This is on the media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

And I'm Bob Garfield.

Once television seemed like a fortress impregnable,

a lighthouse beamed directly, reliably,

into nearly every American home.

On an ordinary Sunday evening, say,

November 22nd, 1987 in Chicago, TV was predictability itself,

firmly controlled by its anointed gatekeepers, until that control was stolen twice in one night.

First, when a man in a max headroom mask silently broke into the broadcast of the 9 o'clock news

and then when he intruded into an 11 p.m. broadcast

of Dr. Who?

The creature has got into the lighthouse.

Now we must fight for our lives.

That clip was from that fateful episode of Doctor Who,

but here's what that actual interruption sounded like.

When the Max Headroom Man with a fixed leer spoke with a voice deliberately distorted.

He executed a series of creepy anthakes, culminating and pulling down his pants and howling,

while a man in an apron slapped his naked bottom with a fly squatter.

Chicago TV producer Bohus Blauhoot was a kid back in 1987.

I was quite wigged out.

You know, did I pick up an errand signal from Mars?

Was this from the future?

...