World's Great Nerds: The Mysterious Max Headroom TV Hijacking & Network TV Signal Interruptions of the 1980's

 First the screen flickered and then it went completely black.

At 9:14 pm on November 22, 1987, during the sports segment of the WGN nine o’clock newscast, the largest broadcast network in the Chicago metropolitan area, went completely off the air.  

Local sportscaster Dan Roan, who had at that moment been in the middle of narrating highlights from that day’s game between the Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions disappeared from the screen.

There was a buzzing sound over the airwaves and then after nearly half a minute of complete darkness an almost comically grotesque head appeared on screen.

The WGN newscast was interrupted by a man wearing a rubber mask and oversized sunglasses whose head bobbed around erratically in front of a gray metallic looking background.

WGN, the largest broadcast network at the time in Chicago, had its airwaves interrupted and hijacked by someone attempting to impersonate artificial intelligence character, and pop culture icon, Max Headroom.

Max Headroom was a British fictional character who had been created in 1985 and was designed to represent computer generated artificial intelligence.  Headroom was known for his wit, sarcasm and electronically altered stuttering voice. 

The real Max Headroom as portrayed by Matt Frewer

The Max Headroom character first appeared in the dystopian British made for TV sci-fi movie Max Headroom: 20 Minutes Into the Future, which was a hit when first broadcast on April 4, 1985, and became an almost instant cult-classic in both the UK and the United States.

By November of 1987 the Max Headroom character had become known worldwide as the spokesman for the “New Coke” where Max would urge people to, “Catch the wave,” and drink “New Coke” even after Coca-Cola Classic was reintroduced in 1986 by popular demand.

Though designed to appear futuristic and computer generated, years ahead of his time if you will, Max Headroom was actually portrayed by Canadian-American actor and comedian Matt Frewer.  Though appearing to be computer generated Max Headroom was actually Matt Frewer wearing prosthetic latex based makeup and speaking in front of a blue screen.

The character who hijacked the airwaves of WGN on November 22, 1987 had more than a passing resemblance to the one portrayed by Matt Frewer, only this Max Headroom was far creepier and more menacing.

Becoming the real Max Headroom

When the hijacker took over the airwaves he said absolutely nothing.  He just moved his head up and down in front of the screen while wearing a Max Headroom mask.  This lasted for 30 seconds before engineers at WGN were able to change the broadcast frequency and switch back to the regularly scheduled nine o’clock newscast.

Sportscaster Dan Roan appeared back on screen this time and said to the WGN audience, “Well, if you’re wondering what’s just happened...so am I.”

Everyone working at WGN that night had absolutely no idea what had happened.   Security working at WGN’s broadcast building naturally figured someone inside had interrupted the newscast and they scoured the building looking for the signal hijacker, but studio engineers eventually determined that the Max Headroom signal had come from a third party broadcasting from somewhere outside and could not be traced.  Within seconds the network was flooded with phone calls regarding the strange interruption, but no one at WGN could give any answers.

Two hours later the Max Headroom impersonator appeared over Chicago’s broadcast airwaves once again.  This time the grotesque figure interrupted WWTW, Chicago’s largest PBS affiliate, at 11:15 pm.

The same figure’s head moved around from side to side in front of the same gray metallic background as it had done over on WGN two hours before.  But this time the creepy Max Headroom impersonator and network hijacker spoke.

“That does it,” the Max Headroom hijacker said in an electronically distorted voice, “he’s a f--kin nerd.”

Then he held up a can of Pepsi, drank from it in a long gulp, and mimicking the real Max Headroom said, “Catch the wave.”

He flipped off the camera and held up what looked like a phallic symbol and then began to sing the song I know I’m Losing You by the temptations.

The Max Headroom TV hijacker went on for several seconds screaming, humming and moaning over the PBS airwaves.  He then made reference to WGN saying that he had, “made a masterpiece for the World’s Greatest Newspaper Nerds,” before the camera switched to reveal naked buttocks being spanked with a fly swatter.  The entire bizarre and somewhat obscene signal interruption ended with a woman’s voice saying, “Bend over b--ch,” and the Max Headroom impersonator screaming, “They’re coming to get me!  They’re coming to get me!” over and over again.

