There are car chase fans, and then there's me.
Throughout high school, I suffered through weekend reruns of “Little House on the Prairie” and “M*A*S*H” hoping the stations would end with a live police chase. In college, I wrote a term paper exploring its appeal and even interviewed a man who charged a dollar a month to alert subscribers by pager when it started.
When I earned enough money for a Sony Playstation in the mid-2000s, one of the first games I bought was “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” so I could live vicariously through my character as I ran through blockades while shooting “Pressure Drop.” . by Toots and the Maytals. I live-tweeted real-life chases for years, ManningCast style, and I still tune in to KCAL-TV Channel 9 every night at home for its three-hour news block, just in case.
I'm a fan despite knowing I shouldn't like them. Pursuits are a waste of police resources. Watching them encourages stations to air more of them, which encourages imitators. Many end with innocent bystanders maimed or killed. And yet, like many Southern Californians, I just can't leave it. Watching someone flee the law at 90 miles per hour while caroming down crowded highways taps into the Jungian desire to challenge authority, channels the American love of the open road, and offers a cheap adrenaline rush, all from the safety of our living rooms.
So I was excited when Pluto TV, a free streaming service best known for airing classics like “I Love Lucy,” “Dr. Who” and “The Carol Burnett Show” debuted a 24-hour car chase channel last week. I left it on for an entire day, expecting to be endlessly entertained.
The California Highway Patrol pursues Al Cowlings, driving, and OJ Simpson, hiding behind a white Bronco on Highway 91 in 1994.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Car Chase—that's the straightforward, if unimaginative, name of Pluto TV's new channel—airs every chase from the first breaking news story to its inevitable end. Almost all of them first appeared in recent years on Channel 2 and Channel 9, both owned by Pluto TV's parent company, Paramount. Mundane commercials (cell phone games, Toyota, some prescription drug promoted by Queen Latifah) interrupt the activities, so that each one feels like a set of acts.
The day I tuned in, I saw a stolen black pickup truck wheeze up Sepulveda Pass. A large U-Haul was speeding down Highway 91 in Anaheim. A woman came to Fallbrook. Most passed through the San Fernando Valley, that sprinter's paradise of long, straight roads and streets. The best one lasted two minutes and ended with a car skidding out of control and crashing into a building before the driver tried to flee and was tackled by law enforcement officers. Almost everything happened at night and still had the timestamp, station logo, and temperature from when it originally aired.
It was all as amazing as Old Faithful.
News anchors and helicopter reporters offered the same verbiage. In the end no one escaped. This Is that what millions of people like me have been obsessed with for decades? The only attempt at anything original came during commercial breaks, when an overdramatic announcer offered repetitive catchphrases: More of this car chase when we get back. Wait, for further – Car chase. Helicopter to base, we're in the air with more Car Chase. We are back up, on the Hunt.
After sitting for hour after hour, I realized that watching people peel potatoes offers the same thrill and there's an even greater chance of bleeding.
You've seen one, you've seen them all, but you can't turn your back. I was so fascinated by Car Chase that I forgot to watch the long-awaited Monday Night Football showdown between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles.
By hour 9, I realized that the siren song of police chases is not the possibility of violence or even escape, but how comforting they are. We've collectively seen so many televised police chases that are part of our Southern California experience, like beautiful sunsets and screeching green parrots. You can instantly conjure up in your mind the sound and look of a car chase. The noise of the helicopter blades in the background as the helicopter pilot-reporter offers his play-by-play. The low tones of news anchors. The grainy widescreen shots of the getaway vehicle and the cops out to catch it.
In our increasingly fractured society, car chases are one of Southern California's last collective experiences. When one occurs, all our problems take a break, if only for an hour. If there were no more car chases, something would be terribly wrong. We stare, even as we look away from the fact that the central characters are people who find themselves in extremely difficult times, risking their lives and the lives of others.
It's no surprise that Pluto TV, whose touch of nostalgia is so intense that one of its channels is dedicated to Ed Sullivan's best musical and comedic guests, was the network that came up with it.
The aftermath of a police chase in Echo Park in 2019. Three robbery suspects were killed and a fourth was hospitalized in critical condition.
(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)
“Data and research show that car chases have been of great interest to the public for many years,” a Pluto TV spokesperson told me via email. The streamer has no plans to change what he's doing at this time, but he promised “we will continue to listen to our audience” and modify as necessary.
On that note, Car Chase should delve into the vaults of KCAL and KCBS and pull out the classics. Like when a guy stole a tank in San Diego County and got pulled over just because he got stuck on a highway divider. OJ Simpson in his Ford Bronco, of course. And remember when bank robbers threw dollar bills at cheering passersby before they were finally arrested?
Group them by theme (motorcycles, RVs, funny endings) with appropriate soundtracks (“Yakety Sax,” sure, but don't forget “Foggy Mountain Breakdown”). Pull from Paramount's collection of films with legendary car chases: “Mission: Impossible,” “The Italian Job” and even “Grease.” And if that's not enough, group your commercials at the beginning or end of a car chase, the same way public television thanks its sponsors. I don't need Charmin Bears bothering me.
Car Chase could be the Southern California scrapbook we didn't know we needed.
Then again, maybe Pluto TV doesn't need to change anything. My friend called at one point during my marathon. He is a serious guy, a political strategist by trade. He had barely explained the premise of the channel when he interrupted me.
“Brother, sign me up. Where can I get it?”
