Unfrosted, a movie about the race to create a game-changing breakfast pastry, such as, say, the Pop-Tart, debuts on Netflix May 3. Jerry Seinfeld directs, his first time directing a film. Melissa McCarthy, Jim Gaffigan, Hugh Grant, Amy Schumer and Christian Slater are in the cast, as is Seinfeld himself. 

The movie is set in Battle Creek, Michigan in 1963. Cereal rivals Post and Kellogg’s are racing to come up with the best breakfast pastry ever. Post comes up with Country Squares, and Kellogg’s comes up with the Pop-Tart. Netflix calls it “a wildly imaginative tale of ambition, betrayal, and menacing milkmen – sweetened with artificial ingredients.” 

Spike Feresten and Beau Bauman produce the film with Seinfeld. 

Seinfeld discussed how the movie came to be in its press materials. “The script came about because Spike Feresten and I, as a joke, would say to each other, ‘Let’s make a movie about Pop-Tarts.’ I had been talking about them in my stand-up comedy, and we just used to joke about how it should be a movie, which seemed so ridiculous,” he said. “It was just a joke. And then when the pandemic happened and we had nothing to do, Spike said, “Let’s really write this as a movie.” 

Also in the cast are Max Greenfield, Bill Burr, James Marsden, Jack McBrayer and Bobby Moynihan. 

Seinfeld shared his Pop-Tarts memories from childhood. “My first memory of Pop-Tarts is that once I tasted them, I assumed they would not continue to make other types of food, that it would no longer be necessary to eat anything else,” he said. 

Pop-Tarts and their parent Kellanova have nothing to do with the film, but the corporation did weigh in on it. “Unfrosted is the ultimate flattery, and the biggest fanfiction ever," said Heidi Ray, senior director of brand marketing, Pop-Tarts. "At every level of fandom, Pop-Tarts continues to spark creativity – from the user-generated Edible Mascot memes at the Pop-Tarts Bowl to a homemade recipe from arguably the world's biggest pop star, and now to Jerry Seinfeld's Unfrosted film. We've been at the heart of culture for 60 years, and look forward to inspiring it for many, many more."

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Crackle is hoping to break into the big leagues of streaming services with the help of new original series, including the Nov. 19 debut of glitzy drama The Art of More, set in the fictitious realm of New York City art-auction houses and featuring star turns by Dennis Quaid, Cary Elwes and Kate Bosworth.

Over the past five years, the unit of Sony Pictures Television has evolved from offering short-form content, then adding Web series, to now creating long-form TV and films. While The Art of More is the free, ad-supported platform’s first original scripted series, in early October Crackle reached another milestone with the launch of stopmotion animated series SuperMansion, voiced by Emmy Award winner Bryan Cranston.

With 18 million monthly users in the U.S. and availability via 30 different applications for connected TVs, smartphones, tablets and the Web, Crackle has taken pains to ensure its content is pervasive and accessible. To that end, its content also comes in three languages and is available in 21 countries.

‘OTT’ IS TEMPORARY

As executive vice president of digital networks at Sony Pictures Television and general manager of Crackle, Eric Berger has helped develop the division into Sony’s always-on global streaming network. He is responsible for the development, production and distribution of original features and series created for Crackle. He also oversees all programming, marketing, distribution, product, video operations and engineering, as well as ad sales for Crackle and PlayStation Vue.

While it’s tempting to call Crackle another over-the-top provider, Berger eschews the term, calling it “temporary.”

“We view ourselves much more akin to a TV network,” he said. “We’re in the best of both worlds between TV and streaming, and we’re programming with original content. We’ve gone from shortform websites to half-hours, to features and one-hour dramas. We’re growing and evolving.”

Berger said Crackle has aimed for a seamless streaming experience that mirrors programmed linear-TV viewing. When a viewer launches the Crackle app, a scheduled program begins to play, and consumers can browse for something else in the channel guide while continuing to watch the show that’s currently on.

While viewers can always watch something on-demand, Crackle also offers multiple scheduled channels of themed content that vary by daypart.

Berger’s team analyzed consumer behavior with OTT and found that the connected TV category was the most desirable for streaming video into the home.

There were also differences in behavior among users of Roku boxes, Apple TV boxes and game consoles vs. linear TV. The idea of coming home and watching whatever’s on TV is a thing of the past — connected-TV users were simply watching whatever was on, the team found.

This fall, Crackle rolled out the always- on experience on a number of connected devices, including Roku, PlayStation, Xbox, Amazon Fire TV and Android TV.

Consumers started to take notice of Crackle in a big way in 2013 when Comedians in Cars Drinking Coffee, the unscripted interview series produced by and starring Jerry Seinfeld, launched. That was Crackle’s first big crossover show, and it returns in January for a seventh season.

Dan Patrick’s Sports Jeopardy!, a weekly show produced in front of a live studio audience, takes Crackle even further into the pop-culture zeitgeist.

Berger made note of another differentiator for Crackle: Its shows go straight to series; there are no pilots. In addition, Crackle integrates advertisers early on in the process and because it’s backed by Sony, the shows are distributed globally. And by being both the studio and the network, Crackle has an end-to-end process that it sees all the way through from conception with the talent, through distribution. Plus it controls the ad sales.

‘TV AND NOTHING SHORT OF THAT’

Berger calls The Art of More and SuperMansion “TV and nothing short of that.”

“It’s the next evolution for us as we come up from movies and half-hours,” he said. “We want to position Crackle as the best of both worlds — we’re on-demand and we’re a linear network.”

Crackle’s predominantly 18-to-34- year-old male demographic is also evolving and the network is looking more at the psychographics of its streaming audience. “We’re focused on ‘rechargers,’ people who are in the prime of their professional lives, building careers, working hard and playing hard. They stream to relax, they over-index on game-console usage, and they want things that are hassle-free and accessible.”

