By Joe Roberts
Copyright slashfilm
It seems as though we’re waking up to just how ephemeral our culture is in the age of streaming and social media. Those movies we’ve purchased digitally? It turns out we don’t really own them. Apple, or basically any digital provider, can just delete your library whenever they want. Perhaps even worse is the phenomenon of shows just being outright removed from any and all platforms altogether. The most salient example came in August 2022 when Warner Bros. Discovery started removing shows and movies from its HBO Max streaming platform without warning. Several of these titles did eventually emerge on other streamers via licensing deals, but the fact that they disappeared in the first place was disconcerting enough. The whole thing seemed like a dark turn of events for both creators and viewers, serving as yet another reminder of why physical media matters.
Unfortunately, we’re at a point where entire projects are completely unavailable, having essentially become lost media even if they debuted relatively recently. “Beef House” is just one example. You want to see Tim and Eric embark on an Easter egg hunt as fully grown men while using “egg telescopes?” (Let’s face it, of course you do) Well, you can’t, and fans are still trying to comprehend the idea that an entire creative product has been pulled from public consumption without warning.
Obviously, this is a problem that goes beyond “Beef House.” In their feigned disbelief that their creation ever existed, Tim and Eric also perfectly encapsulate a more widespread disbelief in how these media companies are conducting themselves in 2025. It’s not just the issue of films and TV shows disappearing, it’s the fact that a show like “Beef House” was — as The AV Club’s Randall Coburn noted in his review — “unlike anything else on TV.” It’s bad enough such a series would have a tough time getting made today — something Tim and Eric also discussed in their interview. But the fact that it’s also been completely erased from the culture feels like adding unnecessary insult to an already unnecessary injury.