American Pickers vs Canadian Pickers
I have to confess .... when I first saw the listing on the TV show American Pickers I thought they were going to do a documentary on country guitar players..................
So after the show came on the air .... or more accurately onto the fiber optic backbone of North America..... I was a little surprised to see a pair of shabby looking guys driving around in a Mercedes Sprinter cargo van and dropping in on farm yards and people's homes scattered around the back roads of America. Well ... it makes sense after all .... and I soon became a fan of the show.
The appeal ... to me... seems obvious in that just about everyone I know has a bit of a collection of small and sometimes large objects of interest. Whether it is items that have been passed down through the family or things picked up over the years there is in nearly every one's life and home something that would be called a "pick". So .... as I see it ... there is a natural point of shared interest in these sorts of things that spans a pretty large part of our society without regard for demographic segments.
The show seems to have become a success and from my POV keeps getting better .... it is a bit of an addiction for me.
So, I was curious when they started advertising "Canadian Pickers" .... a show distributed by the History Television network.
After watching the first few episodes it became patently obvious that our intrepid Canadian Pickers duo are being let down in a big way by the shows producers. Unfortunately so .... because these guys come across as being eminately likable and really interested in the hunt and finding of little treasures. Sadly in the usual manner of our home grown media production industry the show lacks any sense of love or effort. Instead of our team of pickers going out into the boonies to find any real characters or real hidden treasure troves, these poor suckers have been shunted from one junk store to another to roadside tourist trap rip-off joints to commonplace flea markets.
Sad........ the usual Canadian Me Tooism .... take a great idea with a proven track record and try to duplicate the success of that idea by simply transplanting the geography. It smacks of the all too typical results of the soulless, talentless hacks that dominate our media production industry. I'll bet the producers never bothered to leave their Toronto offices to find those venues for Scott Cozen and Sheldon Smithen to explore. Really too bad .... because these guys come across as really likable.
The winners - American Pickers ......Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz get the kind of opportunities they really need to make the show interesting because the people behind the scenes actually work at making it happen.
Canadian Pickers .... sadly .... reeks of Government Subsidy dependant .... half-assed ... amateurism that ruins a great opportunity for everyone else.
OMMAG
So after the show came on the air .... or more accurately onto the fiber optic backbone of North America..... I was a little surprised to see a pair of shabby looking guys driving around in a Mercedes Sprinter cargo van and dropping in on farm yards and people's homes scattered around the back roads of America. Well ... it makes sense after all .... and I soon became a fan of the show.
The appeal ... to me... seems obvious in that just about everyone I know has a bit of a collection of small and sometimes large objects of interest. Whether it is items that have been passed down through the family or things picked up over the years there is in nearly every one's life and home something that would be called a "pick". So .... as I see it ... there is a natural point of shared interest in these sorts of things that spans a pretty large part of our society without regard for demographic segments.
The show seems to have become a success and from my POV keeps getting better .... it is a bit of an addiction for me.
So, I was curious when they started advertising "Canadian Pickers" .... a show distributed by the History Television network.
After watching the first few episodes it became patently obvious that our intrepid Canadian Pickers duo are being let down in a big way by the shows producers. Unfortunately so .... because these guys come across as being eminately likable and really interested in the hunt and finding of little treasures. Sadly in the usual manner of our home grown media production industry the show lacks any sense of love or effort. Instead of our team of pickers going out into the boonies to find any real characters or real hidden treasure troves, these poor suckers have been shunted from one junk store to another to roadside tourist trap rip-off joints to commonplace flea markets.
Sad........ the usual Canadian Me Tooism .... take a great idea with a proven track record and try to duplicate the success of that idea by simply transplanting the geography. It smacks of the all too typical results of the soulless, talentless hacks that dominate our media production industry. I'll bet the producers never bothered to leave their Toronto offices to find those venues for Scott Cozen and Sheldon Smithen to explore. Really too bad .... because these guys come across as really likable.
The winners - American Pickers ......Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz get the kind of opportunities they really need to make the show interesting because the people behind the scenes actually work at making it happen.
Canadian Pickers .... sadly .... reeks of Government Subsidy dependant .... half-assed ... amateurism that ruins a great opportunity for everyone else.
OMMAG
Labels: Incompetence, TV
posted by OMMAG at 9:38 a.m.
8 Comments:
i'm not familar with canada television, but i do know we have a lot of canadians working the industry down here.
the larger market also means a larger pie from which to draw a paycheck. might that be part of the problem? the firts team ends up down here leaving your second string to create and put together the package?
i think it works that way in the music biz, too.
Well Gino ...you're right.
But it is an unintended consequence of the meddling by political forces in an area where they have no business.
I have not heard of the show until reading this post.
Suggestion is to go to Manyberries, Orion, Etzikom, Nemiskam, Foremost in County Forty Mile Number 8 in Southern Alberta. They are along Highway 61. Did three years at a place called Conquerville in the area. Not there anymore. Went to school in Bow Island.
American Pickers IS a Canadian show. Produced by the same company in Toronto as the "Canadian" one. So
one show may be better than the other, but your thesis is wrong--it's all the same people people behind the scenes putting out BOTH shows.
My husband and I really like the show but find that the background "music" is terribly loud and you can barely hear the dialogue. The Hudson, Quebec episode was mostly lost to us as all we could hear was blaring background music.
I enjoy candian pickers more. I think the guys are more likeable., and they find better stuff
Canadian pickers are wayyy more interesting than the American guys..they just don't it for me. They lack personality.
Strange to see you slamming this Canadian show as its way better than American Pickers. Scott and Sheldon actually know their stuff. The American pickers don't seem to know what they are buying 80% of the time unless its a bike.
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