November 19th, 2012
Tune in all through the hour as I post updates.
Didn’t know they were cancelled? Check out the news here.
Tonight
American Chopper (Season 9)
Troubled Waters
When hurricane Sandy hits, the PJD crew rushes off to rescue the 9/11 Memorial bike. Progress on the production bike stalls out when Sr. and Jr. disagree on a plan of action. Sr. and Vinnie finally face off about their past differences after five years.
We’re moving along to the next Build-Off, a two-parter airing december 10th and 11th. Tonight’s show promises to deliver the only thing I am still interested in, a face off between Vinnie and Senior. Will the show deliver? It rarely does.
The 9/11 Memorial Bike took a hit from Hurricane Sandy. According to Paul Jr, it was under 4 feet of water. Salt water. Corrosive salt water. Everything that could be rusted is rusted. The battery is corroded. It is a wreck. They are going to fix it up and bring it back to ground Zero. It is full of “seaweed and sewage” and needs to be broken down to almost the tiniest parts and refinished, and more.
Senior and his monkey decide to prank both Jesse James and Paulie. Then later they dress some dummies like the Fast N’ Furious guys and lynch them from the fans, then beat them up with hammers. Then Mike blow-torched one. I’ll skip this very lame and obviously staged part of the show. Can they re-cancel this show right now and end it at 9:22?
Meanwhile, Senior and Junior are still not on the same page about their production bike. Paulie seems to be moving forward on his own, and Senior keeps trying to talk and get some details hammered out. And somehow, despite everything we’ve seen and heard, Paulie has no idea that they are going to form a company together. Huh?
“I guess I don’t know what I’m doing I have to give it some thought.” -Paul Jr.
“This is starting to affect our relationship.” -Senior.
Speaking of business, Paulie is trying to partner up with a t-shirt company to do a line based on their bikes. Sounds like the stuff OCC sells in shop. But I guess Paulie is really trying to leverage the “D” in PJD. When the shirts came in later, even as jaded as I am, I have to admit that I would wear some of them. They were tha nice.
The Big Ass Fans bike is done and it looks to me like an old school bike. No, strike that, it looks like an old bike, not the same thing. Squat, stocky, and dark, it did not impress me.
And you thought Jason was the big ass. Here is the real Big Ass of Big Ass fans.
At about 9:25 they unveil the Big Ass Bike, which is normally what closes the show, so that goes to show you how smoothly edited the show is. No segments make sense in context of what came last, it is edited with a blender. Shows are just whatever fits this week, and with only 2 regular shows left before the Build-Off, expect more jumbles to come.
At about 9:31 Senior asks Paulie about what part he wants to have in the company and Paulie says, more or less, “huh?” He wants to take baby steps.
“We have completely different ways of doing business.” -Paulie
“But there’s a standard way of doing business. Every company has contracts, and agreements, etc.” -Senior
“We’re disagreeing on the basics, like where we meet!” -Paulie
“That’s why we have contracts! To handle the basics!” -Senior
BTW, as usual, this commercial break was so long I took a nap. From about 9:32 to 9:41 every week you can forget this show exists, since it doesn’t.
Back from commercial, finally, and Joe had a more productive meeting with Senior than Paulie ever did.
“There is something easier about the meetings back there if you know you can leave when you’re done.” -Paulie
9:48: Senior calls Vinnie and asks to have a face-to-face to work things out.
Here we go.
To commercial.
Like I say, the show is edited at random, but you can always expect the one thing you want to see stuck in the last five minutes.
Vinnie wants “more than just I’m sorry.” Senior claims he has no idea what Vinnie is angry about. Mafia-like, they meet on the side of a road.
Vinnie’s grudges:
Thousands of hours of unpaid overtime.
No respect.
Senior says:
Without me you’d be nothing.
You sued me when you quit. (Vinnie- “No I didn’t.”)
You quit without notice. (NOTE: Vinnie’s lawyer gave his notice. Senior then said he wanted it from Vinnie.)
Bottom line- Vinnie wants nothing from Senior, he is happy with where he is. He does not want to go to OCC.
“I really don’t care. If you don’t want to go that’s fine, if you do you’re welcome.” -Senior
“I guess I just shook Paul Senior’s hand for the last time.” -Vinnie.
Mr. Blog's Tepid Ride 
As much as Sr. pretends to have changed his ways, his true colors always show through in the end. Whenever he is not in control of the situation, he becomes abusive and just says the most assnine comments I’ve heard. Saying to Vinnie, “without me you’d be nothing” is the height of arrogance…and ignorance when you consider that without TLC/Disc, Sr. would most likely be less than nothing.
