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Speaker 1: Here is a classic episode that covers a single event

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Speaker 1: that happened on one night in 1987 in the great

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Speaker 1: city of Chicago, where someone wearing a Max Headroom mask

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Speaker 1: took over a local TV station for several minutes. And

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Speaker 1: when I put it like that, it sounds pretty inconsequential,

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Speaker 1: but it was such a big deal that the feds

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Speaker 1: got involved. And even better, it's a mystery that's still

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Speaker 1: not fully solved today. And it's weird. Welcome to Stuff

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Speaker 1: You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Chuck Bryant and Jerry Rowland. What

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Speaker 1: do you think? Pretty good?

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Speaker 2: It's pretty good.

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Speaker 1: And this is Stuff You Should Know.

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Speaker 2: Josh Headroom.

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Speaker 1: Thank you.

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Speaker 2: I saw you over there with your earbuds today. You were...

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Speaker 2: Working on this all day, weren't you?

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Speaker 1: I watched season one, episode one.

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Speaker 2: Oh, really?

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Speaker 1: In full? Of Max Headroom. Like, the last ten minutes

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Speaker 1: is still pending.

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Speaker 2: Oh, okay.

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Speaker 1: But it's crazy. Like, Max Headroom himself doesn't show up until, like,

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Speaker 1: 40 minutes into the first hour-long episode. But when he does,

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Speaker 1: it's dynamite.

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Speaker 2: So what are we talking about?

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Speaker 1: We're talking about Max Headroom.

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Speaker 2: That's right. A huge shout-out at the beginning of this

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Speaker 2: to vice.com, specifically... Motherboard.

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Speaker 1: Specifically, Alex Pasternak.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, who wrote the article on Motherboard. And we actually,

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Speaker 2: we used to blog a little bit for them back

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Speaker 2: in the day. Remember that?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think they like to talk about that

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Speaker 1: or acknowledge it publicly.

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Speaker 2: You don't think?

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Speaker 1: I don't think so.

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Speaker 2: Oh, I think it was mutually beneficial.

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

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

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Speaker 2: I think I read one about driving a stick shift

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Speaker 2: versus automatic or something weird.

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Speaker 1: That's a big one. Yeah. We started out with an

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Speaker 1: old fashioned recipe, I think.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that was you.

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Speaker 1: They were like, let's do better than this, guys. And

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Speaker 1: we said no.

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Speaker 2: And then they said, we got our own people.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. We'll let somebody come in and ghostwrite for you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so that motherboard article was the basis. And from

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Speaker 2: what I found, I mean, we used a lot of

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Speaker 2: different sources on this, but this article entitled The Mystery

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Speaker 2: of the Creepiest Television Hack is sort of the culmination,

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Speaker 2: like the coup de grace.

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Speaker 1: Coup de grace?

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Speaker 2: Sure. Of Max Headroom incident articles.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it actually.

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Speaker 2: Really good job.

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Speaker 1: Pasternak very exhaustively investigated it and turned up new information,

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Speaker 1: got a new understanding of it, and basically contributed to

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Speaker 1: the mythos of it himself. So way to go, Pasternak.

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Speaker 2: Right. And what we're talking about is... If you don't

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Speaker 2: know who Max Headroom at all is, we're about to

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Speaker 2: set that up.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk about Max Headroom.

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Speaker 2: But if you were alive during the 1980s, then you

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Speaker 2: probably know who Max Headroom is because, weirdly, for a

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Speaker 2: brief few years, it was kind of a big pop

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Speaker 2: culture thing.

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Speaker 1: About four years by my calculations.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So starting in 1984, there was a movie called Max Headroom... colon,

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Speaker 1: so you know it was an important movie, 20 Minutes

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Speaker 1: in the Future.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Right?

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Speaker 1: And it was kind of a cyberpunk movie, dystopian future,

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Speaker 1: very Terry Gilliam, Brazil-ish. And it was, I haven't seen

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Speaker 1: that one, but it was basically where the character of

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Speaker 1: Max Headroom was born, right?

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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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.

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Speaker 2: Oh, man.

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Speaker 1: I went and watched an old ad. He was in

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Speaker 1: an ad with Run DMC pitching New Coke. And I

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Speaker 1: was like, doesn't get any more 80s than this. But

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

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Speaker 2: Was it? Did it say, here's a little story I

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Speaker 2: need to tell about a new Coke on the scene

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Speaker 2: that you'd love so well?

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Speaker 1: That was exactly word for word how the ad went. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So let's back up a little more, right? Okay. Let's

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Speaker 1: describe what Max Headroom is for the kids. Because I

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Speaker 1: guarantee about 80% of our audience are like, what's the 80s?

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Speaker 1: What's New Coke?

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Who's run DMC? Well, that's probably not true. So what

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

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Speaker 1: virtual talk show host, right?

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Speaker 2: Correct. Okay. Yeah. So he was played by a guy

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Speaker 2: named Matt Frewer. who, out of prosthetic makeup, had that

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Speaker 2: look anyway, very chiseled, square-jawed. He was not bald, but

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Speaker 2: had— was he balding? He had a receding hairline. Okay, but

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Speaker 2: he kept it really, really short, so he kind of

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Speaker 2: looked bald.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Here, this will explain it to all the kids

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Speaker 1: at home. He was a colleague of Murphy Brown on

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Speaker 1: the Murphy Brown television show. They're like, oh. Oh, that guy.

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Speaker 2: I got you.

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Speaker 1: Not the painter. No. The other one, the love interest.

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Speaker 2: I don't think I knew that. I never watched Murphy Brown, though.

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Speaker 1: Oh, man, I hope it was him. I'm pretty sure

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Speaker 1: it was him.

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Speaker 2: Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Well, he's been around. He's still acting today. Sure. But, yes,

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Speaker 2: he played the character of Max Headroom, and the TV

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Speaker 2: show Max Headroom was actually pretty far ahead of its time,

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Speaker 2: tonally speaking.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So the whole premise of the TV show, his

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Speaker 1: big last great gasp, that was actually the most serious

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Speaker 1: of all of it, was where... In the future, TV

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Speaker 1: networks controlled the world.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And the station, the Network 23, that Matt Frewer's character

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Speaker 1: and later Max Headroom, who became his alter ego, worked for,

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Speaker 1: were putting these things called blipverts out.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. His character's name was Edison Carter at first. Right.

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Speaker 1: And he was like an investigative journalist. Yeah. So he

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Speaker 1: starts looking into these blipverts because the problem with blipverts,

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Speaker 1: they are 30-second ads compressed into three seconds, and it's

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Speaker 1: meant to keep you from changing the channel. The problem

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Speaker 1: is that everybody watched so much TV by this time,

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Speaker 1: they didn't move around, which meant that all of the

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Speaker 1: electricity generated by their nerve endings wasn't burned off, is

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Speaker 1: how the show explained it. So when their brains were

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Speaker 1: assaulted with these blipverts, they kind of short-circuited, and all

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Speaker 1: of that electricity that was just hanging around their bodies

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Speaker 1: because they weren't moving at all during the day made

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Speaker 1: them explode. The network really liked blipverts, and they didn't

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

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Speaker 1: instead get rid of Edison Carter.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and the TV advertising at the time, or advertising

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Speaker 2: in general, sort of, not only did TV rule the world,

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Speaker 2: but the ads behind it was really the driving force.

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Speaker 1: It sounds very familiar.

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Speaker 2: It does. Everyone's like, I'd take a blipvert.

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Speaker 1: Sure.

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Speaker 2: Give me a three-second ad on the podcast.

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Speaker 1: Guys, it'll blow you up.

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Speaker 2: So what ended up happening was the character of Edison

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Speaker 2: Carter eventually was– there was an incident, not the Max

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Speaker 2: Headroom incident, where he was left in a coma in

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Speaker 2: an episode.

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Speaker 1: The first episode.

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Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, the pilot, of course. And the last thing

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Speaker 2: he sees before falling into a coma is a sign

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Speaker 2: that said Max Headroom colon 2.3 meters. Mm-hmm. And so

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Speaker 2: that's how he got the name Max Headroom.

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Speaker 1: Right. It was in like a parking garage. And it

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Speaker 1: was basically saying this is the overhead clearance is the

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Speaker 1: way it's put in the United States.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Right. So that's the name Max Headroom, right?

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Speaker 2: But he was an AI character.

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Speaker 1: Right. So the evil TV network got a hold of him,

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Speaker 1: uploaded his brain. And they originally did this with the

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Speaker 1: intent of bringing Edison Carter because, again, he was like

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Speaker 1: their star reporter. Yeah. Bringing him back in virtual form.

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Speaker 1: So they created an artificial intelligence. Well, it was kind

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Speaker 1: of glitchy and blippy and it looked weird. So they

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

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Speaker 1: of this database that Max Headroom lived on and they

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Speaker 1: started broadcasting with him and Max Headroom was born.

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Speaker 2: That's right. And you said glitchy and blippy. And that, kids,

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Speaker 2: explains your intro when you went Josh.

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Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I was doing my Max Headroom impression. Thank you for

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Speaker 1: explaining that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that bears... Josh was... He's okay, everybody. So that's

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Speaker 2: what Max Headroom did. It was jittery. It was blippy,

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Speaker 2: like you said. The background was this weird sort of

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Speaker 2: horizontal and diagonal lined moving around thing. And that was

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Speaker 2: all part of this, at the time, sort of futuristic look.

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Speaker 1: He was also really sarcastic and really catty. And he

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

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Speaker 1: just kind of like a cult hero, just the character itself, right?

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The awesome thing about him is in the real world

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Speaker 1: of 1984, we didn't have any kind of computers that

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Speaker 1: could generate a CGI host. So they actually used like prosthetics. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Like there was a four-hour process to put Matt Frewer

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Speaker 1: into the Max Headroom makeup. So it's the guy acting,

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Speaker 1: and they mess with the video a little bit, but

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Speaker 1: it wasn't a CGI version of a guy. It was

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Speaker 1: a guy acting like he was a CGI version of himself.

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Speaker 2: Right, which is why, for instance, if Max Headroom, the character,

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Speaker 2: were to appear on, say, David Letterman, which he did,

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Speaker 2: it would be Letterman interviewing a TV screen.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: Which is what they did.

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Speaker 1: But it was actually Matt Frewer in another studio.

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Speaker 2: He was probably just.

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Speaker 1: Backstage.

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Speaker 2: Backstage being broadcast.

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Speaker 1: And it's really like, as a kid, I did not

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Speaker 1: get all of it.

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Speaker 2: No, I just thought it was a.

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Speaker 2: I didn't really know what it was because I'd never

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Speaker 2: seen the show. I thought he was the Coke guy.

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Speaker 1: Right. And I think I'd seen the show a little bit.

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Speaker 1: I was like, this is way too grown up for me.

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: really difficult. And the fact that they did this and

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

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Speaker 1: pretty amazing thing, right? And you can kind of understand

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Speaker 1: how Max Headroom, with all that information now, became this

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Speaker 1: kind of cult icon, especially among cyberpunks at the time.

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Speaker 1: And what?

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Speaker 2: Just keep saying cyberpunk.

