Tag Archives: OCC

American Chopper: The Build is On

3 Sep

September 3, 2012

Last season on American Chopper: Senior vs. Junior, Mikey quite the show after sending some odd texts to his father, and Senior reached out to Paulie with the idea of building a bike together for charity.

Last week on this blog, I reposted a New York Times article in which Paulie mentions being approached by the producers to build a charity bike with his father. I will not belabor the point, just read the last two paragraphs and decide where the reality is in this program.

This week, the show returns with another name change. They’ve dropped Senior vs. Junior and gone back to simply American Chopper.

Man, we are off to a bad start. First thing we see is Monkey Boy Jason Pohl grunting and trying to be funny. Then we learn that OCC is building a café. Wow, they’ve gone far from their foreclosure. And far be it from me to be negative, but I expect the café to be huge. No, not really. A theme restaurant in their shop in a small community in upstate NY? Times Square it isn’t, and even Vince McMahon had to close his WWE restaurant in NYC.

Pohl is, of course, heavily involved in the design of the café and related bike. And it was so nice to see that when Sr. had an idea for the bike, Jason said “it’s your call.” I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, he has too much power at OCC.

The guys are doing a lot of the demo themselves. And that gives Jason more screen time acting stupid. It’s funny. I know I always rag on him and probably spend too much time on him but A- he is a total annoying jerk and B- no one has ever complained about me being too hard on Jason.

So how are they tearing down the walls? By driving a truck through them. But made me laugh hardest was Senior’s hardhat. Even that had the OCC logo on it.

Also in the episode is Rick’s wedding. Everyone loves Rick and hopefully this marriage will not take him away from the shop. He and Vinnie are the fan favorites of American Chopper. Rick invited everyone from OCC and PJD. Vinnie is a part of the wedding. It’ll be interesting to see how the two crews mingle. At least the main people- Rick, Vinnie, and Paulie, are all friends. And Senior should be able to behave.

Meanwhile, Paulie and PJD are doing another bike for Geico. It is a tribute to the armed forces. Like the Cadillac bike, it will have an air bag allowing it to lower itself to the ground.

We got to see Rick’s wedding and for everyone who ever wanted to see how well he cleaned up, we saw Rick in a Tux. How did everyone else look? Senior wore sleeves! But not a jacket. It was a very nice wedding. And unless I missed it, Mikey was not there.

During the reception, Paulie went over to his father and said hi and gave him an awkward hug. But the wives were there and they made small talk and it went well. And it made Rick happy and since it was his wedding that’s what counts.

After the wedding things were back to normal and the builds continued. At the end of the episode Paulie drove out to see his father and decided to do the build with him. Senior seemed genuinely happy.

NEXT WEEK:

BACK IN TIME
Sept. 10, 2012
Senior and Junior brainstorm
bike styles for their upcoming collaboration and decide to recreate the first
bike they ever built together. Then PJD unveils the Geico Armed Forces tribute
bike and OCC reveals the Cafe bike at the opening of the OCC Cafe.

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American Chopper News! American Chopper Return Date + Name Change

28 Aug

August 28, 2012

This ran last week in the New York Post. I’ve added some commentary in red.

Rebuilding
‘American Chopper’ father, son try to mend feud
By MICHAEL STARR
Last Updated: 10:48 AM, August 24, 2012
Posted: 10:16 PM, August 23, 2012
EXCLUSIVE

Call it a Teutul huddle.

“American Chopper” stars Paul Teutul and his son, Paul Jr. (or “Paulie”) — whose three-year feud has ripped their family apart — are talking about reuniting to build a bike and repair their shattered relationship.

“Talking” is the operative word here.

“It’s fairly early, but I have a good feeling,” Paul Sr. told The Post. “I think that, out of the last two-and-a-half years, this is probably the first time it seems kind of real.”

Father and son have been estranged since Paul fired Paulie from Orange County Choppers in 2008 after an epic blowup (they had a stormy relationship, even in the best of times).

Paulie then opened his own competing shop, Paul Jr. Designs — three miles from Orange County Choppers — which was featured for two seasons on TLC’s “American Chopper: Senior vs. Junior.” (The show is back to using its original “American Choppers” title.)

Both men, interviewed separately, say they were wary when show producers broached the idea of them reuniting to build a bike, which will be featured in the Sept. 3 season opener.

Mr. BTR: “Reality” show? The producers broached the idea? When the season finale aired and Senior called Junior with the idea of building a bike together for charity he acted like it was his idea and Paulie acted surprised. This show is so fake, so scripted, so set up it was obvious that even without this admission we all knew that there was little reality here. Yes, there is bad blood between them and yes, there are legitimate problems, but from the bikes that the network sets up for them to build (Deadliest Catch bike was the most obvious one) to the manipulative editing to the blatant situations like this, created solely for the show, there has been no reality here for ages.

“You know what? For me it just became time,” says Paulie. “It’s been a long time, and a lot of bad stuff took place, and it was just like, something is gonna change or it was never gonna change.

“The hopes were to start this earlier, but I didn’t feel like my father was necessarily saying the right things in my direction. I kind of stopped waiting for him to change and said, ‘Let’s do it.’ ”

Senior says he thinks “it’s gonna take some time” to mend fences.

“This is probably more of a beginning, hopefully,” he says. “It’s not like [the blowup] was something that happened only during the show. Our relationship was like this before the show, too. So, in essence, the [fight] was the best thing that could have happened. Even though it was upsetting to everybody, including our family, I think sometimes you have to get to that place to be able to realize that things didn’t work out . . . everything has to be re-earned again. I feel good about it.”

Paulie says he entered into the tentative agreement on two conditions.

“I wanted to make him feel comfortable, so . . . I said, instead of arguing about what kind of bike [to build] and where to do it, let’s do it up at my father’s house,” he says.

“The biggest thing was that I didn’t want to mix the businesses,” he says. “That’s the key. I’m way too far along with my company to make my clients wonder what’s going on here. I won’t allow that line to be blurred.”

Paul Sr. sounds hopeful it will all work out.

“Listen, there’s a lot of hurt and a lot of anger through this whole thing,” he says. “Do I have an open mind about the whole thing? Yeah. Do I want to see things work? Yeah. Do I want it like it was before? No.”

“You have to understand, everybody has their own issues with him,” Paulie says of his father. “I hope it starts with us and I hope it continues . . . and hopefully it will trickle down, for his sake and for the rest of the family’s sake.”

American Chopper, and Mr. Blog’s American Chopper Weekly Rundown, will return on September 3rd. 

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