Because we and our wife enjoy cocktail hour at a time when there’s nothing on TV and because we nevertheless want the TV on during cocktail hour, we watch a lot of “Pawn Stars” on the History Channel.

As reality pawn-shop shows go, it’s pretty tame; more educational than its opposite number, truTV’s “Hardcore Pawn” — apparently there’s nothing like a “porn” reference to haul in viewers — it mostly shows people bringing in items of historical interest to a Vegas pawn shop to convert them into folding money.

Read more