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Speaker 1: Salt Lake City, Utah, and Phoenix, Arizona. We're coming to

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Speaker 1: see you. Yes, we are, so come see Yes, why

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Speaker 1: don't you. Yeah, we put out the call to Salt

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Speaker 1: Lake City and said should we come there? And tickets

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Speaker 1: are going gangbusters. You guys really responded. Yeah, we thought

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Speaker 1: you were just like, this is all just a joke,

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Speaker 1: but no, it's turning out quite well. We're gonna be

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Speaker 1: there October twenty three at the Grand Theater in Salt

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Speaker 1: Lake City, and then the next night we'll be in

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Speaker 1: Phoenix at the Van Buren. And we can't wait to

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Speaker 1: see you, guys, So please come out and see us.

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Speaker 1: And if you want tickets, you can go to s

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Speaker 1: y s K live dot com for those and Chuck

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Speaker 1: and yes to our friends down Enda Melbourne, boy, we

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Speaker 1: are super psyched because you love us and you sold

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Speaker 1: us out very quickly. So we have added a second

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Speaker 1: show that I believe is actually an earlier show, isn't

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Speaker 1: that right? Yeah, it's a five thirties show. I believe

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Speaker 1: that Melbourne is the one that we added, and it's

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Speaker 1: gonna be cool. It's gonna be like a sweet little Mattinee. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we call that Happy Hour in our kind tree. Yeah

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Speaker 1: that's right. So make sure you guys bring a slab each.

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Speaker 1: That's right in Perth and Brisbane. Step it up. Yeah

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Speaker 1: that's right. So if you want to come see us,

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Speaker 1: go to s y s K Live. Whether you're in

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Speaker 1: the US, whether you're in Australia, whether you're in New Zealand,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. You can go to the same site

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Speaker 1: and hang out with us and there you go. See

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Speaker 1: you guys soon. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from

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Speaker 1: House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark, There's Chuck Bryant, Jerry Roland. You think

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Speaker 1: pretty good. It's pretty good, and this is stuff you

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Speaker 1: should Know. Josh ed Room, thank you you've been I

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Speaker 1: saw you over there with your earbuds today. You were

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Speaker 1: working on this all day, weren't you. I watched season

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Speaker 1: one episode one of Max Headroom, Like the last ten

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Speaker 1: minutes is still pending, okay, but it's crazy, Like Max

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Speaker 1: Headroam himself doesn't show up until like forty minutes into

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Speaker 1: the first hour long episode, but when he does, it's dynamite.

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Speaker 1: So what are we talking about. We're talking about Max

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Speaker 1: Headroam that's right. A huge shout out at the beginning

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Speaker 1: of this two buis dot com specifically Motherboard, specifically Alex Pasternak. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: who wrote the article on Motherboard And we actually we

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Speaker 1: used to blog a little bit for them back in

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Speaker 1: the day, remember that. Yeah. I don't think they like

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Speaker 1: to talk about that or acknowledge it publicly, you know,

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Speaker 1: I don't think so. Oh, I think it was mutually beneficial.

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Speaker 1: I'll bet you can't find those on Motherboard anymore. Trying

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Speaker 1: to remember. I'm sure they were like I think I

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Speaker 1: read one about driving a stick shift versus automatic or

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Speaker 1: something weird. That's a big one. Yeah. We started out

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Speaker 1: with an old fashioned recipe, I think, yeah, that was you.

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Speaker 1: They were like, let's do better than this guy's and

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Speaker 1: we said no, And then they said we got our

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Speaker 1: own people. Yeah, we'll let somebody come in and go

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Speaker 1: strike for you. Yeah. So that Motherboard articles the basis

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Speaker 1: and from what I found, I mean, we we used

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Speaker 1: a lot of different sources on this, but this article

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Speaker 1: entitled the Mystery of the Creepiest Television Heck is sort

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Speaker 1: of the culmination like the Kuda gra kDa gra of

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Speaker 1: Max Headroom incidental articles. Yeah, it actually really good job.

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Speaker 1: Pastor Neck like very exhaustively investigated it and turned up

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Speaker 1: new information, got new new um, a new understanding of it,

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Speaker 1: and basically contributed to the mythos of it himself. It's

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Speaker 1: a way to go, Pastor Neck, right. And what we're

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Speaker 1: talking about is if you if you don't know who

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Speaker 1: Max Headroom at all is, We're about to set that up. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: let's talk about Max headrom But if you were alive

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Speaker 1: during the nineteen eighties, then you probably know who Max

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Speaker 1: Headroom is because weirdly, for a brief few years it

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Speaker 1: was kind of a big pop culture at about four

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Speaker 1: years by my by my calculations. So starting in there

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Speaker 1: was a movie called Max Headroom Colon so you know

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Speaker 1: his an important movie twenty Minutes in the Future, right,

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Speaker 1: and it was a kind of a cyberpunk movie, um

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Speaker 1: dystopium future, very Terry Gilliam brazil ish um, and it

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Speaker 1: was I'm not I haven't seen that one, but it

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Speaker 1: was basically where the character of Max Headroom was born, right,

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Speaker 1: And I think it actually formed the basis for the

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Speaker 1: TV show later in between the later TV show that

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Speaker 1: you and I are more familiar with and that movie

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Speaker 1: Max Headroom was a pop culture sensation. He was a

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Speaker 1: pitchman for New Coke. I went and watched an old ad.

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Speaker 1: He was in an ad with run DMC pitching New Coke,

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Speaker 1: and I was like, doesn't get any more eighties than this?

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Speaker 1: But it was actually a pretty cool ad, right was it?

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Speaker 1: Did it say, here's a little story A need to

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Speaker 1: tell about a New Coke on the scene that he

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Speaker 1: loves so well, that was exactly word for word how

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Speaker 1: that ad went. So so let's back up a little more. Right, Okay,

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Speaker 1: let's describe what Max Headroom is for the kids, because

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Speaker 1: I guarantee it about eight percent of our our audience

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Speaker 1: are like, what's the eighties? What's New Coke? Who's run DMC?

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Speaker 1: Well that's probably not true, but what so what was

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Speaker 1: Max Headroom? He was builed as like the first virtual

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Speaker 1: um talk show host, right correct? Okay, yeah, so he

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Speaker 1: was played by a guy named Matt Frewer, who, out

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Speaker 1: of prosthetic makeup, had that look anyway, very chiseled, square jawed.

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Speaker 1: He was not bald, but had he had a receding hairline. Okay,

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Speaker 1: but he kept it really really short, so it kind

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Speaker 1: of looks bald. Yeah. Here, this will explain it to

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Speaker 1: all the kids at home. He was a colleague of

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Speaker 1: Murphy Brown and the Murphy Brown television. Yeah, they're like,

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Speaker 1: oh that guy, Yeah, not the painter, the other one,

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Speaker 1: the love interest. I don't think I knew that. I

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Speaker 1: never watched more Peole Brown though. Oh man, I hope

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Speaker 1: that was him. I'm pretty sure it was him. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: well he's been around, he's still acting today. But yes,

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Speaker 1: he played the character of Max Headroom, and the TV

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Speaker 1: show Max Headroom was actually pretty far ahead of its time,

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Speaker 1: totally speaking. Yeah, so the whole, the whole premise of

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Speaker 1: the TV show, the last his big last, great gasp

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Speaker 1: that was actually the most serious of all of it

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Speaker 1: was where in the future TV networks controlled the world,

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Speaker 1: and there was the station that network twenty three that

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Speaker 1: Matt Frewer's character and later Max Headroom, who became his

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Speaker 1: alter ego, worked for. We're putting these things called blip

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Speaker 1: firts out his His character's name was Edison Carter at first,

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Speaker 1: and he was like an investigative journalist. So um, he

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Speaker 1: starts looking into these blip firsts because the problem with

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Speaker 1: blip firsts they are thirty second ads used into three seconds,

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Speaker 1: and it's meant to keep you from changing the channel.

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Speaker 1: The problem is is that everybody watched so much TV

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Speaker 1: by this time, they didn't move around, which meant that

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Speaker 1: all of the electricity generated by their nerve endings wasn't

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Speaker 1: burned off as how the how the show explained it.

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Speaker 1: So when their brains were assaulted with these blip verts,

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Speaker 1: they kind of short circuited, and all that electricity that

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Speaker 1: was just hanging around their bodies because they weren't moving

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Speaker 1: at all during the day, made them explode. The network

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Speaker 1: really liked blip urts and they didn't want to get

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Speaker 1: rid of them, so they decided to instead get rid

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Speaker 1: of Edison Carter. Yeah, and the TV advertising at the time,

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Speaker 1: or advertising in general sort of not only did TV

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Speaker 1: rule the world, but the ads behind it was really

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Speaker 1: the driving force. It sounds very familiar, it does. Everyone's like,

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Speaker 1: I take a blip furt, give me a three second

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Speaker 1: ad on the podcast guys, it will blow you up.

