I love how Brian Brushwood described it. It was either an inside job from someone at the station, or a very impressive feat of radio hacking, and they had to plan out the costume and the corrugated sheet on a pivot behind him to simulate the “CG” backgrounds, “But it’s as if zero thought went into what he was actually going to say.” He hums the Clutch Cargo theme tune, makes fun of Max Headroom as spokesman of New Coke by holding up a Pepsi can, and throws a little bit of shade at WGN and Chuck Swirsky.
The halcyon days of the 1980’s when a broadcast intrusion like this was basically a harmless juvenile prank.
Look at how phone phreaking was treated in the 70s, or codes for getting long distance on BBS. The modern justice system would have wanted to make someone like Joybubbles an example.
My buddy Julian was linked up with our city’s biggest phreakers. Dude disappeared and word is he did 10 years. This was in the 80’s
Would having his bare ass spanked have made it easier to find him?
Human ass cheek resonance is unique, like fingerprints. There was no database at the time though.
There’s one now?? 😳
That’s how the the dj for kneecap got unmasked, not the spanking but his bare ass
That title makes less sense than the event itself, which is famously weird. I can’t imagine anything other than that being on purpose.
I wonder why they still haven’t come forward, given that there would be no legal consequences for doing so in 2025.
My guess is that they died before the statute of limitations expired. This happened in the 80’s, and there’s plenty of time between then and now for something to have happened to them.
That and parents don’t like to spill all their truly legendary escapades to their children. I mean, the apple doesn’t fall far from rhe tree and all that.
Crazy. Today at work I accidentally pressed the intercom button on my phone and approximately 600 people unexpectedly heard a really loud “BOOP” with no message or followup whatsoever, all at the same time, and it made me think of this.
I dove way deep into this and I’m fairly certain at least a few people discovered who it was… And then they decided not to release that info because of potential harm to “Max”, on numerous levels. And I’m OK with that, if that’s the case I don’t really want any of us to know.
I will not retrace the steps taken to arrive at that conclusion for anyone, either. First rule of fight club and all…
The more I think about it, it’d ruin the magic of the story if “Max” got outed. If “Max” goes public and takes credit and maybe talks through how it worked (especially understanding that you could not pull off the same trick today) that would be cool but … even ignoring any sort of potential harm it just ruins the spirit of the thing.
What a headline!
aw. back when we could still be saved.
That shit was legend. I mean, we were still using BBSs and phone phreaking. Here’s this ubernerd that BROKE INTO the television signal. We bow before you, kinky ubernerd.
Are people usually identified by spankings?
I mean who hasn’t hijacked the signals of major news networks to fil themselves in a rubber mask being spanked with a flyswatter.
Perpetrators, definitely a whole gang of people did that hijacking. At the least 3 if you count the guy on screen, the girl spanking him with a flyswatter, and likely whoever was intercepting the radio signal with their own broadcast. Doubt it was the same guy on the footage.
Could have been filmed separately? Before hand. Then just hijacked and transmit.
If you watch it, there’s an air of excitement and surprise given off by the person on screen that comes across even though their voice is heavily masked. Makes me think the dude was jacked to the tits when they finally saw it working.
I’ve watched it many times and I agree on the air and vibe. But it doesn’t preclude a prior filming.
I remember reading investigators on the case saying that it was indeed pre-recorded. Plus there’s the fact that this happened in two different TV networks within few hours where they showed the same video - only that in the first incident their engineers were around, understood what was happening and managed to overpower the pirate’s signal before the recording ended.
Something about that footage has always appeared live to me. Its like he didnt even have a script. Just told a friend to spin this metal sheet behind him and have a chick he knows spank him while he attempts some crazy exploit he found himself able to do. But yeah, theres no reason at all it couldn’t have been recorded beforehand, you’re right on that.
Its like he didnt even have a script
I mean, they could have just winged it if recording too. Being recorded doesnt make it any more likely he was prepared
“Yeah one take is fine, it’s probably not going to work anyways.”
Some. Use on Reddit thinks he knows who did it but he couldn’t get him to admit it. It was a long detailed story about an autistic guy that was a brother of a friend.
But after that they “were contacted by people who were investigating the case” or something like that and retracted.
The Reddit story was very convincing at the time. They later did walk it back, something like they believed the brother when they denied doing it.
I don’t know how conspiratorial we should be, because while the FCC doesn’t play around I think at this point everyone would be more amused and curious if the perpetrator came forward.
It was Zero Cool. Definitely Zero Cool.
Max headroom is my next fallout playthrough after sterling archer.
Dont forget DB Cooper
That’s gonna require high charisma, intelligence and luck.
Like, there’s fallout mods starring those characters?
No, I make the face look like em and then dress them that way.
