The war of the streaming services has reached a new apex. Just as I was writing up some kid-friendly picks from HBOMax (which features the WarnerMedia library), I realized I could sign up for and check out Peacock (which has content from the NBCUniversal library). It's nice for parents to have plenty of streamable content for kids (in addition to Netflix, Hulu, Prime, Disney+ and much, much more), especially right now, that includes a good mix of educational and entertainment content. At least some variety is nice. Here's a quick primer that may help to navigate the ins and outs of these newer choices.
First things first: Peacock is free, at least at the base level, which is ad-supported. All you need is an email address and you can sign up and start streaming right away. The good news is they have a fairly large library at the free level, with a wide variety of movies and TV shows available on demand for free for kids, plus a few Peacock original animated shows, like "Where's Waldo?," "Curious George" and "Cleopatra in Space."
They've got movies from Barbie to Barney, American Girl movies, "The Land Before Time" and some throwback Lego movies, as well as fun retro cartoons like "Sabrina the Teenage Witch," "Woody Woodpecker" and "He-Man." For the little kids there are animated series like "Care Bears" and even the 1992 series "Shelly Duvall's Bedtime Stories."
The first tier of the paid levels ($5 a month) gets all-access with ads (that includes Dreamworks movies like "Shrek"), and $10 a month gets you all-access with no ads. On the free level, they have beloved NBC shows like "Parks and Recreation," and throwbacks including everything from "Saved by the Bell" to "The Carol Burnett Show." There is also a large movie library with old Universal monster movies and Hitchcock films, which gives it a leg up over certain services like Netflix and Hulu that are lacking in back catalogs. It's free, so why not give it a try?
Then there's HBOMax, the newest massive streaming service branded under the prestigious HBO name, but really, the draw here is the massive WarnerMedia library the service boasts. Things are still a bit messy with HBOMax, as they phase out HBOGo, and some HBONow subscribers find themselves in purgatory, with their Now service still available but their Max service lost in a battle of streaming and telecom titans. HBOMax has yet to strike a deal that would allow Roku or Amazon Firestick users to access HBOMax from their devices, so many subscribers are stuck in an annoying technological no man's land (yes, Mercury is in retrograde). It also should be said that Peacock is also NOT available on Roku yet, just Apple and Android devices. If you search "Peacock" on the Roku channels, you'll just turn up a screensaver channel that features pictures of actual peacocks. If you find yourself in this situation, now is the time to invest in a cheap HDMI cord to connect your laptop to your TV.
HBOMax, which costs $14.99 per month and has a seven-day free trial, does have some great kid content as well, with much of it coming from the aforementioned WarnerMedia library of films, as well as original series. The service is doing some cute curation right now, with a "Christmas in July" theme. It's nice that the kids section is divided by age (2-5, 6-9, 13+), and there are some interesting and educational original series, too. HBOMax is the destination for all new episodes of "Sesame Street," which right now have some featured episodes about COVID-19 and racial justice that might be useful for addressing these tough topics with kids. "Sesame Street" superstar Elmo even has his own talk show, "The Not-Too-Late" Show, and the star-studded, musically driven documentary series "Saving My Tomorrow" addresses issues of climate change and environmental justice spearheaded by kids.
So give one of these streaming services a whirl and see if their collections of films and TV shows, old and new, will entice you, and the family, to stick around longer.
