Browse episodes. Top Top-rated. Trailer Max Headroom: The Complete Series. Photos Top cast Edit. Jeffrey Tambor Murray as Murray. Lee Wilkof Edwards as Edwards. Hank Garrett Ashwell as Ashwell ….
Sharon Barr Lauren as Lauren. Virginia Kiser Mrs. Formby as Mrs. Jere Burns Breughel as Breughel …. Charles Rocket Grossberg as Grossberg. Smith Rik as Rik. More like this. Watch options. Storyline Edit. It's illegal to turn off your TV, and televisions are given to the needy. In this world, Network 23 has a highly-rated news program with a roving reporter named Edison Carter.
But Carter uncovers a plot to cover up lethal "blipverts" and is almost killed. In the process his mind is copied into a computer and the computer-generated personality "Max Headroom" is born.
Ben: Max Headroom was also this character that imagined and made fun of a dystopian future where corrupt mega corporations used computers to replace journalists. Point is, this weird, stuttering, virtual newscaster poked fun at newscasters and normies.
Amory: And no offense to Chuck or other sportscasters here, Chuck was, and maybe is, a bit of a normie? I was shocked. Chuck: Honestly, I did. I had a couple of friends tell me, you know, Swirsk, that's my nickname, you know, you better seek protection.
Whoever did this had to be pretty smart and sharp to do what he did. But why he signaled [sic] out me, I have no idea. Ben: Whether or not "Swirsk" understood the point of Max Headroom, his world really was flipped upside down.
Chuck: After that clip played, I received calls from radio, television stations, not only in Chicago, but across the United States.
And once it reached the Associated Press and United Press International, the two wire services at the time, then the whole thing started to mushroom. Amory: Funny to a kid maybe, because the second intrusion got real weird. After calling out Chuck Swirsky, the person in the Max Headroom mask, who appeared to be a man, also pulled down his pants revealing his bare ass.
And then a woman showed up, also in a mask, to spank him repeatedly with a fly swatter. Amory: Whatever his feelings about politics, Chuck had been thrust into the spotlight in a broadcast signal hack. One of a short list of similar takeovers that seemed to be growing in number in the mid s, looked at by some as a new form of terrorism. One that, even with its silliness and spanking, was about to get very serious. And once we have determined that, we will make sure that the full extent of the law is carried out.
Ben: So, when some masked marauders took over 90 seconds of TV time in the major market of Chicago in it looked, and felt more than anything, like a prank. At least to some observers. But to other people, it was a huge deal. But doing it with a purpose, historically, has had political implications. Ben: In , a radio broadcast intrusion in a Soviet Union city claimed nuclear war had broken out with the United States.
Amory: In , a UK television station delivered a message, supposedly from outer space, about a disaster that would impact the human race. Aliens: We come to warn you of the destiny of your race.
Amory: In , HBO was in the process of changing its delivery technology. People used to be able to get Home Box Office for free by putting up a satellite dish. But HBO was gonna make it so that everyone had to pay a fee to get that stuff. Which angered a guy name John McDougal, whose satellite dish business relied on the old way.
McDougal hacked the delivery system and put up a message for viewers that said No way! Showtime, Movie Channel, beware! Ben: McDougal got turned in by a guy who overheard him bragging about his stunt. Amory: A year later, thousands of randy viewers headed to the Playboy satellite network only to be met with a message from the Bible. Religious message: Thus sayeth the Lord thy God.
Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. Repent for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Ben: Years later, an uplink engineer employed by the Christian Broadcasting Network would be charged with the crime of trying to interrupt TV smut with religious morals. Ben: All of these intrusions led to a feeling that there was an outbreak of hostile broadcast takeovers. But the Max Headroom incident was different because it was a successful interruption that included real video content — not just text overlays.
It was a daring move. Amory: Which we learned, in part, from one of the only deep dive pieces of journalism produced about this incident, from a reporter named Chris. Chris Knittel: Hello. My name is Chris Knittel.
I'm a documentary producer, journalist, writer. Amory: Chris is usually doing documentary work about pretty heavy stuff — dog fighting, gun running, drug addiction. Max Headroom was a little outside of his usual wheelhouse. But when he stumbled upon YouTube videos of the broadcast interruption at two in the morning one night in , he became obsessed.
Chris: I was instantly sort of captured by this, by the imagery and the sounds and sort of spooked and kind of bewildered with it. Ben: Chris set out to do an investigative piece. One of the areas Chris focused on was the tech needed to pull off a stunt like this. In part, because once you understand the tools, you start to narrow the list of suspects. And what you need, simply put, is to become a broadcaster yourself.