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Speaker 1: So let me, I'm not like a, particularly well-versed in

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Speaker 1: what constitutes cyberpunk, but it's like pornography to a Supreme

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Speaker 1: Court justice. I know it when I see it, right?

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Speaker 2: Sure.

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Speaker 1: So if you watch the Max Headroom show, you're like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's cyberpunk. Robocop is supposedly cyberpunk, right? It's like a

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Speaker 1: bleak technological future where people are controlled by, almost down

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Speaker 1: to their minds by the government or some corporation or

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Speaker 1: some amalgamation of the two. That's pretty cyberpunk, right? So

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Speaker 1: at the time, you had what are called geeks and nerds,

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Speaker 1: but they are not really what you would call a

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Speaker 1: geek or a nerd today, right? Somebody who wears like

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Speaker 1: glasses that don't actually have prescription glass in them.

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Speaker 2: Do people do that?

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Speaker 1: Some people do.

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Speaker 2: I did that in the fourth grade.

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Speaker 1: Well, then you were a geek, apparently.

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Speaker 2: No, I was a prep and I wore those little

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Speaker 2: tortoiseshell round uh preppy glasses because that was a cool

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Speaker 2: look yeah and actually went in it's it's one of

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Speaker 2: my least proud moments fashion wise yeah is actually bought

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Speaker 2: fake glasses and wore them around do you have photos

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Speaker 2: of this i'd really have to dig through some boxes.

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Speaker 1: I think i speak for everyone when i say start digging.

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Speaker 2: Dig yeah it was not my proudest moment yeah i'd

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Speaker 2: like to see that picture all right so um.

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Speaker 1: At the time, people who were geeks and nerds, that

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Speaker 1: whole culture was very much derided and pushed around. I mean,

256
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Speaker 1: look at Revenge of the Nerds, right?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: Like they came out on top.

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Speaker 2: 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 at all.

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

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

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Speaker 1: time when almost no one else did.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, early adopters across the board.

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Speaker 1: Very much so, right? So Max Headroom's kind of a

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Speaker 1: cult hero to this guy. And that kind of sets

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Speaker 1: up what happened on November 22, 1987, in a little

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Speaker 1: town called Chicago, Illinois.

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Speaker 2: The city of industry.

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Speaker 1: The city of angels.

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Speaker 2: The city that doesn't ever sleep.

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Speaker 1: Never.

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Speaker 2: The Windy City.

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Speaker 1: That's it. There you go. Of all time.

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Speaker 2: The Windy City of all time. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So that sets the stage. We know who the character

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Speaker 2: of Max Headroom was. Then at 9.14 p.m. Wait, wait, wait. Yes.

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Speaker 1: Are you sure I set the stage?

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Speaker 2: I think so.

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Speaker 1: Did we set the stage fully here?

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Speaker 2: It looks nice. All right. Let's do it. So at

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Speaker 2: 9.14 p.m. on that November night in Chicago.

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Speaker 1: Four days before Thanksgiving. Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So everyone was in that frame of mind. Right. Put

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Speaker 2: yourself there.

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Speaker 1: I think that that helps a lot. It helped me

290
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Speaker 1: at least. Sure. Okay.

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Speaker 2: Football season's going on. Yeah.

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

293
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Speaker 1: Bears had beat the Lions.

294
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Speaker 2: Yeah. Which, you know, it was a long time ago

295
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Speaker 2: because the Bears won a football game.

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Speaker 1: Oh, ouch. I know. The people in the Windy City

297
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Speaker 1: of All Time are not going to be happy with

298
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Speaker 1: you for that.

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Speaker 2: The Windy City of All Time. Oh, and there's a

300
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Speaker 2: sportscaster on local Channel 9. uh, Dan Roan, our way in.

301
00:14:10,190 --> 00:14:12,209
Speaker 2: And he was, he was going over the highlights of

302
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Speaker 2: that football game. Then all of a sudden, right in

303
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Speaker 2: the middle, the, the broadcast signal goes, right. It makes

304
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Speaker 2: those noise, uh, noises. And then over at WGN, the

305
00:14:24,290 --> 00:14:28,010
Speaker 2: control room, they were like, what's, what's going on here.

306
00:14:28,190 --> 00:14:29,410
Speaker 2: We have no idea what this is.

307
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Speaker 1: I think the exact quote was a girl.

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Speaker 2: So, um, What happened was they eventually, what they were

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Speaker 2: doing at the time was, and this is how, we're

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Speaker 2: not going to go into the weeds here on how

311
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Speaker 2: broadcast signals work.

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Speaker 1: No.

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Speaker 2: But what they did back in the day was they

314
00:14:46,420 --> 00:14:50,800
Speaker 2: broadcast microwave transmissions to antennas at the top of the

315
00:14:50,840 --> 00:14:53,160
Speaker 2: tallest buildings of whatever city that they were in.

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Speaker 1: For local TV.

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Speaker 2: For local TV, which is, I mean, there was cable

318
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Speaker 2: at the time, but local TV still kind of ruled.

319
00:14:59,750 --> 00:14:59,950
Speaker 1: Yeah.

320
00:15:00,290 --> 00:15:02,330
Speaker 2: In the, well, sort of in the late 80s.

321
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Speaker 1: Right. So like.

322
00:15:03,210 --> 00:15:04,590
Speaker 2: Starting to segue to cable.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. Cable is, you know, kind of a thing.

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Speaker 1: But you if you were a local TV station, you

325
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Speaker 1: still have pretty big market share.

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Speaker 2: For sure.

327
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Speaker 1: Right. Especially WGN in Chicago. I mean, it's like Chicago Station.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely.

329
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Speaker 1: So what I think you're saying is that in a studio,

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Speaker 1: whatever they're recording or shooting or playing on their their

331
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Speaker 1: little videotapes. They're beaming that from the actual studio to

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Speaker 1: a transmitter, say, atop a very tall building, and that

333
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Speaker 1: just kind of bounces around to other transmitters, and that's

334
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Speaker 1: how everybody in Chicago gets their WGN signal, right?

335
00:15:39,160 --> 00:15:42,470
Speaker 2: Right. So all of a sudden, during the sportscast, it

336
00:15:42,900 --> 00:15:45,210
Speaker 2: skitzes out, and then all of a sudden you see

337
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Speaker 2: a guy in a suit wearing a Max Headroom mask, and.

338
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Speaker 2: There was no audio. That was, I guess, the problem

339
00:15:58,880 --> 00:16:03,100
Speaker 2: with this first intrusion. It was called a broadcast intrusion. Yeah.

340
00:16:03,340 --> 00:16:05,670
Speaker 2: But you couldn't hear anything. But I'm sure it was

341
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Speaker 2: certainly distressing to a viewer to see this kind of

342
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Speaker 2: weird thing happen.

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Speaker 1: Especially a viewer who wanted to know what the heck

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Speaker 1: happened between the bears and the lions that day.

345
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Speaker 2: Sure.

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Speaker 1: And the whole thing lasted, I think, like 11 seconds

347
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Speaker 1: or some very short amount of time.

348
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Speaker 2: Yeah, this was a short one.

349
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Speaker 1: Before the WGN engineers went... And switched to the backup

350
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Speaker 1: transmitter and I guess transmitted on a slightly different signal.

351
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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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00:16:30,620 --> 00:16:35,240
Speaker 1: And brought the broadcast, the sportscaster back on. And Dan

353
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Speaker 1: Roan was like, if you're wondering what just happened, so

354
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Speaker 1: am I. Right. There's a chuckle in between. I wasn't

355
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Speaker 1: going to do my impression of it.

356
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Speaker 2: You should.

357
00:16:45,160 --> 00:16:47,670
Speaker 1: But it's good. You should watch it. Like somebody, just

358
00:16:47,690 --> 00:16:48,280
Speaker 1: go look it up.

359
00:16:48,810 --> 00:16:52,390
Speaker 2: Right. So federal investigators, the FCC that is, was called

360
00:16:52,430 --> 00:16:56,380
Speaker 2: in to investigate. Um, what technically is, well, not technically,

361
00:16:56,410 --> 00:16:59,660
Speaker 2: it's a crime to do so. And then just a

362
00:16:59,670 --> 00:17:02,060
Speaker 2: few minutes later, they thought, well, this is probably coming

363
00:17:02,160 --> 00:17:04,480
Speaker 2: from inside the building. And so that's the first place

364
00:17:04,520 --> 00:17:05,280
Speaker 2: they started looking.

365
00:17:05,400 --> 00:17:08,380
Speaker 1: They said the intrusion's coming from inside the building.

366
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Speaker 2: Exactly.

367
00:17:09,940 --> 00:17:12,840
Speaker 1: They didn't find anybody though. I mean, it was, as

368
00:17:12,880 --> 00:17:16,440
Speaker 1: you'll see, after we explained further, it would make sense

369
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Speaker 1: that you would look in the building.

370
00:17:18,400 --> 00:17:18,600
Speaker 2: Yeah.

371
00:17:18,740 --> 00:17:20,220
Speaker 1: Right. For something like this.

372
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Speaker 2: Inside job.

373
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Speaker 1: It apparently was not an inside job, at least as

374
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Speaker 1: far as the WGN engineers search was concerned.

375
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Speaker 2: That's right.

376
00:17:29,359 --> 00:17:33,000
Speaker 1: So that was at 9.14. About two hours later, I

377
00:17:33,040 --> 00:17:38,320
Speaker 1: think at 11.15, on another channel in Chicago, WTTW, which

378
00:17:38,359 --> 00:17:39,740
Speaker 1: was the PBS station.

379
00:17:39,800 --> 00:17:40,060
Speaker 2: Yeah.

380
00:17:40,480 --> 00:17:43,040
Speaker 1: They were airing an episode of Doctor Who called The

381
00:17:43,140 --> 00:17:45,280
Speaker 1: Horror on Fang Island.

382
00:17:45,619 --> 00:17:46,120
Speaker 2: Fang Rock.

383
00:17:46,380 --> 00:17:47,140
Speaker 1: Fang Rock.

384
00:17:47,160 --> 00:17:48,280
Speaker 2: The Horror of Fang Rock.

385
00:17:48,380 --> 00:17:49,700
Speaker 1: You have to say it like that, though.

386
00:17:50,359 --> 00:17:51,940
Speaker 2: The Horror of Fang Rock.

387
00:17:52,180 --> 00:17:52,590
Speaker 1: Thank you.

388
00:17:52,680 --> 00:17:54,199
Speaker 2: And this is the Tom Baker Doctor.

389
00:17:55,119 --> 00:17:56,889
Speaker 1: Okay. That's the only one I recognize.

390
00:17:57,130 --> 00:17:57,430
Speaker 2: Oh, really?

391
00:17:57,570 --> 00:17:58,570
Speaker 1: He's 70s, right?

392
00:17:58,590 --> 00:18:02,270
Speaker 2: Hey, I'm no Doctor Who guy, so don't embarrass me.

393
00:18:02,369 --> 00:18:04,409
Speaker 1: It looked like the 70s, what they cut in on,

394
00:18:04,450 --> 00:18:07,609
Speaker 1: looked pretty 70s. It didn't look 87. So who knows?