While I generally take Jr’s side because of Sr’s abusive behavior, that fact that Paulie has even contemplated this alliance with his father is bewildering. If he’s not careful, he’ll lose some good friends and workers…along with the father he’s come so far with to this point. Stick to the fishing trips and Sunday dinners; forget business.
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So true.
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OCC has to be the biggest bunch of juvenile delinquents I’ve ever seen…there’s fun, and then there’s stupidity…you figure which. As for Junior..I think the producers talked him into that madness with OCC. I’m with you…that made absolutely no sense. That’s something you’d try YEARS later after their relationship has healed. Can’t say I’m gonna miss the show..actually I hope Fast n’ Loud win the build-off just for giggles!
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Building a bike in Senior’s garage is one thing but mixing the companies? Way too soon, and probably would never be a good idea.
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Other than Rick, I can’t think of anyone else at OCC with any redeeming qualities, especially Jason Pohl. You can just see the envy and contempt he has for Jr in the book he put together to send to Jesse James. This is another reason that Jr should forget any business dealings with Sr. The OCC crew has no respect for Jr…and their behavior would only serve to disrupt any reconciliation to this point between the two.
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So true. When you see Sr. trying to make nice with Paulie, that’s the fake act he is putting on. The real Senior is the fool who does those silly antics with his favorite son Jason. In the safety of OCC, with all his a-hole employees (except Rick), he foregets that he is supposed to be fixing his image.
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i ONLY began watching this show about 3 years ago. I keep hearing about problems Paul Sr. had with his other son “Dan”…can anyone tell me what that was about?
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It was never addressed very much, although Dan did make a couple of appearances and they seemed to reconcile at one point- it didn’t last. Dan is the son who bought the ironworks but I am sure someone else can tell you more. Senior also has a daughter whom you almost never hear about.
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I’m stunned Paul Jr is even considering going into business with his father. RUN Paulie, run! I think this has to do with the producers stirring for new story lines but I seriously HOPE Paul Jr. will not do it. And Paul Sr. calling Vinnie up like he’s REALLY interested in why Vinnie doesn’t want to come around was disgusting. Vinnie being truly a stand up guy goes to meet him and then Sr. does what he always does, bullies. He’s trying to intimidate Vinnie and the display by Paul Sr should be a lesson to all: Zebra’s can never change their stripes. You are better off keeping your distance. Paul Sr. twisted the entire situation to try to power up on Vinnie with no intention on burying the axe – the one he planted in Vinnie’s back a long time ago. I’ve lost all respect for this man.
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It was honestly hysterical to see Vinnie stay so calm when Senior was obviously trying to provoke a fight, and when Senior growled “haht do you want from me?” Vinnie answered with all sincerity “I don’t want anything from you.” And every time Senior tried to start a fight Vinnie had a calm and reasonabsle answer.
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Sr has no concept of right and wrong; he appears to be a sociopath who honestly believes he is the victim. He actually said it made a difference to him that Vinnie didn’t personally turn in his two-week notice to him. Vinnie said it didn’t have anything to do with the way he was treated, to which Sr argued, it did. How could it since Vinnie was treated like sh*t from the start and the two-week notice was as he left the show.
Sr’s delusional. He’s trying to justify his own bad behavior by blaming Vinnie for not leaving appropriately; one has nothing to do with the other. Even here, Vinnie was the bigger man as he apologized while all Sr could do was blame everybody else.
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I could not believe what a baby Senior was. When he said “I wanted it from you” in that tone of voice, I had to rewind it and listen again. He sounded like he was not only hurt, but sullen that Vinnie would not be baited into a fight.
I vaguely remember an early episode where Vinnie and Paulie worked all night and Vinnie was not allowed to punch his time card, which upset him. Paulie as an owner of course had no timecard and lost no money, but that was all free work from Vinnie. Anyone else remember that?
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No, I don’t remember it but I remember other things like how he made Vinnie the sacrificial lamb when he couldn’t control Paulie. Since Vin and Paulie were close ~ and no doubt Sr was jealous of that…he made Vinnie pay the price then threatened to fire him when the shop wasn’t up to par.
It pissed me off that Jr didn’t do more to redirect his Fathers anger away from Vinnie or knowing that if he didn’t do what Dad wanted (clean up the damn shop) that he would go after Vin.
Vinnie never kissed Sr’s backside but he was NEVER disrespectful to him either. When Sr said last night basically ‘he made’ Vinnie, I lost what respect I had left for him.