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Speaker 1: So what they what ended up happening was was the

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Speaker 1: character of Edison Carter eventually was there was an incident

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Speaker 1: not the Max Headroom It's in it where he was

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Speaker 1: left in a coma in an episode the first episode,

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the pilot, of course. And the last thing

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Speaker 1: he sees before falling into a coma is a sign

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Speaker 1: that said Max Headroom colon two point three meters. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And so that's how he got the name Max cum right.

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Speaker 1: It was in like a parking garage and it was

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Speaker 1: basically saying, this is the overhead clearance. Is the way

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Speaker 1: it it's put in the United States. Yeah, right, so

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Speaker 1: that's the name Max Headroum right. But he was an

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Speaker 1: AI character, right, So the the Evil TV network got

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Speaker 1: ahold of him, uploaded his brain um and they originally

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Speaker 1: did this with the intent of bringing Edison Carter because

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Speaker 1: again he was like their star reporter. Bringing him back

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Speaker 1: in virtual forms, they created an artificial intelligence. Well, it's

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Speaker 1: kind of glitchy and blippy and it looked weird, so

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Speaker 1: they threw it out. Well, some pirate broadcasters got a

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Speaker 1: hold of this, this database that that Max Hedrom lived on,

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Speaker 1: and they started broadcasting with him, and Max Hendrom was born.

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Speaker 1: That's right. And you said glitchy and blippy, and that

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Speaker 1: kids explains your intro when you went to Josh, Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I was doing Thank you for explaining that Yeah, that

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Speaker 1: bears Josh was He's He's okay everybody. So that's what

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Speaker 1: Max Hedroum did. It was jittery, it was blippy, Like

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Speaker 1: you said, the background was this weird sort of horizontal

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Speaker 1: and diagonal line moving around thing, and that was all

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Speaker 1: part of this at the time sort of futuristic look.

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Speaker 1: He was also really sarcastic and really caddy, and he

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Speaker 1: was really um. He poked fun at censorship and he

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Speaker 1: was just kind of like a cult hero just the

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Speaker 1: character itself. Right. Yeah. The awesome thing about him is

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Speaker 1: in the real world of we didn't have any kind

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Speaker 1: of computers that could generate a c g I post,

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Speaker 1: so they actually used like prosthetics, Like there was a

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Speaker 1: four hour process to put Matt freu Or into the

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Speaker 1: Max Headroom makeup. So it's the guy acting and then

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Speaker 1: you know, they messed with the video a little bit.

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Speaker 1: But it wasn't a c a c g I version

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Speaker 1: of a guy. It was a guy acting like he

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Speaker 1: was a c g I version of himself, right, which

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Speaker 1: is why if, for instance, if Max Headroom the character

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Speaker 1: were to appear on say David Letterman, which he did,

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Speaker 1: it would be Letterman interviewing a TV screen, which is

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Speaker 1: what they did, but it was actually Matt Frewer in

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Speaker 1: another studio. He was probably just backstage broadcast. And it's

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Speaker 1: really like, as a kid, I did not get all this, No,

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Speaker 1: I just thought it was a I didn't really know

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Speaker 1: what it was because I've never seen the show. I

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Speaker 1: thought he was the coke guy, right right, And I

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Speaker 1: think I've seen the show a little bit. I was like,

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Speaker 1: this is way too grown up for me. Um, But

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Speaker 1: I think I just kind of took it on faith

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Speaker 1: that he was computer generated or something like that. I

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Speaker 1: didn't really think about it much. But now as an

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Speaker 1: adult looking back, I'm like, that is brilliant and really difficult.

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Speaker 1: And the fact that they did this and pulled it

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Speaker 1: off as well as they did, it's it's it's a

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Speaker 1: it's a pretty amazing thing, right, And you can kind

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Speaker 1: of understand how Max Headroom with all that information now

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Speaker 1: became this kind of cult icon, especially among cyberpunks at

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Speaker 1: the time, and what just keep saying cyberpunk. So so

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Speaker 1: let me let me I'm I'm I'm not like particularly

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Speaker 1: well versed in like what constitutes cyberpunk, but like it's

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Speaker 1: like pornography to a Supreme Court justice, Like I know

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Speaker 1: it when I see it, right, Sure, So if you

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Speaker 1: watch the Max Headroom Show, you're like, that's cyberpunk. RoboCop

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Speaker 1: is supposedly cyberpunk, right. It's like a bleak technological future

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Speaker 1: where people are controlled by almost down to their minds,

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Speaker 1: by the government or some corporation or some amalgamation of

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Speaker 1: the two. That's pretty cyberpunk. Right. So at the time

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Speaker 1: you had what are called geeks and nerds, but they

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Speaker 1: are not really what you would call the geek or

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Speaker 1: a nerd today. Right, somebody who wears like glasses that

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Speaker 1: don't actually have prescription glass in them. Do people do that?

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Speaker 1: That's some people do. I did that in the fourth grade. Well,

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Speaker 1: then you were a geek apparently, No. I was a

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Speaker 1: prep and I wore those little tortoiseshell round uh preppy

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Speaker 1: glasses because that was a cool look. And actually, when

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Speaker 1: it's it's one of my least proud moments. Fashion wise

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Speaker 1: has actually bought fake glasses and more than around you

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Speaker 1: have photos of those. I'd really have to dig through

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Speaker 1: some boxes. I think I speak for everyone when I

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Speaker 1: say started digging dig Yeah, it was not my proudest moment. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'd like to see that picture. So. Um, at the time,

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Speaker 1: people who were geeks, nerds, that whole culture was very

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Speaker 1: much derided and pushed around. I mean, look at the

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Speaker 1: Revenge of the Nerds, right like they came out on top.

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Speaker 1: I watched a little bit of that just the other night.

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Speaker 1: This is probably the earliest celebration of nerd culture. It

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Speaker 1: was not something that was like venerated or subscribed to

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Speaker 1: by anyone who wasn't a genuine nerd or geek. And

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Speaker 1: these were a very rarefied group of people who really

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Speaker 1: knew what they were doing with computers at a time

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Speaker 1: when almost no one else did. Early adopters across the

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Speaker 1: board very much so. Right, So, so Maxidim is kind

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Speaker 1: of a cult hero to this guy, and um, that

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Speaker 1: kind of sets up what happened on November twenty in

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Speaker 1: a little town called Chicago, Illinois, the city of industry,

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Speaker 1: city that doesn't ever sleep never, the windy city that's it?

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Speaker 1: Are you go of all time? The windy city of

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Speaker 1: all time? Yeah? So that sets the stage. We know

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Speaker 1: who who the character of Max Headroom was? Then yes,

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Speaker 1: are you sure I set the stage? I think so?

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Speaker 1: Did we set the stage fully here it looks nice alight.

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Speaker 1: So a PM on that November night in Chicago, four

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Speaker 1: days before Thanksgiving. Yeah, so everyone was in that frame

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Speaker 1: of mind, put yourself there. I think that that helps

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Speaker 1: a lot. It helped me at least football seasons going on. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, just that very day, the

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Speaker 1: Bears had beat the Lions, which you know, it's a

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Speaker 1: long time ago. Because the Bears won a football game,

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Speaker 1: the people in the Windy City of all time, we're

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Speaker 1: not gonna be happy with you for that city time.

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Speaker 1: Oh and there's a sportscaster on local channel nine, uh

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Speaker 1: Dan Rone r a in and he was was going

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Speaker 1: over the highlights of that football game. Then all of

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Speaker 1: a sudden, right in the middle, the broadcast signal goes.

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Speaker 1: It makes those noise noises. And then over at w

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Speaker 1: g N the control room, they were like, what's what's

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Speaker 1: going on here? We have no idea what this is.

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Speaker 1: I think the exact quote was a girl. So um,

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Speaker 1: what happened was they eventually what what where they were

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Speaker 1: doing at the time was And this is how We're

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Speaker 1: not going to go into the weeds here on how

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Speaker 1: broadcast signals work, but what they did back in the day,

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Speaker 1: was they broadcast microwave transmissions to antenna's at the top

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Speaker 1: of the tallest buildings of whatever city that they were

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Speaker 1: in for local TV, for local TV, which is I

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Speaker 1: mean there was cable at the time, but local TV

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Speaker 1: still kind of ruled, yeah in the well sort of

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Speaker 1: in the late eighties, right, So like starting to segue

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Speaker 1: to cable, Yeah, for sure, cable is you know, kind

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Speaker 1: of a thing, but you if you were a local

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Speaker 1: TV station, you still have pretty big market share of it, right,

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Speaker 1: especially w g N in Chicago. I mean it's like

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Speaker 1: Chicago station, right absolutely, So what you I think you're

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Speaker 1: saying is that in a studio, whatever they're recording or

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Speaker 1: shooting or playing on their their little video tapes, they're

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Speaker 1: they're beaming that from the actual studio to a transmitter

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Speaker 1: stay atop a very tall building, and then that just

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Speaker 1: kind of bounces around to other transmitters and that's how

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Speaker 1: everybody in Chicago gets their w g N signal, right, Right,

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Speaker 1: So all of a sudden, during the sportscast, it skits

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Speaker 1: is out and then all of a sudden you see

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Speaker 1: a a guy in a suit, uh wearing a Max

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Speaker 1: headroom mask and it was there was no audio. That

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Speaker 1: was I guess the problem with this first intrusion that

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Speaker 1: was called a broadcast intrusion. Yeah, but you couldn't hear anything.

