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Every ‘Futurama’ episode hits Hulu on October 16th
Starting next week, all 140 episodes and four films of Futurama will be available on Hulu, Variety reports. The streaming service announced in July that it struck a deal with 20th Century Fox to be the exclusive streaming home to Bob's Burgers and would host Fox's slate of animated shows, including Futurama. The show stopped streaming on Netflix entirely at the beginning of July.
Hulu adds '30 Rock,' 'Parenthood' and other NBC shows
Last week, Hulu secured the 90s sitcom fave Will and Grace for its users to binge freely, but the streaming service isn't done scooping up older shows. Thanks to a deal with NBCUniversal, subscribers can watch full runs of a handful of additional shows including Parenthood early next year and 30 Rock on October 1st -- which is great timing, as the latter is just about to leave Netflix.
The Morning After: Wednesday, January 18 2017
It's Wednesday morning and Raspberry Pi has made a super-powered PC-on-a-stick, the state of AAA cloud gaming and a look at the Army's prototype hoverbike. Grab your coffee. We'll wait.
NBC's Seeso comedy streaming service is now available
If you cut the cord but still miss network shows like Parks & Recreation or The Office (US), you can now officially sign up to NBC's Seeso comedy streaming network. The service, launched in October, has been in a free limited beta for the last month. There are over 2,000 hours of content in the collection to start with, with classic stuff like Monty Python's Flying Circus and The Kids in the Hall on top of NBC's own programming. Late night shows Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers and Saturday Night Live will also stream just a day after they air on the big network. If you're interested, it's only $4 per month, but whether that's feasible depends on how many streaming subscriptions you already have.
Kai-Fu Lee defies ban, invites 30 million Weibo followers to join him on Twitter
Think you're brave, internet tough guy? Ex-Google China chief Kai-Fu Lee's been rather outspoken about censorship in his homeland, and as such was banned from Sina and Tencent Weibo for three days, presumably by over-zealous authorities. To keep his followers in the strictly monitored nation up-to-date, the Beijing-based Lee took to Twitter and invited all 30 million of them to join him, which would make him the social network's fourth most-followed user. That's unlikely, of course -- Twitter can be accessed fairly easily despite a ban in the nation, but developing a country-sized following on an illicit site would be a stretch, even for an outspoken pundit.
Steve Jobs impersonators take over NBC on Chuck and 30 Rock
It seems that Hollywood is beginning to miss Steve Jobs almost as much as we are. This is especially true for two of NBC's hit comedy shows; "30 Rock" and "Chuck." Both were new this week and overflowing with appreciation for Stevie J. For most Apple fans it is easy to spot when many TV shows and movies feature Apple gear. The most recent episodes of "30 Rock" and "Chuck," however, go above and beyond featuring a shameless homage to the man himself, Steve Jobs -- in 30 Rock's case, doing a great take on a worldchanging Apple announcement from the not-too-distant past. I won't get into the details of the episodes themselves but I have posted the clips after the break. In case you missed it, both episodes are online over at Hulu. Thanks to everyone who sent this in. [via Gizmodo and Crunchgear]
Screen Grabs: Liz Lemon dons mock turtleneck, invokes Reality Distortion Field to save TGS's budget
Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dt com. When TGS is faced with budget cuts on 30 Rock, Tina Fey's character Liz Lemon did the only thing she knew to do: appeal to her superiors with a full-on Steve Jobs impression, mock turtleneck and all. Of course, if she was really Steve Jobs, that turtleneck would've fired three writers on the spot and introduced the Tracey Jordan Nano. Check out the three pillars key to her show's success in the gallery and video after the break.
How iTunes saved NBC's 'The Office'
Our old friend Dave pointed us to a Newsday article discussing how iTunes essentially took NBC's The Office off the chopping block, where it was headed last year after disappointing Nielsen ratings, and catapulted it to "the Seinfeld of iTunes." If you're not a Seinfeld fan that might be meaningless to you, but trust me when I say It's the BEST, Jerry! The BEST!* Only recently did The Office cede the top spot to Lost as the single most downloaded program weekly, not to mention nabbing an Emmy (well-deserved, IMO) for Best Comedy. Angela Bromstead, president of NBC Universal, which owns and produces The Office had this to say: "I'm not sure that we'd still have the show on the air." The network had only ordered so many episodes, but when it went on iTunes and really started taking off, that gave us another way to see the true potential other than just Nielsen. It just kind of happened at a great time." Of course Nielsen is getting hip to the power of iTunes + iPod itself these days.Newer shows like 30 Rock and Jericho are also expected to be a big iTunes sellers when/if they hit the iTS, despite their currently poor Nielsen showings and may save their respective fates as well.The article goes on to talk about what doesn't sell well on iTunes. "Nielsen hits such as CSI: Miami or NCIS are no-shows in the top 50. The Simpsons? Nada (which is not on iTunes at all... even though Prison Break is a stalwart). What does any of this mean? Who knows - except, perhaps that serials and guy-oriented shows are the biggest beneficiaries of the iTunes effect." Personally I think iTunes is only part of this revolution. The networks themselves are getting smarter about putting their shows online, on their own websites, which may not be as convenient or trendy as iTunes, but it's certainly a start. With all the timeshifting and placeshifting going on these days anyway, Prime Time Television as we have known it for many years is going away sooner rather than later. iTunes is really only the beginning of the revolution. It's not the be all and end all.Thanks, Dave! *It's purely coincidence that I had not one, but two opportunities to reference Seinfeld today. Life is good.
NBC looks to resurrect Must-See TV with all HD lineup
NBC is shuffling its lineup and to make Thursday a "Must-see TV" night again, it is pairing two of our favorite HD comedies My Name is Earl and The Office, with returning -- and now HDTV-ready -- series Scrubs, and new show 30 Rock. There's also some show called E.R. at 10 p.m. but does anyone really watch that anymore? 30 Rock moves to Thursdays beginning November 16th as it joins with Earl and The Office in super-sized 40-minute episodes, but the block trule comes together on the 30th with the arrival of Scrubs in the 9 p.m. slot. That seems like a pretty powerful lineup to us, but it remains to be seen if easter eggs, emo hipster doctors and a british comedy transplant can bring back memories of the Seinfeld / Friends lineup of yesteryear.[Via TV Squad]
