Character Type: Artificial Intelligence

Max Headroom is a fictional artificial intelligence (AI) character who was advertised as "the first computer-generated TV presenter". He was known for his biting commentary on a variety of topical issues, arrogant wit, stuttering, and pitch-shifting voice. Max Headroom was created by George Stone, Annabel Jankel, and Rocky Morton. He was actually actor Matt Frewer wearing prosthetic makeup, contact lenses, and a plastic molded suit, and sitting in front of a blue screen. Harsh lighting and other editing and recording effects heightened the illusion of a CGI character. Max's personality was meant to be a satirical exaggeration of the worst tendencies of television hosts in the 1980s who wanted to appeal to youth culture yet weren't a part of it. Frewer proposed that Max reflected an innocence, largely influenced not by mentors and life experience but by information absorbed from television. Max Headroom debuted in April 1985 on Channel 4 in the British-made cyberpunk TV movie Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future, his origin story. In the movie, Edison Carter (portrayed by Frewer) is a journalist fleeing enemies into a parking garage, crashing his motorcycle through the entrance barrier reading