WEBVTT - Selects: The Max Headroom Affair 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:03.280 Hi, everyone, This is Chuck on a Saturday and want 0:00:03.360 --> 0:00:06.400 you to open your mind. I want you to go 0:00:06.440 --> 0:00:09.840 back in time, jumping the way back machine and join me, 0:00:10.480 --> 0:00:15.680 because it's June in my mind's eye. And on that 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:19.680 date we talked about one of my favorite podcast titles 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:24.200 and favorite incidents in the United States history, that Max 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:32.159 Droom incident. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:41.000 of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:41.040 --> 0:00:50.560 I'm Josh Clark, There's Chuck Bryant, Jerry Roland. Pretty good, 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:52.960 it's pretty good. And this is Stuff you should Know. 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:56.280 Josh ed Room. Thank you you've been I saw you 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:58.480 over there with your earbuds today. You were working on 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:01.480 this all day, weren't you. I watched season one, episode 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:05.720 one of Max Headroom, like the last ten minutes is 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:09.360 still pending, okay, but it's crazy Like Max Headroam himself 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:13.000 doesn't show up until like forty minutes into the first 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:18.120 hour long episode, but when he does, it's dynamite. So 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:20.280 what are we talking about. We're talking about Max Headroom, 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:23.360 that's right. A huge shout out at the beginning of 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:31.399 this two buis dot Com, specifically Motherboard, specifically Alex Pasternak, Yeah, 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:33.480 who wrote the article on Motherboard, And we actually we 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:34.880 used to blog a little bit for them back in 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:36.399 the day. I remember that. Yeah. I don't think they 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:40.000 like to talk about that or acknowledge it publicly, you know, 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:43.240 I don't think so. Oh, I think it was mutually beneficial. 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:46.240 I'll bet you can't find those on motherboard anymore. I'm 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:49.000 trying to remember. I'm sure they were, like I think 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:52.200 I read one about driving a stick shift versus automatic 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:54.840 or something weird. That's a big one. Yeah. We started 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:57.520 out with an old fashioned recipe. I think, yeah, that 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:00.360 was you. They were like, let's do better than this 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:03.280 guy's and we said no, and then they said we 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:06.640 got our own people. Yeah, well let somebody come in 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:09.480 and ghost right for you. Yeah. So that Motherboard articles 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:11.919 the basis and from what I found, I mean, we 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:14.760 we used a lot of different sources on this, but 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:20.120 this article entitled the Mystery of the Creepiest Television Heck 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:24.000 is sort of the culmination like the Kuda gra kDa 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:29.320 Graw of Max Headroom incidental articles. Yeah, it actually really 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:34.440 good job past her neck, like very exhaustively investigated it 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:38.680 and turned up new information, got new new um, a 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:42.680 new understanding of it and basically contributed to the mythos 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:46.120 of it himself. So a way to go pastor neck right, 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:49.360 And what we're talking about is if you if you 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:51.640 don't know who Max Headroom at all is, We're about 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:53.760 to set that up. Yeah, let's talk about Max headrom 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:57.919 But if you were alive during the nineteen eighties, then 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:02.720 you probably know who Max had Room is because weirdly, 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:06.639 for a brief few years it was kind of a 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:10.239 big pop culture thing about four years by my by 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:15.720 my calculations. So starting in there was a movie called 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:19.960 Max Headroom Colon so you know his an important movie 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:24.920 twenty Minutes in the Future, right, and it was a 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:29.440 kind of a cyberpunk movie, Um dys Topium future very 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:35.560 Terry Gilliam brazil ish um, and it was I'm not 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:37.720 I haven't seen that one, but it was basically where 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:40.440 the character of Max Headroom was born, right, And I 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:42.400 think it actually formed the basis for the TV show 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:45.000 later In between the later TV show that you and 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:48.720 I are more familiar with and that movie, Max Headroom 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:53.600 was a pop culture sensation. He was a pitchman for 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:57.200 New Coke. I went and watched an old ad. He 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:00.520 was in an ad with run DMC pitching you coke, 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:03.560 and I was like, doesn't get any more eighties than this? 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:06.200 But it was actually a pretty cool ad, right was it? 