Max Headroom
Total Recall Personal recollections of cherished sci-fi
Ian Berriman, Deputy Editor
Max: four and a half hours for the make-up.
EVERETT COLLECTION/ALAMY
For a brief time in the mid–’80s, the world’s hippest TV presenter wasn’t real. I’m talking about one of Channel 4’s first icons – one even more memorably malfunctional than Richard Whiteley.
First airing on 6 April 1985, The Max Headroom Show saw the computer-generated VJ provide quipping links between a series of music videos, stuttering like a Chaka Khan record all the while, with accompanying visual glitches. Of course, Max wasn’t really a CG creation, but actor Matt Frewer, encased in blocky prosthetics and screwed into a shiny fibreglass suit. However, the illusion was so good that it was easy to suspend disbelief. As a 12-year-old viewer, I was mesmerised.