Amory: This is what investigators focused on, too. Once the FCC got involved, there were two offices tackling the intrusion: the office in Washington D. Chris talked to a guy named Michael Marcus, an investigator on the case from the D. Including the fact that, when he started trying to figure out who was behind the intrusion, he ran into some problems. Chris: According to him, his hands were tied behind his back.
He said that he did have what he thought was a credible idea of where they broadcasted [sic] their transmission, where they sent their signal out. But someone who he would not name, specifically who he worked with — I think his boss — did not want him to go and pursue that, did not want him knocking on doors.
Ben: Chris did have a theory though. One that connected to this idea that if you follow the tech, you can find your broadcast intrusion perps. WGN, the first station that had its airwaves hacked, might have had some disgruntled employees. Chris: One area I didn't explore fully was there was a lot of layoffs in the months prior to the incident.
To me, I feel like it's most likely someone who is a former broadcast employee in whatever capacity. But there's no hard evidence out there. Ben: Basically, local cops versus national cops. Bigfooting stuff. And apparently, this may have influenced the effectiveness of the Headroom investigation.
Because even when the FCC office in D. Ben: We asked a former FCC investigator about this. His name is Jim Higgins, and he worked on all of the s broadcast intrusions cases. Ben: Did that contribute to the challenges with the case? Jim Higgins: Yeah, well, I'm not sure I would call it tension. I mean, the folks here in D. And the Chicago guys, you know, had some ideas and but they were the ones that are on the front lines.
So they took some advice, but they didn't take all of the advice. You know, I wasn't so involved in that piece. Ben: Can you explain some of this in the simplest five-year-old terms of like how something like this happens?
Is it someone getting close enough to the transmitter to broadcast their own signal that overwhelms the other signal to the transmitter? Jim: Actually, you just you just explained it probably in the simplest way. If your power is quite a bit stronger than the desired signal, then you'll override the desired signal and your signal will go out instead.
And we discussed, you know, what kind of equipment it probably would have taken to do that. So we assumed someone who had access to the means, but we're not sure of the motive. Ben: People have mentioned this idea that, at least at one of the stations, there had recently been some layoffs and the suggestion that there may have been a motive therein?
Jim: That's actually, now that you've mentioned that, that might have been something that I remember now hearing from our Chicago guys. And whoever was behind it, this was definitely a big deal at the time. Laws were being changed in the s to make intrusions like this a felony.
There were growing concerns about terrorism and extremism more generally. And at the time, broadcast intrusions felt like they could become a part of that.
Not just hackers taking the piss out of the mainstream — more serious issues. It captures the minds of people who want answers, including people on Reddit. Amory: And you will not be shocked to learn that Reddit did move the ball forward a bit. In part by focusing on the bizarre contents of the video itself. Which includes a parody of a Coke commercial, with the perpetrator throwing a Pepsi can…. Ben: Also, a rendition of the theme song for the animated show Clutch Cargo….
Max Headroom Hacker: sings Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo. Max Headroom Hacker: Oh I just made a giant masterpiece for all the greatest world newspaper nerds. Amory: And that brings us to one of the theories about the hack that has popped up over the years — that it was pulled off by these two brothers, known only to the public as J and K.
Ben: This theory was introduced, on Reddit, by a guy named Bowie Poag. And Chris Knittel, the reporter, says this post is a big part of what has kept this story going decades after it happened.
Chris: To me, his story on Reddit just sort of a kind of supercharged the mystery, you know, and kind of inspired people to go down their own rabbit holes. Amory: Bowie, this Redditor, eventually updated his Reddit post. He declined to record an interview with us. But he did answer a few of our questions via email, and so did his crime-solving partner — this guy named Rick Klein. Rick is the chief curator of an online museum of classic Chicago television, and he has a copy of the Max Headroom broadcast intrusion — the highest quality copy, he claims.
They both grew up in Chicago and witnessed the hack live when they were 13 years old. And they were both inspired by this hacker prankster subculture. They set up a tip line, they interviewed people who were around at the time, they did their own analysis of the video, but still…. Amory: Still no answer!
A lot of this story feels suspicious, which made us suspicious. So we asked Rick and Bowie if they were involved. They swore up and down that they were not. How about Chuck Swirsky, the sportscaster? Chuck: Absolutely not. I don't even — honestly, it takes me assistance to move pictures to a photo album on my computer.
