PanthersATL

Back in the late '90's-early 2000's, the Pooh franchise was bringing in more money to Disney than the "Fab Five" (including Mickey) were. Surveys seemed to back this up, where kids didn't know anything more about Mickey than he "was at the Theme Park". All the work that Walt and company had done to brand Disney as "it all started with a mouse" (aka the Mouseketeers, the Mickey Mouse Club, etc) were seemingly all for naught. That's what started the big big push to rebrand Mickey and Friends and introduce those characters beyond the theme park appearances while at the same time discounting/minimizing Pooh availability. The Schlesinger merch lawsuit at the same time didn't help matters. At about the same time, a Disney exec attended a "Disney on Ice" event and saw the audience dressed in generic princess attire. A lightbulb went off, and the Disney Princess merchandise line began. To me, the Princess moment marked a key pivot for Disney away from "family entertainment" to "let's market towards kids exclusively". With this, Disney proceeded to go down a distinct path away from product/content that would appeal to a wide mass audience with their focus on children. A trip to Walt Disney World used to be a Family Vacation, but now it's "we have to do this for the kids". [See also the removal of the fantastically scary Alien Encounter attraction and subsequent replacement with a Stitch overlay, complete with fart smells - as the AE attraction was "too scary for children". Also, the reworking of "Snow White's Scary Adventures" to "Snow White's Adventures", also because kids shouldn't be "frightened" by an attraction] LucasFilm and Marvel is one way Disney is trying to loop back to an older audience, but they're running into issues trying to shoehorn everything into an existing park experience vs perhaps finally opening the mythical "fifth gate" at Walt Disney World that would cater towards teens/adults.

Spinning off a topic from the current Suicide Squad thread where someone talked about how nobody would buy Lucasfilm today after the mess Disney made with the most recent films. Here's a breakdown of what Disney *paid* vs what Disney's *earned* for some of their acquisitions: Marvel - cost: $4 billion. With over 23 total films (at the time of the article), they've grossed nearly $23 billion at the box office alone Lucasfilm - cost: $4 billion. Delivered five films in four years, generating a gross profit of $2 billion Pixar - cost: $7.4 billion. Since the purchase, there were 16 films grossing more than $11 billion. Plus add on the uncalculatable value of the early years of John Lassiter turning around Disney Creative (before his work situation thing happened) Hulu - cost: $10.5 billion. Helps solidify a streaming audience and recurring revenue FOX - cost: $71.3 billion. That Gigantic Library of Content, including the original Star Wars film rights, X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Avatar. https://observer.com/2020/09/disney-buys-star-wars-marvel-fox-hulu-pixar-cost-box-office/

Not typically a DC fan (the movies got WAY too dark for my particular taste), so haven't seen a lot of the recent offerings. Watched Suicide Squad last night and we mostly enjoyed it. They probably could have PG-13'd more of the violence or made it more cartoony rather than explicit. Was surprised at the opening credit cast list vs how the plot played out. John Cena continues to be amusing in his role choices. Who knew he'd have good comedic timing?

Isn't that what sort of happened with Avengers? IIRC, when Iron Man came out, the whole MCU wasn't planned out at all. It really started to come together after Disney bought Marvel and Marvel Studios was tasked to come up with something using the characters that Disney would be able to use in the Florida theme parks (due to the Universal Studios+Marvel licensing issue). Similarly, the Mandalorian was super-popular because it DIDN'T focus on the primary characters of the Star Wars universe. As Jon Favreau said: "we made this show for all the kids whose older siblings played with the /cool/ Star Wars toys and left us with the toys/characters nobody wanted"

If it makes anyone feel better about losing preseason games: the Bucs and the Packers are also 0-2 this preseason. So at least we're keeping pace with those teams.

Thought a reasonable recent summary would be helpful to some. (Yes, I know this could have gone in the main forum 'cause it's football-related, but figured it'd be perfectly fine here too. ) This is from https://variety.com/feature/watch-nfl-online-1235045647/ , "HOW TO WATCH AND STREAM THE NFL" Amazon Prime: 11 Thursday Night games YouTube TV: Basic plan comes basic broadcasters along with ESPN and NFL network. Sports package with Red Zone is extra Hulu Plus: Fox, CBS, NBC, ESPN Fubo TV: NBC, Fox, CBS, ESPN, NFL Network ESPN Plus: uh.... ESPN SlingTV: Either ESPN or Fox+NBC, depending on package. Redzone is available for extra [insert obligatory "just watch the streams for free from some random Reddit post/Google search" comment here]

Did it shake you all night long? (all night) All night.... (all night) All night long?

As mentioned in a different thread, various TV providers rely on data from three(?) different guide services. Comcast may use service #1, Spectrum may use service #2, YouTube may use service #3. Those guides are only as good as the data fed to them (obviously). In some instances, it's the responsibility of the individual TV station to upload data to each of the individual providers; in other cases, some providers use feeds from each other to populate data (meaning, they rely on a "partner" to be the sole/best source of info). In other cases, the guides publish data they receive from the network, and they may have had some issue with a local station's "override national programming" update -- for discussion purposes, a bad update could be a funky non-ASCII character from a copy/paste, or perhaps a title or description that was too long, resulting in an inaccessible/invalid data entry until it's fixed. In all cases, it can take a day or more for updates to be populated into the DB and pushed out to receivers or other user-facing interfaces. It's definitely not instant upon update by any means, even for online-only services. In an ideal world, these updates would be in real-time, so your DVR would know automatically to continue to record overtime games as they ran over. But for now, we're kinda stuck having to manually say "let's add an extra hour to the recording, just in case"

Each TV station has a receiver that needs to be uniquely licensed to receive a game's satellite signal. If the license is misconfigured at either end (or a legit issue with the transmitter not encoding against that particular license successfully), then there can be issues with the station receiving a clean feed.

