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This looks like a fun follow-on. I was bummed when the original series ended...
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"If you want to be a monk... you gotta cook a lot of rice...” -
By the time the original series ended, it was an exercise in tedium. Paul Jr. was wandering about, unsure of what to do (designing a park for people to walk their dogs?) and about to open a boutique of clothing designed by his thimble-brained wife. The younger brother (who's apparent job was to serve as comic relief) had entered therapy for some sort of substance abuse, and Paul Sr. felt it was a great idea to design a bike for an oil rich, desert-dwelling multi-millionaire whose dishdasha wearing friends openly ridiculed the boorish American during the bike's unveiling.
According to the tv guide, Discovery Channel has been running repeats of the show during afternoon hours, no doubt attempting to whet the appetite of people that had lost track of the show when it was moved to TLC and a different time slot. At this point, who cares? It seems the new show's premise is to manufacture a weekly biker build-off between father and son. The initial charm of the series had a great deal to do with the father/son dynamic, but had it's core in the supporting cast (Vinny, Rick and Cody) and the creation of the bikes. Watching Paul Sr. bitch about how he doesn't understand his son while throwing a bike together with parts off the shelf while Paul Jr. doodles, takes coffee breaks and stares into space slack-jawed doesn't exactly sound like riveting entertainment.
“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”― Stephen Hawking -
I used to watch "American Chopper"...but then it became annoying.
It started to seem like the guys fancied themselves more "actors" than anything else, and by the end everything felt forced and scripted.
I hope that "Deadliest Catch" doesn't go down the same road, but I fear that the Hillstrand brothers have already gone "Hollywood" with their Geico commercials and other plugs.Originally posted by perilouspete
fryingdutchman you pretty much own everyone.....sick comebacks, well put. top class wit.Comment
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I watched AC for a year or two. Got burned out more than anything on Sr. yelling all the time and being a grumpy old man.
They focused more on the dysfunctional family dynamic it seemed than actually building custom choppers. And I got tired of that REAL fast!Comment
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I watched AC for a year or two. Got burned out more than anything on Sr. yelling all the time and being a grumpy old man.
They focused more on the dysfunctional family dynamic it seemed than actually building custom choppers. And I got tired of that REAL fast!Comment
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I never thought their choppers were very good either. Mostly modified off the shelf parts. Nothing like Indian Larry or jesse James who could build their own frames, tanks, and pipes from scratch. Some builders even can machine their own engine parts. The Tuttles were never in that league and making corporate bikes is just wrong in my book. Choppers should piss on corporations.No! You can't have the keys to the wine cellar!Comment
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I don't know if you've seen the show or not, but Discovery Channel used to have a series called Biker Build Off, and what you are saying is ridiculously true. In one episode, Billy Lane built a bike just about from scratch, while his opponent Roger Bourget simply went out to his multi-million dollar shop and pulled a bunch of parts off of the shelf. On top of that, while Lane had one guy and some hand tools (he measures by eye) helping him, Bourget had his staff doing the work for him. And Billy Lane won the round. What was even cooler was an episode pairing Lane and Indian Larry. When Larry was declared the winner, he refused the honor, and actually cut the trophy in half in order to share it with Lane.
RIP Indian Larry, you are indeed missed.
“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”― Stephen HawkingComment
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The fuckers outta have a show about bikes (that they build) that could be RIDDEN more than a few miles...
These guys are pretenders in the highest way.....Chainsaw MuthuafuckaComment
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I will tell you who will win between Senior and Junior in the Tuttle wars. Senior hands down. Without him there would be no Orange County Choppers because he came out of the merchant marine and went into the decorative iron business starting with a pickup truck and a welder. I've started businesses myself and know how much work it is and when you are small being sloppy will put you out of business quick. The son just doesn't have it in him. Without daddy's business as a base and dad planting the foot in his son's ass they wouldn't meet the deadlines. The dad has his faults and the son complains about him sitting around but when you have build a business taking years to do it and you are the boss, you can sit in the office because you've delagated.No! You can't have the keys to the wine cellar!Comment
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Interesting... I agree with all points made here. It ain't the greatest show around and the family does have faults running deeper than the San Andreas.
