If you're old enough to remember Max Headroom, you know the brief cultural phenomenon that he was in the mid and late 1980's. A computer program that had his own personality and was very funny!
Well, he looked like a computer generated guy, but he was in fact, actor Matt Frewer. Beginning as a kind of early video jockey for British television music videos, Max soon had his own cable variety show on Showtime, followed by Coke commercials and then an ABC comic-book like action/adventure series, that explained where Max came from and his real life alter-ego got to do all of the real life acting and adventure stuff in the show. I liked the ABC show.
Max was everywhere, on T-shirts, magazine covers, you name it. He even had a book - Max Headroom's Guide to Life.
Then, suddenly the network pulled the plug on the series, and along with it, went Max.
You may notice in the clips below that there is something Jim Carrey like about Max/Matt. I'm not suggesting that Carrey stole Max's act. But I wonder if it has something to do with them both being Canadian?
Matt Frewer went on to have a pretty good career as a character actor and he still gets good parts in major projects, like the retired villain Moloch in The Watchmen movie.
I miss Max, but I'm sure Matt Frewer doesn't miss the hours in the make-up chair.
- Mark
This last video is something I cut together a few years ago, a kind of Max PSA about the evils of 1980's excess.
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