The Chad Powers Show: Breaking Down the Cast, Release Date, and the Whole Ridiculous Premise

So let me get this straight. The creative inspiration for this new Chad Powers show, this big-budget streaming series on Hulu, is... Armageddon?

You heard me. The Michael Bay movie where Bruce Willis has to go drill an asteroid. That’s the bar they’re setting. Co-creator Michael Waldron, fresh off his Marvel money train with Loki, actually said they're taking a "ridiculous premise" and grounding it by taking it "completely seriously."

I had to read that twice.

This is what happens when a five-minute joke gets strip-mined by Hollywood. They take something that was lightning in a bottle—a genuinely funny sketch where Eli Manning himself, a real two-time Super Bowl champ, goes undercover in bad prosthetics for the Chad Powers Penn State tryouts—and they decide it needs a hero’s journey. It needs stakes. It needs a backstory and a character arc and, apparently, the emotional weight of a planet-killing rock.

Give me a break.

When a Funny Sketch Becomes a Marketing Spreadsheet

The Autopsy of a Joke

Let’s be real about what the original Eli Chad Powers bit was. It was a perfect, self-contained piece of internet gold from "Eli's Places." The humor came from the sheer absurdity of it. It was Eli, a guy known for his goofy dad-energy, trying to blend in with college kids, his throwing motion an immediate giveaway under the shaggy wig. It was low-stakes, charming, and over before it got old. It worked because it was a sketch.

Now, we have the Chad Powers series. It's a full-blown production. They’ve got Glen Powell, the new Hollywood golden boy from Top Gun: Maverick, playing some disgraced quarterback named Russ Holliday who dons the prosthetics to get a second chance. Instead of a one-off tryout, he’s a walk-on for the fictional "South Georgia Catfish," playing against real teams like Ole Miss and Tennessee.

This whole thing feels… calculated. No, 'calculated' is too clean. It feels like it was assembled in a lab by a marketing department that just discovered the term "viral content." They got the hot actor, Glen Powell. They got the Manning brothers’ Omaha Productions to slap an "authentic football" sticker on the box. They even got a cameo from "Hawk Tuah Girl," because offcourse they did. You can almost hear the boardroom conversation: "How do we make this feel current? I know, let's cram in a meme that will be dated by the time this airs!"

It’s exhausting. It’s this modern media disease where nothing can just be what it is. A funny video has to become a cinematic universe. A good tweet has to be optioned for a movie. They can't just let a good thing be.

All This "Authenticity" for a Rubber Chin?

The "Authenticity" Police

The creators keep hammering this word: authenticity. Michael Waldron says they want to make the "greatest football experience... that people have ever seen." Peyton and Eli Manning were apparently all over the production, making sure star Glen Powell looked like a "D1 quarterback." Eli was even "hands-on with the scripts."

Okay, fine. So his throwing motion will be perfect. The plays will be realistic. The sweat will look like real sweat. But who is this for? Does making the football part hyper-realistic make the central premise—that a disgraced, famous quarterback could fool an entire NCAA program with a rubber chin—more believable? Or does it just make the whole thing feel even more ridiculous by contrast?

The original sketch worked because it was simple, stupid, and you knew it was Eli Manning under that bad wig. It had a certain charm that this slick, high-budget production just can't...

They say they know "sports fans are savage" and that they tried to be their own "harshest critics." That’s just PR-speak for "We're terrified the internet is going to tear this apart, so we’re telling you we thought of that first." It’s a preemptive defense. But the problem ain't the football details. The problem is the premise. You can't take a joke "completely seriously" without killing the part that made it funny. That’s not heart. That’s just a fundamental misunderstanding of comedy.

I swear, this is why I barely watch network TV anymore. I pay for my own streaming services and I still get served focus-grouped content that feels like it was designed by an algorithm to appeal to the widest possible demographic. It reminds me of when my internet provider throttles my connection even though I pay for the top-tier plan. You pay for premium and get mediocrity.

Then again, maybe I'm just a jaded asshole. The anticipation for the Chad Powers show is apparently "palpable." People are already talking about a second season. Maybe millions of people will tune into the Chad Powers episodes every Tuesday on Hulu and absolutely love it. What do I know? I’m just some guy screaming into the void about a TV show. But it feels like we’re being sold a filet mignon that’s actually just a cleverly disguised hamburger. And they're very, very proud of the disguise.

Just Let the Joke Be a Joke

Reference article source：

• 'Chad Powers' creators wanted authenticity. So they enlisted 'Hawk Tuah Girl' and the Mannings - Los Angeles Times