''Oddities'' is a half-hour documentary/

reality television Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring unfamiliar people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 19 ...

program which follows the operation of an

East Village, Manhattan The East Village is a neighborhood on the East Side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is roughly defined as the area east of the Bowery and Third Avenue, between 14th Street on the north and Houston Street on the south. The East Villag ...

shop which trades in antiques and other rarities. The show premiered on November 4, 2010, and airs on the

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Channe ...

and its sister network, the

Science Channel Science Channel (often simply branded as Science; abbreviated to SCI) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The channel features programming focusing on science related to wilderness survival, engineering, manu ...

. ''Oddities'' focuses on the day-to-day operation of Obscura Antiques & Oddities, and stars co-owners Mike Zohn and Evan Michelson and buyer Ryan Matthew Cohn, with appearances by other employees and customers. The store's employees search flea markets, personal collections, auctions, and antique shows for unique and unusual artifacts. Odd items bought and sold by the shop or featured on the show have included a

mummified A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay furt ...

cat, a rhesus monkey skull, art made from nail clippings, and a straitjacket. Celebrities appearing on the show have included

Jonathan Davis Jonathan Howsmon Davis (born January 18, 1971), also known as JD or JDevil, is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. He is best known as the lead vocalist and frontman of nu metal band Korn, who are considered a pioneering act of the nu ...

of the band

Korn Korn (stylized as KoЯn, or occasionally KoRn) is an American nu metal band from Bakersfield, California, formed in 1993. The band is notable for pioneering the nu metal genre and bringing it into the mainstream. Originally formed in 1993 ...

, Whitey Sterling, singer for the New York band Stiffs, Inc., musician Genesis P-Orridge, actress/comedian

Amy Sedaris Amy Louise Sedaris (; born March 29, 1961) is an American actress, comedian, and writer. Most recently, she has appeared in both ''The Mandalorian'' (2019–2020) and '' The Book of Boba Fett'' (2022) as Peli Motto. She played Jerri Blank in the ...

, actor

Matthew Gray Gubler Matthew Gray Gubler (, ; born March 9, 1980) is an American actor, filmmaker, fashion model, painter, illustrator, director, and author. He is best known for his role as criminal profiler Dr. Spencer Reid in the CBS television show ''Criminal M ...

, artist Ann Hirsch, actress Chloë Sevigny, musician

Natalia Paruz Natalia 'Saw Lady' Paruz is a New York City-based musical saw player, bell ringer and busker. She is the founder and director of the annual Musical Saw Festival in New York City. She also organized the musical saw festival in Israel. She is a ...

('Saw Lady'), video game designer and commercial space flight enthusiast

Richard Garriott Richard Allen Garriott de Cayeux (''né'' Garriott; born July 4, 1961) is an American video game developer, entrepreneur and private astronaut. Although both his parents were American, he maintains dual British and American citizenship by birth. ...

, director

Lloyd Kaufman Stanley Lloyd Kaufman Jr. (born December 30, 1945) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and actor. Alongside producer Michael Herz, he is the co-founder of Troma Entertainment film studio, and the director of many of their featur ...

, nerdcore rapper Schaffer The Darklord, musician

Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his ...

, musician

Moby Richard Melville Hall (born September 11, 1965), known professionally as Moby, is an American musician, songwriter, singer, producer, and animal rights activist. He has sold 20 million records worldwide. AllMusic considers him to be "among the ...

, artist

Cynthia von Buhler Cynthia von Buhler (; born Cynthia Carrozza, 1964) is an American artist, author, playwright, performer, and producer. Early life Cynthia von Buhler was born Cynthia Carrozza and raised in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, the middle child in an ...

, actor/comedian

Paul Dinello Paul E. Dinello (born November 28, 1962) is an American comedian, actor, and writer, best known for his collaborations with Stephen Colbert and Amy Sedaris. He portrayed Geoffrey Jellineck on Comedy Central's ''Strangers with Candy'', and later ...

, burlesque dancer

Dita Von Teese Heather Renée Sweet (born September 28, 1972), known professionally as Dita Von Teese, is an American vedette, burlesque dancer, model, and businesswoman. She is credited with re-popularizing burlesque performance, earning the moniker "Que ...

, and "High Pitch Eric" of ''

The Howard Stern Show ''The Howard Stern Show'' is an American radio show hosted by Howard Stern that gained wide recognition when it was nationally syndicated on terrestrial radio from WXRK in New York City, between 1986 and 2005. The show has aired on Howard 100 a ...

''. New York playwright

Edgar Oliver Edgar Oliver (born October 31, 1956) is an American stage and film actor, poet, performance artist and playwright. He is considered a "legend" of the downtown New York theater scene and is known for his distinctive accent and diction. Early life ...

has appeared on the program multiple times and appears in the show's title sequence admiring a straitjacket.

Episodes

Season 1: 2010–2011

Season 2: 2011

Season 3: 2011–2012

Season 4: 2013–2014

Season 5: 2014

Spinoffs

A spinoff of ''Oddities'', ''Oddities: San Francisco'', debuted June 23, 2012 on the

with co-star Wednesday Mourning. This series focuses on another antiques store, Loved to Death, which is located in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

Haight-Ashbury Haight-Ashbury () is a district of San Francisco, California, named for the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets. It is also called The Haight and The Upper Haight. The neighborhood is known as one of the main centers of the counterculture ...

district.Science Channel: "Oddities: San Francisco"
/ref> It has since been cancelled. Another spinoff, ''Odd Folks Home'', features notable regulars from ''Oddities'' and debuted November 22, 2012. It has since been cancelled.

References

External links

''Oddities''
at

Internet Movie Database IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

Discovery Channel – About the show
*
Obscura Antiques & Oddities website
{{Discovery Channel programming 2010 American television series debuts 2014 American television series endings 2010s American documentary television series 2010s American reality television series Television shows set in New York City Discovery Channel original programming Science Channel original programming Antiques television series