“We’ll always be energy… I don’t know where I’m going, I…
“We’ll always be energy… I don’t know where I’m going, I don’t know where to stay … the phantom power is flowing.”
theverge: Max Headroom: the definitive history of the 1980s…
Max Headroom: the definitive history of the 1980s digital icon.
On Thursday, April 4th, 1985, a blast of dystopian satire hit the UK airwaves. Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future was a snarky take on media and corporate greed, told through the eyes of investigative journalist Edison Carter (Matt Frewer) and his computer-generated alter-ego: an artificial intelligence named Max Headroom.
Max became a singular ’80s pop culture phenomenon that represented everything wonderful and horrible about the decade. Max hosted music video shows; Max interviewed celebrities; Max hawked New Coke; Max Headroom became US network television’s very first cyberpunk series. Max was inescapable — and then almost just as quickly as he had appeared, he was gone.
Thirty years after the premiere, I spoke with the writers, directors, producers, actors, make-up artists, and network executives that helped bring Max Headroom to life. And it all began, like so many things in the ‘80s, with music videos.
Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time
Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time:
Oliver Burkeman: Every time a public figure behaves with less-than-stellar competence, we’re incredulous. We probably shouldn’t be
Fun fact: no one knows WTF they’re doing.
