Max Headroom -- was there ever a more overhyped nothing in the '80s?
eek, we're gonna get his "hit" too? WOS2.
you were working in media in the 80s and therefore were more in tune with advertising and pop culture? because I don't think it was overhyped. Either that, or I bought in to the hype. I like the show.
The show, despite a barrage of publicity by ABC, flopped. (at least on this side of the Atlantic; it was pretty popular in the UK) And yet we had Max Headroom making a record with Art of Noise... Max Headroom doing Pepsi commercials... and so on. People over 30 were like, "whotheFUCK is Max Headroom??" Seemed like overkill to me, considering how shortlived the MH phenomenon was.
Does a short-lived show, a commercial, and one song add up to over-hyped? I wouldn't think so,
but I can't say since that was during a twelve-year period when I watched essentially no television
whatsoever.
Eventually I saw Max Headroom, and I like the show. It seems somewhat prescient, what with
themes about widespread public obsession with vacuous video entertainment, manipulation of
consumer consumption, and income inequality resulting in a bifurcated society.