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:09.000 Did it say here's a little story A need to 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:12.240 tell about a new coke on the scene that he loved. 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:14.840 So well, that was exactly word for word how that 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:19.359 ad went. So so let's back up a little more. Right, Okay, 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:22.599 let's describe what Max Headroom is for the kids, because 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:25.960 I guarantee about eight percent of our our audience are like, 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:30.480 what's the eighties? What's new coke? Who's run DMC? Well 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:34.000 that's probably not true, but what so what was Max Headroom? 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:37.800 He was builed as like the first virtual um talk 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:41.479 show host, right correct? Okay, yeah, so he was played 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:46.240 by guy named Matt Frewer, who, out of prosthetic makeup, 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:50.880 had that look anyway, very chiseled, square jawed. He was 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:57.000 not bald, but had he had a receding hairline. Okay, 0:04:57.000 --> 0:04:58.480 but he kept it really really short, so he kind 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:00.760 of looks bald. Yeah, here, this will explain it to 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:02.720 all the kids at home. He was a colleague of 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:06.000 Murphy Brown and the Murphy Brown Television. Yeah, they're like, 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:10.080 oh that guy, Yeah, not the painter, the other one, 0:05:10.320 --> 0:05:12.160 the love interest. I don't think I knew that. I 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:14.000 never watched Murphy Brown though. Oh man, I hope that 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:16.200 was him. I'm pretty sure it was him. Yeah. Yeah, 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:19.400 well he's been around, he's still acting today. But yes, 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:23.640 he played the character of Max Headroom, and the TV 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:27.080 show Max Headroom was actually pretty far ahead of its time, 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:30.919 totally speaking. Yeah, So the whole, the whole premise of 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:34.320 the TV show The Last his big last, great gasp 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:37.120 that was actually the most serious of all of it 0:05:37.240 --> 0:05:43.919 was where in the future TV networks controlled the world, 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:47.600 and there was the station that network twenty three that 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:51.040 Matt Frewer's character and later Max Headroom, who became his 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:54.400 alter ego, worked for. We're putting these things called blip 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:57.520 verts out. Yeah. His his character's name was Edison Carter 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:01.880 at first, and he was like an investigative journey list. So, um, 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:04.640 he starts looking into these blip firts because the problem 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:08.280 with blip firsts they are thirty second ads compressed into 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:11.560 three seconds, and it's meant to keep you from changing 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:14.640 the channel. The problem is that everybody watched so much 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:18.680 TV by this time, they didn't move around, which meant 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:21.680 that all of the electricity generated by their nerve endings 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:25.520 wasn't burned off as how the how the show explained it. 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:29.679 So when their brains were assaulted with these blip furts, 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:32.800 they kind of short circuited, and all that electricity that 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:34.919 was just hanging around their bodies because they weren't moving 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:38.920 at all during the day, made them explode. The network 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:41.479 really liked blip verts and they didn't want to get 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:44.080 rid of them, so they decided to instead get rid 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:48.200 of Edison Carter. Yeah, and the TV advertising at the time, 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:51.040 or advertising in general sort of not only did TV 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:53.919 rule the world, but the ads behind it was really 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:59.400 the driving force. It sounds very familiar, it does. Everyone's like, 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:03.080 take a blip furture, give me a three second ad 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:06.840 on the podcast guys, it will blow you up. So 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:10.320 what they what ended up happening was was the character 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:15.400 of Edison Carter eventually was there was an incident not 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:18.480 the Max Headroom, It's in it where he was left 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:22.280 in a coma in an episode the first episode, Oh yeah, 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:24.480 the pilot of course, and the last thing he sees 0:07:24.520 --> 0:07:27.600 before falling into a coma is a sign that said 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:32.480 Max Headroom colon two point three meters uh, and so 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:34.280 that's how he got the name Max Heterom. Right. It 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:36.600 was in like a parking garage and it was basically saying, 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:39.320 this is the overhead clearance. Is the way it's put 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:42.040 in the United States. Yeah, right, so that's the name 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:45.920 Max Headroum. Right. But he was an AI character, right, 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:50.240 So the the Evil TV network got ahold of him, 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:54.360 uploaded his brain um and they originally did this with 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:57.800 the intent of bringing Edison Carter because again he was 0:07:57.840 --> 0:08:01.800 like their star reporter, bring him back in virtual forms. 