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With his trademark stutter and quirky sense of humor, Max Headroom was a prominent and virtual media personality and commercial pitchman in the 1980s. Take a look back, to twenty minutes into the future...
The Birth of Max Headroom
"This is the future: people translated as data." -- Bryce Lynch
Max Headroom was born out of the head of Edison Carter, mid-wifed by Bryce Lynch, in a secret lab at the top of the Network 23 building.How all that came about takes a bit more telling. Edison Carter was a reporter who work for Network 23, a corporate news channel sometime in the near future. He had his own show (The Edison Carter Show), and his own tagline: "What I Want To Know Is....?" He's primetime, top-rated. And then he gets called off a news story. Something about a tv that blew up. He didn't think that made much sense, so he did what a reporter of his caliber does best: he dug further.
What he came across was footage of something called a "blipvert." Network 23 had their in-house teenage computer genius Bryce Lynch working on what they felt was their most challenging problem, which was channel switching. This simple issue revolved around the ability of tv viewers to change channels during commercials. Bryce's solution was the "blipvert" which compressed thirty seconds of advertising into just three seconds of screen time. However there was a side effect in some viewers, a nasty and rather messy side effect. As Carter was trying to escape the Network 23 building on a motorcyle, Bryce Lynch caused a traffic barrier to raise, blocking Carter's path and he crashed thru a wooden beam with the words "max. headroom 2.3m" printed on it.
Since it would be too hard to have the network's own star reporter suddenly disappear without an explanation, Bryce proposed that they replace Carter with a computer simulation. The head of the network, Mr. Grossman, gave his approval and so Bryce scanned Carter's brain to map his memories and personality. However, the only thing he'd simulated before was a parrot, and Grossman wasn't happy with the final product. He ordered Bryce to get rid of both Carter and the simulation.
Of course, the goons hired to get rid of Carter and Max don't quite get it right. Carter wound up back at Network 23, exposing the whole blipvert situation and saving the day. Max Headroom wound up in the hands of Blank Reg, a pirate tv broadcaster, who not only gave Max his name (based on muttered fragments from Carter's memory) but put him on air. The pirate tv station had a hit show and Max had the audience he craved.
T-t-take a L-l-look for Yourself
Max Headroom
Max Headroom at the Coke Museum
Max Headroom was a futuristic computer-generated character
the results of watching a blipvert
Max Headroom wallpaper
Max Headroom by Mr.M
![Max Headroom - Merry Christmas, Santa Claus (You're A Lovely Guy) [45rpm] by TheDamnMushroom](http://static.flickr.com/103/316681442_53555fc4d5_s.jpg)
The b-b-b-biggest Christmas 7
Art of Noise Paranoimia (with Max Headroom)
Some really dodgy old slides I took of the Max Headroom show.
Max Headroom actor Matt Frewer
1980's
Max Headroom Show
Max Headroom
real london sign
W-w-welcome to M-m-Max's World!
- Max Headroom Chronicles: S-S-Start Here
- The Complete Reference Page for Everything Max Headroom!
- Max Headroom
- Max Headroom was one of the most innovative science fiction series ever produced for American television, an ambitious attempt to build upon the cyberpunk movement in science fiction literature.
- Max Headroom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Max Headroom is the name of a fictional artificial intelligence, known for his surreal wit and a stuttering, distorted, electronically sampled delivery. The character was created by Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton and performed by Matt Frewer.
- "Max Headroom" (1987) - from IMDb.com
- In the near future, an intrepid investigative TV reporter does his job with the help of his colleagues and a computerized version of himself.
- Max Headroom TV Show - Max Headroom Television Show - TV.com
- Max Headroom is a look into the future. Society is run-down and dominated by televisin and large corporations. Edison Carter is a reported intend on exposing corruption and greed. In the pilot episode, Edison is hunted down by his own employer. He is injured and his mind is digitized into a computer program. The resulting program takes on a life of its own. This is the creation of the eccentric and unpredictable character of Max Headroom.
- 'Max Headroom' on TechTV
- "Max Headroom" was the first, and so far the only, cyberpunk TV series.
- Max Headroom Trivia
- trivia on the Max Headroom TV show
- Max Headroom: UK Version
- Rundown of the UK pilot that started it all.
- Max Headroom - SCIFIPEDIA
- Max Headroom was the pop culture phenomenon and digital alter-identity for Network 23 (XXIII) news reporter Edison Carter.
- The other Max Headroom Shows
- Here are some snippets of audio I pulled from (very old) videotapes of Max Headroom non-movie, non-ABC "Max Headroom" shows on British TV and Cinemax. These shows were great fun, and are almost unknown in "Max Lore" -- so here's a bit of it!
