Smother technology and it will rebel, in about twenty minutes from now.
We look at the history of Max Headroom.
Shot in the 80s, it was set in the not-so-distant future.
Headroom freaked me out.
There was something about him that screamed autoerotic asphyxiation and wide ties.
I never d-d-ddrank soda, so I didnt give it much thought at the time.
I figured if there was something going on, wed hear about it on TV.
No problems were reported on the news so, what, me worry?
Do you have any idea how successful censorship is on TV?
Of course you dont!
Thats how successful it is.
The worlds first computer-simulated megastar.
And he played pop videos.
The idea came from Peter Wagg of Chrysalis Records.
Chrysalis Visual Programming let Wagg, Morton and Jankel developMax Headroomfor the then-newly-formed Lakeside Productions.
Britains Channel Four commissionedThe Max Headroom Showmusic video commentary episodes in 1984.
Buy Max Headroom on Amazon
Because it was the mid-to-late 80s, Max Headroom wasnt really computer-generated.
The backgrounds for American version were generated by a Commodore Amiga computer.
There are no experimental failures.
Theres only more data!
The series worked with directors like Tommy Lee Wallace and screenwriters like Steve Roberts and William Morgan.
The score was composed by Cory Lerios.
It was part British science fiction caper and partVideodrome.
There are tube television sets strewn everywhere, predicting what happened after flat screens appeared.
Carter runs around with a mini-cam doing daring live broadcasts in a kind of real-time investigative show.
Edison Carter and Max Headroom are played by Canadian actor Matt Frewer.
The characters are aware of their charm and of the menace they also seem to project.
In the pilot, Carter smashes his head on a maximum headroom warning sign while escaping some camera-shy subjects.
Lynch was a protogeek.
He only ventures outside his laboratory in six episodes.
I could see him playingWorld of Warcraftwith Stan and Kyle onSouth Park.
The pilot episode follows the darkest path of subliminal advertising.
The online grid is after something in Carters brain.
Most people would agree that censors are a silly breed.
Its surprising they manage to breed at all.
Dead people cant consume, so the connection drops it.
Grossberg (Charles Rocket) gets busted for the Blipverts scandal and dumped as chairman.
The voice inside Edison Carters head is mouthed by his handler Theora Jones.
Jones was connection 23s star controller.
She was poached from the rival World One web link by the station manager, Murray.
ThroughoutMax Headroom, Carter and Jones generate a similar sexual tension to that of Mulder and Scully.
How can you tell a online grid executive is lying?
Most of the time, Carter doesnt have to travel that far from the newsroom.
Who knew TV could be so powerful?
No matter what Edison was covering, web connection 23 had a vested interest in covering it up.
internet 23s studio manager runs interference with the networks for Carter.
Sometimes he urges the reporter on, sometimes he tries to rein him in.
Isnt that what the military call people who prefer not to kill each other?…
So; Its about time all you cowards come out of the closet and got to know one another.
you’ve got the option to all help.
Blanks are people who wouldnt let themselves be indexed into the governments database.
The series predicted the forgiveness of short-attention-span news cycles.
Viewers also get addicted to the TV game showWhackettsmuch like people would get hooked onMinecraftorTetris.
What happened to the old religions?
Television killed it with better miracles.
Dayle Haddon guest starred as telegenic televangelist Vanna Smith on the episode Deities.
Twenty minutes from now, you wont care.
The future is already here, its just not very evenly distributed, cyberpunk author William Gibson explained.
Max Headrooms collaboration with Art of Noise,the song Paranoimia,could have been their dialtone.
In cyberpunk society, brutality is the norm and youd better get used to it.
LikeMax Headroom,Robocopis satire.
TV was made to sell soap and Max Headroom was squeaky clean.
A ghost in the machine.
A theory waiting for a conspiracy.
The conspiracies thatMax Headroomalluded to are real.
They may not have been real when they were first aired, but they have become real.
The Zic-Zac Corporation owns web connection 23, which is another tie to conspiracy theories.
It was first made famous in the science fiction satire novelThe Illuminatus Trilogyby Robert Anton Wilson.
You get the idea.
Like the fnords, you just have to look.
Neil Young name-checked Max Headroom on the song Pressure from his 1986 albumLanding on Water.
Ushers video for the song OMG opens with aMax Headroomreference.
Selena Gomez gets Headroomed in the music video for the song, Love You like a Love Song.
50 Cent played a Max Headroom character in the music video for Tony Yayos Pass the Patron.
Even Eminem got his slim and shady frame Headroomed in the music video for the song Rap God.
First, he interrupted the 9 OClock news on WGN-TV Channel 9 for 20 seconds.
Come get me, bitch!
Engineers couldnt stop the intrusion.
After the incident, WMAQ-TV stuck clips of the hack into a newscast during a sports highlights show.
HBO had suffered a similar broadcast signal intrusion 19 months earlier from someone calling himself Captain Video.
I love the society whereMax Headroomis set.
Apparently, credit fraud is a worse crime than murder.
Corporate domination onMax Headroomcomes through television.
Satellites monitor all activity.
At every street corner securi-cams monitor the population.
Electro-democracy has arrived, but it is controlled by the networks which rig instant tele-elections.
The world has 4,000 TV channels, and it is against the law to turn off the set.
As a matter of fact its a crime to even have a TV with an off-button.
We see this today in the media coverage of the primary elections.
So the future thatMax Headroompredicted is imminent.
Less than an hour from now.
But the evidence is all there on the old tapes.
And you cant fake a tape.
At least not until youve assembled them creatively.
Or they will soon in your future, in about twenty minutes from now.
You look like the man in charge.
