Tag Archives: Teutul

American Chopper: Senior vs. Junior: Operation Reconciliation

27 Feb

February 27, 2012


OPERATION RECONCILIATION
Feb. 27, 2012
OCC builds a bike for Veterans Airlift Command and PJD finishes a bike for One Call Concepts. Then, more determined than ever to reconcile with Mikey and Junior, Senior invites Mikey to join him at a painting class.

Last week, Senior’s mother died and he was very upset by the lack of reaction by his sons. Vinnie was the lone person from the Paulie side of the divide to offer his condolences to Sr.

9:01- Jason walks into Senior’s office with drawings for a Veterans Airlift Command wounded warriors bike, with a Purple Heart theme. The way he explained it to Senior, it was like Sr. never heard of it before. Who is running that company? Or rather, who set up that shot for television? Anyway, I’ve said it in recent recaps, Jason is getting more and more freedom and independence in that company. That will be their downfall.

PJD is finishing up the OCC bike. No, that’s not a typo, they are building a bike for One Call Concepts. Forgive me for reusing their lame joke from last week.

9:05- we see Mikey’s Gallery of Bad Finger Paint Art. Mikey is announcing that he is losing weight to raise money for a leukemia charity. Good for him, quite honestly. Not only is he near-morbidly obese, he is 350 pounds,  but it is a good charity. Of course, does anyone believe Mikey will lose much? Anything?

So from 9:01 to 9:08 the show has focused on Jason and Mikey. Can it go anywhere but up from here?

Things take a turn for the better, when Rick, always a professional, takes us through the build of the Veterans Airlift Command bike. He certainly is not the only guy at OCC who knows bikes, but is there a better front man? Senior needs to take Rick along on some of the customer meetings to make OCC look good. I know I said Rick takes us through the build, but really, it was about 3 minutes of build. This is not much of a show about building bikes anymore. If Rick would grin like a moron, put stupid amounts of gel in his hair, act like a pampered obnoxious brat who knows nothing about bikes and insist on saying “motor-sickle” he’d get more screen time. Kissing butt should help too. (Not that I am describing any particular Jason around the shop.)

After the break, Rick took us through another couple of minutes of fabrication. From about 9:08 to 9:15, including a commercial break, the bike is nearly fabricated. And speaking of fabricating, it was pointed out that Jason’s design was nice to look at, very hard to build. The parts are heavy and hard to machine. Wouldn’t it be nice if someone who knew how to build a bike had some say in the design process?

Senior, in an attempt to reconcile, invited Mikey to come to his house and meet wounded veterans and an artist.  “I really do miss him.”

It isn’t a bad idea, they won’t be alone and there will be things going on to keep them distracted from their problems. I’m already on record as saying that Mikey is the bigger jerk here. No matter what wacko condition he put on a meeting, no matter what silly thing he had his father do, he always found a reason to chicken out. Even if the promos did not give it away, there is no way I’d believe Mikey would man up and go. He discussed it with Vinnie and of course, Mikey was suspicious and uncomfortable. (Really, anything to not go.) Vinnie advised him that it would be a strange situation and said Mikey should not go. I think Vinnie was wrong but if it was not Vinnie, it would be Paulie, or his blind assistant, or some random barking dog giving him a reason not to go. As my brother just said, Mikey refuses to get out of his own way.

And not only did he stay away, he didn’t even give his father the courtesy of a reply.

So the OCC crew set  up their easels and did their best to paint an eagle. Hey, an art project! This is perfect for Jason, the big “drawer” at OCC, right? Wrong, he wasn’t there. I guess he wouldn’t do so well without his computer.

Mikey, however, was right in his element painting in his studio with some children from the charity. If nothing else, he is great with kids. But when you consider that the kids’ art was about as good as Mikey’s, that tells the story right there.

Forty minutes in, and for a program titled “Operation Reconciliation” there has been very little attempt at reconciliation. And in teh next twenty minutes, don’t expect much more.

Just before the commercial break we saw the finished OCC Veterans Airlift Command bike and with an eagle head for the headlight and claws on the forks and a great paint job, it was a very nice bike.

The One Call Concepts also had a great paint job, by Nub as usual. Throughout the show I wasn’t too crazy about the bike but seeing it all together has started to change my mind. I like it, though I wasn’t too wild about the green.

At 9:57, we get Sad Senior, unhappy that his sons won’t talk to him. Don’t be fooled, last week he badmouthed his kids to Donald Trump and outright lied about how Paulie treated him.

For next week, Discovery has not listed a description, only a title.

American Chopper: Senior vs. Junior March 5th, 2012
Rick’s News

Let the rampant speculation begin.

The commercial, however, told a different story. As part of the settlement, Paulie got the Black Widow bike. Next week he takes it apart, restores it, and makes one little change. The OCC logo? Gone.

We’ll get into it next week but he is making a mistake.

American Chopper: Senior vs. Junior: Winners and Losers

13 Feb

February 14, 2012

Last time we saw American Chopper, Paul Senior got his ass kicked in the three-way build-off between Sr., Jr., and Jesse James. Why did he lose? Because his trained pet Jason designed something that was anything but a motorcycle. Smart move for a company that builds motorcycles.

What’s on tap for this new season kick-off?

In the aftermath Chopper Live, Junior celebrates his win while fulfilling an order for an overseas client, while Senior focuses on the future with a big build and an even bigger opportunity: a spot on Celebrity Apprentice.

