'Let the buyer not sue.'
Admittedly, the risk of landing an all-out lawsuit from a flea market buyer is slightly lower than it would be in a mall, but still -- you're selling things that don't work to people you've just actively lied to, and one of them is potentially dangerous -- namely, the Eco-Pon And please don't tell me there's no one on the planet stupid enough to use it for its supposedly intended purpose. We all watch TV, some of us stay tuned for News Of The Weird, and a couple of us know what a Darwin Award is. Someone would use them.

Which brings up the question of whether FOX producers were standing by outside the gates, ready to fill everyone in on the con and give them their money back. Also whether anyone slipped through...

I'm tempted to check eBay for 'As seen on' souveniers. But not much.

Random notes:

1. I kept waiting for the fancy dinner to go wrong somehow. My scenario was N. Paul having forgotten to pay in advance or leave his credit card number/billing account on file, so the contestants, all short on cash for a four-digit meal, would have to wash dishes until someone came to rescue them. Didn't happen. (sigh)

2. Lousy catchphrases, ConCad. What was wrong with 'You'll never work in this town again'?

3. So sex sells, and sex continues to sell, and sex will always sell until the current administration makes sex illegal, at which point sex will become an underground commodity and we'll have special police tax forces dedicated to stamping it out everywhere they find it. They'll probably start at Whitney's house. Sheesh. All the blood drained out of what passed for their brains and they became too stupid to read the label, was that it? All males everywhere, hang your heads in shame for your brothers, for if Ivana set woman's lib back a century on Thursday, Whitney at least managed to send your siblings to the 1970s on Sunday.

Heather Simpson. Y'know, if ConCad really wanted to, they could have called the bunko squad there. Impersonating a celebrity for purposes of profit = illegal activity...

4. 'New and improved!' 'Extra-strength'! 'Now with 75% more gullibility!'

5. To the nearest million, how many lawsuits would sorting your team by attractiveness generate in the real world? For bonus points, how many times is it done anyway?

6. Chicagoans -- there's a few of you here, I know it -- does anyone know that flea market? And did anyone happen to see the teams?

• RE: Episode #4 discussion thread: Caveat emptor.,volsfan, 09:17 AM, 12-06-04
• RE: Episode #4 discussion thread: Caveat emptor.,ladro, 11:14 AM, 12-06-04
  • RE: Episode #4 discussion thread: Caveat emptor.,LozengeofLove, 11:37 AM, 12-06-04
    • RE: Episode #4 discussion thread: Caveat emptor.,Estee, 11:46 AM, 12-06-04
    • RE: Episode #4 discussion thread: Caveat emptor.,ladro, 12:24 PM, 12-06-04
• RE: Episode #4 discussion thread: Caveat emptor.,theking0075, 11:20 AM, 12-06-04
• Just searched eBay...,Estee, 02:34 PM, 12-06-04
  • RE: Buyer,KMan, 03:14 PM, 12-06-04
    • RE: Buyer,Estee, 03:28 PM, 12-06-04
  • RE: Just searched eBay...,ladro, 07:21 PM, 12-06-04
    • RE: Just searched eBay...,Estee, 03:30 PM, 12-07-04
• RE: Episode #4 discussion thread: Caveat emptor.,Loree, 10:31 AM, 12-09-04

I sat through this episode thinking the samething about law suits and were FOX officials telling the people they were buying bogus crap!

Also, I can't believe there isn't some type of lawsuit with The Apprentice knock-off. I am sure you guys have discussed this earlier. This is the first episode I have seen and was totally shocked by the similarity.

It's getting harder and harder to tell the difference between this show and the Apprentice. I think the 'flea market challenge' is the quintsential one day TV business contest (lame as TV contests may be). I expect that the paintball contest next week will be distinctive.

An actual reward???? WTF, maybe they were getting a little suspicous.

I'm sure the big con wasn't reavealed to the 'customers'. But I think it is highly probable that there was an army of people running around refunding money to the 'customers', most defintely the guy that bought the 18 cans of Zero Carb at the end. They probably just said something like 'this was just a marketing experiment, I am sorry I can't give you any details, but the products don't work, here is your money back, and here's a coupon for your troubles, and oh, would your sign this release'.

'Heather Simpson', lmao. Shades of Kwame Jackson.

I love how Whitney and Annette have formed an alliance which will allow them to swap leadership roles the rest of the show, therefore guaranteeing some prime T&A for the rest of the series. W&A are just so pleased to be 'winning' that they don't even suspect anything is odd. There is probably a pshcyo babble term for that type of behavior(?).

I like how the other team knew that the reason they lost was because Whitney and Annette basicly stripped for the men, but that they didn't want to be the one to confront Todd with that fact, and risk appearing to not be a 'team player'.

The catch phases (as best as I can remember):
You're outta here (mimicing knife to throat)
Ding, Dong, it's for you! <pointing to the door>
It's not me, <hand clap>, its you.
You're dismissed. <with finger action!!!>

Whitney and Annette, in order to keep the leadership role, have to send one of themselves to the boardroom on a losing week and HOPE they don't get fired.

Which obviously the other team didn't realize this week, because now that Kerry is boss, it's guaranteed that a guy from that team will be fired next, unless they win next week, in which case the leadership role had to be passed off.

Handcrafted by RollDDice

The men definitely overlooked that. If they don't win, Kerry has an open license to take revenge. It almost brings up the question of game strategy -- if this was an actual game and it was possible to bring some sort of strategy into play. But if this was The Apprentice, we'd already have sixteen threads about it by now.

Thanks, I forgot about the 'surviving boardroom nominee gets to be project manager' deal. Regardless, I suspect that Titney and Annettee (T&A) will 'miraculously' survive till near the end of the show.

It would be my guess, and I have to proof to back this up, that the packages say "Use only as directed" and that there are directions inside the package saying the items are only for entertainment and not intended for actual use. This would generally keep a manufacturer from having to worry about lawsuits. I know a lot of gag items you buy at a place like Spencer's has those kind of directions inside the package. This probably also means that the products the contestants got the night before were slightly different from the ones they were actually selling. You would think the gig would be up if the product they instected the night before had those type of instructions inside.

"Evil" Dr. Will: Reality Show Legend!

This was all I found. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=18835&item=4053335599&rd=1&ssPageName=WD1V

The odds of the items having been pulled back just went up a tiny amount.

I'm almost certain that the guy that bought those 18 bottles was a Fox plant. No way another merchant would buy all that crap. The Fox execs wanted Whitney and her boobs to be on for a few more episodes.

It's been said the challenges would be played straight -- whatever that means for a con job that's all about the humiliation. But the producers threw the first monkey wrench in the second task: sending the Italian Ice carts out to trail the soup sellers... Overall, it wouldn't surprise me if the Carb-Away merchant had been a FOX plant, especially given the price they got for the bulk sale. I would have believed, say, three dollars a bottle.

As for Whitney sticking around: if the hidden boss ultimately turns out to be an auto-flip coin, then the producers are going to have to throw challenges to her current team if they want to keep her. One bad flip and it's goodbye Whitney. She's already gotten lucky once.

What is that, the home version of MBFOB? Or is the guy selling bootleg tapes of the show. Who would buy the first 4 episodes of a 10? episode show?

Looks like it might be the original print ad for the series. Or it could have been cut really carefully out of a magazine. Given the slightly off size and the seller's feedback, I'd guess the former.

I keep waiting for the episode when The Boss doesn't want to lose either of the 2 nommed for firing. So he gets Todd to say it's time to change rules and he picks someone else to go.