#Max headroom wttw pirating incident serial#
#Max headroom wttw pirating incident series#
#Max headroom wttw pirating incident tv#

He muttered phrases from television shows. He sang вЂњyour love is fading,вЂќ lyrics to (I Know) IвЂ™m Losing You by the Temptations. The figure flipped off the camera, his middle finger covered in a rubber extension. 'Your love is fading!' he shouts, before throwing the phallus to the floor. Then, 'I think I'm better than Chuck Swirsky, frickin Liberal!' referring to the Chicago Bulls announcer who was then WGN Radio's go-to sportscaster. 'He's a frickin nerd,' Max says, in a voice that sounds like a cartoon villain. ' UPDATED: Comcast offers $10 credit to Tucson customers who saw Super Bowl porn'.

#Max headroom wttw pirating incident series#

'The incident was similar to a series of programming break-ins on Home Box Office during the summer by a man calling himself 'Captain Midnight.''

^ 'Bogus 'Max Headroom' Interrupts Broadcasts On 2 Chicago Stations'.

'According to spokesman Anders Yocom, station technicians monitoring the transmission 'attempted to take corrective measures, but couldn't'.'

#Max headroom wttw pirating incident tv#

'NBC Lands Gorbachev Interview (The TV Column)'.

^ a b c d Damn Interesting article, 'Remember, Remember the 22nd of November'.

It played for 25 seconds until WGN workers changed transmission paths.'

The intruding broadcast, which appeared only in the Chicago area, showed the Headroom character rocking back and forth with hands held in the air. 'The first interruption came during Bears highlights on the 9 p.m. Captain Midnight, another broadcast hijacker.There was not another verified intrusion incident of this kind in the United States until February 1, 2009, when Comcast customers in Tucson, Arizona, had Super Bowl XLIII interrupted for 30 seconds by an adult channel. WTTW and WGN-TV joined HBO as victims of broadcast signal intrusion. The Max Headroom incident made national headlines and was reported on the CBS Evening News the next day. Also, the station's master control center was unable to contact its transmitting equipment remotely to switch the studio/transmitter link, unlike their counterparts at WGN-TV, who were able to thwart the intruder by switching their John Hancock Center studio/transmitter link remotely within seconds. WTTW, which maintains its transmitter atop the Sears Tower, found that its engineers were unable to stop the hijacker because at the time there were no engineers on duty at the Sears Tower. The transmission then blacked out and cut off, and the hijack was over after about 90 seconds. The accomplice then said, 'Bend over, bitch!'.

His buttocks were exposed, and he was holding the now-removed mask up to the camera while being spanked with a flyswatter by an unidentified accomplice wearing a dress, as the man exclaimed 'They're coming to get me!'. The picture suddenly cut over to a shot of the man's lower torso. He then took the glove off, adding that it was 'dirty.' He then held up a glove, said 'my brother is wearing the other one', and put the glove on. The unidentified man continued to utter random phrases, including New Coke's advertising slogan 'Catch the Wave' while holding a Pepsi can (Max Headroom was a Coca-Cola spokesperson at the time), saying 'Your love is fading', humming the theme song to Clutch Cargo, and stating that he had 'made a giant masterpiece for all the greatest world newspaper nerds' (the call letters WGN are an abbreviation for 'World's Greatest Newspaper', in reference to the Tribune Company's Chicago Tribune). He's a freakin' nerd,' before laughing and jeering, 'Yeah, I think I'm better than Chuck Swirsky. The person in the Max Headroom mask appeared, as before, this time saying, 'That does it.

#Max headroom wttw pirating incident serial#

Later that night, around 11:15 p.m., during a broadcast of the Doctor Who serial Horror of Fang Rock, PBS station WTTW's signal was hijacked using the same video that was broadcast during the WGN-TV hijack, this time with distorted audio. The incident left sports reporter Dan Roan flustered, saying, 'Well, if you're wondering what happened, so am I.' The hijack was stopped after 20 seconds when WGN switched the modulation of their studio link to the John Hancock Center transmitter.

There was no audio, only a buzzing noise. During Bears highlights in the sports report, the station's signal was interrupted by a video of a person wearing a Max Headroom mask, standing or sitting in front of a swaying sheet of corrugated metal imitating the background effect in the Max Headroom New Coke commercial. The first occurrence of the signal intrusion took place during WGN-TV's News at Nine.