-vision Orwell heads are not ideal stablemates. Yikes. Couldn't he just fax something over?

Lambasted by the squinting building-face, the contestants drifted off into the world to make their mark on breakfast milk treats. What sort of cereal had King Alan lined up for them? Well, it was a sort of shitty leftovers pile-up. Rice Krispies jossling with branny flake bits, and muesli lumps. Maybe even some raisins too. It looked like a crafty Mum's attempt to polish off all the stale box dregs before the weekly shop. "Look kids! I got this well great new treat! Yes! It's supposed to taste like that! No Tristan, you can put it in the bin."

Kimberly's team dragged their feet before Phillip vomited up some guff about Pants-Man, no doubt his bedtime sex-identity. Pants-Man. Pants-Man. Pants-Man. On and on he banged, throwing little hissy fits if anyone interrupted or made eye contact. I think he was after the lucrative Dick and Dom market. I hadn't minded Phillip up until now. Now, I'd be glad if someone brained him muddled. Quite apart from the relentless tantrums, he seems to have completely missed the fact that what children actually like is irrelevant, it's parents you have to sell to. They've got the money! Parents don't like farts, they prefer cheeky cartoon characters that don't threaten anybody. Boring Lorraine chipped in with some well chosen yawns of negativity. She rightly attempted to steer them away from Phillip's guffing narrative, but made the crucial error of suggesting something even shitter. Polly Apple Minx or some such nonsense. Anthropomorphic dead-eye fruit shills are well worse than Mr Shit-Whippy haired superclods right? Everyone got that Big Business memo. For the ad reel, Kimberly put her Cali direct hat on and demanded sunshine smiles out of her central casting mannequin adults. "Oh no! You're wearing pants!" The children rolled their eyes into the ground.

All Saints reserve Kate seemed to be doing quite well. Her team darted about under the radar for the most part. They had hit upon a Pirate themed morning munch, with a cackling parrot for a mascot. It looked almost good enough to front a supermarket own brand. The biggest falling out was over whether or not a kiddy girl voice should ring out over the ad. It shouldn't. Burly Ben Dickface was roped into gruffing up and rolling some scurvy sea-dogging out his piehole, as well as costuming up as Parrot Beard. He pranced around pally-pally with the nut-allergy kid in a piece that stunk of dead-air. "Ooh! A Pirate Parrot!" BIG PAUSE "Aaaah! Lets have us some cereal! Aaaah!" MASSIVE PAUSE. "Yum! I well like that Cap'n!" INTERMINABLE PAUSE. At half the length it would have been serviceable tat.

Kate's team did so well, Miss Disaster and me were convinced we'd missed some barely detectable misstep that would spell downfall. The Apprentice edit is never this straightforward! We needn't have worried. The big execs at Big Business Cereals thought the Pants idea was pure bottom burps. Kimberly dragged back Phillip and Lorraine for body-shields. A bizarre choice since she spent a significant portion of her groping beg-time screaming in Lorraine's face about how much she respected her. Phillip did the "I can't believe I'm here!" pout and shout, with a side order of working-class-hero blather. King Alan didn't look impressed. Kimberly ended up getting shoed in. She reminded King Alan of the Wizard of Oz. Quite.