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TV I watch: American Chopper
By RickMeasham | November 4, 2008
I watch a bit of TV, and often voraciously consume any new program that grabs my interest. On the Discovery Channel a couple of years back I “discovered” American Hot Rod. I think they were having an episode-per-night month of repeats. So I watched them all and then kept watching for new episodes coming out.
I’d heard of American Chopper, but I wasn’t really into the whole “Chopper” scene. I love a big-block Harley, but the ludicrous stretches, rises and rakes of these choppers just wasn’t for me. But then I ran out of American Hot Rods. I can’t remember the first bike I saw, but it could have been the first ‘web’ bike (aka the Black Widow bike). From then I was hooked. This family was seriously talented .. and just a little dysfunctional.
Five seasons later they’ve moved from a small room under the old iron works to a massive “world headquarters” via several, ever larger, other sites. You can buy their merchandise all over the world. The barista at my local cafe wears an OCC t-shirt. They count Russel Crowe amongst their friends.
Unfortunately, towards the end of S04 and the start of S05, they started to get a bit too commercial. Building bikes for corporations where the main reason the corporations was involved was to get the exposure on the TV series rather than to own a bike. I felt that corporate style-guides were dampening their creativity and talent.
I’m guessing they smelt the coffee though, because they are back. I just watched S03E26 and it was totally mad. Sure, the customer was a corporation (Schussler Creative who create concepts for tacky theme restaurants) but the bike wasn’t covered in logos. It was a fantastic interpretation of a 57 Chevvy convertible as a Chopper. This beats their web-bikes for creativity by far. This bike is truly amazing.
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