If Sony Pictures was Honest About Streaming (Geeks Welcome Fan Script)

I thought of another script, this time it's Sony dunking on all the major streaming services. Ian, feel free to use any jokes in a future video (just give me some credits). I also don't know how accurate everything is, it's mostly just to make fun of current streaming nonsense.

Open on a well composed, rather cocky and jovial man.

Hi, I'm Tony Vinciquerra, head of Sony Pictures, the same company that makes the Spiderverse and Hotel Transylvania movies, and TV shows like Seinfeld and Married with Children, and golden age short subjects like The Three Stooges, in fact we have quite a large catalog of media that people enjoy. So much so that many people ask me why Sony doesn't have a dedicated streaming service like everyone else. I mean, it's all the rage to lock your own content behind a proprietary streaming service because people love your library so much. But it seems like everyone's forgetting that we were actually one of the first companies to try that kind of business model with Crackle back in the day, and I'm going to be honest with you, there's no money in streaming and it's far more profitable to just sell your stuff to the idiots who are doing streaming.

See back in the days of the PSP we bought a user generated video platform called grouper because we could see this was going to be big, then we got rid of all the low quality user generated stuff and used the infrastructure to launch a streaming site for our own movies and TV shows while changing the name to crackle, because that made sense. Who cares about low quality cat videos, people want real production value, this user generated content thing isn't going to last.

But you know, people wanted to watch all the old Godzilla movies we had in our library, and married with children, and astro boy, and voltron, and it was better they watch them on our platform where we got ad revenue instead of pirating on youtube. But this did offer a new avenue of content possibilities. This was the internet, there aren't any censors, and a lot of people had these great ideas for short series that would be perfect for this new frontier. We gave David Faustintino a million dollars to make this web series called Star-Ving, where it shows a fictionalized depiction of his failed career after Married with Children, and it did pretty well for a 13 episode web series with lengths of 5-15 minutes. Years later we gave Jerry Seinfeld a couple million dollars to make another short web series where he hangs out with fellow comedians in a car, creatively titled "Comedians in Cars." We also tried our hand at making some low budget movies like Joe Dirt 2 and Woke Up Dead. For all these projects we had to keep the budget down low because it was pretty obvious we were going to struggle to make our money back. I mean, who would put tens of millions of dollars behind a cinema quality production that's going strait to streaming, [zoom cut with translucent Disney logo] that'd be stupid.

Speaking of the PSP, a great thing about crackle was that you were able to watch it on your PSP, we even kind of built crackle with the PSP in mind. Of course we also made crackle available on the PS3, that new Roku device, early smart phones, and of course computers. What did you think we were going to limit our potential customers to just the Sony ecosystem? [Zoom cut with a translucent quibi logo], what idiot would think that was a good idea?

Over the years with Crackle we kind of let a lot of the originals fall out of the rotation and off the face of the earth. We already made our money back on them, it wasn't that big an investment, and nobody but those weirdos on the Lost Media Wiki cared about Star-Ving and the other crackle original minisodes. It had ran it's course and had fallen into obscurity so it wasn't a big deal that these went lost for the longest while since nobody cared about it anymore. If people actually wanted to watch it we would have made it available somewhere. [Zoom cut with translucent HBO logo] because it'd be stupid to make something unwatchable that people actually want to watch.

Fun fact Star-Ving was lost for a while until Pokematic, the writer of this script, made an article on the lost media wiki.

But then there was stuff like Joe Dirt 2 that people were actually interested in watching. So what'd we do? We made it available on DVD and Blu-Ray and licensed it out to cable TV channels and other streamers like Hulu and Netflix. [Zoom cut] what did you think we'd make something exclusive to our unsuccessful streaming platform and then make it disappear forever instead of trying to make money off of it somewhere else more successful? [Zoom cut even closer with a translucent WB logo] No one's that dumb.

