Max Headroom FAQ

Prototype of the Alt.Fan.Max-Headroom Faq.
version 1.00 - Thursday, 26th September, 1996

1.Who is he?
	Max Headroom was the shiny guy who stuttered and made jokes in a
	number of different series. An 80's icon to many and the series was 
	pretty much the first cyberpunk in popular culture.

2.Where did he come from?(The History)
	Ok here is the timeline as far as I know.

	Channel 4(a Uk terrestrial TV channel - C4) decides to create a pretend
	computer host for a music video show.

	C4 decides to make a short film about how the computer host is "born", 
	but in scripting this turns into a 60min film.(rumours of a 90min film)

	C4 shows the film and the music video show to critical acclaim.

	C4 brings out the posterbook of the film.

	Art Of Noise produce "Paranoimia" with Matt Frewer as Max. It rises
	into the UK top 20 hits.

	Coca-Cola uses Max in their "New Coke" ad's. Released March 1986, May
	1986, and July 1987. 

	March 1987: Lorimar (an american network) picks up the rights to make a
	series and starts by creating its own version of the film, but as a 
	60min show with mostly american actors (only 3 of the original cast, 
	Matt Frewer, Amanda Pays and William Morgan Sheppard, are in it). Also 
	the plot is changed from the British version(Blank Reg doesn't appear 
	til later in the series, Bryce switches sides at the end, etc).
                                                                                
	15 episode series is made and 13 episodes are shown. (US version of the
	film is the first episode of course). Series is cancelled despite some 
	quite good critics reviews.

	ABC has a scriptwriter's strike about a month later and shows the 14th 
	and 15th show as fillers. Possibly due to fan mail instead/aswell.

	

	[next bits are especially hazy]

	Matt Frewer goes on to make a Max Headroom chat show (with, as I 
	remember, people like Sting coming on), and some Xmas specials etc.	

	C4 brings out "Max Headroom's guide to life" book.

	The end of an era.

3.The shows made:

	British telefilm - "20 Minutes Into The Future"

	American Series:

   (1) Blipverts 3/31/87
   (2) Rakers 4/7/87
   (3) Body Banks 4/14/87
   (4) Security Systems 4/21/87
   (5) War 4/28/87
   (6) Blanks 5/5/87
   (7) The Academy 9/18/87
   (8) Deities 9/25/87
   (9) Grossberg's Return 10/2/87
   (10) Dream Thieves 10/9/87
   (11) Whacketts 10/16/87
   (12) Neurostim 4/28/88
   (13) Lost Tapes [Shown about 1 month after official end by ABC in the
   U.S.]
   (14) Baby Grobags [Shown about 1 month after official end by ABC in
   the U.S.]

	Unproduced:
   (15) Theora's Tale
   (16)	The Trial
   (17) X-Max

	Special Shows:
	The Max Headroom X-max Turkey (C4 X-mas special)
	The Max Talking Headroom Show

3.How did they raytrace him?
	They didn't. Max is in fact a heavily made up Matt Frewer, with some
	video effects for the stutter, against a blue wall.
                                 
3a.So what about the computer bits then?
        In the british film, all of the "computer graphics" were line drawings
	on acetate, by the same team who also did "Hitchhikers Guide To The 
	Galaxy". However by the time the American Series was shot the Amiga 
	computer was being used for screen graphics. And no one knows what was
	being used by the time of the chatshow.

4.What have the actors also done? 
	Amanda Pays has most recently been in "Solitaire for Two" and some
	TV movies. Max Headroom fans will probably enjoy The Flash series and
	films where she plays a very similar role to Theora.

	Matt Frewer has been in "Lawnmower Man II", "Generation X", and loads
	of other films, he is also the voice for the new Pink Panther animated
	series, and in "Gargoyles". New news is that he going to be the voice 
	for a character in Disney's latest animated film, "Hercules".

