They’re all TV shows. If you set the bar low enough then all of them could be called fake. But some are just providing a good show. People call Pawn Stars fake because it’s not simply the result of sticking a video camera in a pawn shop. The idea is to highlight the items people want to sell. How and why they make it to the show doesn’t really matter. The items are featured, the cast and their ‘friends’ discuss the authenticity and value of the items, and they get purchased or not. It’s not fake, it’s entertainment.
You know if this is one element I am sure is fixed it’s the trash talking. I am sure they are just told to play that element up for the cameras.
I find conflict in these types of reality shows always feels forced.
Sure, the lockers are seeded and the appraised values are cooked. But it’s fun watching just to see what vehicles Barry will show up in.
I agree with Vita Beata actually. Barry is really the only reason to watch the show… in fact, I think the show is just a vehicle for him to be on TV.
Drewtwo99, I love the vintage clothes Barry wears also. He says he collects many unique items; perhaps there will be a show featuring the collection. I’d watch for sure.
Yeah, no kidding. There are only two and only one who supposedly used to work in a ‘gentleman’s club’.
Make that three women. I forgot about Laura.
Plus he drives the weirdest collection of antique cars. (There was one van that he drove from above the roof.)
As for Hester’s claims, I assumed that the interesting stuff we’re shown is from the tiny fraction of lockers with good stuff in them. So they may bid on fifty lockers but only show us the two with something worthwhile. Sometimes, though, the good stuff isn’t even hidden. One locker Hester bid on had a bunch of brand-new vending machines in plain sight. He bought the locker for a couple thousand and supposedly sold them for $30,000. (I say supposedly because he really does seem to exaggerate the value of the stuff in his lockers.)
This is what I thought was happening. They spend days and weeks bidding on and buying dozens of lockers and then show the ‘best’ ones. Apparently, they decided to take some short cuts, which is more aggravating.
The specific example of the Elvis Newspapers is kinda surprising to me, If I remember correctly, there were maybe hundreds of those papers. It wouldn’t have surprised me to learn that somebody had stashed those in a storage locker. Plus, that’s a lot of weight to move around to seed a locker. I guess that’s why they did it, few people would suspect a plant.
Sigh. This is why we can’t have nice things.
While a boob job certainly is a possibility for either Brandi or “The Lady,” they are also both mom’s and don’t have bodies that seem that unnatural. My money would be on a nose job or something instead.
Not sure about Pawn Stars, but in the hidden camera show I watched, I would’ve bet money that the “restaurant employees” and manager were all actors (and not particularly good ones, either). It appeared to cross the line from manipulated “reality” TV into something that was 100% scripted and presented as real.
Yep. That show has me wondering too. Sometimes it seems like it could be real. Other times it does appear to be very bad actors. Then again, I suppose real people might come off as bad actors. But I am leaning towards fairly faked at this point.
I’ve watched this show from the beginning, so here are my thoughts:
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Of course it’s phony as hell, it’s a TV show. I think all these things are largely faked, from Billy the Exterminator to David Blaine to whatever. If it’s a produced show on TV, it’s not real.
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The very first episodes not only had lockers being bought in the low-hundreds, but the end-of-show tallies were also in the hundreds, maybe breaking a thousand. Made for a very boring show, until…
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The value of the lockers started mysteriously rising in the middle of S1. Nowadays, very few lockers are bought where they aren’t clearing at least a thousand (i.e., the stuff inside is valued at least $1k in aggregate. They still might have overpaid (Barry), but they recoup hundreds-thousands of their money back.)
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When the show started being seeded (and I believe it probably started off as honestly as it could, but it was rather boring watching a TV show where somebody clears $290 after a days work, so something had to give), the actors began heading straight towards the drawer/box that contained the collectible, going right past similar drawers/boxes on their way to the goody. :rolleyes:
4a. They’re better about that now - they clear out the locker to the point where it’s logical to find the goody, then find the goody. 
