Honey, I Bastardised The History Channel

It's rare that I get hooked on trash TV. Ok, that's a lie. So far in 2014, my televisual diet has mostly consisted of Benefits Street and the resurgent Celebrity Big Brother. And as far as trash TV goes, those two shows are pretty good examples of the channels (C4 and Five) you'd naturally go to if you wanted to give your brain cells a hearty flogging.

But where do you turn for your trash TV when there's no one with breasts as big as your head on the box? Casey Batchelor, not White Dee, if you must ask.

My answer, weirdly, is the History Channel, or History as it's now known.

Hitler, star of new reality series, Adi and Eva Take Poland.

Once upon a time, the History Channel meant watching The Nazis: A Warning From History and David Starkey banging on about crumbling monasteries. Fast forward to 2014 though, and the focus is still history, except it's now the history of rednecks and generally unfortunate American stereotypes. In fact, when the channel re-branded under Disney and ABC in 2008, it might have been more appropriate to rename it the Civil War channel. Now, I'm not saying Disney was a fascist, but doesn't it seem convenient that his legacy is responsible for the disappearance of A Warning From History from our TV screens?

Who am I to judge though, because I didn't tune into pre-Disney History on a daily basis, as I do now. I'm hooked on shows like Storage Wars - don't try and fob me off with knockoffs like Storage Hunters on ITV3 - and their eccentric, scripted characters, like Barry Weiss. Excavating early Roman settlements? No thanks, I'd rather watch a rich old man stage the sale of a custom Harley the producers placed in a storage locker for him.

And if that's not on, there's always the American Pickers, Mike and Frank, 'freestyling' across the South, asking toothless hicks whether they can help fund their moonshine production by buying their old Coca Cola signs from them. It's a shame that the places they find are actually all pre-arranged. Imagine if they weren't: I'm picturing Mike walking away from an old barn, Gaffa tape still stuck to his boot, saying "Zed's dead, baby". Oh, and their pal Danielle, who has weird Cheetarah tattoos on her chest and burlesques on the side.

Of course, I'm not always in the mood for negotiating pickers. Every once in a while I just like to see alligators getting shot in the head. That's right, History has a programme about Louisiana alligator hunters. Essentially the format is: hick sets alligator fishing line, hick finds hooked gator, hick debates the size of the gator, hick shoots gator in the head at point-blank range. It's really top notch broadcasting.

It's not all so rural though. There's also the glamour of the historic city of Las Vegas. There was a battle there once... I think. It's also the home of World Famous Gold & Silver Pawn Shop and Rick Harrison's family pawn business. Generally, Pawn Stars is a show about members of the public bringing in Americana (like Abe Lincoln's gum shield), asking over the odds for it and then haggling with Rick; almost always meeting half way. Luckily, if that's a little too historic, Rick's 'old man' is a crank from North Carolina and is part of a cast also involving CM Punk lookalike and all round waster, Chumlee.
 
To borrow a quote my favourite film: "You've gotta put the past behind you before you can move on." Maybe this is society's way of forgetting what happened in the last couple of centuries. I just hope to God it's not what my children end up studying at school.