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Did anyone catch the Max Headroom Chicago TV hijacking event in '87?

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fujiyama Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-12-11 06:02 PM
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Did anyone catch the Max Headroom Chicago TV hijacking event in '87?
I just found out about this where the WGN TV station in Chicago was interrupted by Max Headroom during a news broadcast. Two hours later it occurred again but at the PBS affiliate, interrupting Doctor Who. Pretty fascinating, here's the clip?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cycVTXtm0U0

Some background info:

http://www.damninteresting.com/remember-remember-the-22nd-of-november/

On 22 November 1987, sports anchor Dan Roan of Chicago’s WGN-TV News Network was narrating the video of the day’s football highlights when something highly unusual happened. The pictures on the station monitors in the studio suddenly began to jitter and twitch. Across Chicago, countless other televisions did the same, as Dan’s clips of the Bears game were lost in a brief flurry of static and replaced with the sinister, grinning visage of Max Headroom. Most viewers were familiar with the techno-stuttering character from the recently canceled television program bearing his name, and from advertisements for the New Coke soft drink. But there was something unsettling and surreal about this rubber-masked imposter.

As a low buzzing sound belched from thousands of televisions throughout Chicago, the intruder’s image swayed and wiggled in front of a slowly rotating background. Half a minute later, as suddenly as it had appeared, the strange scene was gone. As Chicago’s televisions reverted back to the world of the ordinary, the visibly flustered sports reporter reappeared, and commented, “Well, if you’re wondering what happened… so am I.”

WGN-TV’s on-site technicians neutralized the “pirate” transmission by switching to an alternate transmitter, but the attacker’s motives and methods were a mystery. It was not the first time a commercial television broadcast had been commandeered, but very few prior attempts had been successful. The previous year a satellite dish salesman going by the fanciful pseudonym “Captain Midnight” had succeeded in briefly replacing HBO’s signal with a complaint about their prices, and earlier in 1987 an employee of the Christian Broadcasting Network had hijacked the Playboy Channel’s signal. Both of these prior offenders had clear motives, and the authorities had successfully located and prosecuted the troublemakers. But this new instance of signal hacking was much more perplexing.
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CBGLuthier Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-12-11 08:03 PM
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1. I caught Captain Midnight
Took me years to finally see Falcon and the Snowman, the movie he interrupted the beginning of.
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derby378 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-12-11 08:09 PM
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2. I laughed so hard I'm squirting tears out of my eyes
It's so fucking stupid that it's a fucking MASTERPIECE! Huzzah! :applause::applause::applause:
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