This week, Time Warner broke the news that it would be launching a new video on demand
streaming service under the umbrella of its cable channel, Boomerang. At first glance
it seems too good to be true. A Netflix-like service specifically for the vast back and
current catalog of Warner Brothers and Hanna-Barbera animation. But is this the deal of the century,
or just another swing and a miss in the increasingly crowded streaming service field?
Variety broke the news about Boomerang on Tuesday, March seventh twenty seventeen, and
this article was quickly echoed across other major media news sites like AV Club with varying
degrees of fact checking or even research. All of these articles basically expand the
headline: Warner Brothers Starts Streaming Service For Old Cartoons! Do People Still
Care?
Thankfully by Wednesday Morning, Boomerang dot Com had opened up and started collecting
emails of those interested in the service. Now here's the problem, even with a F A
Q, the site is still obtuse and incredibly light on information. That said, we can still
put on our detective hats and read between the lines. Extrapolating a lot about the impending
service that they might not want to be public knowledge just yet.
First let's tackle what we have concrete answers for. The service will cost four ninety
nine - basically five dollars - per month. That's sixty dollars a year in easy to swallow
bite sized chunks. There is a seven day free trial before you're officially billed for
the service, but much like hulu or netflix, there's no contract involved and you can
unsubscribe at any time without penalty.
However, Boomerang will also offer a yearly subscription for just forty dollars. So if
you believe that you'll stick with the service for twelve months, you can save yourself twenty
bucks! That's basically 4 free months of Boomerang if you're willing to part with
more cash up front. Plus a thirty day free trial, which seems like overkill at that price
point. That's an amazing deal that none of the other streaming service providers are
offering, and a very savvy move by Time Warner. By offering this steep of a discount, they'll
obviously get a huge influx of cash and subscribers in their early and very impressionable months.
And that's all we really know for certain. The rest is extrapolated from assumptions
I've made on the half-answers they give in their F A Q. Some of these points I'm
about to make may prove not to be one hundred percent true when they ultimately launch their
service, but, for now, let's slap on some gloves and vivisect this new service.
According to the site, Boomerang will be completely ad free and launch "sometime in the spring".
A span of roughly three months stretching between late March and early June. With no
locked in date, I'm willing to bet that the service will launch sometime in mid May.
With kids finally off from school, more of their target audience will be free to watch.
Thereby showcasing the viewership metrics they want to share with upper management.
I might be wrong on this, but I'd keep an eye out for Boomerang starting around May
15th.
So what's going to be available? Well, here's where we start running into real roadblocks.
When asked directly, they respond, "Boomerang will feature thousands of episodes of your
favorite cartoons available to stream anytime, anywhere. All of the characters you love are
on Boomerang, including Scooby-Doo, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tom and Jerry, Popeye, Yogi Bear,
Foghorn Leghorn, Tweety, and many more."
This doesn't really answer anything. Especially when we're talking about a catalog that
includes unedited classic short films, edited repackages of those shorts with slapdash framing
devices, and variety showcases that held two to three different cartoons at the same time.
Labeling everything as an "episode" may simplify things, but makes historians like
myself crazy because of how it's curated and presented.
Making matters worse is that Boomerang will launch "featuring" one thousand plus episodes.
Again, more vagary. Though we know they'll launch with at least 1000 episodes to watch,
we may never get concrete numbers about their entire streamable library. Will they add to
this number, or constantly remove and revolve content to keep roughly the same volume of
episodes? Do movies count as episodes? I have no idea, but one thing is for certain - you
will not get on demand access to their entire library. Ever.
Boomerang proudly states several times around the site that you will have access to full
seasons of Scooby Doo, Tom and Jerry, and Looney Tunes - which again, is confusing.
Especially when you factor in the many different spin offs, specials, TV films, direct to video
features, and constant repackaging these three entities have had over the years. Will we
see the Thirteen Ghosts of Scooby Doo? Maybe? But we can see first hand that we will get
every episode of Mystery Incorporated. Will we see Texas Tom or Mammy Two Shoes in their
entirety? No. No way. But we'll probably get every episode of Tom And Jerry Kids.
