‘Collector’s Call’ highlights 4 WA residents’ pop culture collections

On MeTV’s “Collector’s Call,” host Lisa Whelchel (“The Facts of Life”) travels the country meeting collectors of pop culture ephemera and, along with an expert in each collection, tempts collectors to trade an item they have for an elusive gem they might want.

For a Pacific Northwest swing in fall 2023, the series visited collectors of “Star Wars” and “Weird Al” Yankovic merch, airing in the weeks ahead, and Pearl Jam and Lego memorabilia, airing later this year.

“Weird Al”

Kenneth Guinup, 55, of Tacoma, began to appreciate the comedic musical stylings of “Weird Al” Yankovic back in 1981 on a bus ride to school when a classmate played a cassette of Yankovic’s “Another One Rides the Bus” (a parody of “Another One Bites the Dust”).

“I’m, like, I’ve got to get a copy of this,” Guinup recalls.

Growing up in Southern California, a friend’s father who worked in the music industry took the boys to various concerts, including a 1984 “Weird Al” show.

“I got to go backstage and met Al very quickly,” Guinup recalls. “Drummer Jon ‘Bermuda’ Schwartz came over and chatted with me for a while.”

Schwartz appears on Guinup’s “Collector’s Call” episode (6:30 p.m. April 21) as the expert who gauges the value of objects in Guinup’s “Weird Al” collection.

“Over the years from that [first] time, I have had the opportunity to chat with Al and Bermuda and his other band members,” Guinup says. “Bermuda and I share information. Sometimes I’ll find something he doesn’t have and we’ll do a trade. Getting Bermuda to be the expert was really a key factor for this episode. He’s the only one that could really speak to and give background information about these items. He’s been with Al since day one and he is really Al’s historian.”

“Collector’s Call” host Whelchel spent a whole day filming Guinup’s “Collector’s Call” episode in the room that Guinup’s wife, Erin, allows to be his “ever-changing display area” of “Weird Al” merch.

Guinup says he reached out to “Collector’s Call” after he discovered the show in 2019. One of the show’s producers held onto his information until they had enough Seattle-area collectors to make a trip cost-effective.

While Guinup has a wealth of “Weird Al” items — thousands of individual pieces — there are still things he wants to add.

“One of the Holy Grail items I missed as a kid was his single, 45 album of ‘I Love Rocky Road’ with a picture sleeve,” Guinup says. “It’s very hard to find. I know only two people that have one.”

Whelchel says 99% of the collections she visits are tied to someone’s childhood in some way.

“A person is having a memory or feeling they’re wanting to bring into the present and hold onto and keep with them and not leave it in the past,” she says, noting the show did visit a collector of ’70s and ’80s sitcom stuff, including items from Whelchel’s show, “The Facts of Life.” “Collector’s Call’ has yet to visit a collector of “Mickey Mouse Club” material — Whelchel starred in a ’70s version of that show — but she has a specific collector in mind for the future.

“Star Wars”

Gus Lopez of Capitol Hill has one of the largest private “Star Wars” collections in the world, including Han Solo’s jacket from “The Empire Strikes Back,” Princess Leia’s “Return of the Jedi” bikini, a shooting model of the Death Star and an almost complete C-3PO costume, which all get a moment in the spotlight during Lopez’s “Collector’s Call” episode (6:30 p.m. May 5).

Lopez, 58, is a recently retired Amazon vice president who started collecting seriously in the early ’90s, but even as a kid he dabbled in rudimentary “Star Wars” collecting, including trading cards and action figures.

During filming, cameras found “Star Wars” costumes and cereal boxes in display cases and on shelves throughout Lopez’s home.

“If I have stuff I can’t see, I sort of question what’s the point of owning it if I can’t enjoy it,” he says. “I do have some things on loan to different places, including MoPOP,” which currently has Lopez’s “Empire Strikes Back” Hoth gear, including a special effects model of an AT-AT walker, a Rebel soldier snow costume and a special effects miniature of Solo riding a tauntaun.

Lopez says his wife, Pam Green, has her own collection of Funko! Pop figures made by the Everett-based company.

“She’s got four rooms [of our house] dedicated to that stuff,” Lopez says. “We both collect, so she understands.”

The couple added an extension to their home that created six more rooms and a hallway for additional display space.

Later this year

The “Collector’s Call” episode featuring Pearl Jam fan Shon Abrahamson of Arlington, Snohomish County, will air at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 15. The Lego episode will air 6:30 p.m. Sept. 22 featuring “Lego Masters” contestant Christopher Lee of Sammamish.

Locally MeTV is carried on KFFV-TV, Channel 44.1 over the air; KVOS-TV, Channel 12.3 over the air; Comcast Channel 16/21/117/352/1196 depending on location; Frontier Channel 12/512; DirecTV, DISH Network and CenturyLink, Channel 45; and Spectrum Channel 21.