Reporter Dan Roan said: “Well, if you’re wondering what happened, so am I.” The hijack was stopped after an engineer at WGN switched the modulation of their studio link to the John Hancock Center transmitter. There was no audio, only a buzzing noise. The station’s signal was interrupted for about half a minute by a video of a person wearing a Max Headroom mask, standing in front of a swaying sheet of corrugated metal, which imitated the background effect in the Max Headroom TV and movie appearances. The first Max Headroom pirate incident took place on WGN (channel 9), during the 9:00 news. Within a few hours, 2 TV stations had their signals hijacked the guy who did it was never identified or caught! The people responsible have never been identified.In the business, the Max Headroom pirate signal was called a “broadcast signal intrusion.” We call it a nice TV hack. He then held up a Michael Jackson glove and said, “My brother is wearing the other one”, then put the glove on and continued, “But it’s dirty! It’s like you got bloodstains on it!” He then removed the glove and threw it down.įor Act 3, the picture cut to a man and his bare butt as he held the now-removed Max Headroom mask up to the camera and screamed “They’re coming to get me!” as a woman in a French maid outfit then proceeded to spank his bare ass with a flyswatter while screaming “Bend over, bitch!” He also made some fart noises and stated he had “made a giant masterpiece for all the greatest world newspaper nerds”. The show was interrupted by static and the for one minute and twenty-two seconds, someone in a Max Headroom mask screamed, laughed, moaned, called WGN’s Chuck Swirsky a “fricking Liberal” and blurted out random phrases like New Coke’s slogan “Catch the Wave” while holding a Pepsi can.Īfter crushing the Pepsi can, he tossed it off screen, flipped off the camera, grabbed the Pepsi can, sang “Your Love Is Fading’ and begun humming the Clutch Cargo theme song. Later in the night at 11:15 PM the same person or persons hijacked the broadcast signal Chicago PBS affiliate WTTW-11 during a broadcast of Doctor Who. Unlike the earlier hijack, which was barely intelligible, the next one was much more successful. After gaining control of the broadcast again, all Dan Roan could say was “Well, if you’re wondering what’s happened, so am I.” There was no audio other than a buzzing noise and the technicians at WGN were quickly able to stop the hijack by switching the frequency of their studio link. The screen went black for 15 seconds and then returned with a mysterious person wearing a Max Headroom mask.

On the evening of November 22nd, 1987 Max Headroom hijacked two TV stations in Chicago.Īt approximately 9:15 PM, during Nine O’Clock News with Dan Roan on WGN-TV Channel 9, the broadcast signal was hijacked as he narrated highlights of the Bears victory over the Lions.

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