Premium cable channels assured subscribers that they did not need to fear similar interruptions, and though concerns continued that the hijackers would strike again, the incident was not repeated. The hijackers may have been using the incident as an early form of cyber terrorism to prove that the new encryption methods were not foolproof. Immediately after the hijacking, widespread media coverage suspected the hijacking was a protest of the then-recent rise of premium cable channels using satellite encryption to prevent non-subscribers from viewing their offerings. The incident was largely decried as immature and even obscene. After just over a minute of seemingly meaningless non-sequiturs, the footage jump cuts to an image of Max bent over, his rear exposed in side view, while a woman in a French maid costume spanks him with a flyswatter.
![the max headroom incident the max headroom incident](https://i1.wp.com/coalspeaker.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/slide_15.jpg)
He also hums the "Clutch Cargo" theme song and states "I still see the X!", a direct reference to the final episode of "Clutch Cargo," and bashes WGN-TV their then-sister newspaper, the Chicago Tribune and their then-sports commentator Chuck Swirsky. Max mutters pop cultural phrases like (ironically, while holding a Pepsi can) "Catch the wave" (the catchphrase of competitor New Coke, for which the real Headroom was then spokesperson) and "Your love is fading" (possibly a reference to The Temptations song "(I Know) I'm Losing You"). This time, the hijackers were able to successfully transmit their message, albeit with heavily distorted audio.
The max headroom incident serial#
The second hijacking took place nearly exactly two hours later, around 11:15, on WTTW (a PBS station) during an airing of the Doctor Who serial Horror of Fang Rock. Roan returned to the screen, saying, "Well, if you're wondering what just happened, so am I". The intrusion ended thirty seconds later. The noise was likely due to a failure to hijack the station's audio frequencies. Around 9:15 PM, a sports report by anchor Dan Roan during the station's flagship primetime news program, The Nine O'Clock News (now known as WGN News at Nine) was interrupted by a distorted, shaking background, an ominous buzzing noise, and the face of a man in a Max Headroom mask.
![the max headroom incident the max headroom incident](https://mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance.net/project_modules/max_1200/a7a71541889423.57b85a95dc477.jpg)
The first hijacking took place during a news broadcast on Chicago television station WGN-TV (an independent station at the time, now an independent station again after having been a network affiliate in some sort between 19). While speculation at the time suggested the hijacking was a form of protest or even a terrorist attack, it is widely accepted to be an elaborate prank. The pirate broadcasts involved a man wearing a mask of 80s pop-culture character Max Headroom. The Max Headroom Television Hijackings was a 1987 incident in which a group of at least three people interrupted television airings on November 22 on two occasions and two different stations in Chicago.
![the max headroom incident the max headroom incident](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/cycVTXtm0U0/hqdefault.jpg)
A screenshot taken from one of the footages from the hijack.