![]() Still, Max was a generally likeable creation once viewers got to know him. ![]() Max, as he was known, was forever randomly popping up in each of the televised episodes with pearls of wit and wisdom, delivered in his trademark computer-to-blame stutter, often aggravating friends and foes alike. ![]() Max Headroom was a show about an acci- dentally-created, computer-generated being named “Max Headroom” who lived inside a television network’s computer system. Still today, the show has something of a cult and on-line following and remains one of television history’s more engaging self-critiques. The British-derived show was quite popular in its limited 1987-1988 American run on ABC-TV, but was pulled off the air before its final two episodes aired. “Max Headroom” is the name of a 1980’s sci-fi television show that perhaps got a little too close to the truth with its humorous but stinging critique of the TV ratings game and TV advertising. "I'm an image whose time has come,” says Max Headroom. (Appended are: (1) a Max Headroom chronology, (2) notes, (3) references-divided into books, articles, authorless articles, and videos, (4) a descritpion of the audiovisual aids that accompany the talk, and (5) a selection of newspaper cartoons featuring Max Headroom.April 1987 Newsweek cover. ![]() Audiences react to Headroom well, and importantly, remember his association with Coke, which makes him Coca-Cola's perfect "spokeshead." The introduction of other Headroom-like commercials worldwide suggests a trend in the design and production of television-specific commercials. He is treated like a celebrity, appears on talk shows, and now has his own interview show that is unrelated to his advertisements. In doing so, Headroom blurs the distinction between the message and the messenger. Never before in the history of television has a true child of the medium come forward to pitch products. Although the Headroom character was not originally designed for advertising purposes, its application soon became apparent. ![]() Coca-Cola then bought the rights to Headroom, and by the spring of 1986 the Max Headroom phenomenon had helped the company regain the market it lost the year before with the introduction of New Coke. Headroom was developed in Britain, and made his debut on the Home Box Office television network in 1985. With Coca-Cola's selection of a digital, computer-constructed "spokesthing" named Max Headroom, came a dramatic shift toward a reliance on high technology to deliver the advertising message. ![]()
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