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:04.560 They created an artificial intelligence. Well, it was kind of 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:07.480 glitchy and blippy and it looked weird, so they threw 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:12.680 it out. Well, some pirate broadcasters got ahold of this, 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:15.880 this database that that Max Hendrom lived on, and they 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:19.320 started broadcasting with him, and Max Hendrom was born. That's right. 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:23.600 And you said glitchy and blippy, and that kids explains 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:28.520 your intro when you went to Josh. Yeah, yeah, I 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:31.840 was doing thank you for explaining that. Yeah, that bears 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:36.240 Josh was He's He's okay everybody. So that's what Max 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:39.440 Headroom did. It was jittery, it was blippy. Like you said, 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:43.400 the background was this weird sort of horizontal and diagonal 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:46.520 line moving around thing, and that was all part of 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:49.360 this at the time sort of futuristic look. He was 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:54.560 also really sarcastic and really catty, and he was really um. 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:57.720 He poked fun at censorship, and he was just kind 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:01.439 of like a cult hero just the character itself. Right. 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:04.520 The awesome thing about him is in the real world 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:09.600 of we didn't have any kind of computers that could 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:13.840 generate a c g I post, so they actually used 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:17.680 like prosthetics, Like there's a four hour process to put 0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:21.000 Matt frew Er into the Max Headroom makeup. So it's 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:23.080 the guy acting and then you know, they messed with 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:26.360 the video a little bit. But it wasn't a c 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:29.640 a c g I version of a guy. It was 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:31.960 a guy acting like he was a c g I 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:35.960 version of himself, right, which is why if, for instance, 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:39.840 if Max Headroom the character were to appear on say 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:44.040 David Letterman, which he did, it would be Letterman interviewing 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:47.200 a TV screen, which is what they did. But it 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:50.360 was actually Matt Freuer in another studio. He was probably 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:55.160 just backstage broadcast and it's really like, as a kid, 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:57.520 I did not get all this. No, I just thought 0:09:57.559 --> 0:10:00.520 it was a I didn't you know what it was 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:01.959 because I've never seen the show. I thought he was 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:05.000 the coke guy, right, right, And I think I've seen 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:06.079 the show a little bit. I was like, this is 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:09.319 way too grown up for me. Um, But I think 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:10.760 I just kind of took it on faith that he 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:13.120 was computer generated or something like that. I didn't really 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:16.000 think about it much. But now as an adult looking back, 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:20.560 I'm like, that is brilliant and really difficult. And the 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:22.360 fact that they did this and pulled it off as 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:24.560 well as they did, it's it's it's a it's a 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:27.000 pretty amazing thing, right, And you can kind of understand 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:31.600 how Max Headroom with all that information now became this 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:37.000 kind of cult icon, especially among cyberpunks at the time, 0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:40.920 and what just keep saying cyberpunk. So so let me 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:45.120 let me I'm I'm I'm not like particularly well versed 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:48.599 in like what constitutes cyberpunk, but like it's like pornography 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:51.000 to a Supreme Court justice, Like I know it when 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:53.040 I see it, right, Sure, So if you watch the 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:59.360 Max Headroom show, you're like, that's cyberpunk. RoboCop is supposedly cyberpunk, right. 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:04.840 It's like a bleak technological future where people are controlled 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:09.199 by almost down to their minds, by the government or 0:11:09.280 --> 0:11:14.480 some corporation or some amalgamation of the two. That's pretty cyberpunk, right. 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:20.360 So at the time you had what are called geeks 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:23.640 and nerds, but they are not really what you would 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:25.840 call the geek or a nerd today. Right, somebody who 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:29.160 wears like glasses that don't actually have prescription glass in them? 