In a pre-internet world, the hack quickly became infamous. The Sun-Times reported on it with the headline of " 2 Channels Interrupted to the Max" while the Tribune ran a story about it entitled " Powerful Video Prankster could become Max Jailroom." Local TV news ran wild with it as well. The FCC and FBI investigated as well but also came up short. WGN technicians suspected an inside job and launched their own investigation, but never found out who hacked their airwaves. He must have died instantly," Tom Baker coincidentally said, as The Doctor.Ĭonfused viewers called WTTW nonstop to voice their concerns. "As far as I can tell, a massive electric shock. Then the channel cut back to that episode of Doctor Who. He threw an empty Pepsi can into the camera yelling the Coke slogan "Catch the wave." And our personal favorite was when he moaned and thrashed maniacally for a few moments before yelling to Chicago as an entity in this horrific robotic voice that "YOUR LOVE IS FADING."īefore WTTW finally regained control of their airwaves, a woman begins smacking Max Headroom's bare ass with a fly swatter as he continued to yell incoherent nonsense. "He's a frickin nerd!" he proclaims at one point like a demented supervillain in a Saturday morning cartoon in reference to Bulls commentator Chuck Swirsky who was at the time a commentator for DePaul. This time amidst the static, you could hear the hacker in a Max Headroom mask speak and he had some very peculiar things to say.
This attempt appeared to be a pre-recorded VHS tape. This static intrusion was slightly less harsh than previously maybe the hackers figured something out that was missing from their first attempt. Again, a loud atonal static took over the television signal and a strange man in a Max Headroom mask appeared on TV. Everything appeared to be business as usual until partway through the episode until 11:15 p.m.
It was a rerun of the episode "The Horror of Fang Rock" during Tom Baker's tenure as The Doctor. "If you're wondering what's happening, so am I," Roan said with a nervous chuckle.Ībout two hours later, WTTW channel 11 was airing an episode of Doctor Who. Without warning, a loud harsh atonal static sound overwhelmed the speakers and a man in a Max Headroom mask appeared on screen manically dancing for about 20 seconds before WGN regained control of their airwaves and cut back to the news. It was a run-of-the-mill broadcast until the screen suddenly went black for about ten seconds at about 9:14 p.m. news, probably beaming that the Bears had defeated the Lions earlier that day. WGN sportscaster Dan Roan was on camera discussing the latest sports news on the 9 p.m. Eminem recently payed homage to the persona of Max Headroom for his "Rap God" video that came out a few years ago.īut let's return to 1987.
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