Real name: Matt Frewer

Effective period / Period of releases: 1986

Max Headroom was a fictitious British television character created by directors Rocky Moreton and Annabel Jankel with writer George Stone to present the Channel Four music video series The Max Headroom Show. Although he was supposed to be the world’s first computer generated artificial intelligence television presenter, Max himself was a combination of various elements without the use of any CGI. He was portrayed by American born Canadian actor Matt Frewer (born 4th January 1958, Washington D.C.) wearing special prosthetic make-up in a fibreglass suit created by John Humphreys. Traditional hand drawn animation was used to create the rotating lines behind him and innovative video editing techniques by Roo Aiken added to Frewer’s performance, which was so convincing that the viewing public at large believed that Max was really computer generated.