395
00:18:07,990 --> 00:18:09,190
Speaker 2: I would think it would be 87.

396
00:18:09,190 --> 00:18:13,290
Speaker 1: I'm guessing it was a rerun on PBS. That's what

397
00:18:13,330 --> 00:18:13,650
Speaker 1: I think.

398
00:18:13,850 --> 00:18:14,170
Speaker 2: All right.

399
00:18:14,530 --> 00:18:17,490
Speaker 1: We'll find out. Oh, man, we are going to find

400
00:18:17,570 --> 00:18:18,149
Speaker 1: out too, aren't we?

401
00:18:18,150 --> 00:18:19,590
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would have been super easy to check.

402
00:18:21,300 --> 00:18:25,740
Speaker 1: At any rate, in the middle of this Doctor Who episode,

403
00:18:25,880 --> 00:18:30,570
Speaker 1: it suddenly cuts out again. And now you've got what

404
00:18:30,609 --> 00:18:34,730
Speaker 1: appears to be the full run of this Max Headroom intrusion.

405
00:18:34,910 --> 00:18:37,410
Speaker 2: Yes. Instead of 30 seconds, this one was a minute

406
00:18:37,970 --> 00:18:41,949
Speaker 2: and 22 seconds. And right now, I would say if

407
00:18:42,010 --> 00:18:46,530
Speaker 2: you are somewhere where you can pause and go to

408
00:18:46,550 --> 00:18:51,380
Speaker 2: a video, online video carrier of your choosing. And type

409
00:18:51,420 --> 00:18:54,480
Speaker 2: in Max Headroom incident. Uh-huh. Spend the next minute and

410
00:18:54,480 --> 00:18:55,590
Speaker 2: 22 seconds watching it.

411
00:18:56,010 --> 00:18:56,390
Speaker 1: We'll wait.

412
00:18:57,010 --> 00:18:57,450
Speaker 2: And we'll wait.

413
00:18:57,730 --> 00:19:00,590
Speaker 1: We'll just insert a minute and 22 seconds of silence here.

414
00:19:00,609 --> 00:19:01,750
Speaker 2: How about this? Let's take a break.

415
00:19:02,170 --> 00:19:02,390
Speaker 1: Oh, okay.

416
00:19:02,590 --> 00:19:04,350
Speaker 2: And then we'll come back and then we'll talk about

417
00:19:04,550 --> 00:19:06,310
Speaker 2: exactly what happened during that minute and 22 seconds.

418
00:19:06,330 --> 00:19:28,240
Speaker 1: Okay. Okay, we're back.

419
00:19:29,260 --> 00:19:29,790
Speaker 2: Did you watch it?

420
00:19:30,920 --> 00:19:31,620
Speaker 1: Are you talking to me?

421
00:19:31,800 --> 00:19:33,959
Speaker 2: No. Oh, okay. I was looking at you.

422
00:19:34,040 --> 00:19:36,880
Speaker 1: I'm guessing that people did watch it. A few people did.

423
00:19:36,980 --> 00:19:39,580
Speaker 1: Smart ones did. Because this is really tough to describe

424
00:19:39,640 --> 00:19:43,290
Speaker 1: and we're going to try. But it's something you really

425
00:19:43,350 --> 00:19:44,109
Speaker 1: have to see yourself.

426
00:19:44,170 --> 00:19:48,980
Speaker 2: Yeah, in here. It's genuinely disturbing. sitting in an office

427
00:19:49,430 --> 00:19:51,980
Speaker 2: years later, watching it. And I can imagine if I

428
00:19:52,020 --> 00:19:55,620
Speaker 2: was at home, I would have probably been a little

429
00:19:55,660 --> 00:19:56,140
Speaker 2: freaked out.

430
00:19:56,859 --> 00:20:01,320
Speaker 1: You found it disturbing? Yeah. I found it hilarious in

431
00:20:01,340 --> 00:20:02,619
Speaker 1: like a really juvenile way.

432
00:20:02,640 --> 00:20:04,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, it creeps me out.

433
00:20:05,020 --> 00:20:07,800
Speaker 1: It was like watching David Byrne on acid at a

434
00:20:07,840 --> 00:20:10,020
Speaker 1: talking head show. That's what I think of when I

435
00:20:10,040 --> 00:20:11,740
Speaker 1: saw that. You know?

436
00:20:11,760 --> 00:20:14,260
Speaker 2: All right. So let's describe the scene here. Okay.

437
00:20:14,800 --> 00:20:17,699
Speaker 1: So you got Max Headroom. Well, actually a dude wearing

438
00:20:17,740 --> 00:20:21,340
Speaker 1: a rubber mask. A rubber Halloween mask of Max Headroom.

439
00:20:21,380 --> 00:20:21,580
Speaker 2: Yes.

440
00:20:21,859 --> 00:20:25,800
Speaker 1: And this is just genius to me. So you mentioned

441
00:20:25,859 --> 00:20:29,410
Speaker 1: earlier about how the Max Headroom had like these kind

442
00:20:29,450 --> 00:20:31,810
Speaker 1: of grid lines behind him at all times. And they

443
00:20:31,830 --> 00:20:33,950
Speaker 1: kind of moved and adjusted and they were different colors.

444
00:20:35,740 --> 00:20:38,949
Speaker 1: To simulate that, these guys had like a piece of

445
00:20:39,130 --> 00:20:43,649
Speaker 1: corrugated metal, shiny metal. Yeah. And I guess they had

446
00:20:43,710 --> 00:20:46,630
Speaker 1: it attached somehow to something that rocked it back and forth.

447
00:20:47,290 --> 00:20:49,800
Speaker 1: And they kind of... Somebody was clearly rocking it back

448
00:20:49,840 --> 00:20:52,960
Speaker 1: and forth here or there erratically. And it really does

449
00:20:52,980 --> 00:20:55,160
Speaker 1: a good job of... It gets the point across.

450
00:20:55,480 --> 00:20:57,140
Speaker 2: That it looked like the Max Edrum TV show.

451
00:20:57,300 --> 00:20:58,100
Speaker 1: Yeah, the background.

452
00:20:58,119 --> 00:20:59,159
Speaker 2: And the character. Yes.

453
00:21:00,190 --> 00:21:03,720
Speaker 1: But again... I would say that this person was very,

454
00:21:03,800 --> 00:21:05,639
Speaker 1: very clearly on acid.

455
00:21:06,080 --> 00:21:08,119
Speaker 2: Well, I think what disturbs me, I need to make

456
00:21:08,160 --> 00:21:11,280
Speaker 2: it clear, it is definitely funny and stupid. But what

457
00:21:11,320 --> 00:21:14,939
Speaker 2: disturbs me is the sound of the voice, which is

458
00:21:15,080 --> 00:21:18,860
Speaker 2: all garbled. It's really like on YouTube it has subtitles, thankfully,

459
00:21:18,880 --> 00:21:20,899
Speaker 2: because it's hard to make out. And a lot of

460
00:21:20,920 --> 00:21:23,590
Speaker 2: times it just says, can't, you know, understand what he's

461
00:21:23,609 --> 00:21:27,209
Speaker 2: saying or whatever. And the garbled quality and just the

462
00:21:27,310 --> 00:21:32,510
Speaker 2: random weirdness that's going on. It's not like, It was

463
00:21:32,570 --> 00:21:35,730
Speaker 2: creepier to me than if V for Vendetta dude had

464
00:21:35,750 --> 00:21:37,570
Speaker 2: to come on. Guy Fawkes had to come on and said,

465
00:21:37,990 --> 00:21:39,750
Speaker 2: you know, we are coming into your thing to tell

466
00:21:39,770 --> 00:21:40,690
Speaker 2: you this about this.

467
00:21:40,950 --> 00:21:41,170
Speaker 1: Right.

468
00:21:41,340 --> 00:21:43,580
Speaker 2: This was just so weird and all over the place.

469
00:21:43,600 --> 00:21:45,020
Speaker 2: It was creepy to me.

470
00:21:45,580 --> 00:21:48,400
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I see what you mean. Like you're watching somebody.

471
00:21:48,420 --> 00:21:49,080
Speaker 2: It's nonsensical.

472
00:21:49,100 --> 00:21:51,620
Speaker 1: Somebody's brain slightly damaged. Yeah.

473
00:21:51,660 --> 00:21:54,410
Speaker 2: I felt like I was watching somebody lose their mind.

474
00:21:54,510 --> 00:21:54,730
Speaker 1: Right.

475
00:21:54,850 --> 00:21:55,350
Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah.

476
00:21:55,770 --> 00:21:59,580
Speaker 1: Totally get that. Um, And here's what the guy did

477
00:21:59,680 --> 00:22:02,540
Speaker 1: that would make you feel like he lost his mind.

478
00:22:04,320 --> 00:22:07,350
Speaker 1: This is the weird thing to me. It's very targeted

479
00:22:07,420 --> 00:22:12,570
Speaker 1: toward WGN, right? Almost so much so that some people

480
00:22:12,609 --> 00:22:15,530
Speaker 1: would say, this is clearly somebody who had a grudge

481
00:22:15,570 --> 00:22:21,389
Speaker 1: against WGN. He makes fun of the Bulls sportscaster, the

482
00:22:21,410 --> 00:22:23,950
Speaker 1: guy who worked for WGN at the time. He makes

483
00:22:24,010 --> 00:22:27,330
Speaker 1: reference to how he just made a masterpiece for the greatest—

484
00:22:28,340 --> 00:22:32,560
Speaker 1: world's newspaper nerds, which was a messed up version of

485
00:22:33,440 --> 00:22:36,859
Speaker 1: WGN's call letters stand for world's greatest newspaper.

486
00:22:37,480 --> 00:22:38,740
Speaker 2: He wields a rubber penis.

487
00:22:39,140 --> 00:22:42,139
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's one. Although it was great. In almost every article,

488
00:22:42,200 --> 00:22:45,280
Speaker 1: it was referred to as a marital aid. Did you

489
00:22:45,320 --> 00:22:45,700
Speaker 1: see that?

490
00:22:46,200 --> 00:22:49,560
Speaker 2: No, but I actually guessed it on Strickland's tech stuff

491
00:22:49,580 --> 00:22:52,369
Speaker 2: like four years ago. And we covered this and I

492
00:22:52,380 --> 00:22:53,270
Speaker 2: called it a marital aid.

493
00:22:53,350 --> 00:22:55,250
Speaker 1: Did you? Okay.

494
00:22:55,330 --> 00:22:58,500
Speaker 2: So I wanted to keep it clean. Sure. But then

495
00:22:58,760 --> 00:23:01,119
Speaker 2: I realized that saying the word penis is OK.

496
00:23:01,590 --> 00:23:04,290
Speaker 1: Well, it's clinical. I mean, we did a puberty episode.

497
00:23:04,350 --> 00:23:08,530
Speaker 1: Surely we have the chops to say penis. But marital

498
00:23:08,570 --> 00:23:11,990
Speaker 1: aid is hilarious, especially in this context. Like this crazy

499
00:23:12,050 --> 00:23:17,420
Speaker 1: dude on acid wearing a Max Headroom mask has a

500
00:23:17,700 --> 00:23:20,040
Speaker 1: marital aid. No, he doesn't. That's not what that is

501
00:23:20,180 --> 00:23:21,040
Speaker 1: in that context.

