Overdramatic was kind of the norm for American Choppers but this one clip inspired meme after meme of the two motorcycle honchos fighting and showed just how outrageous it can really get. As far as it really goes reality TV is about as dramatic as it can get sometimes because truthfully there aren’t a lot of people that will actively start tearing apart their workplace when emotions get too heavy. Some might, but it’s the exception, not the norm. Considering that this was real you might be able to state that the Teutul’s have some real anger issues that need to get worked out, but for as much as they might shout and yell at each other in real life it doesn’t seem feasible that they’d do it this much on a regular basis. The poor guys would be giving themselves strokes every now and again just from having their blood pressure spike through the roof so often.
That’s the game on TV though, people want to see drama or it’s just not considered good television. The more people react and shout and throw fits the more viewers want to watch. In some ways it’s used as a way to get away from their own troubles and think that someone else is having just as bad a day as they’re having. In other ways people just want to be able to watch the show and lord over someone the fact that their life seems a little better when it comes to how they deal with people. Given that the guys were probably worth quite a bundle after this show aired lording it over them doesn’t seem to be something that might bother the Teutul’s. In fact anyone trying to lord anything over them might get a very realistic showing of what they went through on the program.
While Teutul Sr. and Jr. both did have their issues with one another it’s not above a producer or the board that controls a show to tell the actors to beef up the drama a bit. Sr. did attempt to force Jr. out by buying his stock in the company so as to take advantage of a legal loophole, but it didn’t work and Jr. ended winning the lawsuit that went with it. After that Jr. and Sr. had a falling out that was so bad that Sr. didn’t even attend his son’s wedding. Mikey, the second son of Sr., would eventually leave the company, as would one of their best employees. With the coarse and often very aggressive manner of Sr. it’s not hard to see just why this entire show might have been turned into one giant meme after a while. But at this time Jr. is actually doing pretty good with his own business and Mikey has even become a chef. That’s good since she wasn’t much good in the way of working for his dad.
All in all the feud between Sr. and Jr. was very real, but the overdramatized feel of the show was kind of hard to take at times.