But anyway we got out of the streaming business a long time ago because it was just too much work. Even though we have culturally significant classic works like the 3 stooges and seinfeld, it's so much easier to just license that out to existing streaming services instead of trying to build our own. [Zoom cut with a transparent peacock logo on it] I mean, who'd make an entire streaming service and hope that by making their flagship series exclusive to said service it would bring customers over? People just aren't going to watch it now and it's going to fall out of the public consciousness. That's a stupid idea.

It's also so much easier because we don't have to worry about exclusivity and brand cheapening. We made a TV cartoon of our flagship movie franchise Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, it's original run was on Cartoon Network but then Paramount Plus had it for streaming. It didn't matter to us because the check cleared both times, and they didn't care because they were just licensing it from us. It's not like the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs series was some cartoon network production that then started airing on the nickelodeon streaming service. [Zoom cut with a translucent south park logo] how ridiculous would it be if you weren't able to host your own flagship series because of some exclusivity deal with another streaming network? That would be peak insanity right there.

To be fair, streaming is very popular. No one under the age of 40 has cable anymore, [as a name is listed add the logo] it's just netflix, and hulu, and disney plus, and max, and peacock, and amazon prime, and apple tv plus, and tubi, and pluto, and freevie, and roku channel, and paramount plus, and crackle under new ownership, and how is this easier than cable? Oh what do I care, they're all paying me to either license my stuff or make new stuff for them. Disney wanted to have the Toby Parker and Andrew Parker spiderman movies on Disney Plus because of the No Way Home plot line, and Amazon wanted their own Hotel Transylvania movie, and I don't care if either are successful because I'm getting paid either way.

[Alternate joke about it being cable 2.0]

No it's not, it's the a la cart cable service everyone has been asking for for years. If this was cable you'd have to subscribe to paramount plus and Netflix to get Disney plus, now you can just subscribe to what you want. If there's a single show you want to watch on peacock, then subscribe for a month, watch it all in that month, and then cancel. If it's getting drip fed out, then just wait for it to finish and binge it all at once. [Zoom cut] what loser would constantly pay for something they aren't always using. Prove to mister I like money Netflix you're not an idiot who will keep paying regardless of how slow they make stuff. [Zoom cut back] what it's not profitable to have people subscribe for 1 month out of the year and have a constantly rotating set of subscriptions. [Zoom cut with a dramatic pause] hahahahha now do you see why I got out of the streaming business?

The streaming wars, the only winners are those that don't compete.

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If Peacock Was Honest About Streaming (Geek's Welcome Fan Script)

I'm a big fan of the "completely honest" series on the channel Geeks Welcome, and so I came up with my own script about the streaming wars and how everyone is losing now. Ian of Geeks Welcome, if you read this feel free to use any or all of it.

[Open on a woman in a suit in an empty boardroom type place looking off in the distance not knowing someone is there].

[surprised gasp] A PERSON! Hi I'm Kelly Campbell, head of NBC-Universal's streaming service, Peacock, but of course you already knew that. [dramatic pause] What do you mean you don't even know what Peacock is? Come on, NBC is one of the oldest television networks in America and Universal pictures is one of the few studios left that isn't owned by Disney, we're kind of a big deal. Our streaming service is the only place you can watch The Office, one of the most popular series on streaming ever. WE'RE A BIG DEA-[cut to test patterns].

[grunt of recomposure] Sorry about that. Yes, Peacock is NBC-Universal's answer to the streaming wars. For those who forgot, for the longest time on demand internet streaming was limited to Netflix and Hulu; Amazon Prime video existed, but people only had Prime Video because they already had Amazon Prime, no one was subscribing to prime just because they wanted their library, [stronger close-up] right!? [closer] We as one of the oldest media production companies on earth are better at this than some guy who just wanted to sell books to people over the internet 30 years ago and gradually started trying other things [extreme close up] RIGHT!?

