{"id":20753,"date":"2023-01-08T00:01:27","date_gmt":"2023-01-08T08:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=20753"},"modified":"2023-01-06T15:39:24","modified_gmt":"2023-01-06T23:39:24","slug":"exhaustnotes-tv-review-then-came-bronson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2023\/01\/08\/exhaustnotes-tv-review-then-came-bronson\/","title":{"rendered":"ExhaustNotes TV Review: then came Bronson"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been on a then came Bronson<\/em> kick lately. I can\u2019t find any of the TV shows on YouTube but the website Dailymotion has a few complete episodes available free online and I\u2019ve been watching them one a day for a week or so. A bit of backstory for motorcyclists under the age of 105: then came Bronson<\/em> was an episodic, 1-hour TV drama about a guy traveling the country on his Harley Davidson Sportster. It was sort of like Easy Rider<\/em> but without the drugs. This was in the era before Sportsters were considered a girl\u2019s bike. In the late 1960\u2019s the Sportster was a high performance motorcycle that ran with the best of the British bikes\u2026in a straight line.<\/p>\n

When tcB<\/em> was a new show I watched it on a black and white television with maybe a 19\u201d diagonal measurement. I was 12 years old and a TV show about motorcycles and motorcyclists not depicted as Hells Angels had never been done. I remember watching the TV show but I can\u2019t remember specific episodes. In those pre-internet, pre-DVD recorder days if you missed the air date it was gone forever. Watching the old show on the Dailymotion site has been like seeing them for the first time.<\/p>\n

\n

Please click on those popup ads!<\/span><\/h3>\n
\n

Bronson was from The Bay Area and he chucked it all to cruise around the California backcountry meeting interesting characters and saving damsels in distress. Watch the classic opening scene on YouTube: nobody wanted to be that guy in the station wagon. I guess distress is too strong a word. The damsels were more dissatisfied than distressed. They were small town girls trapped in boring lives and Bronson represented a different ending to the story. Bronson was their ticket to Any-where-else, USA.<\/p>\n

\"\"
James Dean and Michael Parks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lord knows Bronson never went out of his way to encourage the girls but when you look like James Dean you don\u2019t have to try very hard. Bronson\u2019s sure-fire method for attracting women was to do exactly nothing. He wouldn\u2019t talk unless really pushed into it. He never tried to get fresh or make the first move. Often he would fall asleep on a date with a beautiful woman who was holding up a cardboard sign that said, \u201cTake me now, you idiot!\u201d written in red lipstick. His method may have been sure-fire but his actual success rate was low. It wasn\u2019t long before the girls would get frustrated, give up, and go back to their small town boys<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Of course I didn\u2019t notice this strangeness when I was 12 years old. It was enough to see a motorcycle on the television. Looking at the show today it is clear than Bronson suffered from narcolepsy and possibly landed on the high end of the autism spectrum. At times it seemed painful for him to speak, he would grimace before he could manage to drag the gut-hooked words out of his mouth. Sometimes when another character would ask Bronson a question his answer would be to turn away and look off into the distance. It was all too much for him.<\/p>\n

It seemed like in almost every episode Bronson\u2019s motorcycle would be wrecked. A car might back into him, he might run into a ditch and bend the forks or a friendly local might ride it into the lake. These crashes were a way to hold Bronson in a town long enough for the local women to throw themselves at him; normally it took two or three days for all of them to have a go at Bronson. If you\u2019re a nitpicker for accuracy the scenes of Bronson repairing his bike will have you yelling, \u201cThat\u2019s the fifth time you\u2019ve put the gas tank bolt in!\u201d or, \u201cThere\u2019s no way you got that fender straight with two rocks!\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m poking fun at then came Bronson<\/em> but it really was a great show that had a huge influence on my generation of motorcycle riders. Hell, it\u2019s still a great show. Bronson came along at the exact right time to catch the first big wave of what we think of as modern motorcycling, when you could meet the nicest people on a Honda or a meanie on a Yamaha. The show still holds up well to re-watching if you can suspend logic for an hour. And who doesn\u2019t love a show with a bronze-head Rudge in it?<\/p>\n

\"\"
Bronson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
Me<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As you can see in the photos above, watching then came Bronson<\/em> had absolutely zero effect on me. I was lucky to travel around the country in 1975, only a few years after Bronson aired. The small towns in America still looked like scenes from then came Bronson. Today many of the towns I saw in my travels are boarded up and abandoned. Thriving businesses where I bought gas and a RC cola have crumbled into the ground. Turns out none of those people Bronson met and befriended really wanted to stay in their little towns. They didn\u2019t know where they were going but they ended up somewhere.<\/p>\n

After my Bronson binge I\u2019ve been thinking about getting a jet-style, open face helmet like the one Bronson wore in the show. I know a full helmet is safer but I want more interaction with the environment, but not like my face on asphalt interaction. Maybe getting a few bugs in my teeth would be a good thing, and maybe I do talk a little too much. I\u2019ll practice my pained looks and concentrate on the horizon. I wonder if I ignore CT long enough she\u2019ll hold up one of those lipstick-lettered cardboard signs. That would be cool. Go check out then came Bronson<\/em> on Dailymotion, and hang in there.<\/p>\n

\n

Never miss an ExNotes blog: