Have words like blipvert, fringer, and Zik-Zak entered your lexicon in the last few days? Got ’80s New Coke on the brain? Have no idea what we’re talking about? Shout! Factory’s recent release of Max Headroom: The Complete Series, a show that ABC aired from 1987 to 1988, has those of us who spent our childhoods in front of the TV excited. With a pronounced jaw line and cool shades set against a backdrop of geometric lines, Max Headroom’s trademark stutter and biting criticism of big corporation, network television and censorship, intrigued us. His smooth style and love of golf charmed us. After the jump, we celebrate our nostalgia for a young Matt Frewer by dredging up some classic Max Headroom clips you won’t find on the DVD.
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In the late 1950s, the Ford Motor Company introduced the Edsel, a car that failed so spectacularly it became synonymous with a corporate cluelessness. For two decades, the Edsel reigned as one of the most boneheaded blunders in all of automotive manufacturing. But in the mid-80s, the Edsel was usurped by an even more disastrous debut: the Yugo. It was an ugly car made cheaply in a communist country. What could possibly go wrong?
Nearly everything. From sub-par craftsmanship and disastrous safety ratings to gross corporate mismanagement and Cold War distrust, the Yugo is remembered best today not for its brief success but for its dismal failure. But if the Yugo was a lemon, Jason Vuic’s surprising page-turner is the lemonade: even though we know how it’s going to end (watch out for the iceberg, Yugo!), we’re held rapt by Vuic’s careful reconstruction of the peculiar history of a terrible idea.
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