Squid Ink

[  Mood: Amused ]
One of the best things about growing up in the 80’s, aside from the cool toys, New Wave music, MTV actually playing said music instead of endless "reality" shows, and the threat of nuclear annihilation (WOLVERINES!) constantly over our heads, was that occasionally something really bizarre would slip out through the cracks and catch on.

Like the Smurfs, for example.

But one of my favorite characters from the time is back. Perhaps not in the way I would have hoped, but never the less, Max Headroom has returned.

Originally created as a host for a video music show in England, Max was played by Matt Frewer in a fiberglass suit and rubber get up. He was then filmed, electronically manipulated to have an odd stutter, and put in front of a fake computer background.

Max had a very fun, odd sense of humor, was snarky, cool and had that distinctive st-st-stutter. He went from being a video host to Coke pitchman, hosting a talk show, having a TV movie and then TV series that went 14 episodes.

I loved the TV show. And, in fact, I still have the original British pilot movie on VHS. The show was one of the first to have a cyberpunk aesthetic, with a corporate dominated dystopian future.

(We were sure of one thing in the 80’s: The future was gonna suck, either from the Bomb, or from the Corporations taking over and running everything into the ground. Then both the USSR and Japanese Stock Markets both imploded, ruining my chances of ever entering the Thunderdome.)

The show was groundbreaking and ahead of its time (it’s tagline was "20 Minutes Into the Future"), and was on a major network. Like the best Sci-Fi, it dealt with social issues through the lens of the genre, and Max would usually give a few off-kilter monologues about the subject. Here’s an example. The show was dark, subversive, and seeped in black humor. That the show lasted 11 episodes before getting the axe is a miracle.

One of the great crimes of the TV on DVD situation right now is that Max Headroom is not available on DVD, though it was rerun for a while on Sci-Fi and TechTV (before it became the great hole of suck called G4)

Anyway, Channel 4, which made the original music video show that Max was created for, has resurrected Max from the sea of nostalgia for their campaign to get people ready for the switchover from analog broadcast to digital TV.

This time, Max actually is a completely digital creation, while still voiced by Matt Frewer. And while Max may be a digital being, apparently he’s not immune to the ravages of time:

Still, his irreverence is still there, and the short is fun to watch. It’s a nice trip down memory lane, which you can watch here.

For more Max fun, watch this interview, and his music video with Art of Noise, Paranoimia, which is a favorite of mine.

I’ve really missed Max, and due his performance of the character Matt Frewer is a staple of genre flicks and TV. It’s nice to see him reunited with Max, who really was a pioneer character. Sure, he wasn’t the first AI, but he was one of the first to "look" like a CGI creation (even though he wasn’t), was how most people were first exposed to the concepts of the cyberpunk genre, and he was just digital cool.