Wolfe is exercising his creator/executive producer/director muscle.
Wolfe’s “business” sells to businesses like Cracker Barrel, Ruby Tuesday, Ruby’s Diner, and other Americana themed restaurants. Look at his “wish list” and you can see that he leans heavily towards petroliania, transportation, and other items suited to those types of décor. He also has an affinity for motorcycles. Fritz has a thing for advertising.
How did the transportation/advertising rut begin? The answer is most likely when he became a director; which Wolfe says came about as a result of his initial naïveté and inexperience about reality TV shows and how they are made.
Wolfe has a huge ego and he wasn’t happy with the direction of the show’s early episodes, i.e., he wasn’t going to let the producers force him to do “stupid sh!t.” So he snagged a director’s title, along with executive producer, and now he dictates what will and will not appear on the show. Trouble is, Wolfe the director, caters to his areas of expertise (tunnel vision) which leads to his propensity to feature “lather, rinse, repeat” episodes of motorcycles and signage.
With filming a show and making guest appearances, it’s important to not get caught up in the hype and lose site [sic] of who you are and what you want to express as a person.
“All of a sudden you realize, once you get at a certain level (read: successful TV show), you don’t have to say yes to everything. I used to say yes to every single thing they threw in front of me, and I don’t anymore. Where before, I always felt I had to. You have to do it the right way though. I say no more often now, but I explain why I’m saying no to them.”
Despite being the show creator, Mike doesn’t get anything for the spin-offs. Unfortunately, being new and using the wrong type of lawyer cost him.
“Reality is, I was too new for the show to have given me all of that anyway. I was smart enough to ask for an EP title and creator title. I did get that. Now I’m going to start directing the show for season five. In the past, our directors would stay a month and leave. No one knows my business like I do. In reality TV they always ask you to do stupid *beep* They’re always struggling for storyline. But I wanted to make the picks so powerful that they were the storyline.”
.... Like tomorrow, I have my EP from History flying into Nashville and we’re going to sit down and talk about season five. They are listening to me. It’s not just a title I have as an EP. In fact, when I started, I didn’t even know what an EP was. My cameraman was telling me, ‘Hey dude, you’re the EP. You’re the boss. Tell him how you feel.’ I was like, I’m his boss? (laughs) Then I got to the point I’d joke and say, ‘Hey don’t make me pull out the EP’ (laughs).
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