Joan Rivers was in Pasadena in July to promote her show on TV Land, How'd You Get So Rich?, but when I spoke to her after her presentation, I was more interested in a couple of issues. First, her longevity in a business that takes even older comedians and tosses them to the side (Cosby, for instance, is more community activist than comedian these days). Second, I wanted to ask her about her experience on The Apprentice, which included her feuds with wedding planners, Clint Black, and Annie Duke.

But, Joan being Joan, she also randomly let loose on Brooke Shields, Sarah Palin, and whoever else was in her mind during the ten minutes we spoke.

We start off by talking about longevity. She feels one of the reasons she stays relevant is that she doesn't live in the past. "I don't give a shit about Johnny Carson," she said.

I'm starting to slog through my backlog of TCA-related material, and I wanted to make sure this got out there before it gets lost. When I interviewed Joan Rivers while I was in Pasadena, I asked her about the incident on The Celebrity Apprentice finale where David Tutera, whose firm was helping to plan both teams' parties, pulled out of the show completely after Joan requested changes to his plans.

After Tutera presented a panel introducing the second season of his WE show My Fair Wedding, I caught up with him outside the ballroom to get his response to Joan. He knew the questions were coming, because I had mentioned them to his publicist, but I wanted to ease into things by asking him about the show and its upcoming season. Oh, and I asked him for suggestions on how to throw a relatively inexpensive wedding in New Jersey, but that was just for personal reasons.

But Tutera seemed ready. He answered Joan's charges calmly and without the same rancor she used.

I had the great honor of interviewing the legendary Joan Rivers after her TCA panel promoting her new TV Land show How'd You Get So Rich? While the panel was hilarious, Joan was in fine form during the interview, telling me a good story about why she doesn't dwell in the past, criticizing Sarah Palin and Brooke Shields, and giving her one-millionth rebuke of her Apprentice rival, Annie Duke, or "Annie Douche" as she called the poker star during the panel.

But Rivers also took some vicious shots at David Tutera, the party planner who left her and Duke high and dry on The Celebrity Apprentice's finale, quitting after Joan asked him to make some changes to his plan. Since Tutera is scheduled to do a panel on his show My Fair Wedding on Friday, I wanted to post what she said about him here and then give Tutera a chance to respond.

Newly hired 'Celebrity Apprentice' Joan Rivers gave her bitter rival, 'Apprentice' runner-up Annie Duke, a quick hug after Donald Trump announced he was hiring Rivers and firing Duke in last night's season finale.

But the gesture was likely an empty one, considering that earlier in the padded three-hour finale, Duke proclaimed "This woman needs to die" about Rivers, while the comedienne questioned whether poker champ Duke had ties to the Mafia.

Still, the biggest question surrounding last night's season wrap-up: How did Rivers win, when she raised $150,830 for her charity -- God's Love We Deliver -- while Duke raised a much heftier $465,725 for Refugees International?

... a woman!

I took this post over from Isabelle, who fell ill while putting it together (no worries, she's OK), but I couldn't resist keeping her joke intact. Of course, the winner of this year's Celebrity Apprentice was going to be a woman, given that the finalists were Joan Rivers and Annie Duke.

Last week, Isabelle polled the TV Squad readers on who they thought should win the show and on who they thought would win the show. As of now, 52.8% said that Annie should win while 59.1% said that Annie would win. The poll results are rather close but Annie got the lead for both questions. Were your predictions right?

If you are a fan of The Celebrity Apprentice, you should have watched Sunday's two-hour episode by now and know that Joan Rivers and Annie Duke will face off in the ultimate task.

On April 23, I asked TV Squad readers to vote in an Annie Vs Joan poll. The question was simple "Who should win the war?" At the time I write this line, 43.3% voted for Joan, 35.4% said Annie, while 21.1% opted for Trump to fire them both. That means 21.1% of you are disappointed this week, as Trump decided to make Joan and Annie the two finalists.

No matter if you like or hate Annie and/or Joan, you have to admit that out of the four contestants that were left at the beginning of the episode, those two will offer the most entertaining finale. Now that we know it's officially Joan Vs. Annie, who do you think should be hired?

This season of The Celebrity Apprentice may not have Piers and Omarosa to spice things up. However, poker player Annie Duke and comedienne Joan Rivers are a close second.

In the first episodes of the season, we didn't see much of the rivalry between the two ladies but the past two or three episodes have shown them as enemies. The two of them have done and said pretty harsh things about the other. The war between the two is still ongoing so before one of them is fired, it's time we take a few minutes and make our predictions as to who will win the war: Annie or Joan?

For months, the three people who still watch NBC have seen the promos for this season of The Celebrity Apprentice; the big climactic scene was of Joan Rivers smashing down a glass out of some sense extreme frustration. Of course, it made the three of us wonder: did she get annoyed during a particularly tough task? Did one of her fellow celebs completely throw her under the bus? Was it Joan's way to finally lash out at Donald Trump's scattered and random management of the game?

It turns out that it was none of these things. In fact, when the scene came in this week's episode, it was so anticlimactic that you might have missed it if you had turned away to get some ice cream. In fact, this week's entire two-hour episode ambled along so slowly that I thought NBC expanded it to three hours to take Kings' vacated timeslot.

I admit it, I've been watching The Celebrity Apprentice and I have been entertained by every minute of it. Yes, it doesn't take much to amuse me on Sunday nights, as you can see, but those of you who do watch the show must agree that this season's crop brings the drama!

The cast may not include Omarosa and Piers, last season's winner, but Dennis Rodman, Clint Black, Annie Duke, Joan and Melissa Rivers stepped up to the drama plate.

Warning! If you haven't watched last night's episode yet, stop reading this post now and come back once you've watched it because I know you'll want some place to discuss the boardroom drama.

With all the ruckus around the holidays I forgot to mention that NBC's new late night poker show, Poker After Dark, was starting up this week. I'm not sure of the scheduling everywhere, but we are getting it at 3AM up in the pacific northwest. That's mighty late for most folks, but with DVRs, VCRs, and the like, time doesn't matter much anymore.

I've been checking out the show in the morning before heading off to work, and I have to say, it's not bad. I think the most popular poker show going right now is probably GSN's High Stakes Poker, and Poker After Dark has taken a lot of clues from that show's success. They've brought in a a great group of pro players. This week features Phil Hellmuth, Gus Hansen, Shawn Sheikhan, Annie Duke, Huck Seed and Steve Zolotow. Because of all those great personalities, the commentators mostly stay out of the way and let the interactions of the players power the show.

Pro poker player Annie Duke is taking a gamble on primetime television. Or, she'll be trying her hand at acting. Yeah, you get the idea: the sassy princess of poker gets a cameo on Numb3rs next month. She and Ben Mezrich, poker expert and author of Bringing Down the House, will be part of an episode on Friday, January 13. The episode starts with a murder at an LA card club where a card counting scheme is unveiled and several college students' lives are in danger. Duke plays a card dealer and Mezrich plays a player. The episode is based, loosely, on Mezrich's book, which is about a bunch of MIT students who figured out how to win millions of dollars at card games in Las Vegas casinos in the 1990s. In fact, two of the scheming true-life MIT students, Jeff Ma and Matt Lau, even have small roles in the episode as blackjack players.

And, no. Nobody "drowns in the river".

[Via The Futon Critic]