Midway into the 21st season of History's antique hunting TV series American Pickers, what had
previously appeared to be a positive working relationship between hosts Mike Wolfe and
Frank Fritz crumbled.
The two reality TV stars suddenly began to feud with one another via a series of public
statements.
All the while, Wolfe remained at its helm, while Fritz appeared to be no longer welcome
on the show.
Given the significant disruption to the status quo on American Pickers resulting from Fritz's
sudden departure, the question of whether or not third host Danielle Colby would remain
a part of the series alongside Wolfe soon arose.
As of the January 1st, 2022 premiere of American Pickers Season 23, Colby is still on the show,
suggesting that, Fritz aside, its core will remain largely unchanged — for the time
being.
Notably, Colby does not usually travel to look for antiques as Wolfe does and Fritz
once would, but rather holds down the fort at Antique Archaeology, the store that serves
as a home base for the American Pickers cast.
While Colby has undoubtedly remained a valuable contributor to the show for more than 20 seasons,
her numerous appearances on American Pickers have occasionally led to a few awkward moments.
And one episode, featuring classic dad rock band Aerosmith, arguably took things much
too far.
Over the course of a handful of episodes of American Pickers, Mike Wolfe, Frank Fritz,
and Danielle Colby began work on restoring the first van Aerosmith ever used on tour
before presenting it to the band in-person.
While the van may be a more historically-important find than their average purchase, a number
of users in a thread on the American Pickers subreddit criticized this particular storyline.
For example, user moneyman74 accused the whole arc of being, quote, "a ploy to get ratings
and do a 'crossover' with Aerosmith opening a Vegas show."
"The band wants to buy the van and use it in their Vegas residency."
"Are you kidding me?"
"Wow."
"What?!"
For what it's worth, Aerosmith was indeed in the midst of a concert residency in Las
Vegas in 2019, when the American Pickers crew gifted the fully-restored van to the band.
In the opening of the same Reddit post, meanwhile, one user said:
"When they met Aerosmith, it was so inorganic.
Danielle cried and it was embarrassing, because she did little to advance the project of the
van, except introduce the original pick."
In essence, the post is insinuating that Colby's emotions were performative — which, let's
face it, seems pretty likely.
After all, it does make for more compelling television.
Nevertheless, Colby's awkward behavior in a storyline already accused of inauthenticity
drew attention to the series' artifice in a manner largely absent from a normal American
Pickers episode.
This meant the episode didn't really inspire the kind of suspension of disbelief necessary
to enjoy reality TV.
While some American Pickers fans criticized Danielle Colby's involvement in the Aerosmith
van storyline for the likelihood that some of it was staged, other viewers remembered
feeling conflicted about the conduct of Colby and Aerosmith vocalist Steven Tyler.
In the same Reddit thread, for example, user americanrealism wrote:
"Just saw this episode the other day and honestly was kinda grossed out by how handsy Steven
Tyler was with Danielle."
In the comments section of a YouTube clip of this moment, a user named John Pierce posted
that they thought the American Pickers crew, quote, "acted way [too] goofy," pointing out
in particular that Danielle was acting "clingy" towards Steven Tyler.
For what it's worth, some fans of the show shared nothing but support for Colby's meeting
with Tyler.
In the comments section of a Facebook video previewing the episode, for instance, one
user wrote:
"The show was awesome!!!
Danielle, you were definitely googly eyes & thrilled with seeing them.
You rock girl!!"
So, it's probably fair to say that many fans believe this American Pickers storyline was
little more than a promotional tie-in with Aerosmith's 2019 Las Vegas concert residency.
Others, however, appear to believe Colby was simply starstruck, and may have acted a little
differently than usual — due to the presence and behavior of a certain world-famous rock
star.
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