- Jul 9, 2010
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In 1987, two television broadcasts were interrupted. The first occurred during a sports segment on a news program. The original transmission lasted just seconds, but depicted a fairly startling, confusing or humorous image. A person was stood against corrugated iron, wearing the mask of a television character, Max Headroom. After the TV engineers flicked the switch, so to speak, the news anchor was visibly and admittedly confused.
Two hours later, the same happened on a different channel. Yet this broadcast was longer. As it interrupted a return re-screening of Doctor Who, the Headroom character spoke in disjoined phrases. He then pulled down his pants, had a flyswatter passed to him to a woman, and smacked it against a rubber arse. Then the transmission ended.
No one was caught.
I find this fascinating and endearing. I just imagine three or four bored college kids sitting around one night, drinking beers and devising a pretty stupid plan. Whoever it was had a decent grip on the technology necessary, so these young, pasty, skinny kids doing it and becoming on-campus legends is just one of those cool things. I bet they sit at home, 45-years old and with a mortgage and kids, and still laugh about this whole thing.
I just posted this as another thing I've always found intriguing. I guess I liked the victimless crime of D.B. Cooper. I've been getting a little down due to some of the more graphic and disturbing cases, so I'm trying to divert some of the attention to something light hearted. Still, this Headroom thing scared the s**t out of me...
Probably as mysterious and open-ended as that D.B. Cooper case as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_broadcast_signal_intrusion
http://www.damninteresting.com/remember-remember-the-22nd-of-november/
Two hours later, the same happened on a different channel. Yet this broadcast was longer. As it interrupted a return re-screening of Doctor Who, the Headroom character spoke in disjoined phrases. He then pulled down his pants, had a flyswatter passed to him to a woman, and smacked it against a rubber arse. Then the transmission ended.
No one was caught.
I find this fascinating and endearing. I just imagine three or four bored college kids sitting around one night, drinking beers and devising a pretty stupid plan. Whoever it was had a decent grip on the technology necessary, so these young, pasty, skinny kids doing it and becoming on-campus legends is just one of those cool things. I bet they sit at home, 45-years old and with a mortgage and kids, and still laugh about this whole thing.
I just posted this as another thing I've always found intriguing. I guess I liked the victimless crime of D.B. Cooper. I've been getting a little down due to some of the more graphic and disturbing cases, so I'm trying to divert some of the attention to something light hearted. Still, this Headroom thing scared the s**t out of me...
Probably as mysterious and open-ended as that D.B. Cooper case as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_broadcast_signal_intrusion
http://www.damninteresting.com/remember-remember-the-22nd-of-november/