October 22, 2012
As always, I will update this blog live as the show progresses.
American Chopper (Season 8)
Full Circle
Junior visits OCC and brainstorms with Senior about potential future collaborations including creating a production line of bikes. Meanwhile, PJD finishes a bike for RoadLoK while OCC starts a SuperBike build
According to the tease, OCC and PJD will be working together on a project. Sounds good, and then it smash cuts to Jason who is making funny voices and you wonder how anyone, anyone at all, from PJD can stand to be in the same room as that dunce cap.
OCC is building their first high-performance bike, which for some reason sounds wrong. And you know what else sounds wrong? Hearing Jason gleefully cream his pants about a “crotch rocket.” Meanwhile Skeeter, the old man in the shop who pops up from time to time, is front and center because he seems to be the only one in the shop who ever built that kind of bike.
PJD is assembling the RoadBlok bike and they’ll unveil it in Sturgis. Strange who they edit this show, you’d think that one of the shops goes down to Sturgis every other week. If you believed the show, Sturgis is a non-stop biker party.
And at 9:07… Paulie goes to OCC to talk about the commercial they discussed last week.
Mike seemed happy to see Paulie, and of course Rick too. Lots of small talk, but not too strained. Amiable, friendly.
“I don’t feel the way I did four years ago walking through there.” – Paulie. “There’s a little distance, emotionally.”
Jr. and Sr. begin to discuss making a production bike together, which could be a good idea. I’ve always been surprised OCC didn’t have one. (According to an info screen, they had one in 2005.) And they even discuss Paulie throwing the chair across the room four years ago with a smile and a laugh. They really have progresses. And they make fun of how fat Jason has gotten, which was a plus.
This professional poker player is named Jason Pohl. He needs to change his name.
So Cody, for the third week in a row, screwed up. He messed up the wiring, mis-measuring and running them in the wrong place. He is still learning, he’s still young, but he has to pick up his game. And he has to not get an attitude.
Meanwhile, the new PJD Studios is coming along nicely. That’s where Paulie is going to shot the commercial for the OCC Cafe.
Both bikes for both companies are moving right along and little by little each week, it seems to me that they are adding more focus to the builds. Not as much as there used to be yet, but it is creeping back in. I don’t mean the guys doing nonsense around the builds, I mean a little more (just a little) of the technical aspect that used to be in the show.
At 9:45 it gets interesting. Both companies got to gether at OCC. A lot of the PJD guys have bad memories of their time at OCC. For some others, it was a little bit of a reunion with former coworkers. None of them know what is going on. They stood in two lines across from each other, which reminded me of the WWE WCW Invasion angle. (Google it- it was full of potential but the execution was lousy.)
So how did the news of the joint projects go over? No one seemed happy.
“I don’t want to work for OCC.” -Cody.
“I don’t know what (Paulie) will want from me.” – Jason.
By “coincidence,” Vinnie was on vacation during this get-together. Hmmm. I smell drama.
NEXT WEEK:
American Chopper (Season 9)
Episode 1
Seriously? So this was the season finale and next week is the season premiere? Do seasons mean anything any more?
Mr. Blog's Tepid Ride 
In this episode you got to see the reality of economic pressures overwhelming family animosity. I suspect that right now the custom chopper market isn’t big enough to support two Teutel shops. Paul 1’s OCC has the production capacity and marketing channels, but no creativity. (Very few real people are buying choppers with horse heads or antlers on the handle bars.) Paul 2 has the creative skills, but no production or marketing capacity. It makes economic sense to have Paul 2 design the bikes and Paul 1 to produce and market them. Interesting also to see OCC diversifying into restaurants and PJD diversifying into a production studio. So PJD will design and advertise production bikes, and OCC will produce and sell them. And everybody who buys a production bike will get a coupon good for a meal at an OCC restaurant.
As I recall, during the economic bubble, OCC had a couple or more production bikes. A knock-off of the Black Widow bike was one. They also offered a green bike of some sort. Every review I read of these machines said they were poor quality, overpriced junk.
It was lots of fun during the OCC/PJD love fest to see the realization hit Jason that Paul’s real son is back and he’s going to be reduced to printing out Paul 1’s designs on the computer. It would be great to see Rick over at the PJD shop working with Vinnie on prototypes.
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I love what you said about Pohl. I felt that same way. The green production bike was called the “Greenie” and it was produced in 2005. Diversification in business is a good thing, but an OCC restaurant? I am not really sure that is so smart. Bigger business (like the WWE) have failed with theme restaurants. As for Vinnie, I really wonder if he will set foot into OCC and do any work over there. He hates Paul Senior and you saw it in his body language last week when Sr. visited PJD.
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