The Pawn Shop / CANCERTOWN

Pawn Stars began with Brent Montgomery and Colby Gaines of Leftfield Pictures, who were struck by the array of eclectic and somewhat seedy pawn shops in Las Vegas during a 2008 weekend visit to the city. Thinking such shops might contain unique characters, they searched for a family-run shop on which to center a TV series, until they found the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop less than two miles from the Las Vegas Strip. It had been the subject of a 2001 PBS documentary, and the manager and part-owner, Rick Harrison, had been trying unsuccessfully to pitch a show based on his shop for four years. The shop, and Rick, had previously been featured in the Las Vegas episode of Insomniac with Dave Attell in 2003.

The series was originally pitched to HBO, though the network preferred the series to have been a Taxicab Confessions-style series taking place at the Gold & Silver’s night window. The format eventually evolved into the now-familiar family-oriented motif used on the series. History president Nancy Dubuc, who had been charged with creating programming with a more populist appeal to balance out the network’s in-depth military programming, picked up the series, which was initially titled Pawning History, before a staffer at Leftfield suggested that Pawn Stars would fit better with the locale. The network concurred, believing that name to be more pleasing and easily remembered. The staffer adjusted its story-line in order to bring it in line with the network’s brand, which included the on-camera experts appraising the items brought into the Gold & Silver, though she did not discourage the interpersonal conflicts among the show’s stars.