Irritating, after-thought voice-overs are commonplace on NBC’s ‘The Apprentice’ – since last season Trump-isms featuring only doe-eyed contestant reactions have made regular appearances in the boardroom firings on the show. Last night, however, the phantom guest spot made an appearance at the beginning of the episode, while Trump informed the contestants of this week’s challenge. With the camera well away from Trump’s gaping maw we heard the words: “And speaking of last week’s task, here’s something you didn’t know. Both teams created meatball pizza. But if you’d done your market research like Domino’s did, you would have discovered that customers don’t want meatball pizza. What they want is cheeseburger pizza. The lesson: Always pay attention to your customer.” Why the sudden about-face on an idea that seemed reasonable last week? Because on the American networks a Domino’s rival, Papa John’s, took advantage of a press release announcing the Meatball Pizza battle by creating a Spicy Meatball Pizza. Better still, Papa John’s founder John Schnatter bought commercial time where he sat in a boardroom asking ‘Why eat a pizza made by apprentices when you can call the pros at Papa John’s?’ Domino’s countered immediately by noting “truthfully, what they (the candidates) chose is not something that has tested particularly high with our consumer panel testing.” Papa John’s was unmoved, noting “we’ve been developing our Spicy Meatball Pizza for the last six months. We’re certainly thankful to have millions of viewers hear about meatball pizza for 40 plus minutes and to have Donald Trump say, ‘I like meatballs on my pizza.'” Oops.