What does this mean? This means a double dose of Paul Senior: The Apprentice on Sunday, American Chopper on Monday. I am going to recap the Apprentice as long as Senior remains unfired, which frankly can’t be long. To put it mildly, he is not a team player.

Here we go.

Less than one-minute in we see Donald Trump shaking Jason Pohl’s hand. This is going to be bad. 

The show opens in the aftermath of the live show at Paul Senior’s house. As usual, he ran down his son’s bike and was impressed with Jesse’s bike. Did you expect anything else?

“I don’t think it made a difference if we made a bike or not… I knew we weren’t going to win.” And then he was sad because he was booed. Tough.

He was also disappointed that he hasn’t heard from Paulie since the hug on the live show. But on the other hand, he’s building a bike for Trump! (Don’t blame me for that, he more or less made that segue himself.)

Paulie went back on local radio, and with all the appearances he makes on that show, I have to wonder what other programming they have. the big DJ pointed out what I am sure we all noticed, that PJD came out en masses, and Senior came out himself. Tells you about his mindset that he came out to represent the bike, which yes, his company built, but he had zero hand in building or designing.

Then we get to see Senior and Jason at Trump Towers. Jason, to give him the merest  modicum of credit, wore a nice suit. Senior wore an old sleeveless t-shirt. That’s class. He looked like an old orangutan in a fancy office. Anyway, Trump is hiring OCC to build a bike and of course, he wants a gold  bike.

Get used to this. Clearly, Senior is giving Jason more and more influence in the shop. Never mind the “meltdown” last season, never mind the complaints from Rick, Senior loves Jason. He went with his design in the build-off, he took him to meet Donald Trump and let him sit at his side, he is going all-in on Jason. during the meeting, Trump flipped through a portfolio of OCC bikes but when he wanted to see more, Jason told him to go look on the web.

Trump is aware that he is on TV, he is aware that he is in a couple of deals with Paul Teutul, so he let it go. You try telling Donald Trump to go to your website and see how well that goes over.

Trump helicoptered up to OCC headquarters and there, Jason showed him his design for the bike, which was branded more or less as you’d expect a Trump bike to be.

Back to PJD, the crew watched a replay of the live show. Jesse James was no less dopey this time around. Paulie watched the clips of the fights, a bit somberly, and looked impassive when he saw himself hug his father. He explained that yes, he loves his father, but he can’t have a relationship when his father acts toward his family as he does. Maybe yes, maybe no, but he hasn’t even tried to talk to the man. If you’ve read this blog before you know I think Senior is almost all to blame, but hey, don’t say you can’t have a relationship without even talking to the guy.

“Paulie worked for me for twenty years and the day I made him a millionaire, he told me to f**k myself.” -Paul Senior to Donald Trump.

Ok, scratch what I said above.

Coming out of commercial, a very sad note: Paul Senior’s mother died. And no matter what else is going on, I’m very sorry for that. She’d been on the show a few times and they showed some clips, including when she met Jorge Posada of the Yankees and called him “George” over and over.

Throughout the show Senior has been having conversations with his wife and I haven’t said much about it since they are obviously staged for the cameras, with the wife just listening as Senior explains what is going on. Staged.

And then the news- Paul Senior is going on The Celebrity Apprentice!

And next, Mikey’s website! Have you gone there? I have not but it has a forum where, he says, people are talking about his father going on The Celebrity Apprentice. What did the scene add? We got to see Mikey in a sport coat.

Do you watch this show for the bikes? We are now 35 minutes in and motorcycle-related programming has been about 5 minutes. But honestly, that isn’t a problem as the people who used to watch for the bikes have left as the show has begun to feature family drama in the forefront.

Back from commercial break and we get  to see OCC building a bike. Sort of. Grainger got a few scant seconds of screen time for their bike. It was already built and all we saw was about 30 seconds of finishing touches. See what I said about the show not being about bikes? We then got to see the bike unveiled and Senior was busy with Trump’s show so who did Senior send? Christian. What, you  expected Jason? Ok, you got me, he sent them both. Christian rode it in, and Jason ran the show. The bike reminded him of “old-school Chicago.” Really?

PJD, on the other hand, is building a bike for a company in Poland and the show gives it similar short shrift.

And after a four-minute segment, another commercial break. Hey Discovery, I cut you some slack when you did that during the live show, you have no excuse here.

(During the break we saw Paulie and Nic Cage shilling for the Ghost Rider movie. Since when does Nic Cage just go by Cage?)

With Senior off on The Apprentice, who was running the shop? I am not sure who was running the office, but Jason was running the meeting in the shop about Trump’s bike. I am telling you, Jason is the heir apparent. Oh no, not someone who knows how to build a motorcycle, someone who can draw a motorcycle.

Memo to American Chopper: less Jason, more Rick.

Back at PJD the bike for the Polish client continued, and for what may be the first time on the show we saw Vinnie’s young son, who is almost two. Cute kid, and Vinnie seems like a nice father.

Then after another short segment, a commercial break, including the commercial for the awful-looking Ghost Rider movie. In the last 15 minutes, the shows and the commercials have been split about 50/50. Honestly, Discovery is getting really annoying.

One last note, at the end of the show we met the Polish client, who can’t speak a word of English. The guy had charisma to spare. He needs to be on every week.

Next Week:

THE APPRENTICE BIKE
Feb. 20, 2012
Senior deals with the death of his mother and is hurt then he does not hear from Junior or Mikey. Then, while PJD starts a build for One Call Concepts, OCC unveils a gold bike for Donald Trump.