502
00:23:21,540 --> 00:23:23,800
Speaker 2: Yeah. And that's a new T-shirt, by the way.

503
00:23:24,550 --> 00:23:24,700
Speaker 1: What?

504
00:23:24,880 --> 00:23:26,129
Speaker 2: We have the chops to say penis.

505
00:23:26,710 --> 00:23:29,330
Speaker 1: There you go. That's a band name.

506
00:23:29,450 --> 00:23:33,909
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and say some of the direct quotes. Yes, let's.

507
00:23:33,930 --> 00:23:37,130
Speaker 2: So he comes on and he goes, he's a freaking nerd.

508
00:23:37,800 --> 00:23:41,040
Speaker 2: I think I'm better than Chuck Swirsky, freaking liberal.

509
00:23:41,440 --> 00:23:43,060
Speaker 1: That's a really good impression of this.

510
00:23:43,080 --> 00:23:46,240
Speaker 2: And Chuck Swirsky was the- The Bulls guy. Yeah, the

511
00:23:46,580 --> 00:23:47,600
Speaker 2: sports announcer.

512
00:23:47,700 --> 00:23:50,090
Speaker 1: And this is a time too when the Bulls were,

513
00:23:50,160 --> 00:23:52,010
Speaker 1: this is the Jordan Pippen era still.

514
00:23:52,980 --> 00:23:54,619
Speaker 2: Well, still, it was at the beginning of it.

515
00:23:54,900 --> 00:23:56,620
Speaker 1: Was it 87? I thought it was in the middle

516
00:23:56,660 --> 00:23:59,060
Speaker 1: of it. Was it the beginning?

517
00:24:00,040 --> 00:24:01,850
Speaker 2: Pretty early-ish, let's say.

518
00:24:02,200 --> 00:24:05,490
Speaker 1: I wish these days that I would have been more

519
00:24:05,590 --> 00:24:10,149
Speaker 1: cognizant and more into basketball than I am now.

520
00:24:10,430 --> 00:24:14,360
Speaker 2: See, that's when I was the most into it was Bird, Jordan, Magic.

521
00:24:14,380 --> 00:24:16,220
Speaker 1: I would have liked to have watched some of those games.

522
00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:18,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was good stuff. Because that's when the Hawks

523
00:24:18,380 --> 00:24:19,060
Speaker 2: were good back then.

524
00:24:19,580 --> 00:24:20,700
Speaker 1: Yeah, back then.

525
00:24:20,859 --> 00:24:21,260
Speaker 2: Dominique.

526
00:24:22,430 --> 00:24:24,990
Speaker 1: Hey, shout out to Kent Bazemore. You know, he listens

527
00:24:25,030 --> 00:24:25,570
Speaker 1: to this show.

528
00:24:25,710 --> 00:24:26,070
Speaker 2: No way.

529
00:24:26,170 --> 00:24:26,750
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a fan.

530
00:24:26,890 --> 00:24:27,540
Speaker 2: How'd you find that out?

531
00:24:27,580 --> 00:24:27,820
Speaker 1: Twitter?

532
00:24:28,619 --> 00:24:30,060
Speaker 2: Yeah. That's great.

533
00:24:30,160 --> 00:24:30,360
Speaker 1: Yeah.

534
00:24:30,960 --> 00:24:31,780
Speaker 2: Man, I love Baz.

535
00:24:31,980 --> 00:24:33,340
Speaker 1: I know. How do you not love Baz?

536
00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:34,100
Speaker 2: He's awesome.

537
00:24:34,260 --> 00:24:35,439
Speaker 1: Man, he's bright red right now.

538
00:24:35,460 --> 00:24:36,060
Speaker 2: That's so cool.

539
00:24:36,420 --> 00:24:36,700
Speaker 1: All right.

540
00:24:36,780 --> 00:24:42,170
Speaker 2: So Chuck Swirsky's freaking liberal. He's wielding the rubber penis.

541
00:24:42,750 --> 00:24:43,530
Speaker 1: The marital aid.

542
00:24:43,670 --> 00:24:46,530
Speaker 2: The marital aid. He drops that. Then he picks up

543
00:24:47,210 --> 00:24:49,030
Speaker 2: a new Coke. Well, you can't really tell if it's

544
00:24:49,090 --> 00:24:51,570
Speaker 2: a Pepsi. Oh, was it? OK, I couldn't really tell.

545
00:24:51,590 --> 00:24:54,350
Speaker 2: He picks up a can and but he says, catch

546
00:24:54,410 --> 00:24:56,530
Speaker 2: the wave, which is the new Coke slogan.

547
00:24:56,550 --> 00:24:57,090
Speaker 1: Right.

548
00:24:57,369 --> 00:25:00,100
Speaker 2: Then he starts humming. It's so random. Then he starts

549
00:25:00,140 --> 00:25:05,000
Speaker 2: humming the theme song to the 60s show Clutch Cargo.

550
00:25:05,570 --> 00:25:07,250
Speaker 2: Which is weird in and of itself. Sure.

551
00:25:07,270 --> 00:25:10,830
Speaker 1: That's that one where it's like animation, but for the mouths,

552
00:25:10,930 --> 00:25:14,990
Speaker 1: it was just like a human mouth moving. That's disturbing.

553
00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:18,360
Speaker 2: Yeah. If you've seen Pulp Fiction, the scene where Bruce

554
00:25:18,380 --> 00:25:20,820
Speaker 2: Willis was a kid and Christopher Walken comes in with

555
00:25:20,859 --> 00:25:25,879
Speaker 2: the wristwatch scene, that Clutch Cargo is playing on TV

556
00:25:25,920 --> 00:25:26,500
Speaker 2: when he's watching it.

557
00:25:26,560 --> 00:25:26,720
Speaker 1: Right.

558
00:25:27,520 --> 00:25:28,880
Speaker 2: But it is weird looking. Right.

559
00:25:29,140 --> 00:25:30,770
Speaker 1: So you would say, why did he do the Clutch

560
00:25:30,810 --> 00:25:34,209
Speaker 1: Cargo theme? Well, again, this is a WGN thing, and

561
00:25:34,250 --> 00:25:39,250
Speaker 1: apparently that's where you saw it as a kid in Chicago.

562
00:25:39,810 --> 00:25:42,950
Speaker 2: Okay. So he says also, your love is fading. I

563
00:25:43,869 --> 00:25:47,210
Speaker 2: still see the X, which apparently is something from the

564
00:25:47,250 --> 00:25:48,609
Speaker 2: last episode of Clutch Cargo.

565
00:25:48,770 --> 00:25:51,409
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was the big X or something.

566
00:25:51,690 --> 00:25:53,810
Speaker 2: And then he says what you were talking about earlier,

567
00:25:53,830 --> 00:25:56,810
Speaker 2: I just made a giant masterpiece for all the greatest

568
00:25:56,869 --> 00:25:58,370
Speaker 2: world newspaper nerds.

569
00:25:58,840 --> 00:26:01,639
Speaker 1: But he should have said world's greatest newspaper nerds.

570
00:26:02,220 --> 00:26:02,820
Speaker 2: WGN.

571
00:26:03,060 --> 00:26:05,880
Speaker 1: Right. Which you might find confusing as I did too.

572
00:26:05,940 --> 00:26:12,610
Speaker 1: But apparently the Chicago Tribune Company owns WGN TV. So

573
00:26:12,630 --> 00:26:15,850
Speaker 1: they call themselves world's greatest newspaper TV.

574
00:26:16,290 --> 00:26:18,550
Speaker 2: Right. WGN. It's all coming together.

575
00:26:18,730 --> 00:26:20,930
Speaker 1: Ipso facto. There you go.

576
00:26:21,550 --> 00:26:24,409
Speaker 2: Then finally toward the end, the camera cuts to a

577
00:26:24,470 --> 00:26:29,180
Speaker 2: different angle, uh, This one has the dude bent over

578
00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:32,480
Speaker 2: with his bare butt hanging out. His face is now

579
00:26:32,600 --> 00:26:35,870
Speaker 2: off screen, but he's holding the mask still out like

580
00:26:35,910 --> 00:26:38,449
Speaker 2: his head is in it, but it's not. There is

581
00:26:39,109 --> 00:26:42,129
Speaker 2: a person, I say woman, but I don't know, but

582
00:26:42,150 --> 00:26:45,010
Speaker 2: a person in like an Annie Oakley dress. Is that

583
00:26:45,050 --> 00:26:45,430
Speaker 2: what it was?

584
00:26:45,510 --> 00:26:46,300
Speaker 1: I didn't get that.

585
00:26:46,450 --> 00:26:50,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, it looked like a prairie bonnet ensemble, but the

586
00:26:50,119 --> 00:26:51,659
Speaker 2: bonnet kind of hides the face, so you don't know

587
00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:52,560
Speaker 2: if it's a man or a woman.

588
00:26:52,580 --> 00:26:52,879
Speaker 1: Okay.

589
00:26:53,460 --> 00:26:57,189
Speaker 2: And they are spanking... The bear butt with a fly swatter.

590
00:26:57,710 --> 00:27:00,470
Speaker 1: Right. And he's worried about them coming to get him.

591
00:27:00,670 --> 00:27:03,260
Speaker 2: They're coming to get me. Yeah. And then he says,

592
00:27:03,340 --> 00:27:04,970
Speaker 2: come get me and uses a bad word.

593
00:27:05,340 --> 00:27:05,859
Speaker 1: B word.

594
00:27:06,140 --> 00:27:08,980
Speaker 2: The B word. And then it goes back to Doctor Who.

595
00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:13,939
Speaker 1: Yeah. Just like it came in. went out it just

596
00:27:14,540 --> 00:27:15,680
Speaker 1: and it's like gone.

597
00:27:15,380 --> 00:27:17,660
Speaker 2: Can you imagine seeing that live and that.

598
00:27:17,560 --> 00:27:19,700
Speaker 1: Well the people who saw it live the next thing

599
00:27:19,740 --> 00:27:22,740
Speaker 1: they would have heard was the doctor saying something like

600
00:27:22,940 --> 00:27:25,159
Speaker 1: uh oh he died of an electric shock must have

601
00:27:25,180 --> 00:27:28,670
Speaker 1: died instantly yeah and then and everybody's just sitting there

602
00:27:28,730 --> 00:27:30,629
Speaker 1: like their mouths hanging open.

603
00:27:30,430 --> 00:27:32,710
Speaker 2: Well it was dr who too so it was probably

604
00:27:32,730 --> 00:27:36,110
Speaker 2: a bunch of chicago nerds yeah watching pbs yeah so

605
00:27:36,150 --> 00:27:38,330
Speaker 2: all right my imitation was okay but let's just play

606
00:27:38,369 --> 00:27:56,870
Speaker 2: at least like a All right.