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I’ll never forget the tantrum Sr. threw when he made Vinnie and Paulie clean the shop. Yes, it was messy and needed to be cleaned, but that was not the time to go nuts. They were working on a bike! Yell at them when they are being lazy or not working, yell at them at the end of the day when the shop is a mess, but Senior had to show them- Paulie- who was boss, and if Vinnie got caught in the crossfire, then too bad.
And as far as cleaning the shop that’s what you pay some kid a couple of bucks to do, sweep and throw out the coffee cups.
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You are 100 percent right. A narcissistic sociopath. Vinnie as usual remained cool and calm and was the bigger man while this disgusting excuse of a human being went after him for what…final digs, intimidation tactic…? Vinnie worked hard for OCC and was singled out and selectively treated like crap from Senior. Even as Vinnie encouraged Jr to at least talk with his Father, Senior has had it in for Vinnie. Why? Because he’s what a real man looks like. HE’S A REAL MAN, HE’S HONEST, LOVES HIS WIFE, HIS CHILDREN AND A GIFTED MECHANIC ~ SOMETHING SENIOR NEVER EVER COULD BE.
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I’ll miss the show ……its nice to know there are families way more dysfunctional than mine.
When Senior told Vinnie he’d be nothing without me …I had to replay to believe what I heard. What an ass….seems to be the status quo with how he treats employees and suppliers…..just ask 2 amazing painters that left the show. Asking them to work for nothing because of the great exposure they will receive?
While I have sided with Junior, his demeanor also seems to have changed a bit. He certainly wants to run the show which is okay but I hope he doesn’t follow his Dads path.
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While I do give Senior credit for building the ironworks and later OCC, he would be nowhere near what he is now without some of the great people who worked for him. Guys like Rick, Vinnie, the painters, they are the difference between OCC being a small shop and a big brand name.
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Btw, in a way I feel so passionate about this show for many reasons. It saddened me terribly to see Father and sons at odds with one another. But I recognized dynamics that also felt familiar to me because of my own upbringing. Years of difficulty with my own Father made it impossible for me to be anything but distant from him though from time to time I would make attempts and he would too but it wasn’t until much later in life that we finally began to have more meeting of the mind. Unfortunately he passed away suddenly just as I began to let him back into my life. On that note, I feel Paulie is doing the right thing by reaching out to his Dad – but not to do any kind of business with. Also, I have a sister who never takes any responsibility for how she treats the relationship and when I try to have a conversation with her on it she twists it around and only argues to deflect away from herself. Unfortunately, I have come across my fair share of Paul Sr types and it’s why I tend to keep to myself.
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For many people, the appeal of the show was that they could relate to the family dynamics, or lack thereof.
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in my opinion, they were canceled because they are branching out and using the show for personal profit. senior is trying to sell a restaurant chain franchise, and using the discovery channel to do so. junior is trying to sell bicycles and using the show to promote his retail sales in stores. not to mention he is putting together a studio to produce commercials for his clients. this is not about building bikes anymore, its about all the money they have made and incorporating it into the show to make even more money with the exposure the show has. it seems to me this is a conflict of interest. what happened to building bikes?
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It all comes down to ratings. If the show is not doing high enough ratings to justify the cost of the show (any show) that show gets cancelled. After 10 years this most be an expensive show and though I have not seen the figures, it seems that the ratings are down from last year.
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in the very first show, junior is talking about the studio, and maybe the second show as well. you never heard nothing about that since. I agree that the ratings probably dropped as you mentioned. I am just reading in between the lines. I feel discovery felt that the show was going in a complete different direction with Sr and Jr promoting their new business ventures and they were stepping on discovery toes. and again, is this a bike building show or just a avenue for them to promote their new business ventures? that have nothing to do with motorcycles. I am waiting for the real truth to come out about the cancelation , , , it’s more then ratingings in my opinion . . .
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I think you are right about most of that. While I am not sure that contributed to the cancellation it may have. But as far as using it to push other products, Discovery can hardly complain since this show has been used to push Sons of Guns, Jesse James, Fast and Loud, Deadliest Catch, and those are only recently. Discovery had no problem using it to showcase other programs.
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my point is sons of guns isn’t promoting something else outside the program like a hamburger joint franchise. AC is promoting things that have nothing to do with relation to the show. these are completely different items and think about the exposure they get. can’t buy advertising like that. t-shirts and restaurants and bicycles are all things outside of what the show is about . . .
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True, good point.
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