I mean, seriously, I'm shocked that it hasn't been solved. Ben: Okay, what about Chris, who wrote thousands of words on this story? But what is his take on who was responsible? Amory: When you started reporting on this, did you set out to solve it? Chris: I don't know the answer to that because I don't know if I want it to be solved. Chris: You know, sometimes when you meet your heroes, you're disappointed. Chris: You know, I wouldn't rank them as my heroes.
But, you know, it's folklore. It's a myth. Through several conversations, Jankel, Morton, and Stone locked the story down, using as their narrative touchstones the films Network and Blade Runner.
American investigative journalist Edison Carter was a left-leaning firebrand who consistently provoked the ire of his superiors at the monolithic TV conglomerate Network His reporting of injustices committed down in the dystopian city below created discomfort, but Carter was the network's biggest star. They couldn't fire him, even if they wanted to — preferably before Carter caught on to the network's latest innovation: a microburst commercial called a " blipvert " that packed minutes of marketing pitch into seconds onscreen.
With this, the network could cater to far more sponsors in far less time, offering an unbeatable return on investment for advertisers.
Well, not completely unbeatable. Blipverts also had a nasty habit of making viewers' heads explode. Carter broke the story but knew he couldn't reveal the network's nefarious plan from inside the building. Security attempted to apprehend him, but Carter made his way to a motorcycle in the garage. In a last-ditch effort to stop him, Network 23's technology manager lowered the barrier as Carter sped toward the exit.
Believing that Carter might die from his injuries, the network's technology team attempted to extract his consciousness and upload it into their computer mainframe.
They couldn't afford to lose their star, after all. Carter didn't die. He also didn't lose his sense of right and wrong or the belief that there were proper ways of pursuing justice.
The central conceit of the Max Headroom story is that it illustrates a fragmented mind. Journalist Edison Carter believes in truth and justice. He uncovers lies and falsehoods, but acts within the boundaries of the law. Max Headroom, on the other hand, has no constraints.
His digital avatar jumps around all the programs broadcast from Network 23, and eventually to any broadcast anywhere. He disrupts and trolls, mocking the commercials that ostensibly pay for Network 23's programming and Edison Carter's wage. Max also has the freedom to drop uncomfortable truths the higher-ups attempt to keep buried. He's a digital graffiti artist tagging the side of the CEO's house like a rattle-can saboteur.
Somewhere in the production team's development stage, that changed. He was, after all, created to link music videos together, not to be a polarizing figure with the possibility of turning off half the viewing audience. In his final incarnation, Max Headroom was more of a firestarter than Carter's firefighter, but both were ideologically aligned. Science fiction is often a palatable way of delivering difficult content to a public that might reject it otherwise.
Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling was very transparent about this, saying the show's morality tales were refashioned as fantastic allegories to get them past CBS brass. Stories of white people confronting Black people or rich people taking advantage of poor people wouldn't fly, so Serling substituted in people versus aliens and the living confronting the dead.
Likewise, the Max Headroom series that eventually aired on ABC in the States dramatized oppressors against the oppressed. Average citizens could be kidnapped and sold for organ transplants on the black market. The potential of viewers exploding could be dismissed as an unintended consequence of getting better returns for corporate stakeholders. The television show looked like a nasty fever dream of tomorrow, but it was making sardonic comments about its present. And even though the show looks in hindsight like a product of its time, the storytelling is more relevant than ever.
Channel 4 now had the backstory it wanted, and it was far too rich a concept to not exploit. A film was commissioned to precede the Max Headroom show proper. After consideration of the detail in the story, producer Peter Wagg recognized that it wouldn't be a cheap or cheerful project.
He also stipulated that he wanted the program filmed in 35mm, not the less-expensive British TV standard 16mm. With Ellis' blessing, Wagg went to the United States to sell the project as a co-production. There was just one problem: The film was to be shot in the U. Edison Carter and Max Headroom were to be brash, in-your-face Americans, but money hadn't been allotted to do casting in the States. Luckily, Canadian-born actor Matt Frewer lived and worked in England. The production company now had its money and its Max, but it didn't have a shooting script.
Writers were suggested to Wagg and he met with one, Steve Roberts, in a pub to discuss the idea. However, after some conversation and drinks, Roberts fell in love with the anarchic spirit of the character and the show. He said the subversive nature of the gig — essentially taking company funds and converting them into audio-visual broadsides against late-stage capitalism — appealed to him.
Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future debuted on Channel 4 in and was a success. Its backbone of technology, corporate conspiracy, and dystopia melded into the cyberpunk movement in literature being pushed forward by authors such as William Gibson and Neal Stephenson. It wouldn't be long before American broadcast television started asking if they could get in on this Max Headroom thing too.
Throughout the mid-to-late '80s, the ABC network had a problem.
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