
The actor took inspiration from The Mary Tyler Moore Show 's Ted Baxter, saying in a 1987 interview, "I particularly wanted to get that phony bonhomie of Baxter . Thirty years later, the identity of the hijackers remained unknown.For his role of hosting a music video programme, Max Headroom was conceived of by creator Rocky Morton as "the most boring thing that I could think of to do.a talking head: a middle-class white male in a suit, talking to them in a really boring way about music videos", also deciding that he should be computer-generated.Ĭanadian-American actor Matt Frewer was chosen based on his "unbelievably well-defined features" that Jankel noticed in a casting polaroid, and from his comedic improvisation skills that he demonstrated in a ten-minute audition.

We got all types of calls about it,” said Giangreco.Īccording to Motherboard, the incident became an influential “cyberpunk hacking trope”. “A lot of individuals thought it had been real – the pirate cutting into our broadcast. Not long after the incident, WMAQ-TV humorously inserted clips of the hijacking into a newscast during Mark Giangreco’s sports highlights. A corrugated panel swiveled back and forth mimicking Max Headroom’s geometric background effect. The hacker made references to Max Headroom’s endorsement of Coca-Cola, the TV series Clutch Cargo, WGN anchor Chuck Swirsky and “all the best world newspaper nerds”, a regard to WGN’s call letters, which represent “World’s Greatest Newspaper”. news broadcast the second occurred around two hours later, for about 90 seconds during PBS affiliate WTTW’s broadcast of Doctor Who.

The first incident happened for 25 seconds during the sports segment of WGN-TV’s 9:00 p.m.

The stations’ broadcasts were interrupted by a video of an unknown person wearing a Max Headroom mask and costume, amid distorted audio. A broadcast signal hijacking of two television stations in Chicago, Illinois was administered on November 22, 1987, in an act of video piracy.
