On Max Headroom: The Most Misunderstood Joke on TV

Uploaded April 4, 2039 - Happy 54th Anniversary, Max.
A complete analysis of Max Headroom. I am Become Satire, Celebrity of America.

Also, thank you for comments pointing out that 'Max Headroom' is an audio joke for loud audio above a comfortable threshold. A 4th reason the name is incredible.

I don't know how to do these descriptions so I'm just gonna start putting in words so the robots know what this video is about.

Robots, Late Night, Talk Shows, Jimmy Fallon, Eminem, Newsweek, British, America, American, Joke, Misunderstood, Glitch, Glitchbot, Cable Television, 1980s, CGI, HBO, Bladerunner, Stephen Colbert, Reboot.

[annabeljankel]

Thank you for understanding. Excellent observation. Bullseye.

[MissionZer]

You said 54 years and my heart dropped wondering if I'm so old I'd lost time. Then you put up the math reminding me it's 2039 and I felt old for an entirely different reason.

[DeadlyPlatypus]

Matt Frewer is a criminally underrated actor.

[katashley]

The Ray Bans were a practical solution. Matt found the contacts to be very painful, he didn't want to wear them anymore. So they gave him sunglasses.

[inthegrass]

I am very surprised that Max Headroom hasn't become bigger in the Vaporwave aesthetic scene. he is the VERY CONCEPT of vaporwave

[kctechie]

I was in my 20's when Max Headroom was on MTV and everyone I knew was aware that Max was a person playing a computer generated character and most of us appreciated the effort and the humor.

[angelsinger]

It should also be said that at least one guy in America got the joke: the infamous Max Headroom Incident, in which a man dressed as Max Headroom (but with a full body) hijacked a tv station. Whang does a really good video on what happened, who probably did it, and why.

[revoltrebeldestroy]

Also, there is a 5th joke in Max's name that you left out. "Headroom" refers to the space a cameraman leaves over the head of the person in the frame. So that makes his name also a reference to the broadcasting format he is making fun of.

[niamescrawls]

Max Headroom definitely feels like something ahead of its time. We need him more than ever now, in the age of cult personalities and social media; its like our modern world was designed for him to flourish.

[lazerblade]

The hypothetical Max reboot actually sounds fantastic. I'm sure they'd half-ass it and get it wrong if they actually tried it, but what you described would be amazing.

[zorantaylor]

It's genuinely eerie how the ongoing back-and-forth between "glitches" and ironic commentary EXACTLY matches the rhythm and overall aesthetic of youtube poops...

[EricJacobusOfficial]

Thanks for the exhaustive dork research on Max. Really enjoyed it.

[drphosferrous]

As a 50 year old, i feel like there's some things modern audiences miss about this well loved character. 80s and genX nihilism doesn't just come from the constant existential that of the cold War. It comes from a consumer culture where everything is depressingly devoid of meaning or value. Anything meaningful will be co-opted by commercial interests and recreated as something completely missing the point with the meaningless qualities emphasized. Max is a parody of all that. It's ok that he sold out. It works that consumer demand created stupid parodies that make no sense. Our society is so stupid that we should love new coke. None of it matters unless it's kind of funny.
If phillip k. Dick had written buster friendly in the 80s, it would have been max headroom.

[swampdonkey]

Max was ahead of his time: Skype, blipverts, wi-fi, drones, cloning, body banks, GPS tracking, wikileaks, "resurrecting" dead actors via CGI, virtual reality, etc...

[Xanthus]

I certainly wasn’t expecting to watch a 40min video today but as a child of the 80s I couldn’t resist. That was an incredibly enjoyable deep dive into the character plus so much more.

[eaytc]

My mother was a producer on the Max Headroom show. -It was awesome to hang out on the set and watch them film. I was young but remember how important and cool everyone who worked on that show thought it was. I was able to meet Matt Frewer and he was extremely nice. Still wish I had my Valatera Max Headroom skateboard with the hot pink wheels. Thanks for the great video and perspectives.

[Teapot-Dave]

I love Max Headroom and used to record his shows on video-tape so I could watch them later. I loved his sarcasm and the music, and when he said to Sting "What do you do when you play in a country where they don't understand English, off the top of my head - America?"
Just pure brilliance!

[CoNoLmts]

As someone who lived through all of that, and ate it all up, I am glad someone else sees the need for Max to come back.

[cardigansrule]

The British tv pilot is probably the best thing to watch as an introduction for someone who's never seen Max Headroom.

[KingfisherTalkingPictures]

You missed one piece of Max Headroom that defined him for me. The song “Paranormia” by The Art of Noise, an incredibly popular group at the time, featured a vocal story of Max Headroom unable to sleep until another voice offers him comfort. Following his origin story, Max was a semi-sentient being uploaded, a “ghost in the machine.” He was a spirit half insane, bashing around computer networks, remembering sleep, but unable to access that comfort. Max was the insanity of our always-on society, on the brink of becoming something new as the internet started to metastasize. He was an insane AI, willing to do the bidding of his programmers, but feeling some shadow of his humanity when the programmers went away. And somewhere some other voice of mercy was leaking through into the machine to give him comfort.

I also owned the Max Headroom Guide to Life, which was a total piece of shit.