A few weeks back, Piers Morgan beat out Trace Adkins to become Donald Trump's first Celebrity Apprentice. I say ''first'' because NBC announced last week that the show will be back in early 2009 with another celebrity edition. Frankly, I am ecstatic. And you should be too, because Celebrity Apprentice is perhaps the best bad reality show in existence. The first season was simultaneously better and worse than every other bad reality show in recent memory, and that includes enjoyably awful programs like Big Brother, Paradise Hotel, and two insanely idiotic installments of Celebrity Mole. It's easy to be a bad reality show, but to be a great bad reality show, you need to operate on a whole other level. Everything about your entire existence has to be amusing in its pure ridiculousness. Paradise Hotel truly captured this best with the way producers kept manipulating the rules and contestants kept talking about how cutthroat ''the game'' was, even though it was unclear for 90 percent of the season that there even was a game, or any sort of prize attached to it. Celebrity Apprentice, I believe, now has it beat.

First of all, the entire premise of The Apprentice was that contestants showed off business skills, like how to sell and market a product, with the prize being a job working for Donald Trump. A questionable prize, to be sure, but a prize nonetheless. The entire season of Celebrity Apprentice, however, revolved around famous people calling up their famous friends to pay $10,000 for a hot dog. In other words, the only real skill involved was having a thick Rolodex. But the thing that sunk/raised Celebrity Apprentice to new lows/highs was the show's brilliant casting. Watching buffoons like Stephen Baldwin (who hilariously insisted on referring to himself as ''Stevie B.'') and Vincent Pastore (who evidently thinks he's still on The Sopranos, judging by the number of Mob clichés he trotted out ad nauseam) pretend to be legitimate businessmen was beyond priceless. The question now becomes: Can Celebrity Apprentice rebottle the magic — that very bad, bad magic — that made it such a demented delight to begin with? Will Celebrity Apprentice 2 deliver the goods? To make sure that answer is a resounding YES, I'm offering up my own casting suggestions, following the very clear archetypes established from this first landmark season.

Archetype: Favorite TV Actress of Yesteryear Who Now Has Face Pulled So Tight She Actually Looks Younger Than I Do
Last season: Marilu Henner
Next season: Morgan Fairchild

I love Marilu Henner...when I don't have to look at her. The woman is slowly starting to resemble that character from Brazil who just keeps getting her face pulled tighter and tighter until she either looks 13 or like Skeletor from Masters of the Universe. Freaks me out. Morgan Fairchild seems to fit the bill to replace her, as long as she's not off doing telenovelas for My Network TV.

No, Gene, it's not a freakin' Kodak world! You're wrong! Perhaps my favorite moment of the entire Celebrity Apprentice season was when Simmons dared Trump to fire him by bringing into the boardroom two people that The Donald had no justification in letting go. It was brilliant because Trump knew Simmons made great TV, and was trying to do anything not to fire Simmons for that reason alone (I call this: the Omarosa Defense). Watching the big boss man forced into getting rid of Simmons, with no out whatsoever, was positively delicious. So what sort of crazed, half-cocked elder statesmen of rock could possibly fill Gene's platform boots? Why, the Motor City Madman, of course! It makes perfect sense. Like Simmons, Nugent is a mouthy, self-absorbed rock god who has already starred in his own reality show (three, actually: Surviving Nugent, Wanted: Ted or Alive, and Supergroup). He also is responsible for one of the greatest album titles of all time: If You Can't Lick 'Em...Lick 'Em. Plus, there's always this: If someone mouths off to The Nuge, he might just pick up his bow-hunting instrument of death and shoot someone. You think I'm kidding. I'm not.

Archetype: Mixed Martial Arts Fighter Most of America Does Not Know or Care About
Last season: Tito Ortiz
Next Season: Kimbo Slice

First off, with a name like Kimbo Slice, you can't really go wrong. Secondly, with a beard like Kimbo Slice's, you definitely can't go wrong. That thing is so bushy, it's like that one Harlem Globetrotter's Afro in those old Scooby-Doo cartoons that stored basically every household item known to man. Now, it is true that as far as I know, Mr. Slice does not date an international porn star, as Tito does Jenna Jamison. However, he did get his start as a bodyguard for an Internet porn company. Wow. Mixed martial arts and pornography: Do they ever not go together?

NEXT: The classy reality host we'd love to see go wild on Celebrity Apprentice

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