Bridging the gap between linear TV and on-demand is what Crackle’s aiming for and it’s a sweet spot for Berger.

“I really enjoy the intersection of the art and the technology,” he said. “I like taking the data and learnings about the experiences consumers like to have and translating them into new experiences.”

“We’re introducing audiences to new worlds they haven’t seen before and aligning them thematically with other content that resonates and does well,” Berger added. “By using the data and seeing what works and doesn’t work, we can extrapolate.

“You’re going to see more and more original programming on Crackle,” he added.

When Netflix "suddenly" decided to unleash the third season of its hit Orange Is the New Black six hours earlier than scheduled, the Twittersphere went wild. And many fans got a jump of a few hours during which to binge on the 13 new episodes.

When Sony's Crackle over-the-top service decided to release this season's episodes of Jerry Seinfeld's Comedians in Cars Getting Coffeeat 11:30 pm ET on Wednesdays (rather than the 12:01 am Thursday timetable of the previous five seasons), there was buzz that the new late-night timing gave fans an alternative to the departed Letterman show and the other before-midnight talk shows.

Yet these sophisticated timing stunts seem irrelevant in an on-demand world where cloud and set-top access let viewers create their own personally preferred schedule. Indeed, this week's Rentrak report that more Americans are spending a lot more time watching free video on demand underscores the reality. People want to pick the time and place to see shows they like. (Although Rentrak's study focused on time-shifted broadcast and cable programs, the underlying message is clear across all platforms: Viewers are no longer bound to any clock.)

Of course, Orange and Comedians in Cars benefit from their core fan bases, who will gobble up new episodes immediately if only for the bragging rights at the water cooler the next day or on social media immediately. It's not coincidental that Netflix and Crackle, respectively, unveiled the "early release" plans for Orange and Seinfeld's show within a couple days of each other. The OTT business is increasingly becoming one of hype and buzz and social media connectivity.

Indeed, the six-hour jump for Orange came during the invitation-only "OrangeCon" fan event in New York, where the show's most devoted fans heard directly from the series' stars (and via Tweets) that the Litchfield Correctional Institution inmates would start their next adventures at 6 p.m. on June 11 instead of at midnight ET. Not coincidentally, that put the binge viewers smack into the middle of the NBA Game 4 finals that night.

It's hard to imagine that Seinfeld fans will consider that the series' short programs (usually running about 15-20 minutes) as competition to Fallon, Kimmel, O'Brien or any of talkers at 11:30 p.m. (even Colbert, when he arrives). Yet the OTT interest in scheduling new releases is a curiosity.  As the New York Post observed, when Yahoo Screen debuted the sixth season of Community in March (nearly a year after NBC had cancelled the series), the plan called for a once-a-week release of new episodes - just like a TV schedule. Hulu is also emulating the one-a-week rollout for some of its original series, including Moone Boy and The Awesomes.

TiVO and the digital video recorder evolution that started more than a decade ago obviated the value of schedules -- other than the ones that individuals create for themselves. 

The current OTT stunts -- plus the array of scheduling options -- are reminders that "new media:" are experimenting with ways to put shows in front of viewers in a variety of ways. One concept is to emulate traditional program schedules. But online distributors can enhance that process  with binge-ready releases as well as on-demand availability or restricted access ("see it now," much like Disney's once-vaunted method of re-releasing its classic movies for each new generation of five-year olds then putting them back in the vault for a few years). That's harder to do in the digital distribution era, but new programmers are looking for creative ways to exploit their titles in ways that appeal to viewers.  

Above all, the timing issues are reminders about the integration of digital and linear viewing. Some fans (the "best" viewers to advertisers and others) will closely track when their favorite shows appear and gobble them up immediately. The entire situation is also a call for improved cross-platform program guides -- but that's another story.

Fundamentally, now that that timing isn't everything, we need a new way to redefine "appointment TV."

And that doesn't necessarily mean a specific time.

Over-The-Top service Crackle has renewed Jerry Seinfeld’s hit series Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee for a sixth season, the company said during its Television Critics Association Winter Tour event Tuesday.

The sixth season of the series, which showcases Seinfeld’s candid interviews with such stars as Jason Alexander, Aziz Ansari, Fred Armisen, Alec Baldwin, Mel Brooks, Howard Stern and Jon Stewart, will debut later this Spring, according to Crackle officials.

The OTT service also announced several stars for its original movie Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser.  Christopher Walken (Catch Me If You Can, Pulp Fiction), Dennis Miller (Dennis Miller Live, Thank You For Not Smoking), Brittany Daniel (The Game, Sweet Valley High) will join David Spade (Rules of Engagement) in the movie, which will debut on the service later this Spring.

Crackle also announced it will debut movies The Throwaways on Jan. 30 and Dead Rising: Watchtower on March 27, said company officials. 

Over-the-top video streaming service Crackle will launch a new season of its hit series Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee on Nov. 6, the service said Friday.

Celebrities set to converse with series host/creator Jerry Seinfeld during the fifth season of the Emmy-nominated series include Fred Armisen (Portlandia),Colleen Ballinge (Hipsterhood),Bill Burr(Walk Of Shame),Jimmy Fallon (The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon),Kevin Hart (Think Like A Man Too), Amy Schumer (Inside Amy Schumer)  and Ali Wentworth (In Living Color).

Previous episodes of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee currently running on Crackle have featured such comedy legends as Jason Alexander, Aziz Ansari, Alec Baldwin, Mel Brooks, Louis CK, Larry David, Tina Fey, Ricky Gervais, Jay Leno, David Letterman, Seth Meyers, Howard Stern and Jon Stewart, among others, said company officials.