Since it began in 2010, American Pickers has become one of the most dependable reality TV shows on the air, and the artifact-seeking series will reach and top 400 episodes when Season 27 arrives. Host Mike Wolfe has been at the forefront the entire time, with Frank Fritz co-hosting for the bulk of those years until his firing in 2021 and eventual death in December 2024. The show’s consistent production cycle will soon come to an end, at least temporarily.
American Pickers’ cast and crew are set to enjoy their first big filming hiatus since the show kicked off all those years ago, and it sounds like something that was well-earned. Speaking with People, Wolfe addressed the upcoming break, which is set to kick off in the summer after Pickers wraps filming its twenty-seventh season (which will likely arrive later during the 2025 TV schedule). Here’s how the host put it:
We haven't done that in 15 years, so that's going to feel good. For 15 years, we have just been going and going and going. . . . I think we're going to have at least four or five months off, so it's going to be good.
If anyone can tell me the quickest way to guarantee a four- or five-month break from work without any permanent damage or loss of income, please reach out. Just don't tell my bosses first.
While it doesn't sound like American Pickers is going on break because its on-screen talent is too exhausted to go on, Mike Wolfe did acknowledge that he's not a spring chicken. But while some might have expected him to slow down at this point in his career, he addressed that getting older has made him open up to taking on projects outside of his comfort zone. In his words:
It's been 20 years of my life, American Pickers has been. And so now kind of slowing down into it, I'm reflecting a lot, like so many people do my age. That's why really it's a celebration of me turning 60 and I'm like, I'm doing this. You want to do another show? I'm doing another show. You want me to have a part in the scripted project? I'm doing it. I'm excited about the next chapter of everything.
That's right. Wolfe, who previously cameoed in an episode of NCIS, took a few acting lessons from Billy Zane for the new action-western Day of Reckoning, which was released on March 28, co-starring Zach Roerig and Wolfe's own girlfriend Letitia Cline. And it was just earlier in that same month when History Channel announced its newest unscripted series to be headed up by the Pickers. mainstay.
Mike Wolfe Talks New Show History's Greatest Picks
While it's not clear when fans can expect to see Mike Wolfe in another show with the base word "Pick" in the title, it seems like he was more eager to say yes to this project now than he would have been had the offer come up earlier in his career. In fact, he says that he's been asked about plenty of other projects that he inevitably turned down, with the justification that he was "overwhelmed" with American Pickers.
Of course, the new show does have somewhat similar DNA to Wolfe's core series, with segments that focus on specific artifacts from the recent and distant past, which does help to keep things centered. Wolfe talked about agreeing to the new project, and why fans can expect, saying:
They asked me to do another show, and I felt that it was on brand in regards to what I've been doing with them for the last 15 years. And so I was like, 'Hell yeah, let's do this!' . . . . In one hour, we're going to cover four different stories, so it is about picking. It's about discovery of things, but the bottom line is, it's very story-based, like my show is.
We can assume that at least some of the producers behind the scenes of American Pickers are hard at work setting up the next wave of finds, even if some of the show's segments aren't planned out far in advance.
In the meantime, while waiting for Season 27 to arrive, past episodes of American Pickers can be streamed with a Hulu subscription (5 seasons), a Netflix subscription (1 season), an Amazon Prime subscription (2 seasons), on Pluto TV (3 seasons) or the Roku Channel (8 seasons).
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