by John Walters

Starting a new company.

It's called "Cable."

We're going to take all of the streaming services, combine them, put them in one menu, and charge you one simple fee to navigate all of them.

Raising $750m at a $10b valuation. pic.twitter.com/Ad4Vrkz8rL

— Chris Bakke (@ChrisJBakke) January 11, 2023

Kable Town!

How often have you had this conversation the past five or so years, because I’ve had it on a loop:

THEM: “Have you seen ____________?
ME: “No. What service carries it?”

THEM “It’s on Hulu. Or Amazon Prime. Or Apple TV. Or Disney-Plus. Or HBO Max. Or Showtime. Or Netflix. You HAVE to see it.”*

ME: “Thanks. I’ll pass.”

*For the record, no one ever says Paramount.

I’ve never seen Billions, not because I don’t believe its fans who tell me it’s a great show and that I’d love it but because I’m not worth billions. At a certain point isn’t there a line where you opt to not cross in terms of how many services you’ll add? I stopped at Netflix and HBO.

Who are these people who allow every single streaming service to quietly leech off their savings or checking accounts each month? When does the madness end? I watched the Golden Globes on Monday and here were the streaming services that had at least one series nominated: Netflix, HBO, Apple TV+, Disney+ and Hulu. I think Amazon was shut out. As was Showtime.

I clipped and pasted this:

Here’s Reelgood’s price breakdown of the major streamers:

• Apple TV+ — $4.99
• Discovery+ — $6.99
• Disney+ — $7.99
• Prime Video — $8.99
• Paramount+ — $9.99
• Peacock Premium Plus — $9.99
• Showtime — $10.99
• Hulu — $12.99
• HBO Max — $14.99
• Netflix (standard HD) — $15.49

So, granted, I pay for the two most expensive streaming services, but they’re also the best (someone at Netflix is kicking themselves for not developing Ted Lasso). Let’s add those fees up: it comes out to more than $113 per month, or $1,336 per year. That’s not quite one month’s rent, but I imagine it’s more than many people’s mortgage payments per month.

Of course, we’re all the same folks who won’t drop $19.99 a year on a subscription to Sports Illustrated any more because we just do not have the money. Or that’s what we tell ourselves. Television is easy. Reading is hard.

Anyway, returning to the tweet atop this item, I think Chris may be onto something…

In Loco Parentis

So the Cotton Bowl was the best bowl game of the season, no? In the fourth quarter of that contest between Tulane and USC, when it appeared that the Trojans had the game in hand and that ESPN announcers Mark Jones (“impervious,” “implacable,” “egregious”) and Robert Griffin III would need to audible to human interest anecdotes to keep us from flipping, the pair opted to focus on Tulane running back Tyjae Spears. The camera panned to the crowd, to a shot of his dad, and then RG3 talked about how his father had spent countless hours with him developing him as a football player and athlete from a prepubescent age. Same for USC’s Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Caleb Williams (different dad, of course).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB4rI-_52fk

And that is when RG3 opined, not at all incorrectly, on how too few young African-American males have a father figure in their lives and the supreme importance of having a father figure and the profound importance such a person plays in the futures of so many young black men. And I thought, Yes! He’s absolutely right.

I also thought, Isn’t a father figure an important in the development of any young boy? Or girl? Regardless of race. And then I thought, How would Twitter have reacted if Todd Blackledge or Joel Klatt had proffered the same opinion? Boom! Roasted!

You logged on to mediumhappy.com today and instead found yourself in the middle of a Bill Burr monologue. But it’s true. When two people of different colors say the exact same thing (okay, short of the N-word) and one gets hammered while the other’s remarks don’t even raise an eyebrow, we have a problem. I applaud what RG3 said there. It was candid, it was bold and it was true. I just wish anyone could say it.

Now, if he’d gone on to say that without a father figure they’re destined to become a supporting player in The Wire and from there, decades of incarceration, that might’ve been a stronger take.

Short Round Returns

About those Golden Globes, it was sweet validation for Ke Huy Quan to win Best Supporting Actor for his work in Everything Everywhere All At Once (they couldn’t have just called it “Ubiquitous?”). And his acceptance speech struck all the feels, with this erstwhile scene-stealer from the second Indiana Jones film in the early 1980s wondering if his greatest moment would always remain decades in the past (“As I grew older, I began to wonder if that was it”). And him giving this speech with Steven Spielberg sitting only a few feet away.

So, yes, all of that is cool. We wonder if that speech will tug enough heartstrings to allow Quan to steal a narrow Oscar win over Barry Keoghan, whose supporting role in The Banshees of Inisherin is the best thing you’ll see all year. All we know is that if that does happen, Oscar should take an uncharted path and cut to Keoghan seated in the audience saying, “Well, there goes that dream.”

All I Have To Say About George Santos

If America wanted a sociopathic liar in Congress, why didn’t we just elect Penelope?

Dollar Quiz

Yesterday’s Answers: 1. Scotland 2. They went undefeated (59-0) 3. Fran Tarkenton 4. Uranus 5. True

1. Jeff Beck, who passed away yesterday, first came to fame with what supergroup in the Sixties?
2. What does a yellow square in Wordle denote?
3. Name one famous historical figure from the years 500 A.D. to 1,000 A.D. (I was gonna say “person” but then someone would have answered, “Murray” and who am I to say there was nobody named Murray across five centuries?)
4. What country shares a border with the most other countries?
5. Who was the last player to play both college and NFL football in the same season (September through the end of that calendar year)?