Now, for those who don’t know, Max Headroom was a character who first appeared in the British cyberpunk TV movie Max Headroom: 20 Minutes Into the Future. Someone wearing a Max Headroom mask and sunglasses came into view, rocking and swaying erratically in front of a rotating corrugated metal panel. In the middle of Roan’s segment, the screen went black for about 15 seconds, and then some truly strange imagery popped up. On November 22nd, 1987, sportscaster Dan Roan was covering the highlights of the Chicago Bears’ recent victory over the Detroit Lions for Chicago’s WGN Channel 9 “Nine O’Clock News”. And, just like with any other art form, television itself has plenty of true-life mysteries…mysteries possibly enabled in part by the structure very medium they occurred in.ģ5 years ago this November, one of the strangest mysteries in television history began. It’s kind of remarkable to see the growth that’s happened in television in its roughly 100 years of existence. Originally TV shows were more like filmed radio shows, and they were often fully sponsored by one entity - like with the “Colgate Comedy Hour”, “Texaco Star Theater” and “Gillette Cavalcade of Sports” in the 1950s. Until cable TV really took off following the passing of the Cable Communications Policy Act in 1984, television was a lot closer to its predecessor, the radio, than we would know it today. There didn’t used to be the commercials as we know them today rather a host of the show you were watching or another spokesperson would announce the sponsoring product or brand. Often, Sean, you and I will watch clips of some pretty old shows, including black and white episodes of “You Bet Your Life” and stuff like that. First available experimentally in the late 1920s, television broadcasting wouldn’t become really popular in the United States and the UK until after World War 2, when more improved black and white broadcasting became available. Now, Sean, the medium of television has always been a bit experimental. Today, I’ll be covering one of television broadcasting’s most indelible mysteries: the Max Headroom signal hijacking incident. I think of this episode as a bit of a sister to our “Hollywood Horrors” 2-parter way back near the beginning of this podcast. Hunt a Killer - Receive 20% off your first Hunt a Killer subscription box at with the code SCARYSQUAD at checkout! This week, Carrie takes us through the nitty-gritty of late 80s pop culture, broadcasting technology, and Reddit-based speculation, along with the strange stories of two other signal hijackings: the Captain Midnight broadcast signal intrusion and the Southern Television broadcast interruption - the latter of which may possibly have come from a place beyond our galaxy!įacebook: Twitter: _īetterHelp - Special offer for Ain’t it Scary? listeners: Get 10% off your first month at Audible - Get a FREE audiobook and 30-Day Free Trial at BarkBox - Enjoy a FREE month of BarkBox on us when you sign up for a 6 or 12-month BarkBox subscription! Visit for more details To this day, no one knows who was behind the Max Headroom Incident.but that's where the mystery really begins. Initially, on WGN, the masked marauder was only able to cut in for about 30 seconds before the transmission was re-seized by network engineers.but on WTTW, which was airing an innocuous Doctor Who rerun, the signal hijacking would last an entire minute and a half and include a garbled, manic tirade involving Chicago sportscasters, obscure local children's shows, New Coke, and, uh, spanking. That night a mysterious figure wearing a full-head "Max Headroom" mask invaded the broadcasts of local Chicago TV stations WGN and WTTW. In November 1987, one of the weirdest moments of TV history happened right underneath the noses of the Chicago viewing public.
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