On the evening of November 22nd, 1987 Max Headroom hijacked two TV stations in Chicago.
At approximately 9:15 PM, during Nine O’Clock News with Dan Roan on WGN-TV Channel 9, the broadcast signal was hijacked as he narrated highlights of the Bears victory over the Lions. The screen went black for 15 seconds and then returned with a mysterious person wearing a Max Headroom mask. There was no audio other than a buzzing noise and the technicians at WGN were quickly able to stop the hijack by switching the frequency of their studio link. After gaining control of the broadcast again, all Dan Roan could say was “Well, if you’re wondering what’s happened, so am I.”
Unlike the earlier hijack, which was barely intelligible, the next one was much more successful.
Later in the night at 11:15 PM the same person or persons hijacked the broadcast signal Chicago PBS affiliate WTTW-11 during a broadcast of Doctor Who. The show was interrupted by static and the for one minute and twenty-two seconds, someone in a Max Headroom mask screamed, laughed, moaned, called WGN’s Chuck Swirsky a “fricking Liberal” and blurted out random phrases like New Coke’s slogan “Catch the Wave” while holding a Pepsi can.
After crushing the Pepsi can, he tossed it off screen, flipped off the camera, grabbed the Pepsi can, sang “Your Love Is Fading’ and begun humming the Clutch Cargo theme song. He also made some fart noises and stated he had “made a giant masterpiece for all the greatest world newspaper nerds”. He then held up a Michael Jackson glove and said, “My brother is wearing the other one”, then put the glove on and continued, “But it’s dirty! It’s like you got bloodstains on it!” He then removed the glove and threw it down.
For Act 3, the picture cut to a man and his bare butt as he held the now-removed Max Headroom mask up to the camera and screamed “They’re coming to get me!” as a woman in a French maid outfit then proceeded to spank his bare ass with a flyswatter while screaming “Bend over, bitch!”
The people responsible have never been identified.
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