![]() It wasn’t long before the character was picked up CBS in 1987 as the central character in a mid-season replacement series. In a desperate attempt to regain his knowledge teen wiz kid Bryce Lynch creates a recording of Carter’s brain patterns, which becomes quite frazzled in the process, resulting in the affable Max Headroom who assisted his walking alter-ego Edison Carter in his attempt to uncover corporate corruption… so was born a cult phenomenon. While attempting to flee the corporate headquarters, he struck his head on a barrier (reading ‘Max. The main character was TV reporter Edison Carter, a hard-hitting character similar in many ways to the Question and after Steve Ditko‘s heart, investigating the devious Channel XXIII’s corporate practices. The storyline featured a future society set ’20 minutes into the future,’ where television viewing was compulsory. ![]() The ingenious bit comes from the fact that ‘Max’ was actually a flesh and blood actor in very painfully applied makeup, his footage cut-up and edited in a way to make him appear to stutter, re-iterate and jump ahead in his speech, something that is common practice today but at the time was quite bizarre and hypnotic.Ī conceptual success, Wagg and company decided to create his ‘origin story’ with a full TV pilot movie. UK’s Channel Four commissioned ‘The Max Headroom Talking Picture Show’ which featured character actor Matt Frewer as the ingeniously fake CGI character ranting on videos. It boggles the mind how a corporate sponsor could star in a series about TV mind control plots set into motion by evil gigantic corporations. Max Headroom was a very unique program that is still ground-breaking to this day. The influences of Max Headroom can be seen in the Matrix Trilogy Matrix Trilogy, Batman Beyond and the recent film from Office Space and Beavis and Butt-head creator Mike Judge‘s film, Idiocracy. Jeter and of course William Gibson (who was set to write for Max Headroom had it not been canceled). ![]() The ideas contained in the program carried over into the work of then-contemporaries Mick Farren, K.W. ![]() The series was set in a dark reality where the excesses of entertainment and corporate power lead to a world where society was made of sheep-like consumers living in their own filth while the planet withered away around them. Originally a bizarrely high-priced marketing campaign created by Peter Wagg of Chrysalis Records, CBS decided to develop their creation into the first cyberpunk television series, Max Headroom. ![]()
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