The Max Headroom Show

The low-budget, but beautifully-directed & darkly brilliant British telemovie "Max Headroom: 20 minutes Into The Future" (1985) introduced the stuttering, arrogant, wisecracking artificial intelligence CGI character Max Headroom, and told us how he was created from the brain of roving reporter Edison Carter. The character of Max Headroom himself had a fairly brief role in that movie in a relatively minor sub-plot, but the key point was that he found himself in the hands of a pirate TV station, where he was given his own show and helped boost their ratings.

The spin off British TV series "The Max Headroom Show" (1985) was then ostensibly Max's show on the pirate TV station. It was basically a series of half-hour music video programs with comic monologues and celebrity interviews by Max linking the music videos, although it is probably more accurate to say that it was a series of comic monologues and celebrity interviews cheaply padded out with music videos.

I was entranced by this series as a young teenager, even before I saw the original movie which made sense of how the character came to exist, and why he behaved as he did. It's probably fair to say it had a substantial cult following among younger people. I suppose I was captivated by the novelty of what I thought was a fully computerised character, even though in reality it was just digitally processed footage of an actor talking to camera. With the benefit of hindsight, I now realise Max's character was stolen from Bob Hope, and for the most part he was just as unfunny. Once the novelty of Max Headroom himself wore off, "The Max Headroom Show" had little to recommend it above any other music video program, other than the non-blandness & verbal barbs of the host. I seem to recall that the reason given for the program's termination wasn't poor ratings, but the sheer expense of frame-by-frame image processing in the mid-1980's.

The first episode of the 1987 American TV series largely copied the original "Max Headroom: 20 minutes into the future", but wasn't as well-acted or directed, and lacked the dystopian darkness & high production standards of the original. The ending is also a bit different, in order to set up the subsequent episodes. These are essentially satirical dramas based around the Headroom-assisted investigations of roving reporter Edison Carter. I only watched a couple of episodes, as it was watered down compared to the original and lacked the bite. It also missed the point of the 1985 original, which was to set up the music video program that gave us lots of Max, whose personality was the British series' raison d'etre.

None of my criticisms diminish the original 1985 movie, which is a must-see.

I watched this show religiously when it can out. Several years ago I taped many episodes off the Sci-Fi channel. Watching them now 17 years later (Man, that long?) I still find the show very entertaining. The idea that the world would be completely dependant on television and tv off switches being illegal isn't something completely out there. I don't recall how popular it was at the time it came out. I do remember when they took it off the air I realised something about myself. I was only 13 and still figuring out my tastes. At that point I knew that I didn't like what other people liked on tv, they had cancelled my favorite tv show to be replaced by more mindless sitcoms. (Most likely)

When the public were introduced to Max Headroom, they didn't know who he was, or (in some people's cases), what he was. To this day you can still find someone, (preferably a friend of a friend of a friend), who believes that he was a computer generated image. But, it turned out, it was actor Matt Frewer, (under an excessive amount of make-up), broadcast to whoever he was taking to from elsewhere.

It would be a cool idea to bring this show back, with todays technology, you could make Max to be an actual CGI creation.

If any of the shows creators are out there, please take note, and bring back this old gem.

this is max headroom's first show that was made by UK TV station channel 4 back in 1985 the show was on late at night for half an hour every week. max had a guest star on most his show's in the first series of his shows and told a lot of jokes and played music video's.as guest star's on the show was sting, nick Rhodes Simone Lebon, Roger daltry,boy George, max played some strange video's to like rat on a budget and it had people eating rat burgers, another one was someone singing about Germans,a reggae version to the coronation street theme, other great one were by Paul Hardcastle,Squeeze,this show had six shows.

the second show came out from the UK TV channel 4 in 1986 called again the max headroom show this time though it the show had max in a bigger studio with a audience max headroom talked to them as well. this show was more of a talk show then a music show max interviewed Michael Caine,Howie Mandel,jack lemmon,oliver reed,Tracey Ullman,Jackie Collin's,Rutger hauger,Vidal Sassoon this show had eight shows max did play music videos on this show but not as many as his first show i think the Michael Caine interview is very funny out of all the interviews max did

Christmas 1986 max did an half hour special and had a lot of guests and he did a lot of singing bob geldof,Tina turner,robin Williams guest starred on this show

the third show of max headroom was made by the us channel cinemax this show was called the original max talking headroom show and was not as funny as his UK shows this show had no music and max had two guest on each of his half hour shows william shatner, grace jones, guest starred and this show had six shows

i hope everything max did comes out on DVD which includes these four show's max headroom the UK movie and the UK extended movie, the us TV adventure series, the David lettermen interview, terry wogan interview,the coke ads, the UK radio rental ads,the sweep stakes ad. the music video by the art of noise paraniomia, the red nose night 1989 which max was in

i have all these but i would love to see these on DVD and have them in box set in crystal clear picture and sound with extra's

I have been trying to get a copy of the original video series for years. The Max Headroom show had indy and punk classics from Siouxsie and the banshees to King kurt. This was simply a classic, to be distinguished from the TV series which was simply OK. Although at time's Max's stutter could prove irritating in the extreme. His jokes may have left a permanent scar on my psyche and perhaps shaped my poor sense of humour to the present day. The Max headroom Show remains an iconic memory of the early punk and psycho-billy era. Why has channel four not dug out this classic video footage and re-released this gem? In the current climate of Tube nostalgia lets please see the resurrection of this great piece of music video nostalgia. The whole series please. Right now!