607
00:27:57,570 --> 00:27:59,879
Speaker 1: So you did a pretty good impression. I think everyone

608
00:27:59,890 --> 00:28:02,360
Speaker 1: can agree now, right? It's so strange. So this was

609
00:28:02,410 --> 00:28:09,980
Speaker 1: an enormous thing, right? Like, people were watching this and were... aghast, agog.

610
00:28:10,270 --> 00:28:14,389
Speaker 1: Some people probably thought it was funny. WGN's reporting on

611
00:28:14,430 --> 00:28:16,750
Speaker 1: it all over the place the next couple of days.

612
00:28:16,810 --> 00:28:18,490
Speaker 2: Yeah, the newspapers had picked it up.

613
00:28:18,690 --> 00:28:23,970
Speaker 1: Yeah. There's this one, there's a compilation of WGN broadcasts,

614
00:28:24,630 --> 00:28:27,770
Speaker 1: or it may even be more than just WGN, of

615
00:28:27,890 --> 00:28:30,510
Speaker 1: people in the street being interviewed. What do you think

616
00:28:30,550 --> 00:28:33,389
Speaker 1: about this? And one guy's like, it's kind of like

617
00:28:33,430 --> 00:28:35,639
Speaker 1: hooligans throwing a brick through your window, you know, to

618
00:28:35,660 --> 00:28:38,830
Speaker 1: get your attention. There's a little kid who's like very,

619
00:28:38,940 --> 00:28:42,970
Speaker 1: very funny. The star of the news, though, was this

620
00:28:43,230 --> 00:28:46,390
Speaker 1: one Doctor Who fan, this lady who is not at

621
00:28:46,550 --> 00:28:49,730
Speaker 1: all amused by this. And I just want to play

622
00:28:49,770 --> 00:28:50,760
Speaker 1: her little segment, OK?

623
00:28:51,100 --> 00:28:51,240
Speaker 2: Yeah.

624
00:28:51,780 --> 00:28:52,920
Speaker 1: It annoyed some viewers.

625
00:28:52,940 --> 00:28:53,300
Speaker 2: I don't know.

626
00:28:53,340 --> 00:28:55,080
Speaker 1: I just thought it would be just a slight mess up.

627
00:28:55,120 --> 00:28:57,400
Speaker 2: But that in the middle of the tape, it's going to.

628
00:28:59,140 --> 00:28:59,280
Speaker 1: Be.

629
00:28:59,300 --> 00:29:00,340
Speaker 2: We're going to have to tape over it.

630
00:29:00,340 --> 00:29:02,970
Speaker 1: I just think that's the funniest thing out of the

631
00:29:03,010 --> 00:29:03,910
Speaker 1: whole the whole thing.

632
00:29:04,300 --> 00:29:06,220
Speaker 2: Well, another guy said he wanted to smash his TV.

633
00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:06,900
Speaker 2: He was so angry.

634
00:29:07,080 --> 00:29:09,020
Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't see that guy. I saw that in

635
00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:10,040
Speaker 1: the Pasternak article.

636
00:29:10,060 --> 00:29:10,440
Speaker 2: So funny.

637
00:29:10,560 --> 00:29:13,100
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was mad. So there was a lot of

638
00:29:13,160 --> 00:29:17,600
Speaker 1: mixed reaction, but the voice from on high that came

639
00:29:17,640 --> 00:29:20,600
Speaker 1: from the FCC, who you said were called in pretty quickly.

640
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:20,980
Speaker 2: Yeah.

641
00:29:21,600 --> 00:29:23,980
Speaker 1: They were like, this is no laughing matter. You might

642
00:29:24,010 --> 00:29:26,610
Speaker 1: think it's funny. It's not very funny. Okay, it's kind

643
00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:29,170
Speaker 1: of funny, but not really. And you can get a

644
00:29:29,170 --> 00:29:32,090
Speaker 1: $ 100, 000 fine and a year in jail for this kind

645
00:29:32,110 --> 00:29:33,390
Speaker 1: of thing. So stop doing it.

646
00:29:33,780 --> 00:29:37,230
Speaker 2: But at this point, by this point, it was actually

647
00:29:37,310 --> 00:29:40,420
Speaker 2: a federal offense. It was a felony.

648
00:29:40,840 --> 00:29:42,000
Speaker 1: A felony offense.

649
00:29:43,420 --> 00:29:44,020
Speaker 2: Wait, what was that?

650
00:29:44,100 --> 00:29:44,940
Speaker 1: Dazed and confused.

651
00:29:45,040 --> 00:29:45,420
Speaker 2: Oh, okay.

652
00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:47,640
Speaker 1: Tampering with the mailbox is a felony offense.

653
00:29:47,740 --> 00:29:49,400
Speaker 2: I was like, wait a minute. I know that from somewhere.

654
00:29:49,700 --> 00:29:52,170
Speaker 1: So the FCC gets involved in this. This is really

655
00:29:52,210 --> 00:29:53,350
Speaker 1: interesting in this article.

656
00:29:53,510 --> 00:29:54,530
Speaker 2: The FBI got involved too.

657
00:29:54,810 --> 00:29:57,570
Speaker 1: FBI was involved. Chicago PD, like there was, they were

658
00:29:57,590 --> 00:30:03,670
Speaker 1: looking into it. Apparently the, man, it has become obvious

659
00:30:03,710 --> 00:30:06,650
Speaker 1: to me that I say the word apparently a lot.

660
00:30:06,890 --> 00:30:07,170
Speaker 2: Really?

661
00:30:07,530 --> 00:30:11,190
Speaker 1: A lot. I was listening to an episode, QAing an episode,

662
00:30:11,210 --> 00:30:14,450
Speaker 1: and I was like, stop saying apparently, Josh.

663
00:30:14,830 --> 00:30:18,270
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've started to, after 10 years, I've started to

664
00:30:18,310 --> 00:30:19,770
Speaker 2: notice some things about my own self.

665
00:30:19,910 --> 00:30:20,570
Speaker 1: It's like a tick.

666
00:30:20,810 --> 00:30:22,130
Speaker 2: I try to just avoid it.

667
00:30:22,150 --> 00:30:24,190
Speaker 1: I try to too. Normally I can, but man, it

668
00:30:24,210 --> 00:30:28,960
Speaker 1: just came welling up into my awareness. Well, apparently- Apparently,

669
00:30:28,980 --> 00:30:31,190
Speaker 1: I'm going to have to get over it. At any rate,

670
00:30:32,610 --> 00:30:35,670
Speaker 1: there were a lot of different agencies working on this,

671
00:30:35,770 --> 00:30:39,050
Speaker 1: but the trail went cold pretty quick. And you remember

672
00:30:39,090 --> 00:30:43,730
Speaker 1: how you said that the WGN engineers started looking around

673
00:30:43,770 --> 00:30:46,610
Speaker 1: the station? Yeah. I think what they were looking for

674
00:30:46,630 --> 00:30:52,940
Speaker 1: was this. Somebody... physically patching in to the transmission network,

675
00:30:52,980 --> 00:30:53,580
Speaker 1: the cables.

676
00:30:53,620 --> 00:30:55,040
Speaker 2: Wearing a Max Hedren mask.

677
00:30:55,260 --> 00:30:58,960
Speaker 1: And yeah, either playing a videotape, which it seems pretty obvious.

678
00:30:58,980 --> 00:30:59,719
Speaker 2: It was pre-taped, yeah.

679
00:30:59,770 --> 00:31:03,050
Speaker 1: It was pre-taped. Or doing something like in a studio.

680
00:31:03,110 --> 00:31:09,850
Speaker 1: But they would have to physically patch into WGN's transmission network.

681
00:31:10,210 --> 00:31:13,150
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like when a car doesn't work and I

682
00:31:13,230 --> 00:31:17,070
Speaker 2: open the hood thinking I'm going to see A squirrel

683
00:31:17,150 --> 00:31:19,830
Speaker 2: gnawing on a cable that's in two pieces now.

684
00:31:20,070 --> 00:31:20,270
Speaker 1: Right.

685
00:31:20,450 --> 00:31:21,430
Speaker 2: And frayed at the ends.

686
00:31:21,750 --> 00:31:24,310
Speaker 1: Right. Now imagine that squirrel wearing a Max Headroom mask

687
00:31:24,390 --> 00:31:27,530
Speaker 1: and being on acid. Okay. With a marital aid.

688
00:31:27,650 --> 00:31:27,870
Speaker 2: Yes.

689
00:31:28,390 --> 00:31:33,480
Speaker 1: So, and at first the FCC and the FBI and

690
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:36,520
Speaker 1: anybody who was in the know basically said this was

691
00:31:37,420 --> 00:31:42,440
Speaker 1: a very sophisticated attack. It would have required a very, very,

692
00:31:43,020 --> 00:31:48,970
Speaker 1: some very expensive equipment. Yeah. A lot of electricity. There's

693
00:31:49,060 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 1: not a lot of ways that they could have done this.

694
00:31:51,200 --> 00:31:53,900
Speaker 1: But later on in the Pasternak article, and this is

695
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:56,440
Speaker 1: one of the ways Pasternak contributed to this whole thing,

696
00:31:56,940 --> 00:32:00,040
Speaker 1: he talked to one of the FCC investigators. And this

697
00:32:00,100 --> 00:32:03,640
Speaker 1: guy basically did away with that whole viewpoint that had

698
00:32:03,740 --> 00:32:07,830
Speaker 1: lasted for almost 30 years. That it had to have

699
00:32:07,870 --> 00:32:09,970
Speaker 1: been somebody with $ 100, 000 piece of equipment and $ 10, 000 worth

700
00:32:09,990 --> 00:32:15,960
Speaker 1: of electricity over the minute and a half. He was saying, no,

701
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:20,020
Speaker 1: you could probably have gotten the equipment needed for this

702
00:32:20,160 --> 00:32:22,750
Speaker 1: new for 10 grand at the time.

703
00:32:22,870 --> 00:32:23,050
Speaker 2: Yeah.

704
00:32:23,370 --> 00:32:25,270
Speaker 1: Or you could have probably bought it for use for

705
00:32:25,330 --> 00:32:29,330
Speaker 1: just a fraction of that. And it would have taken

706
00:32:29,370 --> 00:32:32,910
Speaker 1: very little electricity. It would have just taken some know-how

707
00:32:33,610 --> 00:32:35,360
Speaker 1: and good positioning, really.

708
00:32:35,630 --> 00:32:38,000
Speaker 2: Yeah. Basically, he was like, it could have been done

709
00:32:38,020 --> 00:32:41,100
Speaker 2: with like the size of a direct TV dish today.

710
00:32:41,260 --> 00:32:41,520
Speaker 1: Right.

711
00:32:41,940 --> 00:32:43,560
Speaker 2: And all they would have had to do was get.

712
00:32:44,170 --> 00:32:48,170
Speaker 2: In a high enough location in between, like literally, because

713
00:32:48,190 --> 00:32:52,630
Speaker 2: they're beaming waves. They're beaming microwaves through the air. So

714
00:32:52,650 --> 00:32:53,950
Speaker 2: he's like, all they had to do was get in

715
00:32:53,970 --> 00:32:59,350
Speaker 2: between the original studio and that initial tower on top

716
00:32:59,370 --> 00:33:01,110
Speaker 2: of the, I think it was the John Hancock building.

