At this point, fans know Frank Fritz is no longer a star on American Pickers, the History series that made him a household name. After he willingly left the series to deal with personal and health troubles, Mike Wolfe confirmed his former road trippin’ buddy would not be coming back. This spurred a movement online from some of the show’s most ardent fans, and now it looks like the former reality star is leaning into the fans’ feelings on the matter. In fact, he’s selling some merch related to his firing from the show.
Fritz may not be on the History show anymore, but he’s still a picker and he’s the owner of an establishment in Il called Frank Fritz Finds. The store had seemingly been receiving some poor reviews after the whole brouhaha of Frank and Mike breaking the band up. In recent months, however, Frank Fritz Finds has been seeing some positive momentum. Among the changes it seems the store has started selling merch nodding at the exit in the form of black t-shirts.
The tees are black with white text on them and they come with a message that has become a frequent refrain online. What do they say?
I want Frank back.
The Sun got a look at the t-shirts, as well as other memorabilia Frank seems to be selling from the show. This includes photos of himself and Mike, somewhat surprisingly, given the fact the former reality star has been candid about feeling like he was done a bit dirty by Wolfe.
Whether you go to American Pickers posts on Twitter, Facebook or other social media outlets, you’ll probably see some variation of this comment. Just looking at the current “pinned tweet” right now, there are a lot of variations of the sentiment on the shirt. One commenter, Gene, noted:
Bring back Frank Fritz. Your show is a major snoozer since he left!
Another Jet_Set_Bear, said the show should not have gone on after the events that went down during the pandemic.
You should have canned the show when you canned Frank.
The point being, “bring back Frank” has been a common refrain from the fanbase, and while it’s seemingly been dying down somewhat as newcomer Robbie and Mike have aired new episodes in recent months, the fans are very familiar with this sort of comment. Now it looks as if Fritz and co. are trying to capitalize on the sentiment.
For a time, it seemed as if the former reality star might have been angling to come back to Pickers. He made several comments about hoping to come back. When Wolfe made it clear that was not an option on the table, Fritz expressed interest in starring in his own show. Clearly that hasn’t happened. So the next best thing may just be selling snarky t-shirts. I’d be interested to know if the fans coming out online are actually supporting the reality personality’s merch or not.
Meanwhile, fans already know the series has moved on with Robbie Wolfe. Ratings have been down on the series since all of the online discourse related to the move, but on the bright side, there’s been more good news in recent weeks as American Pickers saw an uptick. True too is the fact that Fritz is reportedly on the mend after his stroke. And while he’s clearly does not seem to be above a bit of petty (t-shirt oriented) revenge, here’s hoping he pulls through and his health improves moving forward.