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:31.679 Do people do that? That's some people do. I did 0:11:31.679 --> 0:11:34.360 that in the fourth grade. Well, then you were a 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:37.240 geek apparently. No. I was a prep and I wore 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:42.080 those little tortoiseshell round uh preppy glasses because that was 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:45.000 a cool look. And actually, when it's it's one of 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:48.080 my least proud moments fashion wise, has actually bought fake 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:50.640 glasses and wore them around. You have photos of those. 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:54.760 I'd really have to dig through some boxes. I think 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:58.959 I speak for everyone when I say started digging dig Yeah, 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:01.480 it was not my proudest moment. Yeah, I'd like to 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:06.640 see that picture. So um, at the time, people who 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:11.440 were geeks and nerds, that whole culture was very much 0:12:12.640 --> 0:12:16.160 derided and pushed around. I mean, look at the Revenge 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:18.680 of the Nerds, right like they came out on top. 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:20.240 I watched a little bit of that just the other night. 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:24.440 This is probably the earliest celebration of nerd culture. It 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:28.520 was not something that was like venerated or subscribed to 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:34.520 by anyone who wasn't a genuine nerd or geek. And 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:38.360 these were a very rarefied group of people who really 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:40.600 knew what they were doing with computers at a time 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:43.920 when almost no one else did. Early adopters across the 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:46.599 board very much so. Right, so, so Max Drum is 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:49.480 kind of a cult hero to this guy, and um, 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:54.400 that kind of sets up what happened on November twenty 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:59.400 two in a little town called Chicago, Illinois, the city 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:07.080 of dusty city that doesn't ever sleep, never, the windy city. 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:10.920 That's it. There you go of all time, the windy 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:13.720 city of all time. Yeah, so that sets the stage. 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:19.000 We know who who the character of Max Headroom was? Then? Yes? 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:22.160 Are you sure I set the stage? I think so? 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:24.800 Did we set the stage fully? Here? It looks nice? 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:28.880 All right? Let's do so at pm on that November 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:35.080 night in Chicago, four days before Thanksgiving. Yeah, so everyone 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:37.480 was in that frame of mind. Put yourself there. I 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:39.280 think that that helps a lot. It helped me at 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:43.040 least football seasons going on. Yeah. As a matter of fact, 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:46.880 just that very day, the Bears had beat the Lions, 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:49.760 which you know, it's a long time ago. Because the 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:54.240 Bears won a football game, the people in the Windy 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:56.000 City of all time are not going to be happy 0:13:56.040 --> 0:14:00.079 with you for that city time. Oh and there is 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:06.280 a sportscaster on local channel nine, uh Dan Rone r 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:08.480 A N and he was he was going over the 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:10.960 highlights of that football game. Then all of a sudden, 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:17.240 right in the middle, the broadcast signal goes, it makes 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:20.800 those noise noises. And then over at w g N 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:24.760 the control room, they were like, what's what's going on here? 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:26.800 We have no idea what this is. I think the 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:33.400 exact quote was a girl. So Um. What happened was 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:36.000 they eventually what what what they were doing at the 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:37.560 time was. And this is how We're not going to 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:40.360 go into the weeds here on how broadcast signals work. 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:43.080 But what they did back in the day was they 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:47.480 broadcast microwave transmissions to antenna's at the top of the 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:50.080 tallest buildings of whatever city that they were in for 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:53.160 local TV, for local TV, which is I mean there 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:55.440 was cable at the time, but local TV still kind 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:58.440 of ruled, yeah, and in the well sort of in 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:02.440 the late eighties, right, So like darting to Segue, Yeah, 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:04.720 for sure, cable is you know, kind of a thing. 