Quick Take: All Star Dealers, "Selling Dennis Rodman"
"I created the market for game used memorabilia." - Richie
Review: All Star Dealers, "Selling Dennis Rodman"
(S0101) For an auction/pawn shop-based show to work, it must have at least two of the following elements: entertaining characters, interesting items for sale, and fascinating stories about the origin of the items for sale. All Star Dealers, the latest installment in the ongoing pawnification of cable television, aired its premiere episode on Discovery last night. And unfortunately, it only features one of those essential elements.
The items involved in All Star Dealers are all pieces of sports memorabilia. As a sports fan, these items interest me. So there's the aforementioned essential element. However, All Star Dealers lacks compelling characters and completely ignores the significance of the items for sale.
The show follows Richie Russek, Darren Russek, and Michael Russek, a family team that runs a sports memorabilia outlet called Grey Flannel Auctions. The central problem with All Star Dealers is that the focus is on the actual day to day business of running Grey Flannel. By its nature, running a business is a pretty boring thing to watch. (Unless, of course, that business is a '60s-era advertising agency).
Most of the episode centers around Richie's attempt to locate and buy the famous Dennis Rodman wedding dress. The show spends too much time on the ultimately fruitless search, at the expense of the more interesting story: Dennis Rodman's wedding dress fiasco.
