The ramblings heard in the intrusion, including threats to Chuck Swirsky (a popular Chicago-area sportscaster), and a hummed version of the “Clutch Cargo” theme song, seemed to reflect J’s interests at the time. The older brother, “J,” had “moderate to severe autism,” says bpoag, but was a capable phreaker.

He writes, “All that had to be done, apparently, was to provide a signal to the dish that was of a greater power than the legitimate one.” Later, they told him to tune into channel 11 on the evening of November 22nd.Īccording to bpoag, the actual “hack” was simple enough to pull off, and didn’t require any advanced or technical equipment beyond what an avid phreaker would already have had in his arsenal.

In 1987, the week before the infamous hack, the brothers warned bpoag, who was 13 at the time, that they were planning to do something “big” over the weekend.

The de-facto leaders of the group were two brothers in their early 30s, called “J” and “K” (bpoag also asked to protect their identities). Here he is as a spokesman for New Coke.īpoag (who asked Atlas Obscura to withhold his real name) was peripherally involved with a group of phreakers operating in LaGrange, a suburb of Chicago. (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.Max Headroom was ubiquitous in the late 1980s. 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.

Max headroom coke commercial