[recompose] Again, I'm sorry. Well in 2019 seeing how popular this streaming thing was, Disney decided they were going to take all their content off the likes of Netflix and Hulu in order to make their own streaming service called "Disney Plus," a place where you could watch their entire backlog of content along with some original productions exclusive to the platform, key being The Mandeloreon. This was very successful, which encouraged Warner Brothers to do the same with their HBO brand, making HBO Max, a service where you could get not just HBO content like Game of Thrones, but also hit content from Cartoon Network, TBS, DC, Hanna Barberra, and Looney Tunes as well as all their movies, along with some original series like Infinity Train season 3 and 4, while also pulling their stuff off competitors like Hulu and Netflix.

Not to be outdone by the competition, we at NBC-Universal decided we were going to launch our own streaming service, and name it after our network logo mascot, Peacock. Here viewers could watch movies from Illumination such as those Minion movies everyone is obsessed about, and hit NBC shows like The Office, and exclusive original series like Bell Air and Saved By The Bell 2021, reimaginings of some of our most popular series because that's what people want, [close up] Right!?

Well it's times for me to face reality. You see, dedicated streaming services, are completely unsustainable in their current form.

What made Netflix and Hulu so successful in the past is that they were just a 1 stop shop for syndicated content. On them you could watch old episodes of Family Guy, NCIS, South Park, and of course, The Office, in addition to more obscure things like anime and British shows that weren't Doctor Who and Top Gear. However, they were like a MeTV or Nicktoons, or TBS, where instead of making their own content they just licensed other people's content, and when the license was up they could either renew it or just let it leave the platform.

Because of this constant risk of losing a popular show, Netflix decided to make some in house series that they could keep forever because they made them. You remember House of Cards, Netflix's first original program from 2013, that's still pulling in viewers because it's so good, right? Well this plan ended up being a good idea because, as I said earlier, Disney decided they were going to make their own streaming service, the only place you could get all their classic movies and TV shows with new original programs that were cinema quality all for just $8 a month. Which then prompted everyone to do that as well, not renewing their licensing contracts on competing platforms so they could make it exclusive to their own platform along with making their own high budget original content in order to attract viewers so they would subscribe to this new platform. It made perfect sense, The Office was the most streamed show in the world when it was on Netflix, surely people were keeping their subscription so they could watch The Office and if it wasn't on Netflix they would follow it to it's new home Peacock, [close up] RIGHT!?

It turns out that didn't happen, and instead of subscribing to all the streaming services in perpetuity you wait for everything in the multi-million dollar series to come out, subscribe for a month, watch it all, and then unsubscribe after a month. Why are all your favorite netflix shows getting canceled after a season? Because it costs hundreds of millions of dollars to make them and netflix only makes about a 80 million off the people coming in for a month and then leaving. Do you know how much it costs to make an episode of The Mandeloreon? A lot more than what it costs for all you free loaders to spend $10 for a 1 month subscription, watch all the episodes, and then cancel. Sure the returning cast of Saved By The Bell wasn't doing anything, but it still costs a lot of money to bring them back and make the sets and find young actors that look like them to play their children, and NO ONE WATCHED IT DESPITE IT BEING A CONTINUATION OF THE SHOW THAT STILL BRINGS IN LARGE NUMBERS WHEN RERAN ON TBS AND OTHER CHANNELS! WHY DID NO ONE WATCH THE SAVED BY THE BELL REBOOT!? [Cut to test pattern]

[Meditation calming and centering gesture] Sorry again, it's just stressful being the head of the least popular streaming service for a major media company by a wide margin. Where was I? Right, it's unsustainable to have productions like these. Back in the days of cable we made our money on running ads and retransmission fees. For a cable service to carry our channel, the cable company would have to pay us money for every subscriber they had regardless of if that customer was watching our channel or not. Remember when your cable bill was $100 a month, that wasn't because the cable companies were gouging you, that's because we media companies were charging them $1-10 per channel of ours they were carrying, and that's not including the major networks like NBC and ABC that you could get for free using rabbit ears, you were paying $15-20 per channel for each of those. And this was on top of the money we were making on advertisements. And you were never able to pick and choose what channels you wanted because we told cable companies "it's an all or nothing deal, if your customers want TBS and Cartoon Network, they're going to have to buy CNN as well." Then between seasons we were still collecting the cable money which allowed us to gather the funding necessary to make the new seasons of the shows you liked.

