Billy Connolly's Route 66
The Big Yin turns Easy Rider and follows a lifelong dream as he makes the iconic 2488 mile journey from Chicago to Santa Monica. With his unrivalled ability to tell a great story, he brings to life both the big and small moments of American history: the world changing events and the comic asides.
- 2011-2011
- 1 season
- Documentary
The Big Yin turns Easy Rider and follows a lifelong dream as he makes the iconic 2488 mile journey from Chicago to Santa Monica. With his unrivalled ability to tell a great story, he brings to life both the big and small moments of American history: the world changing events and the comic asides.
Season 1 Episode Guide
4 Episodes 2011
Episode 1
Episode #1.1
45 mins
Billy sets off on his motor-trike to fulfil a lifelong dream of travelling along the world's most famous highway. Beginning in Chicago, he goes to the top of the Willis Tower, America's tallest building, before visiting the home of Abraham Lincoln in Illinois and meeting the state's champion pie-maker. Going off-route, Billy heads to Amish country, where he takes a horse-drawn buggy ride, and then talks to two women in St Louis whose homes were recently destroyed by a tornado.
Episode 2
Episode #1.2
44 mins
Billy begins this second leg of his journey in St Louis, Missouri, by climbing the Gateway Arch - which signifies the start of the American West. He visits a wolf sanctuary, takes in a Civil War re-enactment, tries his hand at hunting wild turkeys and makes himself comfortable in the world's largest rocking chair. His final stop is in Oklahoma City, where he visits a memorial to the 168 victims of the bombing of the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building in 1995.
Episode 3
Episode #1.3
45 mins
Billy joins ranch hands on a cattle drive to Oklahoma City before heading into Texas, where he visits the ghost town of Glenrio and Devil's Rope Museum. In Los Alamos, New Mexico, he meets two men who helped create the atomic bomb and attends a rodeo in Arizona. Driving off-route, Billy ends the episode in Monument Valley, where he talks to a Navajo medicine man.
Episode 4
Episode #1.4
45 mins
Billy completes the last leg of his motor-trike journey along the world-famous Route 66. He visits a massive meteorite crater in Arizona, before heading to the Grand Canyon. He meets a campaigner trying to keep the historic route alive, and bottle-feeds a lion cub in a sanctuary for unwanted exotic pets. Finally he reflects on his 3,000-mile ride when he ends his travels in Santa Monica, California. Last in the series.