Caleb Williams paints his fingernails with nail polish. He's the 2024 overall number one NFL draft pick, now the starting quarterback for the Chicago Bears. Triston Casas, the first baseman for the Boston Red Sox, does the same thing. Chart topping singer-songwriters Post Malone and Jelly Roll have jailhouse facial tattoos. Gillette INTIMATE is a men's pubic hair trimmer popular in the current youth movement. Things aren't what they used to be. Sometimes I just want to get away from it all and go retro. That's where Pluto TV comes into play, A free ad-supported streaming television service, Pluto TV can take you back to yesteryear, much the way Nick-at-Night and TBS did in the early 1990's, broadcasting classic television shows. The difference with Pluto TV is that it's not linear, it streams and is on demand.
Pluto TV launched in 2014 as a private enterprise. Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS, bought the company in 2019. As of April 2023, it has 80 million monthly active users. With tens of millions of viewers, you're probably already using the app or have heard about it. After all, movie streaming has been around since 2007 when Netflix transitioned from a mail-order DVD company to a streaming service. Now, everybody is in on the action.
The service can be accessed through a variety of devices: gaming consoles, smartphones, tablets, Web browsers and most importantly, Smart TV's. I watch Pluto TV with my TCL Smart TV with the built-in Roku operating system. If you own another brand of Smart TV such as a Samsung or Panasonic, the principal is the same. You download the Pluto TV app, you access it, and you begin watching over 250 channels and thousands of movies for free. When you originally boot up the app, there are two options to gain entry. The first one suggests you sign up for an account. I don't know about you, but I've got enough passwords to manage, and, don't want to be bombarded with emails. I always select the second option that says "NOT NOW". Enough said.
Once you get in, you're presented with a vast menu of grids separating the broadcast productions that go back at least seventy years. It's an intuitive interface. Everything from Perry Mason and Rawhide to more modern shows such as CSI , Blue Bloods. and NCIS. Plus, all the spin-offs. Examples include CSI: Miami and CSI:NY. The movie section consists of all sorts of subgenres: comedy, rom-com, action, drama, horror, and sci-fi - the list goes on and on. If you're interested in live TV, Pluto has that, too. Not only is Bloomberg Television broadcast in real-time, but so is CBS Sports HQ and the CBS News Channel. In addition, every CBS News affiliate in major cities coast-to-coast transmits local news for their particular municipality.
The diversity of options provided in classic television is mind boggling. The Game Show section has reruns of Hollywood Squares and Let's Make a Deal. You can binge old Soap Operas. The entire Star Trek family of franchises can be watched, everything from the original series to Star Trek:Voyager to Star Trek:The Next Generation to Star Trek:Deep Space Nine. Beam me up. There's a large offering of music videos from the 1970's to the current era, too. The whole concept of Pluto TV embodies escapism. The caveat with the service is you have to sit through the ads. Except for Turner Classic Movies and premium television channels, I've sat through advertisements for decades, so it's not that big of a deal for me.
Although there's a bevy of award winning sitcoms in the Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres mold, I tend to skip those from oversaturation during primetime and from syndication when they topped the Nielsen Ratings back in the day. What I'm most fixated on is the Classic Television Drama category. Most notably Star Trek, Perry Mason, Kojak, the original Hawaii 5-0, and The Twilight Zone. It's been so long since I've seen these shows, it's like I've never watched them before. The plots are tight, the acting is great and the stories can be compelling. What's old is new again. I think they hold up, but I'm in my sixties, so my point of reference is subjective. Some shows don't age as well. Ironside and The Wild Wild West come to mind. Rawhide and The Outer Limits. I'll take them anytime.
Way back when, The Minutemen sang "There Ain't Shit on T.V. Tonight". That went out the window when HBO ushered in The Second Golden Age of Television in 1999 with the introduction of The Sopranos. Although the traditional broadcast networks have decent primetime programming, it's the premium channels that really shine now. Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, HBO and Netflix all have excellent shows and miniseries'. That said, with the abundance of creative content, there's also a lot of mediocre programming, too. At least to me. The ten episode miniseries that should have been condensed into a movie, documentaries on arcane subjects and just plain old flops are common. It's tough to wade through everything offered, especially when media critics can be Gen-Z and Millennials. Although I can agree with some of their recommendations, their vantage point is much different than mine.
Jelly Roll is now a pitchman for Amazon Web Services. The Gillette INTIMATE men's pubic hair trimmer commercial is in heavy rotation. Caleb Williams does thirty seconds spots for Dr. Pepper and Nissan. Sometimes I just want to watch a Western. Same as it ever was.
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