Well seeing that people weren't going for cable anymore, all of us tried to get that same money from selling directly to consumers, because surely they were scheduling their lives around watching these shows and weren't watching these reruns because they were what was on, right? And people were staying subscribed to cable because it offered all the shows they wanted and wasn't because it was that or not have any content, [close up] right!?

Turns out no, you were just watching it because it was what was on, and now there's this unsustainable precedent set that you expect these super high production shows to be available for dirt cheap, and then you can just cancel after watching what you want. You have no loyalty like back in the days of cable. How do you expect us to keep making these series that you enjoy so much if you don't keep giving us money. Sure, some people have said "just use your streaming service as a place to syndicate your existing movies and shows instead of making stuff exclusively for them," but that's ridiculous, we know how many people subscribe just for that and even though that's a completely sustainable and pure profit business model as it basically runs itself with almost no operating costs, we want to have everyone subscribed like in the days of cable. WHY AREN'T YOU SUBSCRIBED TO PEACOCK!? [cut to test pattern].

[She's now dishoveled sitting in the corner]. Dedicated streaming, it's completely unsustainable.

[credits and logo]

Oh, and you better watch your favorite original shows before they get removed from the platform. Even though we own them outright it still costs us money to keep them on the platform and if the accountants deem it as unprofitable we're taking it off and calling it a tax loss. There won't be any way for you to watch it because it won't a home media release, why would it, it's available on demand on the streaming service. We don't care about media preservation.

The Unseen Main Character, a Writing Trope Challenge

Hello fellow film makers and writers, I've been in a weird place for a while in terms of content creation, so I just wanted to share an idea that I personally have seen done in small ways, but never taken to the full extreme, and that is the "off camera character," or as TV tropes calls "the ghost." You can probably think of some characters that are heard off screen like Howard's mom on The Big Bang Theory, but she's what's called "the voice." This is more like London's dad from Suit Life of Zack and Cody (not including On Deck where he is seen once), and Grandma Finerty from Grounded for Life, where the character is often referenced but is never actually seen. It's not the most popular of trope, but is an interesting writing trope that when done well will make the audience feel like they have seen the character (I know personally I felt like I knew Daddy Tipton despite having never seen him). But here's the kicker, these are almost always very minor characters, alluded to occasionally but never really big. I think I know why, it's not exactly easy to flush out a character who is never seen or heard as most establishment and development happens from a character's interactions with events and other characters in the course of the story, and that is extremely hard to do in a believable way when everything happens off screen and is recounted by other characters, especially when there are a lot of "new developments" happen from subtle hints (such as a character who lives in Boston that gets super excited about the prospects of moving to Paris despite having a great life in Boston, would have subtle hints of having an Eifel Tower paper weight and Mona Lisa pin on her backpack, and regularly wear something that has the pattern of blue, white, red). Then why it only happens with minor characters, it is very hard to get attached to a character who is never directly seen, or even indirectly seen like with "the voice" and "the faceless," but I think it would be very interesting to have a main character that the audience never sees, and I'm not talking about the mom from How I Met Your Mother, and how she is like at every major event in the series but no one realizes it since the show is about her, I mean a character who everyone recognizes as present and who's actions impact everyone, but the audience never sees or hears.

