PASADENA, Calif. _ Ever since "Antiques Roadshow" premiered on public television, grandma's cracked teapot, that dusty painting in the attic and the wobbly chair in the basement take on a new shine. People realize they might be harboring a real fortune and not even know it.
It's been 23 years since "Antiques Roadshow" hit the road, and the treasures just keep coming.
Over the years the show has traveled across the nation, working with 500 appraisers who donate their time to pore over the autographed baseball, the Tiffany lamp, the Civil War uniform.
Since the series began it has hosted 1.4 million appraisals, and next Monday it will conquer space with its "Out of this World" event. In keeping with PBS' "Summer of Space," which commemorates America's journey into the outer limits, the "Roadshow" will scrutinize space-themed booty collated from shows across the years.
It will include items like autographed NASA space program photos, an aviation autograph collection with signatures of Amelia Earhart, John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, etc., a celestial atlas dating back to the 1700s, as well as artifacts from the world of science fiction like "Star Trek" memorabilia.
It's not so much the value of the item that makes the show interesting, says executive producer Marsha Bemko. It's the story and the history.
"I think the magic is that it's smart reality television," she says. "You're not going to watch 'Antiques Roadshow' and not learn something about our world and our country. You can't help it. You will learn about American history in particular because a majority of what we see are American objects. There's a sizzle to it."
One of the major components of that "sizzle" is appraiser Leila Dunbar, who's appeared on the show since it premiered. Dunbar is an expert on sports memorabilia as well as entertainment, posters, comic books, animation, transportation memorabilia and art.
"The whole premise of the show is an exchange of information," says Dunbar. "You come in and you tell us your story, and we try to fill in the blanks for you."
But the show has changed over the years, says Dunbar. "When it started, I feel it was a very object-driven experience _ both for us and for the guests who came in _ because face it, 'Roadshow' is the History Channel meeting 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,' right?' she says.
" ... I don't think people realize with 'Roadshow,' you had thousands of people that come through in the beginning with the convention centers. You had 5,500 people, 12,000 to 15,000 objects, (and) 70 of us and three producers," Dunbar recalls.
"It's a large game of musical chairs. So we were just trying to get through the day and get through all the appraisals. And the guests would come in, and they'd be in line for hours. And by the time they got to us, they just wanted to know, 'Am I going to get on TV?'
"Now I think we're probably in another generation, we've become friends to these folks. And for five days a year, we're Cinderellas and Cinderfellas. We're rock stars. We're normal people every other day of the week for the rest of the year. But five days they come in, and they want to see us. And they want to have an interchange with us. And now we have less people coming in, so we're able to talk with them. It's a much more human-driven experience," she says.
Often that interchange can be well, priceless. Like the time twin experts Leigh and Leslie Keno discovered an invaluable relic. "In one lady's home we found a bronze Minoan bowl, 1,600 BC, worth thousands of dollars," says Leigh Keno. "She'd used it outside as a bird feeder. And she had a pet ferret who'd actually used it a lot."
Dunbar remembers one of her favorites: "I had a lady come in ... with a giant Green Bay Packers wooden sign, figural. And it turned out that it had been a stadium sign. And she brought a photo of it in the stadium. And I was like, 'Well, that's nice.'
"But then she told the story. And the fact was she was there at the Ice Bowl, which is one of the most famous games in football history. It was the NFL championship on New Year's Eve. It was minus-48 degrees. The band couldn't play because their instruments froze to their lips.
"And her parents were there, and they had front-row seats to this game. So it's going on, and the famous play from that game is when Bart Starr _ everyone thinks he's going to call a pass in the last 16 seconds of the game. They're on the two-yard line. It's frozen. He calls the wedge. And he runs in behind Jerry Kramer, who blocks. Everyone in Dallas thought they were going to throw a pass. They score the winning touchdown and pandemonium ensues," she says.
"All these people start running out on the field, probably to get warm, and they're pulling down the goal posts. But her father, who's in the stands, calmly runs out to the parking lot to his car and gets out his Craftsman tool set and saunters back in and unbolts this giant Green Bay Packers sign from the wall. And now it's in their living room. It's their prize possession."
ABC HOLDING TRYOUTS FOR NEW SHOW
If you can think of three people that you can work with brilliantly, ABC has a game show for you. The network is holding tryouts for the new show "Don't," produced by actor-producer Ryan Reynolds ("Deadpool").
Teams of four will be challenged not only on their physical prowess but on their mental abilities with just one rule: Don't. Team members don't have to be siblings, parents, grandparents or long-lost cousins. They can be culled from co-workers, teachers, gym buddies, fraternities or sororities, sand-lot teammates, church fellowships or PTA colleagues. But contestants must be 18 to apply. And the winners could end up with cash prizes up to a tidy $100,000. Nice work for a summer job! Applicants should go to www.dontcasting.com.
LOVE TURNS LETHAL ON NEW SERIES
The divorce courts are proving that romantic love often goes sour. But what if it turns lethal? That's the premise of Investigation Discovery's new six-part series, "'Til Death Do Us Part," premiering July 9.
From a suspicious carbon monoxide accident to a chatty parrot who may have been witness to a murder, the show will examine all kinds of heartthrobs whose former fixation metastasizes into mayhem. The true-life stories include the tale of a wife turned Wiccan, a partner with a wicked gambling addiction and a motorcycle mishap that might not be an accident. The perils will be exhibited via split-screen archival info and original material including interviews with families, friends, law enforcement personnel and sometimes the would-be victim.
REMEMBERING JUDITH KRANTZ
While she didn't snatch any Pulitzers, Judith Krantz was an enviously successful writer for much of her life. Krantz died on June 22 at 91, and a myriad of colorful characters died with her.
It took her 27 years to muster the courage to write her first novel, "Scruples." Others romantic tomes followed like "Princess Daisy" and "Till We Meet Again." The last time we talked she said, "I love the excitement of being in control of a world. There's no way on earth to create an entire rounded globe that people live within, except a novel.
"You can do it if you're a film producer, writer, director. But then you have to work with all those people. A writer can sit in a room all by herself and it's full of people, it's full of her characters, and she can make whatever she wants happen to them and they can't fight back."
Sometimes they do fight back, she corrected herself. "If they want to go in another direction then you must let them have their way. That means they're totally alive and you must follow them."