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Speaker 1: But I'm sure it was certainly distressing to a viewer

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Speaker 1: to see this kind of weird thing happened, especially if

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Speaker 1: viewer who wanted to know what the heck happened between

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Speaker 1: the Bears and the Lions that day. And um, the

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Speaker 1: whole thing lasted I think like eleven seconds or some

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Speaker 1: very short amount of time. Yeah, this was a short

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Speaker 1: one Before um, the w g N engineers went and

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Speaker 1: switched to the backup transmitter and and I guess transmitted

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Speaker 1: on a slightly different signal and brought the broadcast, the

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Speaker 1: sportscaster back on and Dan Rone was like, uh, if

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Speaker 1: you're wondering what just happened, so am I right? There's

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Speaker 1: a chuckle in between. I wasn't going to do my

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Speaker 1: impression of it, but it's good. You should watch it,

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Speaker 1: like somebody just go look it up, right, So Federal Investigators,

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Speaker 1: the FEC that is, was called in to investigate, um

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Speaker 1: what technically is well not technically it's a crime to

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Speaker 1: do so. And then just a few minutes later, they thought, well,

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Speaker 1: this is probably coming from inside the building, and so

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Speaker 1: that's the first place they started looking. They said, the

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Speaker 1: intrusions coming from inside the building exactly. They didn't find anybody, though,

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Speaker 1: I mean it was, as you'll see after we explained further,

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Speaker 1: it would make sense that you would look in the building, Yeah, right,

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Speaker 1: for something like this inside job. There apparently was not

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Speaker 1: an inside job at least as far as the w

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Speaker 1: g N Engineers search was concerned. Right, right, So that

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Speaker 1: was at nine fourteen. About two hours later, I think,

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Speaker 1: at eleven fifteen, on another channel in Chicago, w t

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Speaker 1: t W, which was the PBS station, they were airing

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Speaker 1: an episode of Doctor who called the Horror on fang Island,

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Speaker 1: fang Rock, fang Rock, Horror of fang Rock. You have

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Speaker 1: to say it like that, the Horror of fang Rock.

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Speaker 1: Thank you. And this is the Tom Baker doctor. Okay,

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Speaker 1: that's the only one I recognize that. Really he's seventies, right, Hey,

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Speaker 1: I'm no doctor. Who guys, don't it looked like it

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Speaker 1: looked like the seventies. What they cut in on looked

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Speaker 1: pretty seventies. It didn't look eighty seven. So who do

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Speaker 1: would think it would be at seven. I'm guess it

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Speaker 1: was a rerun on PBS, That's what I think. Alright,

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Speaker 1: we'll find out and oh man, we're going to find

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Speaker 1: out too. That would have been super easy to check. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: at any rate, Um, the the in the middle of

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Speaker 1: this Doctor Who episode, it suddenly cuts out again, and

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Speaker 1: now you've got what appears to be the full run

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Speaker 1: of this Max headroom intrusion. Yes, instead of thirty seconds,

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Speaker 1: this one was a minute in twenty two seconds. And

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Speaker 1: right now, I would say, if you are somewhere where

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Speaker 1: you can pause and go to a video online video

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Speaker 1: carrier of your choosing and type in Max headroom incident,

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Speaker 1: spend the next minute in twenty two seconds watching it.

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Speaker 1: We'll wait and we'll wait. We'll just in cert a

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Speaker 1: minute seconds of silence here, how about this. Let's take

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Speaker 1: a break and then we'll come back and then we'll

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Speaker 1: talk about exactly what happened during that minute in two seconds. Okay,

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Speaker 1: we're back. Did you watch it? Are you talking to me? Okay?

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Speaker 1: I'm guessing that people people did watch it. A few

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Speaker 1: people did, smart ones did. Because this is really tough

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Speaker 1: to describe, and we're going to try but it's something

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Speaker 1: you really have to see you in here. It's genuinely

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Speaker 1: disturbing sitting in an office years later watching it, and

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Speaker 1: I can imagine if I was at home, I would

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Speaker 1: have probably been a little freaked out. You found it disturbing, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I found it hilarious in like a really juvenile way. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it creeps me out. It was like watching David Byrne

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Speaker 1: on acid at a talking head show. That's what I

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Speaker 1: think of when I saw that, you know, all right,

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Speaker 1: so let's let's describe the scene here. Okay, so you

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Speaker 1: got Max Headroom, well, actually a dude wearing a rubbers

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Speaker 1: rubber Halloween mask of Max Headroom. And this this is

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Speaker 1: just genius to me. So you mentioned earlier about how

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Speaker 1: the Max Headroom had like these kind of grid lines

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Speaker 1: behind them at all times and they kind of moved

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Speaker 1: and adjusted. They were different colors to do to to

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Speaker 1: simulate that these guys had like a piece of corrugated metal,

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Speaker 1: shiny metal, and I guess they had an attached somehow

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Speaker 1: to something that rocked it back and forth, and they

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Speaker 1: kind of somebody was clearly rocking it back and forth

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Speaker 1: here there erratically, and it really does a good job.

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Speaker 1: It gets the point across that it looked like the

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Speaker 1: Max bed Room TV show. The Yeah, the back in

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Speaker 1: the character. Yes, but again I would say that this

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Speaker 1: person was very very clearly on acid. Well, I think

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Speaker 1: what disturbs me, and I need to make it clear.

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Speaker 1: It is definitely funny and stupid. But what disturbs me

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Speaker 1: is the sound of the voice, which is all garble.

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Speaker 1: It's really like on YouTube. It has subtitles thankfully because

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Speaker 1: it's hard to make out, and a lot of times

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Speaker 1: it just says can't you know understand what he's saying

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Speaker 1: or whatever? Uh? And the garble quality and just the

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Speaker 1: random weirdness that's going on. It's not like it was

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Speaker 1: creepier to mean than if v for Vendetta dude had

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Speaker 1: a come on Guy Fox had to come on and said,

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Speaker 1: you know, we are coming into your thing to tell

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Speaker 1: you this about this. This was just so weird and

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Speaker 1: all over the place. It was creepy to me. Yeah, well, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I see what you mean, Like you're watching some nonsensical

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Speaker 1: somebody's brain slightly damaged, watching somebody lose their mind. Right, Okay, yeah,

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Speaker 1: totally get that. Um, And here's here's what the guy

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Speaker 1: did that would make you feel like he lost his mind. Um,

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Speaker 1: this is the weird thing to me. It's it's very

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Speaker 1: targeted towards w g N, right, almost so much so

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Speaker 1: that some people would say this was clearly somebody who

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Speaker 1: had a grudge against w g N. He makes fun

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Speaker 1: of the bulls um sportscaster, the guy who worked for

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Speaker 1: w g N at the time. He makes reference to

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Speaker 1: how he just made a masterpiece for the Greatest World's

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Speaker 1: Newspaper Nerds, which was a messed up version of w

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Speaker 1: g n's call letters stand for World's Greatest Newspaper. He

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Speaker 1: wields a rubber penis. That's one. Although it was great

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Speaker 1: and almost every article it was referred to as a

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Speaker 1: marital aid. Did you see that? No? But uh, I

399
00:23:36,400 --> 00:23:39,560
Speaker 1: actually guessed it on Strickland's Tech stuff like four years ago,

400
00:23:40,040 --> 00:23:42,120
Speaker 1: and we covered this and I called it a marital aide,

401
00:23:42,200 --> 00:23:45,800
Speaker 1: did you okay? So I wanted to keep it clean.

402
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Speaker 1: I realized that saying the word penis is okay, Well,

403
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Speaker 1: it's clinical. I mean, we did a puberty episode, surely

404
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Speaker 1: we we have the chops to say penis. But marital

405
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Speaker 1: aide is hilarious, especially in this context. Like this crazy

406
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Speaker 1: dude don Acid wearing a Max Headroom mask is has

407
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Speaker 1: a marital aid. No he doesn't, that's not what that

408
00:24:08,720 --> 00:24:12,240
Speaker 1: is in that context. Yeah, and that's the new T shirt.

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Speaker 1: By the way, what we have the chops to say,

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Speaker 1: pienis so that's a band name. Let's go ahead and

411
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Speaker 1: use some of the let's go and say some of

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Speaker 1: the direct quotes. So he comes on and he goes

413
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Speaker 1: he's a freaking nerd. I think I'm better than Chuck Swarsky,

414
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Speaker 1: freaking liberal. That's a really good impression of it. And

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Speaker 1: Chuck Swarsky was the Bulls guy. Yeah, the sports announcer.

