Tag Archives: WCW

Season Finale at Sturgis! American Chopper: Senior vs. Junior.

9 Oct

October 8, 2010

This week, the not-quite-battling Teutul clan took the act on the road to Sturgis, South Dakota. Sturgis is the site, every August, if the country’s biggest biker rally.

It was also the home, from 1996 to 1999, of an annual WCW wrestling pay-per-view event, Hog Wild (later changed to Road Wild after Harley-Davidson sued.) While never the best or most popular pay-per-view, it was infamous for losing money time after time. WCW would set up the ring in the middle of the field and encouraged the bikers to ride up to ringside and watch from their bikes. For free. This event was totally free to attend. While most ppv events generated thousands just from ticket sales, this one, year after year, generated zero dollars. And the event was so bad, with the wrestlers usually caught up in the biker festivities and not in, um, “prime shape,” it had a terrible buy rate and it always hemorrhaged money. So why did they do it? The man in charge was a motorcycle fan and wanted a yearly trip to Sturgis. No wonder they went under.

And since we are talking wrestling in an American chopper blog, this gives an excuse to bring back my favorite “separated at birth” picture. 

Whatchoo gonna do? Vrooom!

Anyway, back to the show, and why am I so happy? As Jim Morrison sang,

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I’ll never look into your eyes…again

Until next season.

Lets get the only source of anxiety out of the way early- DID THEY RECONCILE? DID THEY DID THEY DID THEY?

No, silly. Of course not. Senior bad-mouthed Jr. in a magazine article and Paulie took the high road, which is smart but boring. We want a fight!

Anyway, the Scooby gang went down to Sturgis, Paulie to unveil a pair or bikes and Sr. to show off his unimpressive drag bike.

Why was it unimpressive? The impressive parts of the bike were the electric motor and batteries, neither of which he had anything to do with. The rest? Just a long, ugly bike.

Paulie, on the other hand, made a pair of great looking bikes. Of course, I have long said that the paint job makes the bike, and Paulie had nothing to do with that. And he had little to do with the build- Vinnie did that, and some other guys too. That is why his business is called Paul Jr. Designs, not Paul Jr. Builds. Truth in advertising.  (Yes, I know Paulie did the webs- don’t email me about that.)

At any rate, for Paulie, the season ended on a high note. His bikes were built, his shop was up and running, he unveiled his bikes.

For Senior, the season ended pretty anti-climactically. The last few weeks Sr. and OCC had been trying to break a world record. Well, this week they did, sort of. After they unveiled the bike, the owner took it and Sr. got to watch the event sitting in his office, via video. That sort of sums up the entire season for Senior, just another hollow victory.

Strangely, for a season that focused less on bike building than on family breaking, this finale focused almost entirely on bike building, and suffered for it, Honestly, it was boring. The show, which was on the verge of cancellation last season, reinvented itself with the family feuding, and for some reason abandoned it for the last few weeks to the detriment of the show.

On the other hand, most of the feuding was pretty stupid and one-sided, so in this short season of seven episodes you swung from boredom to stupidity. The stupidity, at least, was entertaining. Senior never failed to make himself look like an idiot.

So what did I take away from this season?

"FREE RICK"

You won’t believe how many hits I get from searches for that phrase.

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My Review of American Chopper: Senior Vs. Junior

13 Aug

August 13, 2010

The rebranded American Chopper: Senior vs. Junior premiered tonight and it began the way the last season ended, with two gorillas butting heads.

Remember the old American Tourister where commercial a gorilla tossed some suitcases around his cage to test their strength? Junior and Senior both tried to outdo the other with their uncanny impressions.

So the season began with the Battle of the lunkheads in full swing. Paulie, having failed at starting a company based on, well, pretty much nothing, decided that at least he knew something about motorcycles and bought a shop right next to the old OCC shop. I’m sure that it was just a pure coincidence, with a big push I’m sure from the TLC American Chopper producers.

How bad is Junior’s business sense? His first contract was to create a Bernie Madoff bike. And that was after Madoff was jailed!

Of course, there was still the hope of reconcilliation, hope in the lumpy shape of Mikey Teutul. Mikey went on a radio show to promote a charity, when the host called Paul jr. and suddenly, a “surprise” call- Senior was on the line!

Senior growled about contracts, Junior whined about Senior., they both called each other names, and suddenly the host decided that maybe Lovelines wasn’t the best place for this and hung up on all of them.

Senior claims he still loves his son. It is really hard to tell, as his form of “tough love” goes way beyond, almost to “evil love.” He wastes no time badmouthing his son to everyone in the shop, everyone at home, and all the people he sees in his fevered steroid induced dreams. Of course Junior is no better. In one strange exchange, Senior called Junior “a fish eating chump from Gilligan’s Island.” Junior retaliated by calling his father “a sad, sack-ass fruit booty.” Why did they steal lines from 1990’s WCW wrestler Stevie Ray? Your guess is a good as mine, but google that for a laugh.

Anyway, the battle lines were drawn. On Senior’s side are a bunch of guys who Senior hasn’t yet alienated, but just give it some time, including a guy called Jason who I’m pretty sure is just a shaved immature orangutan. He also has so many machines and computers to do the work that when SkyNet comes online, it’ll be from OCC.

On Junior’s side are a bunch of mismatched folding chairs and an empty barn.

But just when things looked bleak- that is, when it looked like Paulie would have to do some work, the Prodigal Vinnie returned. Vinnie was the guy who did all the work back at OCC. Eventually he got sick of all the crap that went along with working there, like having Senior’s dog slobber on the parts, and he quit to start his own shop. He must have done very well as he has risen all the way to the bottom of Paul Jr.’s pathetic startup.

All that was left for Paulie was a name, a name that symbolized his independance, that showed he was standing on his own two feet.

REJECTED NAMES FOR PAUL JUNIOR’S BUSINESS

  • American Chopper Junior
  • Not OCC
  • Paul Junior’s Kick Ass Bikes
  • Little OCC
  • I Hate My Dad

Around this time TLC remembered that this show is supposed to be about building bikes so Senior set out to build one for a company called Domani, a company that does, as Senior eloquently put it, “what they do.”

The OCC crew went back to their shop and, instead of inserting footage of the guys building a bike, TLC screwed up and inserted old A-Team footage of the guys converting a bulldozer into a tank.

The bike turned out pretty lousy. First, it was painted in neon colors and patterns that were last seen on R+B singers in 1984. Second, the wheel rims were covered in strange lines not unlike the Nazca lines of South America, with some sort of Mayan prophecy embedded in the pattern. Last, in order to ride it, you had to be hunched over the gas tank, looking like Quasimodo.

However, the bike’s best moment was at the premiere, when Senior got off and it nearly fell over.

But really, no one tunes in for the bikes anymore, and soon it was back to the battle. Senior, under the pretext of “test riding the bike,” rode past Junior’s new shop three or four times, eventually getting off and glowering at the shop. James Bond he ain’t.

Paulie, seeing his father, stood around and didn’t talk to him. In the show’s most surreal moment, one camera caught Senior talking to his camera crew while in the background Paulie was talking to his camera crew. It was like a sad divorced couple.

I just wonder which camera crew got the better end of the deal- covering Senior and his hair-trigger temper, or covering Paulie with his mind-numbing sloth?

The camera crews on Deadliest Catch have the real possibility of dying at sea. I’m sure the American Chopper camera crews envy them.

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