Tag Archives: weekly rundown

Death Rides an American Chopper. (Senior vs. Junior Week 4)

3 Sep

September 3, 2010

Was it the Black Widow bike?

They say that life imitates art. This week, American Chopper Sr. vs. Jr. copied a comic book. Specifically, it was the cover of The Adventures of Superman 481.

In a real world tragedy, a workman who was fixing the roof of Paulie’s new shop fell through a hole to his death on the concrete floor below. His name was not released, but The Editor’s and Staff of Mr. Blog’s Tepid Ride wish to send their deepest condolences. No one’s death should be fodder for either a reality show or a silly blog.

But as Vince McMahon said, the show must go on.

The usual comic book antics took an even sillier twist this week when it was revealed that Mikey’s assistant, hired to organize, well, everything about Mikey, was discovered to be legally blind, leaving Mikey no choice but to drive around his assistant on the assistant’s errands. (Did I mention that his license was suspended three months ago? No I did not. I could not make this up if I tried.)

What Mikey did not realize is that his new employee, Matt Murdoch, is secretly the blind superhero Daredevil, the man without fear.

Tragically, even Daredevil was unable to prevent the terrible events about to unfold, as the war between the Teutuls was about to take its first fatality.

While fixing Paulie’s roof, a workman succumbed to the fumes from all of Mikey’s open paint cans and fell through a hole in the roof.

Death, on his customized OCC chopper, rode in and not even the Man Without Fear could  prevent his death.

Paulie, grief stricken, called in his very creepy pastor to counsel the crew. The pastor showed up, waved around a paperback that may or may not have been a book about Roswell but was definitely not a Bible, muttered some new age aphorisms, and vanished in a puff of smoke.

Oh, and three days later Paul Sr. called to see what’s up.

American Chopper Sr. vs. Jr.: “Because He’s My Butler!”

27 Aug
August 27, 2010

Thanks to JRD Skinner of skinner.fm::blog of fiction for the new and improved banner! You rock! For all  poor graphics in this blog, blame me.

Watching TLC’s American Chopper is getting to be like watching those creepy toddler beauty pageants. The people seem to be having fun, but you wonder how much they are being pushed behind the scenes.

Case in point: This week, Mikey Teutul decided that he needed an assistant. You can almost feel the heavy hand of the TLC producers. “We’ve got a pretty dramatic episode this week. Sr. and Jr. are going to court, Jr. can’t find a customer, we’ve got to lighten it up. I know! Mikey is comic relief, how about if he hires an assistant? Comedy gold! The guy only moves about three feet a week.”

(Before you accuse me of being paranoid- because of course reality television is reality, man! It’s real!- go back and rewatch this week’s show. In the OCC shop, shaved ape Jason, who has the IQ of only one of his sneakers, put on Paulie’s old hat and sunglasses and paraded in front of Sr. doing an actually pretty good Jr. impression. He’s lucky Sr. didn’t put his head in a vice, Three Stooges style. Senior turned to the camera and asked “did you guys put him up to this?” So don’t tell me this show doesn’t have backstage shenanigans going on.

And while I’m at it, who the Hell are all these guys putting Jr. down all of a sudden? None of them where there when the company was being built and they operated out of the back of the steel shop. These guys are all bandwagon jumpers and should shut up. Say what you want about Paulie, but Jason is a total jerk and bald-headed Mike did nothing to build the business.)

Anyway, back to topic, Mikey, who can best be charitably described as America’s Onslow, hired an assistant. To assist what? I don’t know. Buying Cheetos, maybe.

There seemed to be just one guy who answered the ad to be his assistant. Or that’s how TLC edited it. In reality (ohh, there’s that word again) I’m sure there would be hundreds of people lining up to be on American Chopper, but TLC picked, er, Mikey picked, some guy who looks like an overgrown garden gnome and who I’m sure majored in Elvin lore and pot.

This is like a stone getting a slug as an assistant. Sure, it is an improvement, but not much. He’d do much better with Christopher Hewett.

 

MISTER BELEVEDERE’S DUTIES AS MIKEY’S BUTLER

  • Dust Mikey
  • Comb stuff out of Mikey’s beard
  • Tell Mikey how good his kindergarten-style artwork is
  • Laugh at Mikey’s “jokes”
  • Wander over to Paulie, ask him what’s up, go home.
  • Keep Wesley out of the kitchen

Let’s face it, the person who really needs an assistant is this guy:

Has OCC finished the TARDIS bike yet?