ECONOMICS

MR. CRAWFORD

SEASON
FOUR

As has become his custom, the hubris-filled real estate mogul is touting the latest installment of his reality series as the best one yet. "The Apprentice has been a great success by any standard, and The Apprentice 4 is the best by far, the best show we've done."

More interestingly, Trump and Apprentice producer Mark Burnett have finally gone on the record and confirmed what had been widely rumored since early this year -- that Trump was unhappy with the quality of the contestants featured on last spring's The Apprentice 3 edition.

"The entire series I was angry," Trump (who, along with Burnett, co-owns and co-produces the series) admitted in an interview with The Times. According to Trump, his anger stemmed from his opinion that Burnett and the show's casting directors had ignored his suggestions and instead, based on the fact that Burnett had decided to feature a competition between high school and college graduates, assembled a cast that, when he arrived to begin shooting the series, didn't past muster with the real estate tycoon.

An unusually humble Burnett took Trump's public slam in stride, telling the paper that "the casting problem was completely my fault." "Having book smarts versus street smarts seemed like a great idea but it changed the tenor of the show," the producer conceded. "It affected the reaction among the show's usually wealthy and well-educated audience," he added. "I don't think people wanted to see potty-mouthed competitors."

Although he only personally attended a couple of The Apprentice 3's numerous nationwide open casting calls, Trump told The Times that after the cast was selected, he was surprised to discover that none of the promising applicants that he had pointed out during the initial casting calls had ended up in the final cast.

According to Trump, he's apparently unaccustomed to working with folks who might actually reject some of his suggestions. "I recommended these people. If I recommend in my company, it's over," Trump told the paper. "I don't have to be a dictator. I say this is a good idea and people do it, if they're intelligent."

In order to make sure last season's situation didn't happen again, Burnett and Trump came up with a rather obvious solution to the problem -- get The Donald involved in the finalist interview process. In an apparent first for the series, Trump participated in this spring's Los Angeles interviews with the show's 200 Apprentice 4 finalists. The Donald enjoyed the experience. "It was a great interview process. They were fighting like cats and dogs."

As a result of his participation in the interview process, Trump says that he handpicked The Apprentice 4's eighteen contestants. "If I'm looking for somebody out of eighteen people to work for me, how come somebody else is picking the eighteen people?" Trump asked rhetorically. "Doesn't make sense."

"I'm thrilled with the results," gushed Trump. "This is the best reality show cast I've ever encountered. They have it all: beauty, brains, and big bucks."

Ranging in age between 22-41, the candidates boast degrees from Oxford, Wharton, MIT, and Georgetown and include an NFL player-turned ad sales executive, an inventor, a salon and spa chain owner, a financial journalist and a risk manager. Additionally, several of the candidates are already millionaires.