Antiques Roadshow

Famed long-running British programme where people get their valuables appraised. Starting with a 1977 documentary, the show proper has been running since 1979, going from town to town in Britain (and Canada and Australia) having appraisers tell people just what treasures they have and how much they're worth (which usually eclipses those people's expectations).

The show has spawned many international versions, including an extremely successful American version which debuted on PBS in 1997. (PBS also shows the British version in some locales.)


 * Affectionate Parody: The show's format makes it easy to be parodied, and several commercials have popped up in the U.S. parodying the Roadshow.
 * Big Fancy House: One of the main settings for roadshows, along with museums and civic halls.
 * Continuity Nod: Previous "finds" are often referenced and sometimes an item which appeared twenty or even thirty years ago will turn up again.
 * Cool Old Guy: Henry Sandon.
 * Crossover: One episode of Frasier featured the Craines appearing on the show.
 * The Host: Many.
 * British: Bruce Parker (1977; 1979), Angela Rippon (1979), Arthur Negus (1977; 1979-83), Hugh Scully (1981-2000), Michael Aspel (2000-07), Fiona Bruce (2008-).
 * American: Chris Jussel (1997–2000), Dan Elias (2001–03), Lara Spencer (2004–05), Mark L. Walberg (2005-).
 * Long Runners: British version since 1977; American version since 1997.
 * Lots and Lots of Characters: There are dozens of regular and semi-regular experts. At least now they actually get name captions, but even avid viewers would still be hard-pressed to name them all.
 * Results Not Typical: Thousands of people bring antiques to the Roadshows, but only those select few with extremely valuable antiques will be featured.
 * For some time they actually did show the people who brought in what they thought were valuable antiques only to find out it was worthless junk because it was popular with viewers. They put a stop to it because they thought PBS should aspire to higher standards.
 * Worthless Yellow Rocks: What the previous owner of many of the antiques thought they were.
 * Grail in the Garbage