Short Stuff: In-Flight Entertainment | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

[music]. >> Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm. Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's. here sitting in for Dave, and this is. Short Stuff about in-flight movies, all. the great stuff that you can watch when. you fly with your favorite airline. Yeah, and this is something that if. you've been flying for a number of. years, has changed quite a bit. Yeah. Um. I do remember the old days where I. didn't fly a lot growing up at all. Like. I I think I flew one time before I went.

to college. And then not even a lot after that cuz I. was always broke. But I did go on a couple of flights back. in the day. where they had the one movie being shown. for the entire plane, and there were. these big huge like Volkswagen. Beetle-size monitors that dropped down. from the ceiling like every 10 rows. right in the middle, and maybe 30% of. the the flight could get a good angle on. that screen. Yeah. And if you were. lucky, you were close to that one big. screen version that was like broadcast.

or shown on like the wall. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. in the middle rows. Uh-huh. Yeah. That was how we used to. watch movies. Everyone watched the same. movie at the same time. You plugged in. your headphones that were like. hydraulics, if I remember correctly from. our air travel episode. >> through a tube. Yeah. And you watched. that same movie, and because there's all. sorts of different people with all sorts. of different tastes, the movie you saw. was radically different from the movie. that um that you would find on like your.

your. video store. Yes. For sure. One movie, whole plane. We will tell you the very first. in-flight movie, believe it or not, was. in 1929. Uh it was a newsreel and a couple of. cartoons on a Transcontinental Air. Transport flight. Right. But real deal. movie service started in the early '60s. Uh this comes from Variety and CNN and. How Stuff Works. Um but nowadays, it's a whole different. deal because we have broadband.

connections, we have servers on board. Everyone knows now you can stream. like over a hundred movies probably. Even a couple of decades ago, you. probably just had 10 or 15 movies you. could watch. Uh, because they were just, you know, stored on a hard drive, I guess. Right. But now they have all kinds of movies. You can play games against passengers, you can read e-books, listen to podcasts. or music or whatever. Uh, right there either on the seatback. screen or on your laptop or tablet or. whatever. Yeah. Um, it is quite a time to be alive for.

that. But the the the. I guess the whole problem, the whole. issue that faced airlines back in the. day, which was how can you show a movie. to a bunch of different people, is still. around in different forms. Yeah, for sure. I mean, it costs them a. ton of money. Uh, apparently some. airlines spend like 20 million dollars. per year just on like licensing the. content. Uh, then you got to outfit the planes. That can cost about 5 million dollars. per aircraft. Mhm. And it makes it a lot. heavier. So there was a guy, an econ.

professor in Norway, that basically calculated all the weight. and everything and said, "If airlines. got rid of this stuff, they can save. about 3 million dollars per year per. aircraft. by not having this on board.". Right. Which, I mean, they're they're like, "Well, so what? We make so much more. than that." Yeah, but they would they'd. pass along the savings to us, I'm sure. For sure. Yeah. >> Apparently, depending on uh where you. are, I think in the United States, you. you pay something like 90 grand for one.

movie for a couple of months. Yeah, it's. licensing. >> Yeah, for license. And then other. licenses are like by a per view. So. every time somebody watches a movie, you. have to pay a certain amount. Probably. not 90 grand, but still. Like there's. all sorts of different ways that. airlines have to kind of dig in their. pockets. um to to make sure you have all the. movies you want. So, feel bad for the. airlines. Yeah. Uh, I don't know if this. for everybody, but I even.

call them airplane movies. It's sort of. like a hotel movie. It's a movie that I nor- like I probably. wouldn't pay for or go see in a theater, but I will totally get like had a enough. interest to watch it. Right. >> Um, I will do that on airplanes almost. 100% of the time. I won't watch either. that or like an old favorite. But, uh, I. watched F1 The Oh, yeah? >> Brad Pitt Formula 1 movie on this last. uh, flight recently. And, uh, it was. okay. All right. It was an airplane movie. Too much minimalist like, um, office. stuff for me.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was lousy, but that I saw. some I was watching it over somebody's. shoulder. Yeah. Yeah, there was a lot of that. I mean, the racing stuff was really, really. great. Um, I'm sure it obviously much. better on a big screen. Mhm. Uh, but it. was one of those where like a lot. not most, but a lot of people don't. understand Formula 1 racing. So, Right. >> the entire time like the race commentary. was so explanatory. >> [laughter]. >> Like, "And now he has to go do this. because that means this because the. rules say this." And it's just. incessant. And it and it helped you.

understand it, but it was really pretty. uh, pretty bad. Like Inception? In that. respect. Yeah, like Inception. Uh, let's take a little break and we'll. come back and we'll talk about some of. the stuff that airlines have to do to. make sure that no one gets offended by. their movies. All right. We'll be right. back. >> [music]. [music].