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Speaker 1: And this is a time too when like the Bulls were, Um,

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Speaker 1: this is the Jordan Pippen era. Still, I mean well

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Speaker 1: still it's at the beginning of it. Was seven. I

419
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Speaker 1: thought it was like in the middle of it. M hmm.

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Speaker 1: Was at the beginning pretty early earli ish. Let's say,

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Speaker 1: I wish these days that I would have been more

422
00:24:54,400 --> 00:24:58,640
Speaker 1: cognizant and like more into basketball and like I am

423
00:24:58,680 --> 00:25:01,719
Speaker 1: now see that's what I was the most into. It

424
00:25:01,760 --> 00:25:05,480
Speaker 1: was bird Jordan's magic to watch some of those games. Yeah,

425
00:25:05,520 --> 00:25:07,360
Speaker 1: that was good stuff because that's when the Hawks were

426
00:25:07,359 --> 00:25:11,800
Speaker 1: good back then, Yeah, back then, Dominique, Hey, shout out

427
00:25:11,800 --> 00:25:14,119
Speaker 1: to Kent base Moore. You know he listens to this

428
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:16,120
Speaker 1: show that way, he's a fan. How did you find

429
00:25:16,119 --> 00:25:20,560
Speaker 1: that out? Twitter? Yeah, that's great, man, I love base

430
00:25:20,760 --> 00:25:23,400
Speaker 1: I know. How do you not love bas Man? He's

431
00:25:23,400 --> 00:25:26,720
Speaker 1: brought right right now. That's so cool. Alright, So, uh,

432
00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:31,080
Speaker 1: Chuck Sworski's freaking liberal. Uh. He's wielding the rubber penis

433
00:25:32,480 --> 00:25:35,400
Speaker 1: the marital aide. He drops that. Then he picks up

434
00:25:35,440 --> 00:25:37,680
Speaker 1: a new coke while you can't really tell if it

435
00:25:38,640 --> 00:25:40,720
Speaker 1: oh was it? Okay? I couldn't really tell. He picks

436
00:25:40,760 --> 00:25:43,679
Speaker 1: up a can and but he says catch the wave,

437
00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:47,119
Speaker 1: which is the new Coke slogan. Right. Then he starts humming.

438
00:25:47,240 --> 00:25:50,560
Speaker 1: It's so random. Then he starts humming the theme song

439
00:25:51,320 --> 00:25:55,000
Speaker 1: to the sixties show Clutch Cargo, which is weird in

440
00:25:55,119 --> 00:25:58,320
Speaker 1: and of itself. Sure, that's that one where it's like animation,

441
00:25:58,680 --> 00:26:01,439
Speaker 1: but for the mouths. That was just like a human

442
00:26:01,480 --> 00:26:04,680
Speaker 1: mouth moving with that's disturbing. Yeah, that was. If you've

443
00:26:04,680 --> 00:26:07,560
Speaker 1: seen pulp fiction, it was the scene where Bruce Willis

444
00:26:07,600 --> 00:26:10,120
Speaker 1: was a kid and Christopher Walkin comes in with the

445
00:26:10,160 --> 00:26:14,600
Speaker 1: wristwatch scene. Um, that Clutch Cargo is playing on TV

446
00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:17,720
Speaker 1: when he's watching it. But it is weird looking, right,

447
00:26:17,880 --> 00:26:19,600
Speaker 1: so you would say, why did you do the Clutch

448
00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:22,359
Speaker 1: Cargo theme? Well, again, this is a w g N

449
00:26:22,440 --> 00:26:25,679
Speaker 1: thing and apparently that's where you saw it as as

450
00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:30,119
Speaker 1: a kid. Yeah on um in Chicago. Okay, So he says, also,

451
00:26:30,400 --> 00:26:34,200
Speaker 1: your love is fading. I still see the X, which

452
00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:37,800
Speaker 1: apparently is something from the last episode of Clutch Cargo. Yeah,

453
00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:41,280
Speaker 1: that was the Big X or something. And then he says,

454
00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:43,800
Speaker 1: what you're talking about earlier, I just made a joint

455
00:26:43,920 --> 00:26:47,879
Speaker 1: masterpiece for all the greatest World Newspaper nerds. But he

456
00:26:48,080 --> 00:26:52,080
Speaker 1: should have said world's Greatest Newspaper Nerds w g IN right,

457
00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:54,800
Speaker 1: which you might find confusing, as I did too. But

458
00:26:54,880 --> 00:27:00,400
Speaker 1: apparently the Chicago Tribune Company owns w g N TV,

459
00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 1: so they called themselves World's Greatest Newspaper TV. Right. It's

460
00:27:06,560 --> 00:27:09,639
Speaker 1: all coming together. It's so fact though. There you go.

461
00:27:10,320 --> 00:27:13,240
Speaker 1: Then finally towards the end, the camera cuts to a

462
00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:18,040
Speaker 1: different angle. Uh, this one has the dude bent over

463
00:27:18,200 --> 00:27:21,320
Speaker 1: with his bare butt hanging out. His face is now

464
00:27:21,359 --> 00:27:24,600
Speaker 1: off screen, but he's holding the mask still out like

465
00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:26,960
Speaker 1: his head is in it, but it's not. And there

466
00:27:27,160 --> 00:27:30,520
Speaker 1: is a person I say woman, but I don't know,

467
00:27:30,760 --> 00:27:33,240
Speaker 1: but a person in a like an anti Oakley dress?

468
00:27:33,600 --> 00:27:35,360
Speaker 1: Is that what it was? I didn't get that. Yeah,

469
00:27:35,359 --> 00:27:39,159
Speaker 1: it looked like a prairie bonnet ensemble, but the bonnet

470
00:27:39,200 --> 00:27:40,560
Speaker 1: kind of hides the face, so you don't know if

471
00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:43,440
Speaker 1: it's a man or a woman. And they are spanking

472
00:27:44,400 --> 00:27:48,080
Speaker 1: the bare butt with a fly swatter, and he's worried

473
00:27:48,119 --> 00:27:50,639
Speaker 1: about them coming to get him. They're going to get me,

474
00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:53,320
Speaker 1: and then he says come get me and uses a

475
00:27:53,359 --> 00:27:56,800
Speaker 1: bad word, B word, the B word, and then it

476
00:27:56,840 --> 00:28:00,359
Speaker 1: goes back to Dr Who. Yeah, as as just like

477
00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:03,040
Speaker 1: it when it came in went out it just because

478
00:28:03,440 --> 00:28:06,159
Speaker 1: it's like gone. Can you imagine seeing that live? And

479
00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:08,320
Speaker 1: that while the people who saw it live, the next

480
00:28:08,359 --> 00:28:12,080
Speaker 1: thing they would have heard was the doctor saying something like, oh,

481
00:28:12,119 --> 00:28:14,840
Speaker 1: he died of an electric shock. Must have died instantly.

482
00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:19,119
Speaker 1: And then and everybody's just sitting there, mouths hanging open.

483
00:28:19,359 --> 00:28:21,560
Speaker 1: It was Dr Who too, so it was probably a

484
00:28:21,560 --> 00:28:25,199
Speaker 1: bunch of Chicago nerds watching PBS. Yeah, so al right,

485
00:28:25,320 --> 00:28:27,520
Speaker 1: my inmentation was okay, but let's just play at least

486
00:28:27,520 --> 00:28:45,240
Speaker 1: like a couple of lines from the real thing. Yeah,

487
00:28:45,280 --> 00:28:48,160
Speaker 1: all right, so you did a pretty good impression. I

488
00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:51,120
Speaker 1: think everyone can agree now, right. Strange So this was

489
00:28:51,160 --> 00:28:55,240
Speaker 1: an enormous thing, right, Like, um, like people were watching

490
00:28:55,280 --> 00:29:00,080
Speaker 1: this and we're aghast. Agog some people probably thought it

491
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:03,560
Speaker 1: was funny. Um. W g N reporting on it all

492
00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:05,880
Speaker 1: over the place the next couple of days. Yeah, the

493
00:29:05,920 --> 00:29:08,960
Speaker 1: newspapers had picked it up. Yeah, um, there's this one.

494
00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:14,000
Speaker 1: There's a compilation of w g M broadcasts, or it

495
00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:16,200
Speaker 1: might may even be more than just w g N

496
00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:19,160
Speaker 1: of people in the street being interviewed. What do you

497
00:29:19,160 --> 00:29:22,040
Speaker 1: think about this? One Guy's like it's it's kind of

498
00:29:22,080 --> 00:29:24,320
Speaker 1: like Cooligans throwing a brick through your window, you know,

499
00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:27,080
Speaker 1: to get your attention. There's a little kid who's like,

500
00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:31,520
Speaker 1: very very funny. The star of the news, though, was

501
00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:34,840
Speaker 1: this one doctor who fan uh, this lady who was

502
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:38,240
Speaker 1: not at all amused by this, and I just want

503
00:29:38,280 --> 00:29:42,000
Speaker 1: to play her little segment. Okay, yeah, get annoyed. You know.