From what I've read this afternoon from various sources, it's not WSOC's fault, but rather an issue with the signal that they were receiving to send out. If the feed coming in to the station is wonky, then the station has no way to fix it by themselves.

Depends on the network, and which service you're looking at. There are three(?) major TV listing providers that each power different systems -- which is why Comcast's guide may be different from Spectrum's or Dish, as an example. If the station didn't provide their data to the listing providers in a timely manner, their local-specific info won't show in the guide. For at least one of those services, it's a minimum 24 hr turnaround for them to distribute updates (and with that, no guarantee the update will be pushed to all devices by then). So it's not like the station can provide updates in near real-time.

Contact the station programming dept directly and request the Panthers coverage. The stations have enough leeway to determine which games to carry. Hopefully this list will help you determine which games you'll need to call to complain about: I use the weekly TV NFL maps to determine which games I get to watch at home vs having to go to the bar for. There's some advance awareness that comes into play as well --- (ex: "ooooh, the Falcons are playing at 4p that weekend, there's a chance local Fox will air the Panthers game at 1p maybe")

Not on that opening drive sack/fumble thing. (disclaimer: was pretty much the only play I saw) (disclaimer #2: YAY, FOOTBALL"S BACK!)

Presenting, the APPLE PIE HOT DOG

The thing I don't like about locast is that if you don't pay for it, you have to re-sign in every X minutes to maintain the connection. On the other hand, it's a (reasonable, free, and supposedly legal) solution to live-watch something when the cable company/local station has a dispute.

check the thread over in the Huddle Lounge for that discussion...

Netflix (and possibly other streamers eventually) is starting to purposefully block access to users who utilize known VPN IPs to cut down on the geofencing workarounds.

It's coming, more than likely

From a strictly legal perspective, the answer you'll most likely receive is "go to a sports bar or find a friend with Sunday Ticket and bring them pizza every week to watch at their house" Other folks here will probably offer suggestions on working around the broadcast geofencing, and there's a thread over in the Huddle Lounge talking about the business of TV streaming and potential future of things like Sunday Ticket. But whatever solution that is, we won't see until next season at the earliest. If you're out of a local broadcast market (check your local listings), then you're at the mercy of the local programmers as to which game they want to air. For some reason, Honolulu FOX is airing the Panthers pre-season game this weekend, IIRC. The CBS and FOX apps *might* allow you to self-select your ZIP/market to watch your "local station" via OTT device, but that may only pertain to local programming rather than national content (ie the local news). If it's a national game, you might be able to catch it on the NFL app. I'm pretty sure I watched both MNF and SNF on that last year.

True on the "not local" comment, but you get what I meant. Ebay is not an option for the same "online regret/return/re-buy" runaround I'm trying to avoid. Thx for the Brawley's tip. Added to the list of future places to hit

Yup, and that's fine. But it's also pricey when I've done it.

Looking to make a road-trip to pick up some new Panthers gear now that the season is approaching ('cause I like to actually SEE the stuff I'm buying rather than the online buy-wait-try-exchange-repeat cycle for some things). Plus, it's a road trip, and can pick up some local NC beer varieties along the way too. Other than purchasing stuff at the Official Panthers Store at the stadium, which is always on the list --- where are some regular, run-of-the-mill retail places that you'd suggest including on a stop-by itinerary that usually have a fairly decent selection? The usual places with Panthers gear that I would normally go to include (in no particular order): Kohls Academy Sports / Dick's sometimes Sams Club / Costco (if you hit them at the right weekends) Target Walmart Even picked up a 1/4-zip pullover that wasn't avail anywhere else in the right size at a Harris Teeter up near Concord one time, but I think that was a rarity rather than something to expect as normal. Recommendations on best order/locations to hit around Charlotte to minimize drivetime and maximize shopping opportunities appreciated. (ex: Cox Rd in Gastonia is usually worthwhile in terms of proximity of the above businesses to each other, but doesn't necessarily has wide selection. And surprisingly, one time a Target outside of Greenville SC had a small selection of gear in the right sizes vs Target closer to Charlotte that had run out) More importantly, *when* would you suggest making a run to maximize availability options? I've found making a run in August doesn't always work well, but don't want to roll too late in the season to miss out on fun stuff.

People still drink Bartles and James or Mikes Hard Lemonade, too. And let's not forget Zima. The hard seltzer segment grew too fast to not fail as it has - bev companies were too fast to jump onto the bandwagon rather than figure out what it was that people actually want.

This may be helpful (from 2018, so it may be a bit outdated) --- especially with InBev buying A+B recently When it comes to "craft beer", this is who owns what. Slightly more interactive/viewable: https://www.themadfermentationist.com/2018/07/craft-beer-connections-brewery.html

Eggplant, both appropriate to the conversation and totally inappropriate -- all at the same time.