717
00:33:01,390 --> 00:33:02,430
Speaker 1: For WGN, yeah.

718
00:33:02,550 --> 00:33:04,610
Speaker 2: Yeah. And have a stronger signal.

719
00:33:05,090 --> 00:33:08,170
Speaker 1: Right. So even just like a slightly stronger signal.

720
00:33:08,250 --> 00:33:08,450
Speaker 2: Yeah.

721
00:33:08,610 --> 00:33:13,890
Speaker 1: So you remember how WGN has their studio... transmission shooting

722
00:33:13,970 --> 00:33:15,330
Speaker 1: up to the John Hancock building.

723
00:33:15,370 --> 00:33:15,489
Speaker 2: Yep.

724
00:33:15,850 --> 00:33:18,110
Speaker 1: And then that transmitter shoots it out to everybody else

725
00:33:18,130 --> 00:33:18,710
Speaker 1: in Chicago.

726
00:33:18,790 --> 00:33:18,930
Speaker 2: Yeah.

727
00:33:19,310 --> 00:33:21,540
Speaker 1: What, what, what, what I think you're saying is like,

728
00:33:21,650 --> 00:33:24,020
Speaker 1: if somebody was on the roof of another nearby building

729
00:33:24,500 --> 00:33:28,040
Speaker 1: and they just shoot a transmission, their own max headroom

730
00:33:28,080 --> 00:33:34,100
Speaker 1: transmission at a stronger, a stronger weight or no, a

731
00:33:34,180 --> 00:33:37,790
Speaker 1: stronger amplitude. That's what it is of the same frequency.

732
00:33:38,220 --> 00:33:41,660
Speaker 1: You just overpower it, cancels out what WGN's doing, and

733
00:33:41,720 --> 00:33:44,120
Speaker 1: instead it transmits your max headroom thing.

734
00:33:44,220 --> 00:33:46,400
Speaker 2: And they would be closer to that broadcast tower.

735
00:33:46,900 --> 00:33:47,100
Speaker 1: Right.

736
00:33:47,180 --> 00:33:47,700
Speaker 2: Ostensibly.

737
00:33:47,840 --> 00:33:51,160
Speaker 1: Yes. So that would mean that it required far less

738
00:33:51,200 --> 00:33:53,860
Speaker 1: electricity than you would think or that they originally thought

739
00:33:53,920 --> 00:33:58,320
Speaker 1: and far less equipment too. They also had a pretty

740
00:33:58,360 --> 00:34:00,060
Speaker 1: good idea of where these people would have had to

741
00:34:00,100 --> 00:34:05,000
Speaker 1: have done it because after they got shut out of WGN,

742
00:34:05,540 --> 00:34:09,100
Speaker 1: They turned their attention to WTTW, the PBS station, and

743
00:34:09,120 --> 00:34:14,040
Speaker 1: they hijacked their signal. Well, WTTW shot their studio link

744
00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:15,920
Speaker 1: to the Sears Tower.

745
00:34:16,120 --> 00:34:16,299
Speaker 2: Yes.

746
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:18,989
Speaker 1: So this would have been somebody who was on a

747
00:34:19,050 --> 00:34:22,850
Speaker 1: roof somewhere that had a clear view of the John

748
00:34:22,890 --> 00:34:26,270
Speaker 1: Hancock building and the Sears Tower and could transmit to

749
00:34:26,330 --> 00:34:28,890
Speaker 1: either one of them. But that's basically what they think happened.

750
00:34:29,469 --> 00:34:32,330
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the guy you were talking about, Dr. Michael Marcus,

751
00:34:32,370 --> 00:34:35,150
Speaker 2: who at the time was the assistant bureau chief in

752
00:34:35,170 --> 00:34:39,069
Speaker 2: the FCC's Field Operations Bureau. He was the lead investigator,

753
00:34:39,290 --> 00:34:42,830
Speaker 2: and he said that the guy in Chicago that was

754
00:34:42,850 --> 00:34:45,850
Speaker 2: sort of in charge wasn't super, like... He was just

755
00:34:45,870 --> 00:34:49,730
Speaker 2: sort of used to traditional FCC investigations. He wasn't one

756
00:34:49,750 --> 00:34:53,610
Speaker 2: to go knocking on doors and... as to, like, investigate

757
00:34:53,650 --> 00:34:56,550
Speaker 2: some kind of weird, kind of maybe creepy criminal dudes.

758
00:34:56,790 --> 00:34:59,710
Speaker 1: Who may or may not have a marital aid in

759
00:34:59,810 --> 00:35:00,390
Speaker 1: his apartment.

760
00:35:00,969 --> 00:35:03,219
Speaker 2: Just smack him on the head with it. And then

761
00:35:04,110 --> 00:35:07,719
Speaker 2: they also... Nobody was being hurt. No one got hurt.

762
00:35:08,969 --> 00:35:13,229
Speaker 2: In the end, it was almost a victimless crime. So

763
00:35:13,290 --> 00:35:15,650
Speaker 2: they didn't throw a ton of resources at it. They

764
00:35:15,670 --> 00:35:18,049
Speaker 2: were kind of like, listen, if you want to go

765
00:35:18,090 --> 00:35:20,640
Speaker 2: investigate this, that's great. You should. But we're not going

766
00:35:20,660 --> 00:35:24,319
Speaker 2: to assign a team of 12 people to try and

767
00:35:24,360 --> 00:35:28,180
Speaker 2: crack this case of a bunch of nerds. who did

768
00:35:28,219 --> 00:35:30,160
Speaker 2: a weird thing for a minute and 20 seconds.

769
00:35:30,340 --> 00:35:32,460
Speaker 1: And I think the longer it went on and there

770
00:35:32,500 --> 00:35:36,330
Speaker 1: was no more of these intrusions from these guys, the

771
00:35:36,370 --> 00:35:38,830
Speaker 1: fewer and fewer resources they had to work with, and

772
00:35:38,850 --> 00:35:41,350
Speaker 1: it just kind of fell to the wayside. But what's

773
00:35:41,410 --> 00:35:47,750
Speaker 1: interesting is in the beginning they said it would take

774
00:35:47,790 --> 00:35:51,190
Speaker 1: somebody with a very expensive piece of equipment, a lot

775
00:35:51,230 --> 00:35:54,339
Speaker 1: of electricity, and a lot of know-how. And today the

776
00:35:54,400 --> 00:35:57,400
Speaker 1: only one of those that's remaining is a lot of know-how.

777
00:35:57,780 --> 00:36:00,149
Speaker 1: There wouldn't have been a lot of people running around

778
00:36:00,190 --> 00:36:03,990
Speaker 1: Chicago who would have known how to do something like this.

779
00:36:04,070 --> 00:36:05,230
Speaker 2: Yeah.

780
00:36:05,550 --> 00:36:08,690
Speaker 1: So it's kind of surprising, even with very few resources,

781
00:36:09,130 --> 00:36:13,290
Speaker 1: that no one has ever been really implicated in this one.

782
00:36:13,510 --> 00:36:15,750
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think we've said. They still don't know

783
00:36:15,770 --> 00:36:16,190
Speaker 2: who did this.

784
00:36:16,290 --> 00:36:19,740
Speaker 1: It's an unsolved mystery. Yeah. Like Dennis Farina and Robert

785
00:36:19,800 --> 00:36:21,480
Speaker 1: Stack love this one.

786
00:36:21,500 --> 00:36:27,450
Speaker 2: Yeah. The FBI, for their take, started concentrating on the

787
00:36:27,510 --> 00:36:30,890
Speaker 2: actual video. They had the technology at the time, which

788
00:36:30,950 --> 00:36:33,029
Speaker 2: is kind of funny now to think about it. But

789
00:36:33,050 --> 00:36:34,930
Speaker 2: they're the only ones who had the technology at the

790
00:36:34,969 --> 00:36:39,569
Speaker 2: time to actually make enhanced frames of this videotape and

791
00:36:39,640 --> 00:36:45,100
Speaker 2: print out, you know, pictures, enhance them. And they were

792
00:36:45,120 --> 00:36:48,879
Speaker 2: kind of focused on this upper right-hand quadrant, as they say,

793
00:36:48,900 --> 00:36:51,920
Speaker 2: where the Annie Oakley was spanking with a fly swatter.

794
00:36:51,940 --> 00:36:54,930
Speaker 2: I don't know why they were so into that. But

795
00:36:55,610 --> 00:36:57,489
Speaker 2: they said, you know, we're trying to get clues on

796
00:36:57,510 --> 00:36:59,489
Speaker 2: the actual location of the people who made the tape,

797
00:36:59,850 --> 00:37:02,630
Speaker 2: not necessarily where they broadcast it from, but where did

798
00:37:02,650 --> 00:37:04,750
Speaker 2: they shoot this thing to begin with? There was very

799
00:37:04,810 --> 00:37:08,570
Speaker 2: little to go on aside from that spinning corrugated metal.

800
00:37:08,660 --> 00:37:11,080
Speaker 2: And that could have been literally anywhere because it's a

801
00:37:11,120 --> 00:37:12,200
Speaker 2: really tight shot.

802
00:37:12,520 --> 00:37:16,040
Speaker 1: It really is. Yeah. And there was very little evidence

803
00:37:16,080 --> 00:37:17,360
Speaker 1: given in the video.

804
00:37:17,520 --> 00:37:18,860
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, it says that they were looking at

805
00:37:18,920 --> 00:37:21,540
Speaker 2: industrial warehouses and things, but that could have been in

806
00:37:21,560 --> 00:37:22,320
Speaker 2: an apartment building.

807
00:37:22,500 --> 00:37:22,700
Speaker 1: Yeah.

808
00:37:22,900 --> 00:37:23,359
Speaker 2: Living room.

809
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:25,610
Speaker 1: I mean, it wasn't like the door was attached to anything.

810
00:37:25,660 --> 00:37:28,890
Speaker 1: It was freely spinning. Yeah. Back and forth. It did

811
00:37:28,910 --> 00:37:33,250
Speaker 1: make sense. Not the best lead, right? No. So over time,

812
00:37:34,210 --> 00:37:36,930
Speaker 1: and again, this is weird too. It's not so weird

813
00:37:36,950 --> 00:37:39,569
Speaker 1: that the FCC or the FBI didn't find who did

814
00:37:39,590 --> 00:37:42,069
Speaker 1: this if they weren't really looking very hard. Yeah. What's

815
00:37:42,230 --> 00:37:44,750
Speaker 1: really weird is that no one has been like, it

816
00:37:44,790 --> 00:37:48,140
Speaker 1: was these guys. I was there. I know these dudes.

817
00:37:48,630 --> 00:37:49,450
Speaker 1: It was these guys.

818
00:37:49,510 --> 00:37:51,430
Speaker 2: Statute of limitations is done. Like, who cares?

819
00:37:51,450 --> 00:37:55,520
Speaker 1: Yeah. After 1993, these guys would have gotten off scot-free

820
00:37:55,640 --> 00:37:59,060
Speaker 1: because the statute of limitations for this one was five years, right?