	William Morgan Sheppard was the villan in the Elvira film (don't know
	the name), and he has also popped up as 2 different aliens in the TV
	show "Babylon 5".

5.Where can I find the series on tape/laserdisk?
	The most often asked question in the newsgroup (apart from "Would
	anyone like to make some cash" or other spams - see appendix A2). 

	The sci-fi channel in America runs the Max Headroom series every so 
	often if you don't mind the logo and the adverts. There used to be 
	released Columbia Video's with 2 episodes a tape, but the only place
	you might find them is if you get lucky at a 2nd hand shop or car boot
	sale.
	
	Recently there have been rumours of a re-release of some of the
	episodes on laserdisk in Japan, but I don't know any more...

	I recently saw a message from someone in the chat section of the Sci-Fi
	Channel web site (www.scifi.com) mentioning that he had picked up some
	new laserdisks of the first 6 episodes of the series (2 episodes per
	disk) and a used copy of the original UK Max film. He gave the web
	address for a distributer called Sight & Sound at
        www.tiac.net/users/amadeus/sslaser.html. Although others that may
	have the laserdisks can be searched for at
	Yahoo/Entertainment/Movies/Laserdisk.

Any other stuff/Merchandise?

	Yes, there was quite alot of merchandising, but so much has disappeared
	now.	

	The scripts for episodes 2 3 5 10 and Theora's Tale (unproduced)
	,are available from Script City (America 213-871-0707).
		
	"Max Headroom's Guide To Life" - (Adapted for Ordinary People by) David
	Hansen and Paul Owen for Corgi books (ISBN 0 552 128325).

	Max Headroom Annual 1987 

	A MAD magazine with Alfred E. Neuman as Max on the cover.

	The single "Paranomia" with Art Of Noise - Now availabe on their "best
	of" album.

	There are also some coffee cups out there and numerous posters.

	The Max Headroom computer game for Commodore and Spectrum 48k. 	


6.Any web sites?

	PERSONAL
	========	
	Well I run one at:
		http://river.tay.ac.uk/~ccdmlh/max/index.htmlx

	Andy Hall has one at:
		http://jean-luc.ncsa.uiuc.edu/People/Andy/max/	

        Joe Struss:
		http://www.public.iastate.edu/~spires/max.html


	COMMERCIAL
	==========

	Sci-Fi Channel (Dominion):
		http://www.scifi.com/headroom/index.html

        There used to be a site at www.net23.com (actually an Internet Service
	Provider in New York), but it seems to be down all the time now.

          

>3/  Where you can get stuff???
>
>I WANT WANT WANT series 2 on video (PAL) - I can give you the item codes
>for Australian PAL versions of series 1.  I also WANT WANT WANT copies
>(sound or video) of the Coke adverts.  You can buy some of the scripts from
>"Script City" in the US, including Theoras Tale (They've only got about 5
>scripts).
>
>4/  If you want to go nuts you could include CUTS from the scripts - the
>Steve Roberts scripts have a fair bit of detail in them.
>

>5/  There are a couple of "Net23" screensavers around for PC (the Net23
>logo bounces around a bit)
>
>6/  I made up an audio tape of Max speaking from the video show he hosted,
>it runs for about 1.5 hours & has variable quality.  Anyone want some WAVs
>for it?  Anyone want to post WAVs of the Coke adverts??
>
>7/ List of good Max lines??

Appendix: Misc questions in the newsgroup.

A1: Max was created on an Amiga!
	No he wasn't. See section 3, and 3a. Yes some of the US series graphics
	were done on amigas though.

A2: Free cash?
	Ignore these spams. And try not to follow up to it with a 1 line flame
	and keep the entire original post.
 
A3: New series of Dr. Who/anything else posted to all alt.tv groups
	Usually nothing to do with Max.
                       
C: Credits
	Matt Haswell		M.Haswell_AT_tay.ac.uk
	Andrew Williams		awilliams_AT_daikin.com.au
	Joe Struss		jastruss_AT_iastate.edu