Every so often, you get the sense that a classic Apprentice is in the offing, and Wednesday night's edition was just one of those, the kind of show that in Apprentice terms will be talked about for days, weeks, nay years. You know the kind we mean - one on a par with the pub-running task when Matt Lucas lookalike Kevin turned chef for the day, or when nice Jewish boy Michael Sophocles totally failed to comprehend the meaning of the words 'kosher chicken'. Wednesday's edition, for its sheer gut-busting, cringe-making, watch from between your fingers in disbelief brilliance, will doubtless soon be joining them in the Apprentice hall of fame. And it was all because of some misplaced pants.

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The task at hand was to create a character and subsequent for a new brand of healthy cereal aimed squarely at children. Of course the path of advertising history is littered with infamous cereal mascots, from Tony the Tiger through to Snap, Crackle and Pop, the Rice Krispies kids - both of which could easily have served as inspiration for the teams. So what did team Ignite come up with? A wacky superhero whose power appeared to consist of, er, wearing his pants over his clothes. From the very beginning, it was just a Sir Alan boardroom rollicking waiting to happen.

It was all Phillip's idea, and the poor lad seemed to have faith in it almost to the point of obsession, as if the sight of a comedy character in a pair of giant misplaced Y-fronts would inspire children everywhere to tuck enthusiastically into their breakfast. Cue a wacky advert featuring some jolly parents jigging around with their pants on over their clothes, before the fabulously named Pants Man turns up to sort them all out (and encourage the kids to eat the Pants Man endorsed cereal Wake-Up Call. At which point my confusion reached crisis point. What does wearing your underwear over your tights have to do with getting up in the morning? Anybody......?)

Under the leadership of outspoken New Yorker Kimberley, the team went on to produce a cereal box in a lurid shade of green which Sir Alan pointed out would look more at home on the garden fertiliser counter (and he's not wrong there), and made the lack of connection between Pants Man (played by Noorul, who we discovered actually does dance like a science teacher at the sixth form disco.....) and the name of the product look even more glaringly obvious than it already was. Only Lorraine was at pains to point out that it wasn't a very good idea, causing no less than eight arguments and having the lion's share of the blame heaped upon her for the failure of the task. She was right, of course - although her idea of having a cute character called Benjamin Bran Flake wasn't much better. How about Colin the Coco Pop, while we're at it?

Anyway, while all this was unfolding Team Empire, under the assured leadership of Kate, created a giant parrot called Captain Squawk who endorsed their lively looking product Treasure Flakes. Their advert was, for want of a better word, pants (although anybody who comes up with the idea of dressing Ben in an oversized parrot costume in which he finds it difficult to breathe should automatically be awarded victory without question), but at least it actually resembled a cereal commercial as opposed to being just a load of people dancing around in their knickers.

It came as absolutely no surprise, then, that they stormed to victory, leaving the hapless Ignite to explain just what it was about pants that they found quite so funny. Because Sir Alan certainly wasn't laughing....and despite much wrangling between Lorraine and Phillip in the boardroom it was Kimberley who found herself in the firing line, sacked over a pair of pants. If there's a more humiliating reason to get your marching orders from Sir Alan then we haven't heard it.