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Really… in a locker full of cheap college dorm crap they’re going to find a $900 vintage surfboard (example made up for illustration)? Really?
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The seeding likely goes on after the locker is bought and opened. IMHO, of course - it just makes it easier.
6a. I’ve never thought to total the aggregate “wins” per episode, but I doubt the seeding costs more than $10k an episode. If you’re not paying the actors (each would be earning $2,800/weekly as members of the SAG, minimum), an extra $10k isn’t going to stretch the budget too much.
6b. Also remember, all we get is some “experts” appraisal… and many times, the actors are valuing their own lockers. No conflict of interest there…
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Even though the above assumes they don’t, in reality I would bet $10,000 of Mitt Romney’s money that they all have SAG cards.
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Remember when Barry kept bitching about money? He even once said “my accountant is telling me to stop.” Again, it’s a “reality” TV show and the line between scripted and impromptu is rather blurry… but Barry has stopped bitching about losing $1,500 per episode and is coming to these things with a variety of vehicles rented from God-knows-where.
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I thought Brandy and Laura were looking, er, nicer. And I notice that Brandy/Jarrod seem to arrive in an assortment of trucks and vehicles.
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It’s obvious that all of them (except perhaps Darryl) are profiting from being on the show: Hester opens up an auction house and starts branding himself, Brandy/Jarrod expanded their store (Jarrod even has his own line of clothing), and Barry, like I said, has stopped bitching about money.
That may be the direction all the shows are heading in. The ‘reality’ part of is kind of perverse anyway. Real reality is pretty dull. Perhaps the grand-daddy of all courtroom shows was Divorce Court. It started in the 50s I think and was totally scripted with actors. Modern courtroom shows use real people, but the people are selected to be good entertainment. It would be better if we used Al Pacino to tell Judge Judy “You’re out of order!”
This is a natural consequence of the show’s popularity. The crowds showing up to storage auctions also increased, which I’ve heard one of the buyers complain about in an interview (Darrel, I think). More people show up with a wad of cash in their pockets thinking they’re going to get rich, and they drive the prices up.
Not saying whether or not it was seeded ahead of time, but those shots always seem like a reenactment of the actual find in order to get a better shot, ie: Barry is looking through his new locker and finds something cool in a drawer but the camera guy was pointing at something else, or the lighting was bad, or whatever. They put the item back, or in another spot in the locker that’s easier to film, and then Barry “finds” the item.
Barry is independently wealthy and retired from owning a produce company. He knew a producer and didn’t start buying lockers until the show started - but he’s very open about this on the show. He doesn’t need the paycheck from the show, or the money from the items he finds. He just does it for kicks (and fame, I imagine).
I read somewhere that their original contracts was for something like $10k per episode. Plus they’re making more money from exposure on the show. When I visited the American Picker’s shop in Le Claire, IA, it was interesting to see how many tourists were stopping in on their way through and buying up hats, shirts, etc w/ the show’s logo on them. Being on TV is very good business.
Don’t despair, you can still count on Penthouse letters.
From what I’ve seen, he’s looking for odd or interesting items for his personal collection.
Wow, I guess even some vultures have standards.
I briefly talked to the guy from Oddities. I’ve been in that shop before the show. What they do, if something good comes in the store. They then call the producers and the people come back and they “reenact” the transaction. Of course they aren’t the best actors.
Yes, that explains why the prices for the lockers started going up, but not the tallies at the end of the show. Many times in S2, 3 of 4 are up over a thousand dollars, something that never happened early S1.
It is likely there’s a feedback loop going on here: the show started being honest and we were shown honest bids and finds, then as it became more popular, people started going to the auctions, driving the cost of lockers up. But they were still buying the same shitty lockers: instead of paying $175 and clearing $500, they’re paying $900 and clearing $500, then later paying $2,000 and clearing $600.
Something had to give.