Tag Archives: Teutul

American Chopper: Senior vs. Junior: Offer Denied

16 May

May 16, 2011

I usually start with the bikes but I want to begin with the lawsuit first because I am not sure that most people tune in for the bikes anymore.

You may recall that last week Paul Senior decided that since the judge ruled that Paulie was under no legal obligation to sell his share of OCC, it would be a good time to reconcile and, not too coincidentally, make an offer to buy back the stock. Subtle he is not. Nor too swift.

Sr. made Paulie an offer, Paulie counter-offered, and neither offer was accepted. Simple? No, because lawyers are involved. Paulie says that Senior’s side made the offer and then took it off the table the next day. What these two need to do is get rid of the lawyers, sit down together and hammer out a deal, then let the lawyers vet it and OK it. The problem (or one of the problems) is that Senior has mixed up in his head the resolution of the lawsuit with reconciliation with his sons and they are totally separate issues. It doesn’t help that his lawyer is also giving him advice on how to get back together with Paulie. One thing we’ve seen over the past two weeks is that lawyers can spin anything any way they want. You got your tax refund? Too bad. Firemen rescue your grandmother from an inferno? That’s a shame. Judge ruled in favor of Paulie? “Neither side won or lost.”

The truth is these two can’t be in the same room. During the filming of the current American Chopper commercial- the one where they are facing each other on bikes- they were never in the same room at the same time. Paulie filmed his part, and then Sr. came in and filmed his. Sr. thought that Paulie was avoiding him, which may be true, but he is also avoiding Paulie.

Sr. got a chance to see the Anti-Venom bike up close. He said it was nice but that it was like what OCC was making ten years ago, which may be true, but he said that it had no technology and pointed to one of the Trams Am bikes and said that PJD couldn’t make anything like it.

Technology? Really? Senior added a Trans Am tachometer to his bike. A nice touch, sure, but hardly cutting edge. And considering that the average OCC bike doesn’t have tail lights he really shouldn’t talk. Interestingly, he opened the door to a competition, which is what the promos have alluded to all season.

Gus died this week which is odd since last season when Gus had a leg amputated the news broke on the show that he died. So I guess that reports of his death were premature.

When discussing it, Sr. broke down on camera and had tears streaming down his face. It was the most human he has seemed since the show began. He said that he loved Gus because “he was always there.” That is interesting since he has talked about how he was not always there in his son’s lives and also how he pushed his sons away so they were not always there.

Gus’ death moved both Paulie and Vinnie and in the show’s emotional climax, Paulie called Sr. He didn’t text or send an email, which meant something to Sr., and told Sr. how sorry he was, offered some comfort, and ended with “I love you.” Senior seemed touched and cried again, but how much his tears were really for Gus I can’t say.

OCC made three bikes based on a trio of classic Trans Am autos and next to the cars they looked great. The build went smoothly with the exception of Senior and Phil dropping a bike off the jack. Luckily there was no damage, either to the bike or Senior’s head, which was not far from the falling heavy cycle.

PJD was still working on the pair of CrankyApe bikes and we got a few words of bike-building wisdom from Paulie: “You can’t have a bike if you don’t have a motor.” Paulie was in a deadline crunch because they are unveiling the bike in Daytona Beach and Paulie has no one to blame but himself. He miscalculated and ordered the motor too late. Luckily it came in time.

Nub did his usual great job on the paint, a mix of matte and gloss that he had never done for either OCC or PJD. As usual, he seemed a little bemused by Paulie. He realizes that though Paulie is a good designer he runs the shop a little too casually and was always “freaking out.” He did point out though that the stress didn’t carry over to the others. “Unlike OCC there is no stress here, no drama. It is a better vibe.” The bike also featured barbed wire wheel spokes that looked really nice.

Of course, it is hard to avoid stress when Mikey is running around in a gorilla suit. Yes, you read that right. Mikey showed up in a gorilla suit led by his legally blind assistant. With Mikey unable to see well in the mask it was literally a case of the blind leading the blind. Paulie ordered him to stay far away and keep his banana-throwing from the freshly painted tins.

The other bike was the one they bought on auction and rebuilt. It had everything new except the frame and motor. True, those are the most important parts of the bike, but what kind of ad is it for CrankyApe when the bike was totally rebuilt? Buy one of their bikes and spend a lot of money to fix it up? It is especially odd since they were very impressed with the bike as it was bought.

At any rate, they were still working on the bike when the trailer arrived and it wouldn’t start. They had to have a new starter delivered to Florida and fixed it there right before the unveil. It went fine, despite the handicap of Mikey in his gorilla suit emceeing.

Next week the OCC crew travels to Alaska to ruin another show, Deadliest Catch, and to get inspiration as they make a Deadliest Catch bike. Will Senior get into it with Sig? Will the Hillstrands shove Jason Pohl in a pot and sink him to the bottom of the Bering? Tune in and find out.

