You meet the darndest people on the History Channel hit 'American Pickers.'

Take Hobo Jack, a collector -- or hoarder, if you will -- whom 'AP' hosts Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz visited during the Aug. 16 episode of the show. Jack lives a reclusive lifestyle in southern Illinois on a spread of land overflowing with things he's collected over a span of 60 years.

There's a lot of Victorian era statuary on his sprawling property, which is overgrown with weeds. "I want to build a Victorian mansion," said Jack, who has a long gray beard, a plaid shirt and an acoustic guitar. "I'm offended by the appearance of modernity.''

'American Pickers' follows Wolfe and Fritz as they buy antiques and collectibles from private homes then sell their loot for profit.

Wolfe and Fritz, who are based in Iowa, wound up buying a 1910 motorcycle and an early V-8 twin motor from Jack for $9,000. The guys respect their customers and appreciate the historical value of what they trade in, but it's the middle American types like Hobo Jack who are a big part of the charm of 'History Pickers.' The show, which airs at 9PM on Mondays, is a surprise ratings hit -- the "Hobo Jack" episode landed 4.69 million viewers, making it the 11th most popular show on cable.

Though there are things we'd change about 'Pickers' -- there's a striking lack of diversity, for one thing -- but here's our take on why 'Pickers' is pickin' up the ratings:

It's about real people -- 'American Pickers' is one of the few remaining places -- perhaps the local news being the other -- where a viewer can watch real people being real. Granted, the Hobo Jacks of the show are eccentric, but they're certainly without pretension or artifice. Wolfe, Fritz and a small production crew find genuine people in remote places far from any casting agent's office. They're often a little screwy, but that's the fun of it. You're certainly not going to see them on another reality show next week.

It's a celebration of rural America -- They guys have a surefire method for finding places to pick. They look for "no above-ground pool, no brand new satellite dish, no swing set, no brand new truck, the yard not mowed, no new landscaping and there's tarp on the roof." Far from the manicured appearance of the suburban America that dominates reality TV, 'Pickers' goes for the moldy underbelly of America, the rural byways and highways. It's an exotic world of eccentrics and oddballs, and in many ways it's foreign to viewers.

It's scary -- Mike and Frank were met by one gentleman in the first season who said "You kind of interrupted me; you're kind of disturbing me," before flinging the guys' flier at them. There hasn't been any violence on Pickers so far, but the show can certainly be scary in a 'Deliverance' kind of way.



It's a positive view of hoarding -- Hoarders have been taking it on the chin lately. There's 'Hoarders' on A&E, 'Hoarding: Buried Alive' on TLC, 'Clean House' on the Style Network and 'Confessions: Animal Hoarding' on Animal Planet: all negative portrayals. 'American Pickers' is about finding hoarders and then combing through all their stuff, looking for what's valuable. Mike and Frank pay a fair price for what they find, then make plans to come back and go through the stuff again to find what they missed. Sounds like a win-win situation to us. On 'American Pickers,' hoarders are not called hoarders, they're called keepers of the treasure.

It's patriotic -- There's one common element to all the things of value Mike and Frank find on 'American Pickers': It's all made in America. That means we have to start manufacturing things in America again so 50 years from now, future generations can experience the joy of 'American Pickers.'