- Max Headroom
- Many folks feel Max Headroom never "jumped the shark."
- Thus Spracht Max Headroom
- What with the pop culture detritus of the 1980s being canonized like Andy Warhol's used tissues, I'm somewhat surprised that one particular icon hasn't yet been resurrected, given that, in his heydey, he shilled for the abomination known as New Coke, had his own late-night TV show, hosted music videos, and even made it into Doonesbury as a cipher for Ronald Reagan.
- G4 - Feature - 'Max Headroom' Desktop Themes
- Spruce up your bland Windows world with sensational, stuttering 'Max Headroom' themes.
M-m-max.... To the Max!
Max Headroom:Original Story
Sadly, Max is out of print and finding used/reseller DVDs or VHS is the only way to get this show.
Amazon Price: (as of 07/25/2008)
List Price: $19.99
Used Price: $4.97
Max Headroom's Guide to Life
Amazon Price: (as of 07/25/2008)
List Price: $4.95
Used Price: $0.01
Max Headroom : The Picture Book of the Film
Amazon Price: (as of 07/25/2008)
List Price:
Used Price:
How Max Was *Really* Created....
The most interesting thing about Max Headroom being a virtual personality was that in the 1980s when he was created, computer-generated imagery wasn't yet able to actually create a person. Fully digital actors or characters weren't going to be truly born for another twenty years or so.So, how did they make Max Headroom?
First, they started with Canadian actor Matt Frewer. They put some very thick makeup on him, plastic hair and a suit made of fiberglass. Then they filmed him, using good ol' fashioned blue-screen technology. This let those moving computer patterns be dropped in behind the actor to make Max appear in "cyberspace." Those were originally drawn by hand, and later were rendedered with an Amiga. Then conventional editing was used to match everything up and give Max his trademark stutter.
Now, when you consider present-day motion capture and full digital CGI rendering, how Max was made seems downright primitive. But also remember, they were only just inventing VCRs around the time Max was born.
Catch a Glimpse of Max
And maybe a few other things
The DVDs for the series aren't in current release, so eBay is going to be your best bet for finding them. Remember to check your region coding before bidding.
This is also where you'll find all manner of Coca-Cola memorabilia featuring Max, as he was the pitch man for "new Coke."
Fetching new data from eBay now... please stand by
20 Minutes Into The Future
The U.S. TV Series of "Max Headroom"
The tv series of "Max Headroom" aired in the US from 1987-1988. Frequently called the only "cyberpunk" tv show, the look and feel of the show embraced many of the elements of that literary movement. New technology existed alongside old, and the world was split very clearly into haves and have-nots. Stylistic comparisions are often made between this series and the movies Bladerunner (1982) and Brazil (1985).The series pilot was redone for the US run, and several of the characters were made less dark and sinister. Episodes dealt with a variety of issues that still seem pretty timely, even a few decades later.
Season One:
-Blipverts - advertising overload, literally
-Rakers - commercialization of deadly sports
-Body Banks - harvesting and sale of bodily organs
-Security Systems - credit fraud
-War - the televising and sale of terrorist acts
-The Blanks - mandatory national identity numbers
Season Two:
-Academy - disruption of network broadcasting
-The Deities - cult religion
-Grossberg's Return - tv network supremacy battles
-Dream Thieves - illegal theft of dreams (personal identity)
-Whacketts - addictive media
-NeuroStim - direct brain stimulation via the media
-Lessons - access to education for all
-Baby Grobags - baby production via artificial means
F-f-or Your V-v-viewing Pleasure
The tidbits and excerpts of Max shown here include an appearance on the earlier incarnation of the David Letterman show, Max interviewing Simon LeBon and Nick Rhodes (aka Arcadia aka 2/5-ths of Duran Duran), the infamous "blipvert" sequence and one of his "new Coke" commercials.
Max in the News
- Time for a Max Headroom Movie
- I'm feeling that wave of Max Headroom nostalgia again. Those British commercials with an aged Max Headroom in them just didn't quench my thirst for a full ...
- The Fulgurator: Inserting spam into your photos
- ... for electronics scanners to seek and destroy these pesky devices. Well, welcome to the Max Headroom world, the true 21st century is unfolding a decade late.
- Prematurely canceled sci-fi shows
- I've heard good things about Max Headroom (number 3) and would probably at least watch it on DVD should it ever be released in the format. ...
- USC Creates 3D Display, Now Just For the Actual TIE Fighters
- Max Headroom. by Crispus at 6:08 AM 27/6/08 this video is old... i saw it like almost a year ago... by Mondoz at 6:02 AM 27/6/08 In other news, ...
S-s-so, what do you have to s-s-say?
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