Let’s not leave out the Pickers.
They have producers go out a months in advance to scout out locations they supposedly just happened to run across.
The deals are made before they ever get there.
I don't think you can stage a wild gator in advance?
Now you’ve burst my bubble: PICKERS is the only one of those shows with anything to recommend it, but lately, it too looks so staged and contrived its appeal is fading fast. ALL of these shows started out, the way everything does, with some semblance of “purity”, then, over time, the formula is deemed to need a little tweaking, and things get staged, contrived, and tiresomely predictable, as in the fake wrangling over price that is a feature of every PAWN STARS transaction.
Rick Harrison willingly goes through this same process EVERY time, and interesting, like American Pickers, you virtually NEVER see him sell anything, only buy stuff. The PICKERS guys, the same thing, like the STORAGE WARS winning bidders:
they always tote up their expenditures, and assure the viewer that they WILL make 20%,50% or double their money when they resell the stuff, which you NEVER see them do.
What gets me about the Pickers is even using their prices for what things will eventually bring, they don’t even begin to pay for their fuel much less any profit.