“Pickers,” an hour-long reality series about a pair of friends who troll Midwestern highways in search of barns filled with valuable antiques, has become a huge hit for the History Channel, racking up nearly 4 million viewers per episode, making it one of cable’s biggest shows.
Considering that eBay started its life as a Pez exchange, one shouldn’t be surprised by the things that other people will buy. Rusted bicycle wheels, leaking oil cans, and old fence posts. Junk to most people, but to the American Pickers, they’re a way of life.
Unlike the high rollers of “Pawn Stars” Mike and Frank usually stick to smaller items, shelling out $20 or $30 a pop for old advertising signs, lamps or cast-iron tools. Every now and then they shoot big. Mike is a bicycle aficionado and he lays down $3000 for a particularly rare bike in one episode. But most of the time, the items are low-end and not of any particular interest except to the ultimate buyers the Pickers are targeting, and this limits the appeal of the show, at least for me. How many times do you need to see them buying a cheap antique advertising sign or a drawer full of doorknobs?
Where did they come up with the name for this “reality” show? Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz are NOT American Pickers! They are junkers, scroungers, or dumpster-divers, but they are NOT pickers! These History Channel foragers out of LeClaire, Iowa ought to make a trip to Nashville and find out what picking is all about.
The series debuted with 3.2 million viewers, and was the #1 new series in the 25-54 year old category. But who ever heard of Wolfe and Fritz before. What recording studio did they come from? What type music do they play? And if they are pickers, then what instrument do they pick?
Shame on the History Channel for confusing the English language with new meanings of words. Jeff White is a picker! Tony Rice, Sam Bush, Earl Scruggs, and Doc Watson are pickers! Chet Atkins and Jethro Burns are pickers! Who ever heard of a banjo scrounger or a mandolin rummager? No wonder our immigrants are reluctant to learn English.
When Doc Watson sings, I believe every word. I can’t say that for the History Channel.
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