Thursday August 26, 2010
Picture of the Day
This crinkly Rolling Stone magazine ad has been on my bedroom wall for over 20 years.20 MINUTES INTO THE FUTUREImagine a world where an on/off switch on a television was illegal.
A world where a President was chosen based on which network had the most viewers at a given moment.
A world where a network has exclusive rights to a terrorist group, allowing that network to be the first on the scene after an attack.
Welcome to a world 20 minutes into the future.
Welcome to a world of Max Headroom.
Back in the mid-1980's there was a music video show in England with a computer generated host. Max Headroom. They eventually made a show that showed how Max came to be. Max suddenly garnered interest here in the states, and ABC commissioned a show to be made in 1987. It never really caught on, mostly, I think, because it was ahead of it's time. Some people didn't get it. I did. It ranks in the top 3 of my favorite TV shows, and now all 14 episodes are on DVD.
The story revolves around reporter Edison Carter of Network 23. He broadcasrs globally with his own camera. His controller, or producer, is Theora Jones. She follows him with a GPS-like device, and can plan an escape when trouble surfaces. The world is almost post-apocalyptic. There is homelessness, but televisions are everywhere. And networks fight to keep their viewers through however means possible. After an accident, a teenage computer genius, downloads Edison's memory, and creates a new computer generated entity, that calls himself Max Headroom because Edison crashed into a gate that gave instructions that the maximum headroom was so many meters. Max Headroom- 3 meters.
Great stuff. I've been waiting for this show to come out on DVD and now I have it.
