The Max Headroom Pirate TV Incident Part 1

Astonishing Legends

Scott Philbrook

History, Society & Culture

4.6 • 9.8K Ratings

🗓️ 13 April 2025

⏱️ 126 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Before streaming and scrolling there was broadcast television—shared signals sent through the air for anyone with an antenna to catch. But when something’s that open, it’s also open to hijacking. In part one of our two-part series, we dig into one of the most bizarre and legendary cases of broadcast piracy: the Max Headroom Incident. On November 22, 1987, two Chicago stations were interrupted by a strange figure in a Max Headroom mask, delivering surreal, unsettling messages in a two-minute broadcast that has baffled and fascinated for nearly four decades. Who did it, why, and how did they pull it off? We explore the theories, the tech, and the legend that refuses to fade.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Astonishing Legends Network
0:02.7	Listen to The Astonishing Jump Jore exclusively at patreon.com slash astonishing
0:08.8	Legends.
0:09.4	I've lost all track of what day of the week it is.
0:13.4	We're still talking about movies.
0:14.8	I'm sorry.
0:15.4	The Earth is going to be fine.
0:17.1	They call it the elephant's foot.
0:19.1	Michelle said you're hanging on by your thread.
0:20.7	So might as well take that bog your shot.
0:22.5	If Prince had crawled out of his grave, I don't think you could have gotten into the live show.
0:26.0	If you want to run the earth and that, you have at it.
0:29.1	That's weird.
0:30.4	You didn't end the stream.
0:31.7	I'm ending it now.
0:32.6	I don't know why we don't go away at the end of that.
0:34.8	We should.
0:35.5	We should. I think we're supposed to. Maybe I'm supposed to go away ahead of time.
0:38.4	Now, now we're going. Bye, everybody.
0:39.9	Good night.
0:43.8	Astonishing legends.
0:45.0	We'll like to thank Factor, Smalls, MintMobil, our contributors at patreon.com, and you
	...

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