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:07.240 But you if you were a local TV station, you 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:09.400 still have a pretty big market share of it, right, 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:11.960 especially w g N in Chicago. I mean it's like 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:15.320 Chicago station, right absolutely. So what you what I think 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:18.800 you're saying is that in a studio, whatever they're recording 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:22.160 or shooting or playing on their their little video tapes, 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:27.560 they're they're beaming that from the actual studio to a transmitter, 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:30.000 say atop a very tall building, and then that just 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:32.200 kind of bounces around to other transmitters. And that's how 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:36.080 everybody in Chicago gets their w g N signal, right, Right, 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:39.880 So all of a sudden, during the sportscast, it skits 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:41.960 is out and then all of a sudden you see 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:48.160 a a guy in a suit, uh wearing a max 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:54.040 headroom mask and it was there was no audio that 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:57.440 was I guess the problem with this first intrusion that 0:15:57.520 --> 0:16:01.120 was called a broadcast intrusion. Yeah, but you couldn't hear anything. 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:03.840 But I'm sure it was certainly distressing to a viewer 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:06.960 to see this kind of weird thing happened, especially if 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:09.360 viewer who wanted to know what the heck happened between 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:13.000 the Bears and the Lions that day. And Um, the 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:15.360 whole thing lasted I think like eleven seconds or some 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:17.520 very short amount of time. Yeah, this was a short 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:21.000 one before um, the w g N engineers went and 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:25.480 switched to the backup transmitter and and I guess transmitted 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:29.800 on a slightly different signal and brought the broadcast the 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:34.400 sportscaster back on and Dan Rone was like, uh, if 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:38.600 you're wondering what just happened, so am I right? There's 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:40.240 a chuckle in between. I wasn't going to do my 0:16:40.280 --> 0:16:43.120 impression of it, but it's good. You should watch it, 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:47.280 like somebody just go look it up. Right. So Federal Investigators, 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:50.880 the FEC that is, was called in to investigate, um, 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:54.360 what technically is well not technically, it's a crime to 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:57.920 do so. And then just a few minutes later they thought, well, 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:00.440 this is probably coming from inside the building, and so 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:02.600 that's the first place they started looking, they said, the 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:07.840 intrusions coming from inside the building exactly. They didn't find anybody, though, 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:11.800 I mean it was as you'll see after we explained further, 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:15.640 it would make sense that you would look in the building, yeah, right, 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:19.720 for something like this inside job. There apparently was not 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:21.960 an inside job at least as far as the w 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:26.399 g N Engineers Search was concerned. Right, right, So that 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:29.880 was at nine fourteen. About two hours later, I think, 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:34.280 at eleven fifteen, on another channel in Chicago, w t 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:37.879 t W, which was the PBS station, they were airing 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:41.920 an episode of Doctor Who called the Horror on fang Island, 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:45.240 fang Rock, fang Rock, Horror of fang Rock. You have 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:48.520 to say it like that, though, the Horror of fang Rock. 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:52.200 Thank you. And this is the Tom Baker doctor. Okay, 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:56.280 that's the only one I recognize that. Really he's seventies, right, Hey, 0:17:56.320 --> 0:17:59.159 I'm no doctor who, guys, don't it looked like it 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:01.040 looked like the seven is what they cut in on. 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:04.600 Look pretty seventies. It didn't look eighty seven, so who 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:08.080 would think it would be seven? I'm guessing it was 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:10.800 a rerun on PBS. That's what I think all right, 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:14.120 we'll find out and oh man, we're going to find 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:17.160 out too. Are that would have been super easy to check? Yeah, 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:21.199 at any rate, um the the in the middle of 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:25.040 this Doctor Who episode, it suddenly cuts out again, and 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:28.760 now you've got what appears to be the full run 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:33.160 of this Max headroom intrusion. Yes, instead of thirty seconds, 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:36.280 this one was a minute in twenty two seconds. And 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:40.560 right now I would say, if you are somewhere where 0:18:40.600 --> 0:18:45.560 you can pause and go to a video online video 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:49.240 carrier of your choosing and type in Max headroom incident, 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:52.280 spend the next minute in twenty two seconds watching it. 