821
00:37:59,239 --> 00:38:02,640
Speaker 2: I'm shocked that no one later said, hey, that was me. Right.

822
00:38:02,860 --> 00:38:03,660
Speaker 2: I'm soy bomb.

823
00:38:03,860 --> 00:38:08,020
Speaker 1: No one's done that, right? Yeah. There was some, so

824
00:38:08,360 --> 00:38:13,850
Speaker 1: very early forum, like message board stuff took the form

825
00:38:13,910 --> 00:38:16,330
Speaker 1: of bulletin board services, I think.

826
00:38:16,450 --> 00:38:16,589
Speaker 2: Yeah.

827
00:38:18,310 --> 00:38:23,200
Speaker 1: Really early geek culture, like Matthew Broderick dialing something with

828
00:38:23,260 --> 00:38:26,320
Speaker 1: his phone and then putting it on that weird little

829
00:38:26,500 --> 00:38:30,959
Speaker 1: Commodore 64 thing, the modem, yeah, to transmit the dial

830
00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:37,020
Speaker 1: tone over the telephone system. So that's the level of

831
00:38:37,780 --> 00:38:39,830
Speaker 1: technology that these people were dealing with. But they were

832
00:38:39,890 --> 00:38:43,450
Speaker 1: communicating with each other over this proto-internet, these bulletin board systems.

833
00:38:43,989 --> 00:38:47,649
Speaker 1: And two days after this, A guy named The Chameleon

834
00:38:47,750 --> 00:38:52,430
Speaker 1: posted basically what you and I said about how all

835
00:38:52,489 --> 00:38:54,390
Speaker 1: it took was these guys to go up on a

836
00:38:54,430 --> 00:38:59,400
Speaker 1: tall building and overwhelm the WGN and the WTTW studio links.

837
00:38:59,940 --> 00:39:03,040
Speaker 1: And ipso facto, I'm a big fan of that, by

838
00:39:03,080 --> 00:39:08,900
Speaker 1: the way, this intrusion was successful, right? Two days, not

839
00:39:08,980 --> 00:39:12,380
Speaker 1: two years, not a year ago, two days after it.

840
00:39:12,800 --> 00:39:15,149
Speaker 1: Somebody was on there explaining how it went down. So

841
00:39:15,230 --> 00:39:20,270
Speaker 1: somebody knew this, right? But only two theories have really

842
00:39:20,350 --> 00:39:22,910
Speaker 1: ever come to light as to who it was. One,

843
00:39:22,930 --> 00:39:25,529
Speaker 1: you can basically just throw right out. And the other one,

844
00:39:25,930 --> 00:39:28,290
Speaker 1: it turns out to have been a dead end.

845
00:39:28,810 --> 00:39:30,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, the first one that you're talking about that doesn't

846
00:39:30,660 --> 00:39:33,660
Speaker 2: really hold water was a, and this was a rumor

847
00:39:33,739 --> 00:39:36,120
Speaker 2: online for a while. It was a musician named Eric

848
00:39:36,200 --> 00:39:37,890
Speaker 2: Fournier or Fournier.

849
00:39:38,170 --> 00:39:38,550
Speaker 1: Fournier.

850
00:39:38,810 --> 00:39:39,210
Speaker 2: Fournier.

851
00:39:39,730 --> 00:39:44,509
Speaker 1: I had a friend in preschool, I think, named Fournier.

852
00:39:44,830 --> 00:39:46,630
Speaker 2: That's how it was spelled? F-O-U-R-N-I-E-R.

853
00:39:47,969 --> 00:39:49,709
Speaker 1: Actually, I don't know how it's spelled. I couldn't spell

854
00:39:49,730 --> 00:39:50,129
Speaker 1: back then.

855
00:39:53,350 --> 00:39:57,549
Speaker 2: So this guy was in a band, and he did

856
00:39:57,590 --> 00:40:05,140
Speaker 2: this weird, super creepy YouTube series called Shea St. John. S-H-A-Y-E.

857
00:40:05,219 --> 00:40:05,830
Speaker 1: Did you watch it?

858
00:40:06,380 --> 00:40:06,600
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.

859
00:40:06,900 --> 00:40:07,310
Speaker 1: Love it.

860
00:40:07,620 --> 00:40:10,340
Speaker 2: Yeah, I knew that you would love it. I love it, dude.

861
00:40:10,360 --> 00:40:11,420
Speaker 2: It's right up your alley.

862
00:40:11,440 --> 00:40:11,700
Speaker 1: Yeah.

863
00:40:11,780 --> 00:40:13,660
Speaker 2: But this is genuinely unsettling, too.

864
00:40:13,800 --> 00:40:14,529
Speaker 1: I'm with you on that.

865
00:40:14,780 --> 00:40:16,529
Speaker 2: So it kind of fit in that he was doing

866
00:40:16,570 --> 00:40:21,630
Speaker 2: these weird things. He had this band. They were in Bloomington, Indiana,

867
00:40:21,690 --> 00:40:23,049
Speaker 2: not too far from Chicago.

868
00:40:23,130 --> 00:40:24,050
Speaker 1: The Blood Farmers.

869
00:40:24,110 --> 00:40:26,450
Speaker 2: Yeah, the band was the Blood Farmers. And they did

870
00:40:26,469 --> 00:40:28,500
Speaker 2: these weird music videos and they thought this is the

871
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:30,779
Speaker 2: kind of guy that would have done that. And the

872
00:40:30,860 --> 00:40:33,259
Speaker 2: thinking was that he went to go broadcast one of

873
00:40:33,280 --> 00:40:37,370
Speaker 2: their weird music videos as a broadcast intrusion. but chickened

874
00:40:37,410 --> 00:40:39,850
Speaker 2: out at the last minute because they would have been found. Sure.

875
00:40:40,650 --> 00:40:43,130
Speaker 2: And then ended up just improv-ing. That part makes a

876
00:40:43,130 --> 00:40:45,210
Speaker 2: little sense because it definitely seems improv-ed.

877
00:40:45,310 --> 00:40:48,800
Speaker 1: It does, but it was also videotaped, remember? So that

878
00:40:48,860 --> 00:40:50,970
Speaker 1: means he would have had two videotapes with him.

879
00:40:50,989 --> 00:40:52,719
Speaker 2: What do you mean?

880
00:40:53,140 --> 00:40:56,320
Speaker 1: So if he was going to play the music video

881
00:40:56,440 --> 00:40:57,860
Speaker 1: and said, I'm not going to do that, he would

882
00:40:57,880 --> 00:40:59,879
Speaker 1: have had to have brought this other videotape and played

883
00:40:59,900 --> 00:41:03,960
Speaker 1: that as a backup. The other thing is apparently, see,

884
00:41:04,160 --> 00:41:08,609
Speaker 1: I just said apparently again. Alex Pasternak from Motherboard contacted

885
00:41:08,710 --> 00:41:09,990
Speaker 1: some of Furnier's friends.

886
00:41:10,030 --> 00:41:10,230
Speaker 2: Yeah.

887
00:41:10,290 --> 00:41:13,720
Speaker 1: Because Furnier died in 2010, but his friends were like,

888
00:41:13,969 --> 00:41:16,739
Speaker 1: absolutely not. Even some of the blood farmers were like,

889
00:41:16,840 --> 00:41:19,260
Speaker 1: it wasn't him. Yeah. Like, I know what you're saying,

890
00:41:19,300 --> 00:41:21,500
Speaker 1: and yeah, he did the whole Shea St. John thing.

891
00:41:21,520 --> 00:41:21,700
Speaker 2: Yeah.

892
00:41:21,880 --> 00:41:24,819
Speaker 1: But this was not him. It was not quite there.

893
00:41:24,860 --> 00:41:27,799
Speaker 1: He didn't know what he was doing with any broadcast

894
00:41:27,840 --> 00:41:30,700
Speaker 1: stuff or video editing or anything like that. Yeah.

895
00:41:30,719 --> 00:41:34,509
Speaker 2: So this other one, to me, seems pretty promising.

896
00:41:34,530 --> 00:41:34,760
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.

897
00:41:35,840 --> 00:41:40,549
Speaker 2: Uh, so we flash forward to when did this actually happen?

898
00:41:40,570 --> 00:41:42,810
Speaker 2: Was this like by the time Reddit to come around?

899
00:41:42,830 --> 00:41:43,509
Speaker 2: Wasn't it on Reddit?

900
00:41:43,650 --> 00:41:46,629
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it was about 25 years after. So

901
00:41:46,650 --> 00:41:48,510
Speaker 1: it would have been in 2007. Yeah.

902
00:41:48,710 --> 00:41:50,490
Speaker 2: So there's this guy.

903
00:41:50,489 --> 00:41:53,300
Speaker 1: 2012, 13. Okay. Sorry.

904
00:41:53,360 --> 00:41:58,500
Speaker 2: There was this guy named from Chicago named Bowie Pogue.

905
00:41:58,880 --> 00:41:59,120
Speaker 1: Sure.

906
00:41:59,219 --> 00:41:59,719
Speaker 2: P-O-A-G.

907
00:41:59,880 --> 00:42:02,390
Speaker 1: I didn't have any friends with that last name. when

908
00:42:02,510 --> 00:42:02,969
Speaker 1: I was a kid.

909
00:42:03,350 --> 00:42:05,710
Speaker 2: And he was one of the kids hanging around those

910
00:42:05,770 --> 00:42:09,950
Speaker 2: BBSs in the 80s in Chicago. From the sounds of it,

911
00:42:10,010 --> 00:42:13,420
Speaker 2: he was on the younger side. He was 13. And

912
00:42:13,700 --> 00:42:16,400
Speaker 2: even as a 13-year-old geek was very much intimidated by

913
00:42:16,420 --> 00:42:20,040
Speaker 2: the older geeks in that crowd. And so it wasn't boisterous.

914
00:42:20,080 --> 00:42:22,339
Speaker 2: He was sort of like, hey, I'm kind of hanging

915
00:42:22,380 --> 00:42:25,240
Speaker 2: out here and not saying much and don't notice me.

916
00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:27,210
Speaker 2: I just want to ingratiate myself.

917
00:42:28,090 --> 00:42:30,109
Speaker 1: You guys can get me drunk for laughs if you want.

918
00:42:30,969 --> 00:42:34,700
Speaker 2: And at a party in 1987, he remembers this– he

919
00:42:34,739 --> 00:42:37,899
Speaker 2: described him as a small, peculiar man that he thought

920
00:42:37,920 --> 00:42:41,220
Speaker 2: was about in his 30s. And he had an older brother.

921
00:42:41,680 --> 00:42:42,980
Speaker 2: They lived in Chicago.

922
00:42:43,020 --> 00:42:45,719
Speaker 1: So Pogue is describing these two guys who were in

923
00:42:45,739 --> 00:42:46,680
Speaker 1: the same scene with him.

924
00:42:46,820 --> 00:42:47,120
Speaker 2: Correct.

925
00:42:47,200 --> 00:42:47,399
Speaker 1: Right.

926
00:42:47,760 --> 00:42:52,180
Speaker 2: Yeah. And he had– they lived with his girlfriend downtown–

927
00:42:52,280 --> 00:42:54,040
Speaker 2: about 10 miles from downtown Chicago.