Screen Captures from the Max Headroom TV Hijacking

In total the Max Headroom signal hijacking lasted for about a minute and a half before the broadcast network was able to black out the signal completely.  That night there were no engineers working at the local PBS affiliate.  Had there been any broadcast engineers on duty that night, then in all probability, the source of the signal could definitely have been traced since the pirated broadcast had lasted for more than a minute.  As it was, the only available copies of the Max Headroom PBS network hijacking that existed were VHS or Betamax copies that had been taped by viewers of that night’s broadcast of the serialized Doctor Who program on WTTW.

Most people at the time were both slightly amused by the Max Headroom TV hijacking and also very confused about how or why such an incident could occur.  The vast majority of phone calls received by both WGN and WTTW in November of 1987 about the Max Headroom incident were simply from viewers who wished to know why their shows had been purposefully interrupted by such a strange broadcast.

Only gradually did the public begin to understand that the signal had been hijacked by a Max Headroom impersonator who had no connection with either TV network.  Local news media and pundits had a field day with the Max Headroom hijacking, cracking jokes about naked buttocks, PBS and the cola wars and the public, generally, found the whole thing hilarious, if not a little unsettling as well.

But to the Federal Communication Commission the Max Headroom TV incident was no laughing matter.  The FCC stressed to the public nationwide that those who perpetrated such a signal intrusion faced up to a year in prison AND a $100,000 fine.

Anders Yocom, spokesman for Chicago PBS affiliate WTTW in November 1987 went on record saying, “All in all some may find this funny, but such network television signal intrusions are a violation of federal law.”

After the Max Headroom incident officials at the FCC were definitely on the defensive.  Not only did the FCC have no idea as to the identity of the signal hijacker, nor any concrete idea as to where the pirated signal had been transmitted from, but only the year before on April 23, 1986 a similar incident had left federal agents embarrassed and perplexed when the cable signal for HBO on the east coast of the United States had been hijacked by someone who called himself Captain Midnight.

Captain Midnight had interrupted HBO’s signal across the eastern United States after the cable network had begun charging subscribers the then exorbitant fee of $12.95 a month!  Captain Midnight was enraged by the increase and he was able to hijack HBO’s signal for a full five minutes and call out HBO for charging such outrageous prices before the network was finally able to regain control of their own signal.

Captain Midnight HBO Signal Interruption April 1986

Authorities were able to eventually trace the Captain Midnight signal back to a radio transmitter in Tallahassee, Florida, where they arrested John MacDougall who worked as an engineer for a Florida telephone company, but unsure of what exactly to charge him with, MacDougall was released from custody and placed on probation after paying a fine.

Those who perpetrated the Max Headroom TV hijacking have never been caught to this day.  Theories have run wild and rampant as to who the Max Headroom impersonator might have been.

Federal authorities who spent several years following leads and scouring the Chicago area for possible suspects do believe that they were able to trace the area from which the signal interruption was transmitted to an industrial neighborhood in Chicago where certain warehouse doors match the background on the Max Headroom video, but leads on all suspects have led to a deadend.

Recently, on Reddit and other social media sites, theories, accusations and confessions surrounding the true identity of the Max Headroom signal hijacker have surfaced with the belief being that those who perpetrated the incident quite possibly might have been early internet pioneers who posted frequently  on the BBS message platform, a very primitive precursor to forums on the World Wide Web, that was extremely popular among computer geeks in the late 1980’s.

As it stands, the true identity of the Max Headroom TV Hijacker remains a mystery to this day but conspiracy theories attributing responsibility for the signal interruption to everything from the KGB to John MacDougall to the Pepsi Cola Company abound.

One thing about what happened over the Chicago TV airwaves on November 22, 1987 is certain though, and that is that both the character Max Headroom himself, and whoever or whomever hijacked those broadcast signals over thirty years ago, both remain lasting pop culture icons of the 1980’s.