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:55.280 We'll wait and we'll wait. We'll just in cert a 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:58.080 minute seconds of silence here. How about this, Let's take 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:00.600 a break and then we'll come back, and then we'll 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:03.040 talk about exactly what happened during that minute in twenty 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:27.639 two seconds. Okay, we're back. Did you watch it? Are 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:31.320 you talking to me? Okay, look at you. I'm guessing 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:33.560 that people people did watch it. A few people did, 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:36.280 smart ones did. Because this is really tough to describe, 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:39.960 and we're going to try, but it's something you really 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:44.920 have to see. You in here, it's genuinely disturbing sitting 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:48.000 in an office years later watching it, and I can 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:51.360 imagine if I was at home, I would have probably 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:55.640 been a little freaked out. You found it disturbing, Yeah, 0:19:55.840 --> 0:19:59.800 I found it hilarious in like a really juvenile way. 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:03.680 It creeps me out. It was like watching David Byrne 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:05.919 on acid at a talking head show. That's what I 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:09.040 think of when I saw that. You know, all right, 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:11.920 so let's let's describe the scene here. Okay, so you 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:15.400 got Max Headroom, Well, actually a dude wearing a rubber mask, 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:19.560 a rubber Halloween mask of Max Headroom. And this this 0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:23.200 is just genius to me. So you mentioned earlier about 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:26.199 how the um Max headroom had like these kind of 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:28.680 grid lines behind them at all times and they kind 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:31.800 of moved and adjusted. They were different colors to do 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:35.520 to to simulate that these guys had like a piece 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:40.360 of corrugated metal, shiny metal, and I guess they had 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:43.280 an attached somehow to something that rocked it back and forth, 0:20:43.920 --> 0:20:46.480 and they kind of somebody was clearly rocking it back 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:49.679 and forth here there erratically, And it really does a 0:20:49.720 --> 0:20:52.640 good job. It gets the point across that it looked 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:54.720 like the maxid Room TV show. The Yeah, the back 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:59.439 of the character. Yes, but again I would say that 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:03.040 this person is very very clearly on acid. Well, I 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:05.160 think what disturbs me, and I need to make it clear. 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:08.600 It is definitely funny and stupid, But what disturbs me 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:12.280 is the sound of the voice, which is all garble. 0:21:12.359 --> 0:21:16.240 It's really like on YouTube. It has subtitles, thankfully because 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:17.879 it's hard to make out, and a lot of times 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:20.480 it just says can't you know understand what he's saying 0:21:20.560 --> 0:21:23.840 or whatever? Uh, and the garble quality and just the 0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:29.199 random weirdness that's going on. It's not like it was 0:21:29.240 --> 0:21:32.440 creepier to me than if V for Vendetta dude had 0:21:32.440 --> 0:21:34.280 to come on, Guy Fox had to come on and said, 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:36.440 you know, we are coming into your thing to tell 0:21:36.480 --> 0:21:39.480 you this about this This was just so weird and 0:21:39.480 --> 0:21:42.360 all over the place. It was creepy to me. Yeah, 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:44.400 well yeah, yeah, I see what you mean, Like you're 0:21:44.400 --> 0:21:50.320 watching some somebody's brain slightly damaged. Yeah, felt watching somebody 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:54.200 lose their mind. Right, Okay, yeah, totally get that. Um, 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:57.000 And here's here's what the guy did that would make 0:21:57.119 --> 0:22:01.320 you feel like he lost his mind. Um, this is 0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:04.359 the weird thing to me. It's it's very targeted towards 0:22:04.520 --> 0:22:08.919 w g N, right, almost so much so that some 0:22:09.000 --> 0:22:11.879 people would say this was clearly somebody who had a 0:22:11.920 --> 0:22:14.600 grudge against w g N. He makes fun of the 0:22:14.640 --> 0:22:19.000 bulls um sportscaster, the guy who worked for w g 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:21.960 N at the time. He makes reference to how he 0:22:22.080 --> 0:22:26.960 just made a masterpiece for the Greatest World's Newspaper Nerds, 0:22:27.520 --> 0:22:30.560 which was a messed up version of w g n's 0:22:30.600 --> 0:22:34.680 call letters stand for World's Greatest Newspaper. He wields a 0:22:34.760 --> 0:22:38.120 rubber penis. That's one. Although it was great and almost 0:22:38.119 --> 0:22:40.680 every article it was referred to as a marital aid. 0:22:41.680 --> 0:22:44.920 Did you see that? No? But uh, I actually guessed 0:22:44.920 --> 0:22:47.960 it on Strickland's Tech stuff like four years ago, and 0:22:48.040 --> 0:22:49.960 we covered this and I called it a marital aide, 0:22:50.080 --> 0:22:53.680 did you Okay? So I wanted to keep it clean. 0:22:55.400 --> 0:22:58.400 I realized that saying the word penis is okay, Well, 0:22:58.440 --> 0:23:01.399 it's clinical. I mean, we did a puberty episode, surely 0:23:01.440 --> 0:23:05.440 we have the chops to say penis. But marital aide 0:23:05.480 --> 0:23:09.040 is hilarious, especially in this context like this crazy dude 0:23:09.040 --> 0:23:14.320 on acid wearing a max headroom mask. Is has a 0:23:14.359 --> 0:23:16.719 marital aid. No, he doesn't, that's not what that is 0:23:16.800 --> 0:23:20.119 in that context. Yeah, and that's a new T shirt. 0:23:20.200 --> 0:23:22.520 By the way, what we have the chops to say 0:23:22.520 --> 0:23:26.680 penis So that's a band name. Let's go ahead and 0:23:26.760 --> 0:23:29.280 use some of the let's go and say some of 0:23:29.320 --> 0:23:32.080 the direct quotes. So he comes on and he goes 0:23:32.400 --> 0:23:36.680 he's a freaking nerd. I think I'm better than Chuck Swarsky, 0:23:36.800 --> 0:23:39.760 freaking liberal. That's a really good impression of it. And 0:23:39.840 --> 0:23:44.320 Chuck Swarsky was the Bulls guy. Yeah, the sports announcer. 0:23:44.359 --> 0:23:46.320 And this is a time too when like the Bulls 0:23:46.320 --> 0:23:49.560 were um, this is the Jordan Pippen era. Still I 0:23:49.600 --> 0:23:52.359 mean well still was at the beginning of it was seven. 0:23:52.359 --> 0:23:53.560