Max Headroom Returns!

When I was just a kid, there were a series of Coke commercials that aired in the US featuring a strange, stuttering, and profoundly bizarre character named Max Headroom. The character has the ability to randomly appear and interact with people near his television set, and soon became the main character of his own TV show (as well as the single-episode talk show that became the basis of the US TV series).

The show lasted eleven episodes before being canceled, but Max’s popularity remained for several years afterwards. Recently, British Television’s Channel 4 launched a campaign promoting its upcoming Digital programming featuring Max Headroom as its spokesperson, albeit a slightly older version.

Actor Matt Frewer portrays both the young and old version of Max. An interesting bit of trivia: The original Max Headroom was in fact NOT computer animated. Technology of the time prevented full-person rendering, so they “tricked” the viewer by dressing Matt Frewer up in a latex and foam rubber costume and cell-shading the geometric lines and shapes that appear behind him.

For more on Max Headroom, see Wikipedia’s article here