504
00:29:42,120 --> 00:29:43,920
Speaker 1: I just thought it would be just a slight mess up,

505
00:29:43,960 --> 00:29:45,960
Speaker 1: but that in the middle of tap, it's going to

506
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:50,360
Speaker 1: be you're gonna have to tape over it. I just

507
00:29:50,400 --> 00:29:52,240
Speaker 1: think that's the funniest thing out of the whole the

508
00:29:52,280 --> 00:29:54,600
Speaker 1: whole thing. Well, another guy said he wanted to smash

509
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:56,640
Speaker 1: his TV he was so angry. Yeah, I didn't see

510
00:29:56,680 --> 00:29:59,640
Speaker 1: that guy. I saw that in the Pastor Nech article. Yeah,

511
00:29:59,680 --> 00:30:02,600
Speaker 1: he was mad. So there was a lot of mixed reaction.

512
00:30:02,680 --> 00:30:06,400
Speaker 1: But the the the voice from on high that came

513
00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:09,440
Speaker 1: from the FCC who you said, we're called in pretty quickly.

514
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:12,800
Speaker 1: They were like, this is no laughing matter. You might

515
00:30:12,840 --> 00:30:15,400
Speaker 1: think it's funny, it's not very funny. Okay, it's kind

516
00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:17,920
Speaker 1: of funny, but not really. And you can get a

517
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:20,440
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollar fine in a year in jail for

518
00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:23,440
Speaker 1: this kind of thing, so stop doing it. But at

519
00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:27,760
Speaker 1: this point, by this point, it was actually a federal offense.

520
00:30:28,480 --> 00:30:32,840
Speaker 1: It was a felony, a felony offense. Wait, what was that?

521
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:36,200
Speaker 1: Days been confused? Cantering with the mailbox is a felony.

522
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:38,320
Speaker 1: I was like, wait a minute, I know that from somewhere.

523
00:30:38,520 --> 00:30:40,560
Speaker 1: So the f c C gets involved in this, This

524
00:30:40,640 --> 00:30:43,200
Speaker 1: is really interesting in this article that I got involved

525
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:45,800
Speaker 1: to FB, I was involved Chicago p D like there

526
00:30:45,880 --> 00:30:50,280
Speaker 1: was they were looking into it. Apparently the um man

527
00:30:51,040 --> 00:30:53,680
Speaker 1: I has become obvious to me that I say the

528
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:58,240
Speaker 1: word apparently a lot, really a lot. I was listening

529
00:30:58,240 --> 00:31:00,560
Speaker 1: to an episode, queing an episode, and it was like

530
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:06,520
Speaker 1: stopped saying apparently, Josh, yeah, I've started after ten years,

531
00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:08,600
Speaker 1: I've started to notice some things about my own self.

532
00:31:08,680 --> 00:31:10,640
Speaker 1: It's like a tick. I tried to just avoid it.

533
00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:12,960
Speaker 1: I tried to too normally I can, but man, it

534
00:31:13,080 --> 00:31:17,720
Speaker 1: just came welling up into my awareness. Apparently it's really

535
00:31:17,920 --> 00:31:21,280
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to get over it at any rate. Um,

536
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:24,080
Speaker 1: the the there were a lot of different agencies working

537
00:31:24,120 --> 00:31:27,280
Speaker 1: on this, but the trail went cold pretty quick. And

538
00:31:27,360 --> 00:31:30,240
Speaker 1: you remember how you said that. Um, the w g

539
00:31:30,400 --> 00:31:34,680
Speaker 1: N engineers started looking around the station. I think what

540
00:31:34,720 --> 00:31:39,440
Speaker 1: they were looking for was this somebody physically patching in

541
00:31:39,800 --> 00:31:44,800
Speaker 1: to the transmission network the cable mask and yeah, either

542
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:48,600
Speaker 1: playing a videotape, which it's it seems pretty obvious it

543
00:31:48,760 --> 00:31:51,880
Speaker 1: was pre taped or doing something like in a studio,

544
00:31:51,960 --> 00:31:55,880
Speaker 1: but but that they would have to physically patch into

545
00:31:56,080 --> 00:32:00,160
Speaker 1: w g n's transmission network. Yeah, it's like when a

546
00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:03,880
Speaker 1: car doesn't work and I opened the hood thinking I'm

547
00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:07,320
Speaker 1: going to see a squirrel not gnawing on a cable

548
00:32:07,400 --> 00:32:10,880
Speaker 1: that two pieces now and frayed at the ends. Right now,

549
00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:13,560
Speaker 1: imagine that squirrel wearing a max hydroom mask and being

550
00:32:13,600 --> 00:32:19,560
Speaker 1: on acid, okay, with maritalaide. So um, And at first

551
00:32:19,840 --> 00:32:23,120
Speaker 1: the FEC and the FBI and anybody who was in

552
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:27,720
Speaker 1: the know basically said, this was a very sophisticated attack.

553
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:34,000
Speaker 1: It would have required a very very some very expensive equipment,

554
00:32:34,680 --> 00:32:38,440
Speaker 1: a lot of electricity. Um, there's not a lot of

555
00:32:38,440 --> 00:32:40,600
Speaker 1: ways that they could have done this. But later on

556
00:32:40,720 --> 00:32:42,720
Speaker 1: in the Pastor Nick article, and this is this is

557
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:45,320
Speaker 1: one of the ways Pastor that contributed to this whole thing.

558
00:32:45,680 --> 00:32:48,840
Speaker 1: He talked to one of the SEC investigators and this

559
00:32:48,880 --> 00:32:52,280
Speaker 1: guy basically did away with that that whole viewpoint that

560
00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:56,480
Speaker 1: had lasted for almost thirty years, that it had to

561
00:32:56,520 --> 00:32:59,160
Speaker 1: have been somebody with a hundred thousand dollar piece of

562
00:32:59,160 --> 00:33:02,560
Speaker 1: equipment and you know, ten thousand dollars worth of electricity.

563
00:33:02,600 --> 00:33:04,640
Speaker 1: Over the minute and a half he was saying, No,

564
00:33:05,320 --> 00:33:08,840
Speaker 1: you could probably have gotten the equipment needed for this

565
00:33:08,960 --> 00:33:12,560
Speaker 1: new for ten grand at the time, or you could

566
00:33:12,600 --> 00:33:14,920
Speaker 1: have probably bought it for use for just a fraction

567
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:19,320
Speaker 1: of that, and um, it would have taken very little electricity.

568
00:33:19,400 --> 00:33:22,520
Speaker 1: It would have just taken um. Some know how and

569
00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:26,240
Speaker 1: good positioning. Really yeah, Basically he was like you, it

570
00:33:26,240 --> 00:33:28,480
Speaker 1: could have been done with like the size of a

571
00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:31,560
Speaker 1: direct TV dish today, and all they would have had

572
00:33:31,600 --> 00:33:35,480
Speaker 1: to do was get and a high enough location in between,

573
00:33:36,240 --> 00:33:40,400
Speaker 1: like literally, because they're beaming waves, are beaming microwaves through

574
00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:42,360
Speaker 1: the air. So he's like, all they had to do

575
00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:47,400
Speaker 1: is get in between the original studio and that initial

576
00:33:47,440 --> 00:33:48,880
Speaker 1: tower on top of the I think it was a

577
00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:52,360
Speaker 1: John Hancock building for w g N. Yeah, yeah, And

578
00:33:52,360 --> 00:33:55,440
Speaker 1: and have a stronger signal, right, so even just like

579
00:33:55,520 --> 00:33:59,520
Speaker 1: a slightly stronger signal. So you remember how w g

580
00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:03,360
Speaker 1: N has their studio transmission shooting up to the John

581
00:34:03,360 --> 00:34:06,400
Speaker 1: Hancock building and then that transmitter shoots it out to

582
00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:09,640
Speaker 1: everybody else in Chicago. What what? What? What I think

583
00:34:09,640 --> 00:34:11,560
Speaker 1: you're saying is like if somebody was on the roof

584
00:34:11,560 --> 00:34:15,759
Speaker 1: of another nearby building and they just shoot a transmission

585
00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:21,960
Speaker 1: their own max headroom transmission at a stronger a stronger

586
00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:25,000
Speaker 1: way or no, a stronger amplitude, that's what it is.