928
00:42:54,060 --> 00:42:54,560
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.

929
00:42:54,620 --> 00:42:58,520
Speaker 2: And they had the know-how. They were super into computers

930
00:42:58,580 --> 00:42:59,100
Speaker 2: early on.

931
00:42:59,120 --> 00:42:59,299
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.

932
00:43:00,100 --> 00:43:01,640
Speaker 2: He said he went to their apartment and it was

933
00:43:01,680 --> 00:43:05,160
Speaker 2: just like, it looked like a computer hoarder mess of

934
00:43:05,219 --> 00:43:07,020
Speaker 2: wires and computers and equipment.

935
00:43:07,260 --> 00:43:08,660
Speaker 1: Like Neo's apartment.

936
00:43:09,520 --> 00:43:10,259
Speaker 2: Yeah. Why not?

937
00:43:10,700 --> 00:43:13,469
Speaker 1: Or what was the other one he was in before

938
00:43:13,530 --> 00:43:14,150
Speaker 1: the Matrix?

939
00:43:15,190 --> 00:43:20,450
Speaker 2: Johnny Mnemonic? Yes. Yeah. Bill and Ted? Yeah. Johnny Mnemonic.

940
00:43:20,489 --> 00:43:21,610
Speaker 2: That's cyberpunk. Yes.

941
00:43:21,690 --> 00:43:22,509
Speaker 1: Right? Yes, it is.

942
00:43:22,690 --> 00:43:23,069
Speaker 2: All right.

943
00:43:24,010 --> 00:43:26,890
Speaker 1: You could probably make the case that the Matrix is

944
00:43:26,950 --> 00:43:28,129
Speaker 1: as well. All right.

945
00:43:28,590 --> 00:43:31,620
Speaker 2: Sure. So he described him as a stocky guy with

946
00:43:32,140 --> 00:43:36,920
Speaker 2: tinted lens glasses in his early 30s, an odd dude.

947
00:43:37,460 --> 00:43:39,840
Speaker 2: His brother, he said he described as just kind of normal.

948
00:43:40,800 --> 00:43:43,910
Speaker 2: But he said that he didn't make the connection at

949
00:43:43,930 --> 00:43:46,549
Speaker 2: the time, but at a party on November about the

950
00:43:46,590 --> 00:43:50,190
Speaker 2: same day, midday on November 22nd, he was at a

951
00:43:50,190 --> 00:43:52,850
Speaker 2: gathering of these dudes at the brother's apartment and he

952
00:43:52,910 --> 00:43:56,660
Speaker 2: heard them say something about doing something big. Later that night,

953
00:43:56,700 --> 00:43:58,380
Speaker 2: they went to Pizza Hut and he's like, what are

954
00:43:58,400 --> 00:44:01,840
Speaker 2: you guys talking about? What's the big thing? And they said, hey,

955
00:44:02,719 --> 00:44:05,500
Speaker 2: don't ask questions, but just watch Channel 11 tonight.

956
00:44:05,680 --> 00:44:05,839
Speaker 1: Right.

957
00:44:06,680 --> 00:44:08,529
Speaker 2: On that same day. And I don't know how he

958
00:44:08,550 --> 00:44:09,299
Speaker 2: didn't put it together.

959
00:44:09,640 --> 00:44:12,450
Speaker 1: That's the one thing that really strikes me is fishy.

960
00:44:12,650 --> 00:44:15,609
Speaker 2: But he said that years later, now when he looks

961
00:44:15,690 --> 00:44:18,529
Speaker 2: at it, he's like, even with that mask on, I

962
00:44:18,610 --> 00:44:21,390
Speaker 2: see the body. I see what's going on. I hear that.

963
00:44:21,530 --> 00:44:22,820
Speaker 2: And it's that guy.

964
00:44:23,160 --> 00:44:23,359
Speaker 1: Right.

965
00:44:23,440 --> 00:44:23,739
Speaker 2: To me.

966
00:44:24,340 --> 00:44:27,830
Speaker 1: But 25 years later. Yeah. He was there that day.

967
00:44:27,989 --> 00:44:29,509
Speaker 1: They tell him to watch that night.

968
00:44:29,530 --> 00:44:29,890
Speaker 2: I know.

969
00:44:29,910 --> 00:44:32,590
Speaker 1: And he didn't put it together for 25 years. That,

970
00:44:32,670 --> 00:44:33,989
Speaker 1: to me, is the one fishy thing.

971
00:44:34,230 --> 00:44:38,549
Speaker 2: Well, and he has been called out as fishy. Sure.

972
00:44:39,230 --> 00:44:40,730
Speaker 1: I'm sure he knows that it's kind of fishy.

973
00:44:41,090 --> 00:44:45,819
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the guy, the motherboard, Pasternak, reached out and

974
00:44:45,880 --> 00:44:47,980
Speaker 2: he said, can you still get in touch with these

975
00:44:48,020 --> 00:44:50,100
Speaker 2: guys all these years later? He said he sent them

976
00:44:50,140 --> 00:44:53,509
Speaker 2: messages via Facebook. I don't even know if they saw him.

977
00:44:53,670 --> 00:44:56,150
Speaker 2: They didn't get back. Then in a last-ditch effort, he

978
00:44:56,170 --> 00:44:59,310
Speaker 2: sent them a certified mail. He found out where they lived.

979
00:44:59,989 --> 00:45:02,009
Speaker 2: Never heard anything back. And he was like, hey, it's

980
00:45:02,090 --> 00:45:03,630
Speaker 2: clear that these guys don't want to be talked to.

981
00:45:03,810 --> 00:45:05,510
Speaker 1: Right. So you want to take a break?

982
00:45:06,230 --> 00:45:06,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do it.

983
00:45:07,090 --> 00:45:07,310
Speaker 1: Okay.

984
00:45:07,590 --> 00:45:11,110
Speaker 2: Damn, it's like being Joshua.

985
00:45:27,870 --> 00:45:31,170
Speaker 1: So that's where it stands right now. Like nobody knows

986
00:45:31,310 --> 00:45:33,970
Speaker 1: who is behind it still to this day.

987
00:45:35,030 --> 00:45:35,430
Speaker 2: Crazy.

988
00:45:35,830 --> 00:45:39,120
Speaker 1: It is crazy. And as a result, this Max Headroom

989
00:45:39,219 --> 00:45:42,660
Speaker 1: hack has taken its place in like the pantheon of

990
00:45:42,780 --> 00:45:46,739
Speaker 1: geek culture and of hacker culture. And rightfully so, you know.

991
00:45:47,140 --> 00:45:47,439
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.

992
00:45:47,920 --> 00:45:49,359
Speaker 1: It's legendary in its own way.

993
00:45:49,489 --> 00:45:49,839
Speaker 2: That's right.

994
00:45:50,969 --> 00:45:51,670
Speaker 1: You got anything else?

995
00:45:52,350 --> 00:45:54,270
Speaker 2: I got nothing else on this one. Cool, man.

996
00:45:54,820 --> 00:45:57,560
Speaker 1: Well, if you want to know more about Max Headroom, uh,

997
00:45:57,660 --> 00:46:01,160
Speaker 1: you should start by checking out this amazing, uh, motherboard

998
00:46:01,219 --> 00:46:05,200
Speaker 1: article by Alex Pasternak. And since I said amazing, it's

999
00:46:05,260 --> 00:46:06,259
Speaker 1: time for listener mail.

1000
00:46:08,500 --> 00:46:12,660
Speaker 2: I'm going to go with, uh, I'm going to go

1001
00:46:12,700 --> 00:46:16,210
Speaker 2: with the, the almond brothers eat a peach from emojis.

1002
00:46:16,850 --> 00:46:18,029
Speaker 2: I don't know if this is true, but it's fun.

1003
00:46:18,430 --> 00:46:19,169
Speaker 1: Okay.

1004
00:46:19,190 --> 00:46:21,390
Speaker 2: Uh, wanted to talk about when, uh, Josh talked about

1005
00:46:21,410 --> 00:46:24,990
Speaker 2: the almond brothers band factoid, um, Because I think it's

1006
00:46:25,070 --> 00:46:28,989
Speaker 2: actually a cool factoid. Dwayne Allman was once asked by

1007
00:46:29,030 --> 00:46:31,310
Speaker 2: a reporter what he was going to do for the

1008
00:46:31,350 --> 00:46:34,290
Speaker 2: war effort in Vietnam. And his response was, I'm going

1009
00:46:34,330 --> 00:46:38,310
Speaker 2: to eat a peach for peace. Dwayne died not long

1010
00:46:38,370 --> 00:46:42,430
Speaker 2: after that album. And Eat a Peach was released posthumously.

1011
00:46:43,070 --> 00:46:46,989
Speaker 2: So he contends, Jesse Gaudette, that that is where the

1012
00:46:47,070 --> 00:46:49,819
Speaker 2: album title came from. And that Eat a Peach was

1013
00:46:49,880 --> 00:46:51,060
Speaker 2: not Eat a Butch.

1014
00:46:53,680 --> 00:46:56,000
Speaker 1: He or she, I guess. Jesse could go either way.

1015
00:46:56,080 --> 00:46:58,160
Speaker 2: Yeah. As always, keep up the good work. I'm currently

1016
00:46:58,200 --> 00:47:01,770
Speaker 2: brewing beer and listening. Tell me where to mail some bottles.

1017
00:47:02,290 --> 00:47:02,630
Speaker 1: Okay.

1018
00:47:02,690 --> 00:47:04,190
Speaker 2: Or come pick them up in Salt Lake City.

1019
00:47:04,690 --> 00:47:06,049
Speaker 1: All right. We'll do both.

1020
00:47:06,090 --> 00:47:07,850
Speaker 2: Sounds like a challenge. Right.

1021
00:47:08,469 --> 00:47:09,130
Speaker 1: They're too heavy.

1022
00:47:09,150 --> 00:47:09,630
Speaker 2: That's right.

1023
00:47:09,650 --> 00:47:13,239
Speaker 1: You can't pick them up. Thanks a lot, Jesse. Appreciate that,

1024
00:47:13,460 --> 00:47:16,739
Speaker 1: even though I still think I'm right. If you want

1025
00:47:16,800 --> 00:47:20,060
Speaker 1: to contend that something one of us said was incorrect,

1026
00:47:20,719 --> 00:47:22,910
Speaker 1: we'd love that stuff. You can tweet to us at

1027
00:47:23,010 --> 00:47:27,560
Speaker 1: Josh M. Clark, SYSK Podcast, or Movie Crush. You can

1028
00:47:27,620 --> 00:47:31,100
Speaker 1: hang out with us on Facebook.com slash StuffYouShouldKnow or slash

1029
00:47:31,140 --> 00:47:33,959
Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant. You can send us an email

1030
00:47:34,000 --> 00:47:37,860
Speaker 1: to StuffPodcast at HowStuffWorks.com. And as always, join us at

1031
00:47:37,910 --> 00:47:45,830
Speaker 1: our home on the web, StuffYouShouldKnow.com. For more on this

1032
00:47:45,910 --> 00:47:48,470
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com.