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American Chopper: Senior vs. Junior: Big Guns

2 May

May 3, 2011

This week the big tease was that Paul Senior had reconciled with one of his sons. Was it Paul Jr.? Was it Mikey? Was it Dan, the own who runs the steelworks and we never see on the show?

Who do you think? It was Dan.

Senior told “Free Rick” Petko that he had New Year’s dinner with Dan and met his grandchildren, whom he had never met before. He seemed genuinely happy about it, and made it sound like he made the first move. But what about his other kids? He said that Mikey is easily influenced (true) and that once he saw that Sr. had reconciled with one of his sons, then Mikey would eventually come around. The Nazi’s used that same tactic in Europe. First one country would fall, then another, etc. Things went well for them in the short-term but in the end Hitler lost. And the less said about the bunker the better. Now I am not saying that Senior will end up marrying Eva Braun, but how long do you expect him and his son to get along?

As far as his favorite son goes, we saw Jason Pohl in the pre-credits sequence so that doesn’t bode well for the rest of the show.

There was no talk of the lawsuits and everything on the OCC side was pretty straight-forward. They were hired by Allen Brownfeld, a guy with too much money who makes the Rich Texan from The Simpsons (“and his daughter, Paris Texan.”) seem simple and unpretentious. When we first saw him he was wearing, to borrow a quote from Seinfeld, “a man-fur.” He looked like Dr. Zaius. I am not sure what kind of primate that coat was made of but my guess would be that it took three or four gorillas to make that huge thing.

Brownfeld had already bought two bikes from OCC and they really wanted to go all out for this one. Actually, I should say that Monkey Boy wanted to go all out. Jason Pohl never missed an opportunity to tell the camera that “I want to really impress him,” “I am going to…,” “I want to…,” “I I I” SHUT UP ALREADY! He spent the whole episode sticking his face with his Miz ripoff hair in the camera sucking up to the rich guy. And I bet he wonders why people online hate him. No joke- you should see how many times the search term “Jason Pohl sucks” turns up in the stats for my blog.

And just when you thought he couldn’t be more annoying, during the build he started jumping and making whooping sounds for no reason.

The bike itself was fit for Snoop Dogg. Gold, neon lights, bling, and a gas tank covered in hundred-dollar bills. I am not sure but in the process of making the bike they may have broken federal law because it is illegal to make duplicates of money. Who’s to say that in the process they didn’t run off a few extra bills? Arrest that Pohl!

The bike was gaudy and pretentious and of course the rich guy loved it.

Paulie was still in the process of building the charity military-themed bike from last week. When it was done, it was possibly my favorite military themed bike American Chopper has ever had. It managed to look modern and World War II vintage at the same time. It was simple but elegant and just very cool. However, as I always say, much of the credit goes to the paint job, which is all Nub, not PJD. But still, the design was great.

During the build, Paulie got a phone call from a gun manufacturer, Red Jacket Firearms, who ostensibly wanted Paulie’s advice on a gun design but seemed to really want to try out for their own reality show. The guy offered to host Paulie if he ever went down South, and Paulie, his wife, and Mikey all went down to A- help solve the guy’s gun problem, but more to B- get away from the winter up North.

So Paulie spent five minutes looking at the guy’s gun and helping with the design and spent the rest of the time having fun. What’s next? Consulting on fountain pen design for a trip to California?

While there, they went to a crawfish farm which was like a microscopic version of Deadliest Catch. They then cooked the critters and got a lesson on how to eat crawfish.

STEP ONE: Rip it apart.
STEP TWO: Suck out the innards.
STEP THREE: Suck out the head. (Get your mind of the gutter. This is a family blog.)

They also went bow fishing, which seems a bit unfair. It is catching a fish by shooting it with an arrow with a rope tied to the end. You shoot the fish and reel the arrow back in. It adds the element of violence that regular fishing lacks. All it was missing was the dynamite. At any rate, I’m sure Paulie was seeing his father’s face on every fish he shot. (That’s a good visual. Think about it.)

They then went to a gun range where they shot a variety of automatic and hard-core weapons, including something mounted on a truck that looked like it was used to shoot down Zeroes in World War II. Mikey really took to the rifles, but Top Shot material he is not.

While they were there, Paulie had the gun nuts build a custom shotgun for Mikey, which they gave him for his birthday. Giving Mikey a shotgun is like giving a monkey a shotgun. Not a good idea, and he hurt himself in the first five minutes.

Paulie also had a brief heart to heart with the NRA guy about his relationship with his father and told him “I think it’s going to change soon.” Right after that he referred to the gun crew as his “extended family” and the irony just leaps to mind.

And to wrap up Mikey, remember last week? At his art opening, he wore a nice suit and looked almost human. This week at the unveil, he wore shorts, a t-shirt, and a sport coat.. That’s our Mikey.

The show ended with Jeff “you might be redneck if you find me funny” Foxworthy, who told the camera that, in effect, American Chopper fans are rednecks. That may or may not offend you depending on how you feel about rednecks. Me? I see how much money he made in his career and how he owes it all to that stupid routine, so who am I to argue?

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