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Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.
IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: January 8, 2004
PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: The Apprentice, “Meet the Billionaire” (season 1, episode 1). [Watch on YouTube.]
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: 2004 was a more innocent time in a lot of ways, one of them being that you could heap a lot of attention onto Donald Trump and not have to worry about its implications on geopolitics or the future of this country’s immigrant populations. And with NBC’s premiere of The Apprentice, Donald Trump got a LOT of attention. After Survivor in 2000 and American Idol in 2002, The Apprentice was the next great reality TV event, and everybody was talking about Trump, his mannerisms, his hair, and the way he said “yoooooge.” Remember when the popularity of Trump and The Apprentice made micro-celebrities of consiglieri George Ross and Carolyn Kepcher? It seems a bit strange now, considering how quickly The Apprentice fell away from mainstream attention, but the show was all anyone could talk about.
It’s not a yoooge surprise that The Apprentice isn’t currently available to stream anywhere. NBC has been fairly schizophrenic when it comes to how much it will or won’t publicize the Republican presidential candidate. Hosting Saturday Night Live is apparently all well and kosher, but they have definitely worked to separate Trump from The Apprentice. A new season with Arnold Schwarzenegger as head honcho is forthcoming, proving that NBC wants to move on from Trump, but keep things in the “controversial celebrity with weird speaking patterns known to occasionally dabble in Republican politics” realm.
Back in 2004, The Apprentice‘s most notorious figure wasn’t even Trump himself. Sure, his real estate dealings were subjects of debate, and his marriages to Ivana Trump and Marla Maples had been tabloid fodder a decade earlier, but this Trump was basically an irascible business dad. The true villain of the series was Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth, whose confrontational style, paranoia, and penchant for wild excuses made her one of reality TV’s most perfect contestants.
Trump, meanwhile, pursed his lips and cobra’d his fist and got “you’re fired” to become a bone fide catchphrase. He also managed to set up a perch from which to remain visible in the public eye for a decade plus. The Apprentice was basically an afterthought after a few seasons and a joke once it became Celebrity Apprentice, but Trump remained, ready to foist himself on the American electorate when the time was right. In a way, the American voters are now the boss and he is the Apprentice. In another way, Trump is now America’s Omarosa.
