It Was a Thing on TV: Episodes 513 & 514 - Max Headroom (The TV Series)/Max Headroom (The Piracy Incident)

This week on It Was a Thing on TV we’re going 20 minutes into the future!

 

First, before this week’s episodes, we discuss the future of the podcast here on Place to be Nation POP and then discuss what’s to come in the coming year.

 

Then, we start by talking about one of the biggest pop culture sensations in the 1980s who was an omnipresent personality for the computer generation named Max Headroom.  Not only was Max Headroom a talk show host, a soda pitchman, and visible on different mediums in the latter half of the 80s, but this phenomenon even got a scripted television show which ran over two seasons, a show about a post-apocalyptic dystopia reminiscent of 1984.

 

Finally, in 1987, the signals of both WGN and WTTV in Chicago were overtaken by two brief unknown signals, both showing an unknown figure wearing a Max Headroom mask.  To this day, there are more answers than questions about these incidents:  Who did this?  How did they do it?  Why did they do it?  To this day, these brief interruptions remain one of the biggest mysteries to occur on U.S. broadcast television.

 

WMAQ Max Headroom Prank on Mark Giangreco - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KePTSntPRtM

 

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Timestamps

0:11 - Announcement

3:30 - Max Headroom (The TV Series)

1:06:00 - Max Headroom (The Piracy Incident)