OK, so I can't exactly say "this is a neat idea" without giving ideas of how I think it could work (because how else will anyone know what I'm talking about). Here's the main example I'm thinking of, think of a family sit-com where it's focused on the kids, similar to a Boy Meets World or Carisa Explains It All, where the parents are primary characters that are seen every episode but aren't the main characters. What sets this apart is instead of "just showing up to help the story along" like many parents in the kind of show I'm describing, a parent just is never seen or heard but the off screen actions are always referenced in a way as if "just in the other room" and no one is ever like "how come I never see mom/dad?" Here's an example of what we could see, if it's a school show like Saved By The Bell, a guy like Screech could be dropped off by his mom every day, and when the Zack character comes up with a crazy plan the next day the Screech could say "I told my mom about it on the drive in and she told me [these wise details about how it was going to backfire]." Or for a series that takes place in the family home the dad is always in the other room where the aftermath of his presence is seen but he can never be reached, and when there's a big problem is always out shopping but leaves a note for the kid on the refrigerator that always indirectly talks about his own problems that parallels the kid's problem. This last part might be too close to "the voice," but if done in a way that is just parallel and not direct (like if the kid is having trouble dealing with helping a friend at the extent of another friend, and the note is something like "sorry I couldn't be home tonight, but I had to help your uncle get his foot out from under a rock, I know I said I'd help you with your project but this couldn't wait, I'll help you out when I get home, love Dad" and that would help the kid realize that sometimes you just have to help your loved ones even if it might let down another loved one, because he now has perspective on what it's like to be on the receiving end of that "I need to give someone else priority). What would make this even more interesting is if the uncle is a seen recurring character (like shows up every 4th episode to give exposition about the dad).

Another thing could work would be a friend group sitcom where a friend and his or her antics are always referenced but never actually seen. Think about Seinfeld, a series about 4 young adults in New York City and their many misadventures, where some plots are just about 1 character, some about 2 characters, some about 3 characters, and others about all 4, and when it's not all 4 there is sometimes an element of "recap what happened" to the characters that weren't there. This is especially true for events where the production company just didn't have the budget to film, like a big party scene, or concert, or their place of employment, or other things like that where we feel like we saw it but didn't really. Now what if there was a 5th member of the Seinfeld group, one that only ever exists in these off camera events, or is always busy when they go to Restaurant or Jerry's apartment? A character that is always sending his regards to the group or doing something to help a Kramer scheme while Kramer is off telling Jerry, George, and Elaine what the scheme is, or that spent all night waiting for Jerry at his apartment but Jerry and George get stuck in traffic and when they finally get back to Jerry's apartment there's a note that he couldn't wait any longer and went home. There's never a "why is he never here" because he is "here" it just is never on camera. I think this would be very creative.

This could also work with a drama series like Degrassi, where a character has problems that are due to a working parent that is never home, never being there for the kid, and then when the parent is there we never see it play out on screen. What could work really well here is a drama series like Degrassi doesn't focus on the same characters every episode; it's always the same core cast but some will be the main subject of the episode while others are just there in the background. Then while parents were present (especially in early seasons of The Next Generation which had many original series characters come back as parents) and would sometimes play important roles in the events of the episode (especially when it dealt with home life troubles such as Craig's abusive father), other times the parents just weren't seen at all (I don't think we ever saw Spinner's parents) even if they were mentioned. The "rotating focus" of Degrassi might be cheating with "some characters barely receive any focus," but I think so long as there is a passing reference it counts as "main character." Plus, there is a lot of drama and conflict to be pulled from "not present parent," so as long as the problems of a character are somehow related to "mom/dad isn't there for me, here's their excuse this time" I think it counts. It also could work where there unseen character is always getting in trouble for things too extreme to be seen, like imitatable acts that could cause broadcast censorship problems, or died in some horrific event but who's influence is still resonating with the world of the show and gets mentioned [almost] every episode.

This doesn't even have to be a main character from the start, plenty of series introduce new characters as a series goes on, and this character could start as just a recurring mention and then work its way up to "main character." It could be like how Brad in Grounded for Life started out as a recurring side character as a nerdy boy next door, but then he became a main character when the show writers made him and Lilly a couple. This unseen character could start out as just some passing references here and there, but then get referenced every episode with key plot points happening all because of the work of this character.

This is just some writing rambling on a shower idea I had (literally thought "you know those characters like Kathy Santony from Full House or Mr. Smith from Hey Arnold, where they exist in universe but we never see them, what if in a TV show this unseen character was a main part of the series, what would that look like"). I hope to get back to my regularly scheduled content soon (and I have some big projects in the works), but until then, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

No, There Are Multiple Ways Fans Can Support You