Max Headroom the character mixed the talking-head-shallow shtick with some pointed social commentary, and his stutters made it seem like something subversive was trying to break through, a ghost in the machine, in a sense.īut the US series got way lost in the hype, and the New Coke ads both were and were not Original Max - were in that Original Max ended up being used as a cog in a corporate wheel, were not in that OM was not mocking his corporate masters in the Coke ads. Original Max in the movie was born of a truth-seeking, power-defying mind. But it also mocks Original Max (not unlike Classic Coke) bowing down to the market. Motive - maybe just to show it could be done. (Goes back to the since-rejected theory posted on reddit years ago with the 2 brothers, kind of interesting.)īest bets on Max: 1) a broadcasting insider at one of the stations, disgruntled or ex-employee 2) the kid(s) or younger sibling(s) of an insider (possibly with the insider filming/broadcasting it all) 3) at least one college student in broadcasting/AV engineering with equipment access 4) phreakers with money or jobs allowing them access to quality equipment. If you play with the sound to reduce the noise, you get it down to what definitely sounds like a young person's voice, probably a teen, not likely more than mid-20s unless they had some (develop)mental issue. Was he mocking WGN, or his home city in general? Sounds angst-y. Cola Wars.) I think the girl was also wearing one of those festival outfits like you see in the parade in Ferris Bueller. (Except the glove, likely a ref to Michael Jackson, cf. One consistent thing about the incident was that ALL Max's references were from Chicago pop culture. TV signals are protected now in ways that render this all but impossible, but this incident is such an encapsulation of that scary and kind of thrilling idea. Cable TV piracy was a real thing (as was the truly bizarre Wild West of public access television, where any nutbar with a soapbox could and would put themselves out there for the world to see), and - as David Cronenberg has remarked, when discussing the inspirations for Videodrome - there seemed a real possibility that an unwary viewer might stumble across something forbidden, something they weren't really meant to see. It's also a real and valuable glimpse into a now-long-gone era when television, as a medium, actually felt as though it could potentially be dangerous, that it could be (and, here, was) harnessed for culturally subversive means. (The statute of limitations for any legal repercussions elapsed back in 1992, so there's really no reason for anyone with any knowledge not to come forward save for the fact that it's just more interesting if they don't.) Visit podcastchoices.This is honestly the best kind of unsolved mystery, something legitimately weird and silly and a little bit creepy in which nobody got hurt and anybody who knows anything - and, surely, there must be somebody out there who does - also knows well enough to keep their trap shut. Check out our online shop.Įpisode transcripts are posted on our website. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery.Īrtwork by Julienne Alexander. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: /CriminalShow. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. As one television viewer said, it felt like someone threw “a brick through your window.” A little boy said it was “very, very funny.” We speak with Dan Roan, Larry Ocker, Al Skierkiewicz, Jim Higgins, and Matt Frewer. And then, two hours later it happened again on a different channel-WTTW-during a broadcast of Dr. He supposedly came from our “not so distant future”-a future where the world is run by TV executives. The interruption lasted about 30 seconds. The mask was the face of a fictional character from 1985 named Max Headroom, who was supposed to be the world’s first computer generated TV host. Then a person appeared, dancing back and forth in front of a moving striped background, and wearing a mask. Sportscaster Dan Roan had been talking about the Chicago Bears, when the screen suddenly went black. One Sunday night in November 1987, something very odd happened in the middle of the WGN nine o’clock news in Chicago.
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