I enjoyed the artistic elements, mixed with the slapstick and overlaid with the humanity. TV is just entertainment..."If you want to be a monk... you gotta cook a lot of rice...”Comment
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That family goes off the edge big time but there is a charitable side to them. The dad has an inferiority complex. I've seen it many times and he just needs to be happy with what he has built and stop getting all antsy and trying to prove himself with the macho thing. The son needs to be more of a self-starter. I thought my dad had a bad temper and lost it but man, nothing like this guy.No! You can't have the keys to the wine cellar!Comment
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Never a channel afraid to jump on things and beat them to death, in addition to running the original series in the afternoons, Discovery is now rerunning TLC's "Senior VS Junior" shows two at a time, back to back on Monday nights. The show was awful enough the first time, and only sucks worse on a second viewing.
One of the things that made the original tick was seeing Paul Jr. taking investigative trips, camera in hand, in order to come to grips with the various subjects he would transfer into visions of bike building. This has been replaced at O.C.C. by business meetings, where a "concept" of the bike is formulated. This in turn is completed on a computer by the questionable talents of Jason Poole (more on him in a minute). The result is a series of bikes virtually indistinguishable from each other, with little if any attention to detail or sense of imagination. Look, you can not come up with a theme bike on a computer screen. You have to have some passion, integrity and again, imagination in order to bring a vision to life. There is no way the Firefighter/911 bike could have been built any other way than having Paul Jr. visit a firehouse and receive a piece from one of the fallen Twin Towers to include with it.
Now, we get to see Paul Senior making despicable comments about his sons, going so far as to build a ramp to launch and wreck a bike with, including his own son strapped to it in effigy. Lovely. And just who is this Jason Poole bitch, anyway? At every opportunity he is making crummy comments about Junior (when he isn't inserting his tongue firmly into Senior's asshole), somehow forgetting that without Junior working side by side with him in the early days, he wouldn't even have a job. This talent-free hack couldn't even get the logo angles correct on the word NAPA, so they flowed evenly as they diminished in size. So who is he to open up a fat mouth at anyone?
The other "characters" at O.C.C. have been reduced to being a sounding board for Senior's more and more bizarre and unraveling attacks on his sons, and it is indeed hard to watch. Whatever fun the show once held is gone, reduced to a run of the mill reality show focusing on the negative aspects of a very fucked up, dysfunctional family. Mikey seems to have transformed into a fat, sullenly morose and utterly clueless man-child, whose irresponsibility only worsens his cluelessness, aimlessly wandering about hopelessly adrift. (Careful study of the old show reveals that he was always a mess, and prone to unstable outbursts that were more often than not edited to appear humorous.)
So the show continues, but for how long who knows or even cares at this point. There is a degree of the old show's focus on actual bike building, but it's over at Paul Junior Designs, yet with only 2 bikes to it's credit, the shop work is hardly compelling tv. And with little else going on beside continuing vicious attacks from Senior while bragging about how innovative and great O.C.C. is (conveniently forgetting the role Junior had in getting the shop there), there isn't much reason to watch. Unless you enjoy depressing television focused on disturbed, irrational behavior. If that is the case, you are already watching A&E's Hoarders.
“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”― Stephen HawkingComment
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They lost me when they started doing corporate choppers. Corporate and Chopper and two concepts that should be universes apart. It made me ill actually.No! You can't have the keys to the wine cellar!Comment
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I actually had the opportunity to inspect one of their corporate themed bikes; The Microsoft chopper. It was a piece of shit. More than Half the "custom appointments" could be purchased by anyone right out of the JP cycles catalog. The truly custom built parts fit so poorly that they either were visibly out of line, or were jury rigged to make fit.
Even the O.C.C. data plate was on crooked. The seat didn't even fit the frame.Comment
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