American Pickers is a show centered on Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz, who are pickers who buy a wide range of items from sellers situated throughout the United States. Some of these items are meant for their collections; some of these items are meant for their clients’ collections; and some of these items are meant to be resold through their own operations. Whatever the case, American Pickers has proven to be very popular, which is why it has had 19 seasons and counting.
How Has American Pickers Changed Over the Course of the Series?
Of course, considering that American Pickers started up in 2010, it should come as no surprise to learn that the show has seen some changes over the course of its existence. For example, the two used to head out onto the road in a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter. Nowadays, they use a Ford Transit, which is a very visible though perhaps not particularly important change. Besides this, there are a number of other such changes, which range from a shortened opening narration starting in Season 4 to the opening of a second location in Nashville, TN to make it easier for the two to handle their purchases in the South.
Since American Pickers has proven to be so successful, it makes sense for it to have inspired other shows with similar premises. After all, there are other pickers out there in other regions with other treasures. Due to this, there is a Canadian version called Canadian Pickers, which might be more familiar to interested individuals as Cash Cowboys. Moreover, there is an Australian version called Aussie Pickers. With that said, neither Canadian Pickers nor Aussie Pickers managed to find the same measure of success as their source of inspiration, which is why both of them had no more than short runs.
In other respects, American Pickers has remained very similar to how it started up. Wolfe and Fritz are still traveling throughout the United States. Sometimes, they will head out to particular locations based on opportunities turned up by Danielle Colby, who is the one running the office of Wolfe’s business. Other times, they will visit places that look promising in search of whatever they can be find within them. As for the kind of things that the two buy, well, that hasn’t changed much either because their purchases have encompassed everything from old vehicles to old movie posters. On one particularly memorable occasion, the two managed to snap up a three-wheeled light commercial vehicle called a Piaggio Ape of all things, which is so rare that the two might have the one surviving example that can be found in the whole of North America.
With that said, American Pickers didn’t need to change much. There are some shows that are so consistent that their content can become more than a little bit stale with sufficient repetition. However, the setup for American Pickers has always been flexible enough to make for familiar but nonetheless different content from episode to episode, thus enabling it to stay surprisingly fresh in spite of the fact that it has been running for close to a decade’s time. After all, while American Pickers is always centered on Wolfe and Fritz’s search for new items, the sheer range of items that they are willing to examine means that there is always something new for interested individuals to look at. Moreover, the fact that these items often have some kind of connection with various components of American history enables them to appeal to an even wider range of people than otherwise possible.
Based on this, it seems safe to say that American Pickers will either remain in its present form or remain in something close to it for the foreseeable future. There aren’t a lot of shows that possess formulas that are successful enough to keep them running for close to a decade, meaning that there isn’t a strong impulse to make extensive changes at this point in time. As for how long American Pickers can keep on going, that seems like it would depend on Wolfe and Fritz. There have been other shows that used similar premises, but considering their respective fates, it seems reasonable to speculate that the stars of American Pickers have contributed much to its success as well.
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