Even worse, some outlets are reporting that some series we'll only get dramatically
limited access to. Shows like The Flintstones, The Jetsons, and The Smurfs will only share
a collection of episodes every week. Meaning, you won't be able to binge an entire season
or rediscover a favorite episode. Much like streaming services like Crackle, you'll
only get access to see a few random episodes at a time in no specific order.
Does this make sense? Sure. Being vague about what they're making available allows them
to hide the overly racist, sexist, and violent cartoons in their older library while still
presenting the sanitized edits most parents will be passingly familiar with. This also
allows them to say that nothing is "censored" or "removed", it's just not available
at this time.
And that leads into the next question. How will Boomerang work? Well, for starters there's
the platform problem. Although the site clearly states that Boomerang will be available for
any streaming device, they take pains to only showcase phones, tablets and computers. What's
missing? TVs.
There is ZERO mention of Apple TV or Roku or Playstation or any of the other devices
that allow you to stream easily to your TV. It's almost like they don't even want
to say Boomerang, Streaming, and TV in the same sentence. This limited functionality
is likely their short sighted way to keep people paying for cable packages with Boomerang,
but all it does is make the viewing possibilities clunky, fractured, and obtuse. No one is going
to sit on a couch holding an ipad to watch a cartoon while their kid zones out playing
a mobile game on their phone. No one is going to do that! And no one watches videos holding
their phone vertically, Bugs! Get with the times!
Then there's the terrible UI. Their menu seems to be a scrolling gallery of character
photos that you can tap to open dedicated pages for the cartoons the character been
featured in. As you can see, opening Scooby Doo gives you access to Series, Movies, and
Playlists - which I assume are curated lists featuring specific themes, like the top five
best ghost episodes or whatever.
This clearly paints the service for young not-yet-literate children. Kids who can scroll
to find their favorite faces. There's not even a Netflix or Hulu style description of
the content you're about to watch. The text is minimal and unobtrusive. The buttons large
and hard to miss no matter how small your device. There's nothing inherently wrong
about creating the service specifically for young children to navigate, but it is limiting
and makes assumptions about their target audience. Kids aren't dumb. And limiting your platform
so dramatically only alienates your service from other lucrative young adult and adult
markets.
So - should you invest in Boomerang? At this price point, I say yes. Even with all of the
limitations, you still gain access to an incredible amount of content. For forty dollars you could
just about buy two HD seasons of Mystery Incorporated on iTunes, or you can get access to that entire
show plus many more for an entire year.
Plus there's new content on the way, like a Boomerang exclusive reboot of Wacky Races,
which could be fun. And if the service takes off, we might even see curated showcases of
older material that explain both the history and context behind some of their classic cartoons
like Cartoon Network's Toon Heads, or modern reboots! Perhaps springing from the pages
of their critical darling DC comic books. I would gladly pay double if we could lock
down new animated series of The Scooby Apocalypse or The Flintstones.
But that's just it. The Boomerang presented right now seems geared specifically for babies
to safely explore. Nothing more than an unchallenging distraction. Which is a shame! The Warner
archive has some rich veins of mature fare, but as long as they're showcasing The Monchichis
and Atom Ant instead of Top Cat and Screwy Squirrel, you'll need to adjust your expectations.
Even if you're worried about the longevity of the service, or what they may or may not
unlock down the line, supporting this at the onset could prove beneficial in the long run.
Because you better believe that this is the test run for Cartoon Network to make the transition
into streaming service as well. And if Time Warner can prove how lucrative this venture
is, Disney will line up right behind with its own packages of streaming services for
both old classics and new content.
Yes, Boomerang is yet another way Time Warner can make a quick buck mostly off of repeating
their moldering catalog of cartoons that get less relevant by the day. But investing now
could hold the keys to better a'la carte service providers and the cost-saving death
of cable TV as we know it.
Those are my thoughts, but what do you think? Will you subscribe to Boomerang? Do you think
Wacky Races has any hope of being good for older audiences? Do you even know who Top
Cat is? Sound off in the comments below! Thanks for watching, and until next time, be sure
to share, like, and subscribe. Because you'll always have a ticket for my next Secret Screening.
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