The character then sang the words, “Your love is fading” and pretended to defecate on the floor proclaiming that he had “made a giant masterpiece for all the Greatest World Newspaper nerds.” He then hummed the theme to a 1960s cartoon series called Clutch Cargo. He went on to hold up a Pepsi can and say, “Catch the Wave,” which was the slogan for New Coke. Max said that he was better than Chuck who he called a “frickin’ liberal.” The masked man called someone a “frickin’ nerd” and named a WGN sports announcer, Chuck Swirsky. The audio was distorted, but the words could be made out. This time, the screen went black and then a series of colored bars was shown (like at the beginning of a VHS tape). Who was interrupted by the same prankster. He was also the spokesman for New Coke (another interesting and short lived creation of the 1980s).Īt 11:15, an episode of Dr. The character became very popular and could be seen in movies, TV shows and commercials. They watched you through your television set. This was how the networks kept an eye on you. They could never be turned off and everybody had to have one. In the show, the world was ruled by television. Max was touted as the first computer-generated TV host. Who was Max Headroom? He was the fictional star of a self titled 1985 British television series. Thinking, initially that the broadcast hack was an inside job, people scattered through the building looking for the culprit. He laughingly said to viewers, “Well, if you’re wondering what just happened, so am I.”

The interruption lasted less than 30 seconds and then Dan was back.

The sound was staticky and, if the figure was speaking, his words couldn’t be understood. It was a man in a Max Headroom mask standing in front of a rotating piece of metal. The next image on the screen wasn’t Dan Roan, the local sports reporter, talking about the Bears vs. At 9:14pm, during the Nine O’ Clock News sportscast on the local WGN affiliate, television screens all over Chicago went black.

Max headroom interruption