Catch the Wave

Hey, the eighties were a pretty weird time to be alive, right? What with the kids and their mall hair and their color-changing shirts and their angry hip hop music?

But the decade provide us with at least one thing that was undeniably awesome: Max Headroom



Here in the States, we mostly know Max from coke commercials and a short-lived (but kind of cool) TV series, but he had been a celebrity character in the UK for a few years before as a host to a music channel. But let me be honest, if you have no idea who Max Headroom was, you should probably stop reading now cause its about to get weirder.

On November 22, 1987, during WGN's News At Nine, the station's broadcast signal was interrupted and replaced with an image of a dude in a Max Headroom mask. No audio, just the image. The station switched their studio link and everything was back to normal.



But not for long. Later that night, the PBS channel WTTW was broadcasting an episode of Doctor Who when Headroom gave it another shot. This time the hijack included audio and lasted for about 90 seconds before it was cut off. I would try to describe it but words cannot do justice to the level of weirdness going on here



The man responsible for the hijacking was never caught.

This was the last broadcast television intrusion in American history.