587
00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:28,880
Speaker 1: Of the same frequency. You just overpower cancels out what

588
00:34:29,120 --> 00:34:31,839
Speaker 1: w g N is doing and instead it transmits your

589
00:34:31,960 --> 00:34:34,319
Speaker 1: max headroom thing, and they would be closer to that

590
00:34:34,440 --> 00:34:39,040
Speaker 1: broadcast hour. Yes, so um, that would mean that it

591
00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:41,600
Speaker 1: required far less electricity than you would think or that

592
00:34:41,640 --> 00:34:45,440
Speaker 1: they originally thought, and a far less equipment to They

593
00:34:45,480 --> 00:34:48,359
Speaker 1: also had a pretty good idea of where these people

594
00:34:48,400 --> 00:34:51,920
Speaker 1: would have had to have done it, because they after

595
00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:54,680
Speaker 1: they got shut out of w g M, they turned

596
00:34:54,719 --> 00:34:57,400
Speaker 1: their attention to w t t W, the PBS station,

597
00:34:57,760 --> 00:35:01,760
Speaker 1: and they hijacked their signal. Well, w t W shot

598
00:35:01,800 --> 00:35:06,400
Speaker 1: their studio link to the Sears Tower. So this would

599
00:35:06,400 --> 00:35:09,000
Speaker 1: have been somebody who was on a roof somewhere that

600
00:35:09,120 --> 00:35:13,000
Speaker 1: had a clear view of John Hancock Building and the

601
00:35:13,040 --> 00:35:16,000
Speaker 1: Sears Tower and could transmit to either one of them.

602
00:35:16,040 --> 00:35:18,840
Speaker 1: But that's basically what they think happened. Yeah, and the

603
00:35:18,840 --> 00:35:21,560
Speaker 1: guy you were talking about, Dr Michael Marcus, who at

604
00:35:21,560 --> 00:35:24,600
Speaker 1: the time was the Assistant Bureau Chief in the FCCS

605
00:35:24,640 --> 00:35:28,480
Speaker 1: Field Operations Bureau. He was a lead investigator, and he

606
00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:31,920
Speaker 1: said that the guy in Chicago that was sort of

607
00:35:31,920 --> 00:35:34,880
Speaker 1: in charge wasn't super like. He was just sort of

608
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:38,680
Speaker 1: used to traditional FCC investigations. He wasn't wanted to go

609
00:35:38,760 --> 00:35:42,560
Speaker 1: knocking on doors and uh as to like investigate some

610
00:35:42,600 --> 00:35:46,439
Speaker 1: kind of weird kind of maybe creepy criminal dudes. Uh

611
00:35:46,440 --> 00:35:48,440
Speaker 1: it may or may not have a marital aid in

612
00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:52,840
Speaker 1: his apartment. Just smack him on that whether and then uh.

613
00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:56,000
Speaker 1: They also, you know, nobody was being hurt, No one

614
00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:59,880
Speaker 1: got hurt in the end, it was it was almost

615
00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:03,480
Speaker 1: a victimless crime. So they didn't throw a ton of

616
00:36:03,520 --> 00:36:05,359
Speaker 1: resources at it. They were kind of like, listen, we're

617
00:36:05,400 --> 00:36:07,759
Speaker 1: not gonna If you want to go investigate this, that's

618
00:36:07,800 --> 00:36:10,040
Speaker 1: great you should, but we're not going to assign a

619
00:36:10,080 --> 00:36:14,080
Speaker 1: team of twelve people to try and crack this case

620
00:36:14,719 --> 00:36:17,560
Speaker 1: of a bunch of nerds who did a weird thing

621
00:36:17,600 --> 00:36:20,200
Speaker 1: for a minute seconds And I think the longer it

622
00:36:20,239 --> 00:36:23,279
Speaker 1: went on and there was no more of these intrusions

623
00:36:23,320 --> 00:36:26,920
Speaker 1: from these guys, the fewer and fewer resources they had

624
00:36:26,960 --> 00:36:28,600
Speaker 1: to work with, and it just kind of fell to

625
00:36:28,680 --> 00:36:33,960
Speaker 1: the wayside. Well, what's interesting is to at the in

626
00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:36,960
Speaker 1: the beginning, they said it's gonna it would take somebody

627
00:36:36,960 --> 00:36:40,799
Speaker 1: with a very expensive piece of equipment, a lot of electricity,

628
00:36:40,840 --> 00:36:43,359
Speaker 1: and a lot of know how, And today the only

629
00:36:43,400 --> 00:36:46,279
Speaker 1: one of those that's remaining is a lot of know how.

630
00:36:46,560 --> 00:36:49,000
Speaker 1: There wouldn't have been a lot of people running around

631
00:36:49,040 --> 00:36:54,280
Speaker 1: Chicago who would have known how to do something like this. Um,

632
00:36:54,320 --> 00:36:57,920
Speaker 1: so it's kind of surprising, even with very few resources

633
00:36:57,960 --> 00:37:02,399
Speaker 1: that no one has ever been really implicated in this one. Yeah,

634
00:37:02,440 --> 00:37:04,560
Speaker 1: I don't think we said no. They still don't know

635
00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:07,920
Speaker 1: who did this. It's an unsolved mystery. Like Dennis Farina

636
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:13,960
Speaker 1: and Robert Stack, I love this one. Uh. The FBI,

637
00:37:14,040 --> 00:37:17,799
Speaker 1: for their take, started concentrating on the actual video. They

638
00:37:17,840 --> 00:37:20,080
Speaker 1: had the technology at the time, which is kind of

639
00:37:20,080 --> 00:37:22,439
Speaker 1: funny now to think about it, but they're the only

640
00:37:22,480 --> 00:37:24,480
Speaker 1: ones who had the technology at the time to actually

641
00:37:24,480 --> 00:37:30,279
Speaker 1: make enhance frames of this videotape and print out, you know,

642
00:37:31,120 --> 00:37:34,759
Speaker 1: pictures enhance them. And they were kind of focused on

643
00:37:34,760 --> 00:37:38,000
Speaker 1: this upper right hand quadrant, as they say, where the

644
00:37:38,080 --> 00:37:41,640
Speaker 1: Antie Oakley was spanking with the fly swatter. I don't

645
00:37:41,640 --> 00:37:45,080
Speaker 1: know why they're so into that, but they said, you know,

646
00:37:45,239 --> 00:37:47,279
Speaker 1: we're trying to get clues on the actual location of

647
00:37:47,320 --> 00:37:50,080
Speaker 1: the people who made the tape, not necessarily where they

648
00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:52,080
Speaker 1: broadcast it from, but where did they shoot this thing.

649
00:37:52,120 --> 00:37:54,319
Speaker 1: To begin with, it was very little to go on

650
00:37:54,360 --> 00:37:58,000
Speaker 1: aside from that spinning corrugated metal, and that could have

651
00:37:58,040 --> 00:38:01,360
Speaker 1: been literally anywhere. Because it's a really tight shot. It

652
00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:05,240
Speaker 1: really is. Yeah, and there was very little evidence given

653
00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:07,120
Speaker 1: in the video. Yeah. I mean it says that they

654
00:38:07,120 --> 00:38:10,040
Speaker 1: were looking at industrial warehouses and things, but that could

655
00:38:10,080 --> 00:38:12,600
Speaker 1: have been in an apartment living room. I mean, it

656
00:38:12,640 --> 00:38:14,680
Speaker 1: wasn't like the door was a text anything. It was

657
00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:18,239
Speaker 1: freely spinning back and forth. So it didn't make not

658
00:38:18,320 --> 00:38:23,480
Speaker 1: the best lead, right, So um over time, and again

659
00:38:23,640 --> 00:38:25,880
Speaker 1: this is weird too. It's it's not so weird that

660
00:38:25,920 --> 00:38:28,520
Speaker 1: the FCC or the FBI didn't find who did this

661
00:38:28,600 --> 00:38:31,720
Speaker 1: if they weren't really looking very hard. Was really weird

662
00:38:31,880 --> 00:38:34,440
Speaker 1: is that no one has been like, it was these guys.

663
00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:38,280
Speaker 1: I was there, I know these dudes. It was these guys.

664
00:38:38,280 --> 00:38:42,640
Speaker 1: Statute limitations is done, like who cares? Yeah, after these

665
00:38:42,640 --> 00:38:45,800
Speaker 1: guys would have gotten off scott free because the statute

666
00:38:45,800 --> 00:38:48,200
Speaker 1: of limitations for this one was five years. Right. I'm

667
00:38:48,280 --> 00:38:51,359
Speaker 1: shocked that no one later said, hey, that was me, right,

668
00:38:52,640 --> 00:38:56,000
Speaker 1: No one's done that, right. Yeah, there was um some

669
00:38:56,600 --> 00:39:02,160
Speaker 1: so very early forum like message boards stuff took the

670
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:07,480
Speaker 1: form of bulletin boards services. I think BBS is really

671
00:39:07,560 --> 00:39:11,960
Speaker 1: early geek culture, like like like Matthew Broderick dialing something

672
00:39:11,960 --> 00:39:13,720
Speaker 1: with his phone and then putting it on that weird

673
00:39:13,760 --> 00:39:17,560
Speaker 1: little you know, Commodore sixty four thing, the motum yet

674
00:39:18,040 --> 00:39:24,000
Speaker 1: to like transmit the dial tone over the telephone system, right, So, um,

675
00:39:24,040 --> 00:39:27,279
Speaker 1: that's what that's what like the level of technology that

676
00:39:27,280 --> 00:39:29,440
Speaker 1: these people were dealing with, but they were communicating with

677
00:39:29,480 --> 00:39:32,360
Speaker 1: each other over like this proto internet, these bulletin board systems.