[music]. [music]. [music]. >> All right. So, you're saying. air-airplane movies are ones that you. would normally never pay to see. I get. that. There's also airline versions of. movies. >> Yeah. And they come in a bunch of. different ways. Sometimes the airlines.

like commission companies to edit the. movies that they're going to show. Um other times the studios themselves. will make an airline cut where they edit. out, you know, the. the um sexiest stuff or the most violent. or gory stuff or like jokes. Like you. probably couldn't show any of the um. Austin Powers movies because of all the. mean stuff about different cultures. Um. they figure out how to edit that out in. the best way possible so that it doesn't. screw up the the uh plot, which is was.

not what they were doing before when. they showed the same movie to everybody. at the same time. It was just really. clumsy editing then. Yeah, for sure. Uh. it's kind of funny some of the things. they'll edit out. Um apparently they'll. edit out other airline logos. Uh which I didn't know, which is. hysterical. Um not so hysterical, you're never going. to see a movie about a a terrorist or. certainly like a hijacking or a plane. crash or anything. You're not going to. see that Denzel Washington movie. Like.

you're not going to see anything like. that um which makes a lot of sense, of. course. Sure. Uh but depending on where. you are in the world, too, there's. different cultures that are going to. find. different things offensive and you got. to be aware of that. So like in Europe. they're way more okay with like a little. bit of nudity, maybe a little bit more. sexy stuff, but they're not as much as. into the gore and violence. Uh the Middle East apparently any kind. of. um bare skin or or sexy stuff you can't. have, but they have uh little higher. tolerance for violent scenes on their.

flights. Right. Uh airlines that carry uh a lot of. Muslim passengers will frequently have. like any references to pig or pork or. anything like that edited out. >> Yeah. Singapore apparently is sensitive to. scenes or movies with them LGBTQ+. content, which means they can't get. enough of it is what I'm reading. I. don't think that's the case. Uh and and language, um you would think. like well, they got to edit that out, but that's not the case anymore. It. doesn't seem to have been the case ever.

since they started showing on demand. individually selected movies um because. you listen to them through headphones. generally. Yeah, through headphones and. also they have the little. uh sort of caveat now where you have. they tell you beforehand this contains. scenes of, you know, violence or. whatever, brief nudity and you have to. tell whether or not you want to proceed. Right. uh beforehand and, you know, this. is I think cuz I was. I'm still a bit of a prude. I was raised. Baptist, so I'm always very sensitive to.

other people's experience around me. Like I would never be the guy that's. just watching some awful like. thing on their screen with people all. around him just totally clueless that of. like kids are around or other people. that might be offended. So, I've always. been sensitive to that, but there are um. there's an actual trade group, the. Airline Passenger Experience. Association. Because there are no laws. about this, they they will offer. guidance, I guess, to movie distributors. and to airlines and stuff like that. Um. there have been some sort of.

um I don't know about famous, but like. at least gone viral online for like how. could they edit that out? I know when. the film Carol came out in 2015, which. is about a lesbian couple in the 1950s, Delta got a lot of guff because they. edited out scenes of like women kissing. Mhm. Um and so Delta was like, "Hey, that's not us. We like that's the movie. they gave us.". But apparently, there's a guy who runs a. company um that How Stuff Works talked. to, Amir Somnani. He's um vice president.

for of content services for Global. Eagle, which is like the big the big. company that edits films for airlines. Yeah. He had said that he wasn't saying. this to. to contradict Delta, but he said like. airlines actually have a lot of say in. in what gets edited out. So, it seems. like Delta is like no, we can't show. lesbian stuff, whereas American Airlines. and United are like they're all like. they're like Singapore. They're like. bring it on. Right. Yeah, there was uh in 2007, there was a.

a co-sponsored bill um. called the Family Friendly Flies Act. where they wanted to have child safe. viewing areas on the planes where. anything over G couldn't be played, but. I think it never passed and and. I'm sure it didn't pass because that's a. near impossibility or just a terrible. idea to be like we'll put all the kids. in the back of the plane together. Right. Without their parents. I was. looking at this and it was Congress. people congressmen from North Carolina.

and it does especially today sound just. preposterous, but to to in their. defense, this was 2007 and this was a. time when planes still mostly showed the. same movie to the entire airplane at the. same time. >> Well, that makes sense a little more. sense. >> Right, it did. It it did to me, too. And. I was reading like a an. just basically an article on it from the. time and they were like well, one of the. problems is is like you don't want to. just show only G-rated movies because. everybody on the airplane is going to.

hate kids even more than they [laughter]. already do. That was a quote from it. So, they they. landed on if this did happen to just. show PG-13 as a compromise. Yeah, all. right. Well, that makes sense. Yeah. Uh. yeah, and if you're wondering how much. gets edited out, someone actually. um did check running times of movies. shown on Virgin Air and Air Canada. They. had funding. That's right. Which we'll. be flying soon when we do our Canadian. tour. We got some Air Canada flights. booked. Can't wait. >> that straight. And they found that.

two-thirds of the movies shown on these. two airlines were the same length as the. theater presentation. 14% were shorter. Uh. not not 14% shorter, but 14% of the. movies overall. So, that like that just. sort of tells you how many movies are. being edited down for content. Um 21%. were longer, which is sort of. interesting. Yeah, I would guess Virgin is not. [music] huge on editing down movies, but. you never know. You never know. So, yeah. Chuck said you never know. I.

guess Chuck doesn't that mean [music]. that short stuff is out? Indeed. >> [music]. >> Stuff You Should Know is a production of. iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from. iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio. app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you. listen to your favorite shows.