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The Apprentice
SKETCH-O-VISION
A VERY GOOD USE OF YOUR TIME.
The setup
Watch on YouTube
Watch onYouTube
The premise
Here’s the bit.
In a gloomy, blue-lit boardroom, a mild-mannered millionaire boss congratulates both teams on their profitable, sensible sales task, then admits that the format forces him to fire someone even though no real employer would sack a fifteenth of his staff each week. When nobody will lie or grab credit to make things interesting, he shrugs and fires the overweight candidate. The footage turns out to be a pilot playing on a television in a production office, where two producers agree it is not working. One suggests that instead of talented business people chasing a prestigious job, the show should round up sixteen genuine idiots competing for a fairly junior one, so viewers can enjoy watching them fail and feel clever for noticing. They shrink the million-pound prize to a hundred grand, reason that only idiots will apply, and dismiss the worry that some viewers will only be watching ironically: those people count in the ratings just the same.
The funny people
Meet the cast. 6
Say it with us
Highly quotable.
Unfortunately, the format requires that one of you be fired.
So it's coverage of idiots behaving idiotically for an audience of idiots.
They show up the same, my friend. They show up just the same.
Behind the scenes
The people who made it.
David Mitchell
Writer
Jonathan Dryden-Taylor
Writer
Ben Gosling Fuller
Director
Gareth Edwards
Producer
A little extra
Notes from the archive.
Reviewing the series three opener for The Times, Tim Teeman picked out this send-up of The Apprentice as the best sketch of the episode, according to British Comedy Guide's press excerpts.
Script
Automatically generated script; wording may contain errors. Speaker labels are inferred.
- 00:02
The sales task is over, and both teams have made massive profits with their sensible ideas.
- 00:11
Boss
So, well done, everyone. Unfortunately, the format requires that one of you be fired. Obviously, that's a complete departure from what would really happen. I wouldn't be a millionaire if I fired a 15th of my workforce every week. Just to help me out. Does anyone want to pointlessly lie or try and take credit for something they didn't do?
- 00:34
No.
- 00:36
Boss
Worth a try. OK, I'll fire the fat one.
- 00:43
Boss ?
As Sorry.
- 00:49
TV Producer #1 ?
As you can see, it's just not working.
- 00:52
TV Producer #2 ?
It's a shame. I thought it would be interesting to watch talented business people competing for a prestigious job.
- 00:57
TV Producer #1 ?
I wonder... Maybe that's the problem.
- 01:00
TV Producer #2 ?
Go on.
- 01:01
TV Producer #1 ?
Well, how would it be if, instead, it was idiots competing for a relatively junior job?
- 01:07
TV Producer #2 ?
Idiots.
- 01:08
TV Producer #1 ?
Yeah, we deliberately pick 16 idiots, real idiots, arseholes as well, and then we get to watch them screw everything up. It'll be brilliant.
- 01:17
TV Producer #2 ?
But if it's so obvious from the start that they're idiots, surely everyone will just expect them to screw everything up, so what's the point?
- 01:23
TV Producer #1 ?
The point is that everyone will think that they're the only person to have noticed that the contestants are all idiots. I've got a hunch that, for some reason, people will think that this never stops being worth commenting upon.
- 01:35
TV Producer #2 ?
What about the prize? I mean in the pilot it was a 1 million pound job. We can't give a million pounds to an idiot. That's what the lotteries for
- 01:43
TV Producer #1 ?
What's the smallest large amount of money, you know, the sort of amount that an idiot would consider it worth totally humiliating himself
- 01:50
TV Producer #2 ?
It's a hundred grand. The smallest large amount of money is a hundred grand.
- 01:55
TV Producer #1 ?
Excellent
- 01:56
TV Producer #2 ?
Yeah, I think I can see it working but surely only for one series I mean once people can see that all the contestants are idiots. No one will want to apply
- 02:03
TV Producer #1 ?
idiots will make the application process a lot easier because we'll only get idiots
- 02:08
TV Producer #2
so it's coverage of idiots behaving idiotically for an audience of idiots
- 02:12
TV Producer #1
just an audience of idiots there'll be a lot of other people who flatter themselves they're watching with a sense of irony and in some way haven't been taken in
- 02:20
TV Producer #2
and remind me how do these ironic non idiots show up in the ratings
- 02:25
TV Producer #1
they show up the same my friend they show up just the same
The rabbit hole continues
One more couldn’t hurt.
More from That Mitchell and Webb Look.
