What I Learned From Watching a 24/7 Police Chase Channel

There are automobile chase fanatics, after which there’s me.

In highschool, I endured weekend reruns of “Little House on the Prairie” and “M*A*S*H” in hopes that the stations would swap to a dwell police chase. In school, I wrote a time period paper exploring their enchantment and even interviewed a person who charged a greenback a month to web page subscribers at any time when one started.

When I earned sufficient cash for a Sony PlayStation within the mid-2000s, one of many first video games I purchased was “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” so I may dwell vicariously by means of my character as he crashed into roadblocks whereas blasting “Pressure Drop” by Toots and the Maytals. I’ve been live-tweeting real-life automobile chases for years, a la ManningCast, and I nonetheless tune into KCAL-TV Channel 9 each evening at house for his or her three-hour newscast, simply in case.

I’m a fan although I do know I’m not supposed to love them. Chases are a waste of police sources. Watching them encourages stations to point out extra of them, which inspires imitators. Too many find yourself with innocent bystanders mutilated or killed. And but, like too many Southern Californians, I simply can’t cease. Watching somebody dodge the regulation at 90 miles an hour whereas hurtling down crowded freeways faucets right into a Jungian need to defy authority, channels the American love of the open highway, and offers an inexpensive adrenaline rush, all from the security of our dwelling rooms.

So I used to be thrilled when Pluto TV, a free streaming service recognized for airing classics like “I Love Lucy,” “Dr. Who,” and “The Carol Burnett Show,” launched a 24-hour automobile chase channel final week. I left it on for a complete day, anticipating to be endlessly entertained.

Car Chase, the simple if considerably unimaginative title of Pluto TV’s new channel, airs each chase from the primary breaking information chyron to its inevitable conclusion. Most of them first appeared in recent times on Channel 2 and Channel 9, each owned by Pluto TV’s father or mother firm, Paramount. Cheesy commercials, cellphone video games, Toyotas, the odd prescription drug endorsed by Queen Latifah, interrupt the chases, making each really feel like a comedy with acts.

The day I tuned in, I noticed a stolen black pickup truck dashing down Sepulveda Pass. A big U-Haul zoomed down the 91 Freeway in Anaheim. A lady drove all the way in which to Fallbrook. Most of them went by means of the San Fernando Valley, that paradise of freeways and lengthy, straight roads. The finest one lasted solely two minutes, ending with a automobile shedding management and crashing right into a constructing earlier than the driving force tried to flee and was tackled by regulation enforcement. Most of it occurred at evening and nonetheless had the time, station emblem, and temperature from when it initially aired.

This was all as wonderful as Old Faithful.

The newscasters and helicopter reporters supplied the identical stuff. No one ever bought away with it ultimately. This is what hundreds of thousands of individuals like me have been obsessing over for many years? The solely try at one thing unique got here throughout business breaks, when an excessively dramatic announcer supplied stereotypical catchphrases: Back on the highway, extra on this automobile chase. Get prepared, for Moreover — Car Chase. Helicopter at base, we’re within the air with one other Car Chase. We’re again up — above the Chase.

After spending hours and hours sitting there, I noticed that watching individuals peel potatoes is simply as thrilling, and there’s much more danger of bleeding.

You’ve seen one, you have seen all of them, and but you possibly can’t look away. I used to be so enthralled by Car Chase that I forgot to observe the extremely anticipated Monday Night Football matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles.

By the ninth hour, I noticed that the siren name of police chases isn’t the potential of violence and even escape, however moderately how comforting they’re. We’ve collectively watched so many police chases on TV that they’re as a lot part of our Southern California expertise as lovely sunsets and the squawks of inexperienced parrots. You can immediately conjure up in your thoughts the sound and look of a automobile chase. The whine of helicopter blades within the background because the helicopter’s journalist pilot delivers his commentary. The hushed tones of newscasts. The grainy, wide-screen photographs of the getaway car and the cops out to catch it.

In our more and more fragmented society, automobile chases are one in all Southern California’s final collective experiences. When one occurs, all our troubles take a break, even when it is only for an hour. If there have been no extra automobile chases, one thing would go terribly unsuitable. We watch, at the same time as we avert our eyes from the truth that the principle characters are individuals in extraordinarily tough instances, risking their very own lives and the lives of others.

It’s no surprise that Pluto TV, whose nostalgia streak is so sturdy that one in all its channels is dedicated to Ed Sullivan’s finest musical and comedic friends, was the community that invented it.

The aftermath of a police chase in Echo Park in 2019. Three theft suspects had been killed and a fourth was hospitalized in important situation.

(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

“Data and analysis present that automobile chases have been an enormous viewers favourite for a few years,” a Pluto TV spokesperson advised me in an e mail. The streamer has no plans to alter what it’s doing now, however promised “we’ll proceed to hearken to our viewers” and make changes as wanted.

On that be aware, Car Chase ought to dive into the vaults at KCAL and KCBS and dig out the classics. Like the time a man stole a tank in San Diego County and solely bought stopped as a result of he was caught on a site visitors island. OJ Simpson in his Ford Bronco, in fact. And keep in mind when financial institution robbers would throw greenback payments at cheering bystanders earlier than lastly being arrested?

Group them by theme (bikes, RVs, humorous endings) with applicable soundtracks (“Yakety Sax,” for positive, however don’t neglect “Foggy Mountain Breakdown”). Take a cue from Paramount’s assortment of movies with legendary automobile chases (Mission Impossible, “The Italian Job,” even “Grease”). And for heaven’s sake, group your commercials in the beginning or finish of a automobile chase, the way in which public tv thanks its sponsors. I don’t want Charmin Bears ruining my excessive.

Car Chase is perhaps the Southern California scrapbook we did not know we would have liked.

Then once more, possibly Pluto TV does not want to alter a single factor. My buddy known as me at one level throughout my marathon. He’s a severe man, a political strategist by career. I had simply defined the premise of the channel when he interrupted me.

“Brother, signal me up. Where can I get it?”