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American Chopper
American Chopper: The Series logo
Format	Reality television
Starring	Paul Teutul, Sr. Paul Teutul, Jr. Michael Teutul Rick Petko Jason Pohl Mike Rowe (announcer)
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	6
No. of episodes	120
Production
Location(s)	Newburgh, NY
Running time	60 minutes
Production company(s)	Pilgrim Films & Television
Broadcast
Original channel	Discovery Channel(2003-2007) TLC(2008-)
Picture format	1080i (HDTV)
Original run	2003 – present
External links
Official website

American Chopper is a reality television series on The Learning Channel (TLC) and is produced by Pilgrim Films & Television. The popular series is based around the founder of the company, Paul Teutul, Sr., and his son, Paul Teutul, Jr., also known as Paulie or simply Junior, as the two run a business creating custom motorcycles in their workshop, Orange County Choppers. The workshop is located in Newburgh, New York.

The contrasting attitudes of the men and their propensity for sulking often lead to fiery but humorous verbal exchanges as they meet unusually short schedule deadlines for building distinct custom choppers.

Originally a show on the Discovery Channel, the series moved to Discovery's sister channel, TLC, on December 28, 2007, starting off with an 18-hour marathon. Its first season on TLC premiered on January 18, 2008. Season 6 began airing on April 9, 2009 on TLC.

[edit] Featured staff

Vinnie (left) and Mikey filming at an outside location.

The OCC fabricators and mechanics such as Paul Teutul, Jr., Rick Petko, Nick Hansford, Christian Welter, and former employees Vincent DiMartino, (who left OCC to start V-Force Customs in 2007) and Cody Connelly (a BOCES student intern who has since joined DiMartino's business), to create dozens of custom motorbikes. Paul Sr. supervises the builds and has built motorcycles himself. Michael Teutul, commonly referred to as Mikey, serves as the shop's custodian and webmaster, and provides comic relief to the show. He has been seen doing metal work occasionally, as one of his early jobs was working at Orange County Ironworks. Also featured occasionally is Danny Teutul, the second oldest child, who succeeded Paul Sr. as owner of Orange County Ironworks. Danny drops by to do contracted jobs for the OCC facilities. The show also documents their personal and promotional activities ranging from magazine photo shoots to family holidays and custom bike shows.

[edit] Firing of Paul Jr.

In the Season 6 premiere, Paul Sr. and Paul Jr. had an explosive disagreement over Paul Jr.'s contract and Paul Jr. was subsequently terminated. In a later episode, they appeared to work out their differences but Jr.'s return to work at OCC caused more problems between the two. Later, Paul Jr. decided that returning to OCC was a mistake and has left to pursue his own ideas. However, he and his father have both expressed interest in Paul Jr. remaining involved with OCC into the future. In recent episodes, he has been working for OCC as a consultant, who comes in when Paul Sr. is out of the shop, and when a build needs extra manpower.^{[citation needed]}

In addition, Paul is currently helping his girlfriend open and establish a boutique in Montgomery, New York, and has started his own design firm, Paul Jr. Designs. Paul has since decided not to help his girlfriend open a boutique because of the economy.

[edit] Video games

Due to its popularity during its first seasons, American Chopper inspired two video games, developed by Activision Value and developed by Creat Studios. The first was 'American Chopper' released for the Sony PS2, and the Xbox. The second, American Chopper 2: Full Throttle was released for the Nintendo GameCube, Sony PS2, and the Xbox.

There is also a video pinball arcade game made by Incredible Technologies, Inc That was never released but did make it to on site play testing.

[edit] FANtasy Bike Contest

During 2005, Discovery Channel sponsored a contest^[1] in which four finalists won OCC motorcycles. Bike features were specified by the winning fans, who sent in videos expressing their reasons for wanting a bike. The contest winners were (in episode order): Jeff Clegg (Corporal Punishment), Susan Morisset (Female Snake Bike), Joseph McClendon (Custom Hog), Bryan King (Vertebrate Trike).

[edit] Seasons

[edit] Parodies

American Body Shop, an improvisational comedy shown on Comedy Central, is a parody of American Chopper, as well as other similar shows, such as Monster Garage and American Hot Rod.^[2][3]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Pilgrim Films American Chopper Website
• American Chopper at the Open Directory Project