The Max Headroom Incident

Unresolved

Unresolved Productions

True Crime, Society & Culture, History

4.5 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 27 January 2019

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On November 22nd, 1987, Chicago's channel 9 (WGN) was briefly interrupted. During the Sunday evening news, viewers were greeted by a bizarre masked man, who came upon their screen for a little under 20 seconds before disappearing.

Then, just two hours later, this masked weirdo appeared again - this time, on channel 11 (WTTW - the local PBS provider). Even though he was barely intelligible, the man held control of the station's feed for close to 90 seconds.

For more than three decades now, this strange hijacking of Chicago's airwaves has remained one of the most peculiar mysteries of modern times...

Written, hosted, and produced by Micheal Whelan

Learn more about this podcast at unresolved.me

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Music Credits

ROZKOL - "If Men Were Kind and Wise"

ROZKOL - "Busy Busy Busy"

Mystery Mammal - "Aggressive Phenomenon"

Mystery Mammal - "Xanadont"

Graham Bole - "Opus Ape"

Other music created and composed by Ailsa Traves

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	What you are hearing is the opening theme to the Max Headroom show, a creative, obscure
0:20.5	television program that ran for a little over a year in the late 1980s.
0:25.4	Despite the bizarre cyberpunk-themed post-apocalyptic dystopic universe that Max Headroom existed in,
0:31.8	he was an artificial intelligence that acted as a TV host, who was often responsible for
0:37.0	helping save the world with his news broadcast.
0:40.0	The character of Max Headroom had a very bizarre appearance, which often required the actor
0:44.8	portraying him, Matt Frueur, to spend several hours on each day of filming to get his hair
0:49.9	and makeup done.
0:51.0	The mannerisms of Max Headroom harken back to early Jim Carey, with some odd humorous
0:56.0	facial tics and a physical stutter.
0:58.4	His voice was also overdubbed with some electric samples, which gave the character of Max a distinct,
1:04.1	distorted sounding voice.
1:06.1	The character of Max Headroom, who was introduced in a British-made for TV movie, was later expanded
1:11.9	into a full-length TV series, which began airing on ABC in March of 1987.
1:18.0	That year, he would become a popular figure throughout America, eventually being chosen
1:22.8	to act as a spokesperson for Coca-Cola, telling viewers to taste the wave of New Coke.
1:29.8	These ads were made in Max Headroom's trademark style, which featured an odd sense of humor
1:34.5	and frenetic editing.
1:36.5	Here is one such ad, where Max Headroom is interviewing a can of Coca-Cola.
1:41.9	Hi, Max Headroom here with...
1:44.9	This is my guest.
1:46.9	I heard you were big time in the old pop, is.
	...

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