678
00:39:32,719 --> 00:39:36,400
Speaker 1: And two days after this, a guy named the Chameleon

679
00:39:36,560 --> 00:39:41,200
Speaker 1: posted basically what you and I said about how all

680
00:39:41,280 --> 00:39:43,200
Speaker 1: it took was these guys to go up on a

681
00:39:43,239 --> 00:39:46,319
Speaker 1: tall building and overwhelm the w g N and the

682
00:39:46,440 --> 00:39:50,080
Speaker 1: w T t W studio links. And it's so facto

683
00:39:50,719 --> 00:39:52,879
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of that. By the way, Um,

684
00:39:53,280 --> 00:39:57,640
Speaker 1: the this this intrusion was successful, right two days, not

685
00:39:57,760 --> 00:40:01,200
Speaker 1: two years, not a year ago. Two days after it,

686
00:40:01,600 --> 00:40:04,000
Speaker 1: somebody was on there explaining how it went out. So

687
00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:09,080
Speaker 1: somebody knew this, right, But only two theories have really

688
00:40:09,120 --> 00:40:11,719
Speaker 1: ever come to light as to who it was. One

689
00:40:11,920 --> 00:40:14,120
Speaker 1: you can basically just throw right out, and the other

690
00:40:14,160 --> 00:40:17,839
Speaker 1: one it turns out to have been a dead end. Yeah.

691
00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:19,480
Speaker 1: The first one that you were talking about that doesn't

692
00:40:19,480 --> 00:40:22,480
Speaker 1: really hold water was a and this was a rumor

693
00:40:22,560 --> 00:40:24,959
Speaker 1: online for a while. I was a musician named Eric

694
00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:31,920
Speaker 1: Fournier Fournier Furnier. I had a friend in uh in preschool.

695
00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:35,080
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, that's how it was spelled f O

696
00:40:35,160 --> 00:40:37,360
Speaker 1: U R in I E R. Actually I don't know

697
00:40:37,360 --> 00:40:42,239
Speaker 1: how it spelled. I couldn't spell back then. Um. So

698
00:40:42,280 --> 00:40:46,399
Speaker 1: this guy was in a band, uh, and he did

699
00:40:46,440 --> 00:40:52,200
Speaker 1: this weird, super creepy YouTube series called shay st john

700
00:40:53,040 --> 00:40:55,480
Speaker 1: S h A y E. Did you watch it? Oh? Yeah,

701
00:40:55,520 --> 00:40:58,160
Speaker 1: I love it. Yeah, just knew that you would love

702
00:40:58,160 --> 00:41:02,759
Speaker 1: it if you're but this is genuinely unsettling too. I'm

703
00:41:02,800 --> 00:41:04,600
Speaker 1: with you on that. So it kind of fit and

704
00:41:04,640 --> 00:41:09,000
Speaker 1: that he was doing these weird things. He had this band, Uh.

705
00:41:09,040 --> 00:41:11,800
Speaker 1: They were in Bloomington, Indiana, not too far from Chicago,

706
00:41:11,960 --> 00:41:14,640
Speaker 1: the Blood Farmers, Yeah, the bands of Blood Farmers, and

707
00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:17,120
Speaker 1: they did these weird music videos and they thought this

708
00:41:17,160 --> 00:41:19,319
Speaker 1: is the kind of guy that would have done that.

709
00:41:19,400 --> 00:41:21,800
Speaker 1: And the thinking was that he went to go broadcast

710
00:41:21,880 --> 00:41:25,200
Speaker 1: one of their weird music videos as a broadcast intrusion,

711
00:41:25,680 --> 00:41:27,520
Speaker 1: but chickened out at the last minute because they would

712
00:41:27,520 --> 00:41:31,239
Speaker 1: have been found uh, and then ended up just improving.

713
00:41:31,400 --> 00:41:34,000
Speaker 1: That part makes a little sense because it definitely seems improved.

714
00:41:34,160 --> 00:41:37,600
Speaker 1: It does, but it was also videotaped. Remember, So that

715
00:41:37,640 --> 00:41:41,239
Speaker 1: means he would have had two videotapes with him. What

716
00:41:41,280 --> 00:41:43,320
Speaker 1: do you mean? So if he was gonna if he

717
00:41:43,400 --> 00:41:45,879
Speaker 1: was going to play the music video and said I'm

718
00:41:45,880 --> 00:41:47,120
Speaker 1: not gonna do that, he would have had to have

719
00:41:47,120 --> 00:41:50,759
Speaker 1: brought this other video tape. And the other thing is

720
00:41:50,800 --> 00:41:55,360
Speaker 1: apparently his friend. See I just said apparently again. Alex

721
00:41:55,400 --> 00:41:59,400
Speaker 1: Pastor Neck from Motherboard contacted some of Fernier's friends because

722
00:41:59,600 --> 00:42:02,280
Speaker 1: Fernie Or died in two thousand ten. But his friends

723
00:42:02,280 --> 00:42:05,240
Speaker 1: are like, absolutely not. Even some of the blood Farmers

724
00:42:05,239 --> 00:42:08,040
Speaker 1: are like, it wasn't him, Like, I know what you're saying,

725
00:42:08,080 --> 00:42:10,239
Speaker 1: and yeah, he did the whole shay st John thing,

726
00:42:10,680 --> 00:42:12,839
Speaker 1: but it was this was not him. It was not

727
00:42:13,040 --> 00:42:14,960
Speaker 1: quite there. He didn't know what he was doing with it.

728
00:42:15,080 --> 00:42:18,239
Speaker 1: He wouldn't know any broadcast stuff or video editing or

729
00:42:18,280 --> 00:42:20,400
Speaker 1: anything like that. Yeah, so this other one to me

730
00:42:21,719 --> 00:42:28,440
Speaker 1: seems pretty promising. Uh So we flashed forward to when

731
00:42:28,520 --> 00:42:30,839
Speaker 1: did this actually happen? Was this like by the time

732
00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:32,640
Speaker 1: read it had to come around when it on Reddit? Yeah,

733
00:42:32,640 --> 00:42:35,359
Speaker 1: I think it was about twenty five years after, so

734
00:42:35,440 --> 00:42:38,520
Speaker 1: it would have been in two thousand seven. Yeah, so

735
00:42:38,600 --> 00:42:44,200
Speaker 1: there's this guy two thousand. Okay, sorry, there was this

736
00:42:44,200 --> 00:42:48,440
Speaker 1: guy named from Chicago named Bowie Pogue p o G.

737
00:42:48,640 --> 00:42:51,200
Speaker 1: I didn't have any friends with that last name when

738
00:42:51,280 --> 00:42:53,319
Speaker 1: I was a kid, and he was one of the

739
00:42:53,400 --> 00:42:57,440
Speaker 1: kids hanging around those bbs is in the eighties in Chicago.

740
00:42:57,920 --> 00:43:00,479
Speaker 1: From the sounds of it, he was on the younger side.

741
00:43:00,480 --> 00:43:03,919
Speaker 1: He was thirteen, and even as the thirteen year old geek,

742
00:43:03,960 --> 00:43:06,760
Speaker 1: was very much intimidated by the older geeks in that crowd,

743
00:43:07,440 --> 00:43:10,480
Speaker 1: and so wasn't boisterous. He was sort of like, Hey,

744
00:43:10,520 --> 00:43:12,439
Speaker 1: I'm kind of hanging out here and not saying much

745
00:43:12,480 --> 00:43:16,080
Speaker 1: and don't notice me. I just want to ingratiate myself

746
00:43:16,640 --> 00:43:19,040
Speaker 1: and you guys can give me drunk laugh if you want.

747
00:43:19,719 --> 00:43:23,400
Speaker 1: And then at a party he remembers this uh. He

748
00:43:23,520 --> 00:43:26,759
Speaker 1: described him as a small, peculiar man that he thought

749
00:43:26,760 --> 00:43:30,080
Speaker 1: was about in his thirties, and he had an older brother.

