American Pickers show. Is it real? fake? staged?

No different from any show or movie. WWII actually happened and there were Sherman tanks. But did an SS regiment sit and attack one tank from the front for hours and not fire one panzerfaust? Nope. Because they could have eliminated that tank in seconds and the movie would have been boring.

 

Typically it's a producer that does that. Everything we see is planned ahead obviously so the term "reality" should really be "surreality"

I don't watch this show but I know pawn stars only shows the part of their shop that looks refined where they shoot most of the dealings for things of worth. In actuality if you go to their shop in vegas 2/3 of the place is bogus merchandise and pieces of junk in the glass displays.

However, from Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares where he overhauls a restaurant that's on the brink of closure - someone on reddit asked if customers purposely send food back for the cameras and this is what I read:

"The moment we sat down, one of the producers told us to let her know before our waitress if we had an issue, no matter how small an issue. Also told us while we were waiting to chat about anything we wanted to...like the menu options or the decor."

And a top reply to that was:
"I feel like this is fair. it's not "please complain" - just "please help us capture it if you're going to complain."

So I guess you never know what you're actually watching whether it's set up or not.

 

I think it was my shop teacher back in HS that told me they fly out to the locations and someone else does the cross-country driving in their truck

 

THAT would feel like a gyp to viewers if that were well known. I have wondered if they actually spend 1/2 their life together in that truck. Rather, if they STILL do, I'm sure it started that way.