750
00:43:30,480 --> 00:43:33,840
Speaker 1: They lived in Chicago. So Poe is describing these two

751
00:43:33,880 --> 00:43:37,200
Speaker 1: guys who were in the same scene with him, correct, Yeah,

752
00:43:37,280 --> 00:43:41,160
Speaker 1: And he had They lived with his girlfriend downtown or

753
00:43:41,200 --> 00:43:44,800
Speaker 1: about ten miles from downtown Chicago, and they had the

754
00:43:44,960 --> 00:43:48,719
Speaker 1: know how. They were super into computers early on you

755
00:43:48,840 --> 00:43:50,520
Speaker 1: he said he went to their apartment and it was

756
00:43:50,560 --> 00:43:54,000
Speaker 1: just like it looked like a computer hoarder, mess of

757
00:43:54,040 --> 00:43:59,000
Speaker 1: wires and computers and equipment like Neo's apartment. Yeah, why not?

758
00:43:59,520 --> 00:44:02,240
Speaker 1: Or what was the other one he was in before

759
00:44:02,320 --> 00:44:08,240
Speaker 1: the Matrix Johnny Newmonic, Yes, yeah, Bill and Ted Yeah,

760
00:44:08,520 --> 00:44:11,839
Speaker 1: Johnny Newmonic. That's cyberpunk, yes, right, yes, it is all right.

761
00:44:12,800 --> 00:44:15,719
Speaker 1: You could probably make the case that the Matrix is

762
00:44:15,760 --> 00:44:19,600
Speaker 1: as well there, right, sure. So he described him as

763
00:44:19,600 --> 00:44:24,280
Speaker 1: a stocky guy with tinted lens glasses in his early

764
00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:27,680
Speaker 1: thirties and odd dude his brother, he said. He described

765
00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:31,840
Speaker 1: it's just kind of normal. But he said that he

766
00:44:31,880 --> 00:44:33,400
Speaker 1: didn't make the connection at the time, but at a

767
00:44:33,480 --> 00:44:37,560
Speaker 1: party on November about the same day. Midday on November,

768
00:44:38,560 --> 00:44:40,600
Speaker 1: he was at a gathering of these dudes at the

769
00:44:40,680 --> 00:44:43,719
Speaker 1: brothers apartment and he heard them say something about doing

770
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:46,399
Speaker 1: something big. Later that night, they went to Pizza Hut

771
00:44:46,400 --> 00:44:48,359
Speaker 1: and He's like, what are you guys talking about? What's

772
00:44:48,400 --> 00:44:52,320
Speaker 1: the big thing? And they said, hey, I don't ask questions,

773
00:44:52,320 --> 00:44:56,359
Speaker 1: but just watched Channel eleven tonight on that same day,

774
00:44:56,480 --> 00:44:58,120
Speaker 1: and I don't know how he didn't put it together.

775
00:44:58,480 --> 00:45:01,799
Speaker 1: That's that's the one thing that really strikes. But he

776
00:45:01,880 --> 00:45:04,719
Speaker 1: said that years later. Now when he looks at it,

777
00:45:04,760 --> 00:45:08,120
Speaker 1: he's like, even with that mask on, I see the body,

778
00:45:08,360 --> 00:45:10,880
Speaker 1: I see what's going on. I hear that, and it's

779
00:45:10,920 --> 00:45:14,680
Speaker 1: it's that guy to me. But twenty five years later,

780
00:45:15,520 --> 00:45:17,720
Speaker 1: he was there that day, they tell him to watch

781
00:45:17,880 --> 00:45:20,440
Speaker 1: that night, and he didn't put it together for twenty

782
00:45:20,480 --> 00:45:23,320
Speaker 1: five years. That to me is the one fishy thing. Well,

783
00:45:23,360 --> 00:45:28,160
Speaker 1: and he has been called out as fishy. Sure, I'm

784
00:45:28,160 --> 00:45:30,359
Speaker 1: sure he knows that it's kind of fishy. Yeah. So

785
00:45:30,440 --> 00:45:34,600
Speaker 1: that the guy the motherboard, pastor Neck reached out and

786
00:45:34,640 --> 00:45:36,640
Speaker 1: he said, you can you still get in touch with

787
00:45:36,680 --> 00:45:38,759
Speaker 1: these guys all these years later, he said, he sent

788
00:45:38,840 --> 00:45:41,960
Speaker 1: them messages via Facebook. I don't even know if they

789
00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:44,319
Speaker 1: saw him. They didn't get back. Then in the last

790
00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:47,160
Speaker 1: sitch effort, he sent them a certified mail too. He

791
00:45:47,160 --> 00:45:49,840
Speaker 1: found out where they lived, never heard anything back, and

792
00:45:49,880 --> 00:45:51,799
Speaker 1: he was like, hey, it's clear that these guys don't

793
00:45:51,800 --> 00:45:54,000
Speaker 1: want to be talked to, so you want to take

794
00:45:54,000 --> 00:46:16,879
Speaker 1: a break, Yeah, let's do it, okay m hm. So

795
00:46:17,000 --> 00:46:20,560
Speaker 1: that's where it stands right now, Like nobody knows who

796
00:46:20,640 --> 00:46:24,680
Speaker 1: is behind it still to this day, which is it

797
00:46:24,800 --> 00:46:28,279
Speaker 1: is crazy. And as a result, this Max Headroom hack

798
00:46:28,360 --> 00:46:31,880
Speaker 1: has taken its place in like the pantheon of geek

799
00:46:31,960 --> 00:46:35,520
Speaker 1: culture and of hacker culture, and rightfully so you know

800
00:46:35,960 --> 00:46:39,640
Speaker 1: it was legendary in its own way. That's right. Ah,

801
00:46:39,760 --> 00:46:42,480
Speaker 1: you got anything else? I got nothing else on this one,

802
00:46:42,680 --> 00:46:45,160
Speaker 1: cool man. Well, if you want to know more about

803
00:46:45,280 --> 00:46:48,880
Speaker 1: Max Headroom, you should start by checking out this amazing

804
00:46:49,400 --> 00:46:53,800
Speaker 1: Motherboard article by Alex Pastor Knack. And since I said amazing,

805
00:46:53,840 --> 00:46:58,520
Speaker 1: it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna go with Uh,

806
00:47:01,000 --> 00:47:03,360
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with the Almond Brothers eat a Peach

807
00:47:04,160 --> 00:47:06,480
Speaker 1: from a Munchies. I don't know if it's true, but

808
00:47:06,520 --> 00:47:10,000
Speaker 1: it's fun. I wanted to talk about when Josh talked

809
00:47:10,000 --> 00:47:13,640
Speaker 1: about the Almond Brothers band factoid um because I think

810
00:47:13,680 --> 00:47:17,560
Speaker 1: it's actually a cool factoid. Dwayne Alman was once asked

811
00:47:17,640 --> 00:47:20,000
Speaker 1: by a reporter what he was going to do for

812
00:47:20,040 --> 00:47:22,920
Speaker 1: the war effort in Vietnam, and his response was, I'm

813
00:47:22,920 --> 00:47:26,799
Speaker 1: going to eat a peach for peace. Dwayne died not

814
00:47:26,920 --> 00:47:31,240
Speaker 1: long after that album, and Eat a Peach was released posthumously,

815
00:47:31,840 --> 00:47:35,759
Speaker 1: so he contends Jesse Godet that that is where the

816
00:47:35,800 --> 00:47:38,640
Speaker 1: album title came from and they eat a peach? Was

817
00:47:38,719 --> 00:47:44,279
Speaker 1: not Eta, bud he or she? I guess Jesse could

818
00:47:44,320 --> 00:47:46,399
Speaker 1: go either way. Yeah, as always, keep up a good work.

819
00:47:46,440 --> 00:47:49,840
Speaker 1: I'm currently brewing beer and listening. Tell me where to

820
00:47:49,880 --> 00:47:52,520
Speaker 1: mail some bottles or come pick them up in Salt

821
00:47:52,600 --> 00:47:56,680
Speaker 1: Lake City. All right, we'll do both. It's like a challenge, right,

822
00:47:57,239 --> 00:48:01,200
Speaker 1: they're too heavy. I can't pick him up. Thanks a lot, Jesse,

823
00:48:01,360 --> 00:48:04,600
Speaker 1: appreciate that, even though I still think I'm right. Um,

824
00:48:04,640 --> 00:48:07,719
Speaker 1: if you want to contend that something one of us

825
00:48:07,719 --> 00:48:11,200
Speaker 1: said is incorrect, we love that. Stuff. You can tweet

826
00:48:11,239 --> 00:48:13,600
Speaker 1: to us at Josh I'm Clark, s y s K

827
00:48:13,760 --> 00:48:17,040
Speaker 1: podcast or movie Crush. You can hang out with us

828
00:48:17,040 --> 00:48:19,360
Speaker 1: on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know or

829
00:48:19,520 --> 00:48:22,520
Speaker 1: slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant. You can send us an

830
00:48:22,520 --> 00:48:25,480
Speaker 1: email to Stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com

831
00:48:25,520 --> 00:48:27,520
Speaker 1: and has always joined us at our home on the web,

832
00:48:27,640 --> 00:48:34,480
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this

833
00:48:34,680 --> 00:48:37,200
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff Works

834
00:48:37,200 --> 00:48:48,080
Speaker 1: dot com