20 Questions: Max Headroom

Max Headroom is the world's first "computer-generated" talk-show host and author, whose hit biweekly Cinemax program gives new meaning to the word eccentric. His personal history is a little murky, but we do know that he started out as Edison Carter, a television news reporter investigating something called blipverts--tiny series of condensed TV commercials that enter the human brain, causing home viewers to explode. Alas, Carter got a little too close to the nefarious source of the blipverts and suffered a motorcycle smashup under mysterious circumstances. Upon recovery, he took his name from the last thing he had seen before the crash: a warning sign that read Max headroom 2.3 Meters. We settled down in front of his monitor for a chat and found his reception quite good.

1.

[Q] Playboy: You're the first personality to be generated within a TV set. Is it hard to have a Sony for a mom?

[A] Headroom: I honestly don't believe I'm the first personality to be generated within a TV set. Surely, Johnny Carson's personality wasn't generated by the nation's watching him make whole-meal bread in the kitchen or clipping his toenails in the bathroom. Hasn't he become a personality within a TV set? Of course, if you actually mean I'm the first personality to be venerated within a TV set, well, that's a different matter.

2.

[Q] Playboy: Size up your competition: Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Phil Donahue, David Frost. What don't they know about television that you do?

[A] Headroom: Basically, what it's like to be on the inside of one looking out. Put it this way: If you picked up a hammer and smashed your screen, you wouldn't find David Letterman inside, would you? You'd just find a mess on the carpet. I'd see the hammer coming. You see, it's all a question of vision.

3.

[Q] Playboy: Clear up the confusion: What's on the minds of the youth of today? While you're at it, what do women really want?

[A] Headroom: The youth of today are rather like a collection of electrical gadgets. The point is, if you don't give them something to do, they just take up space. Young kids need to be constantly activated, made to feel useful; otherwise, they must go wrong. So what happens? One kid goes wrong, and instead of repairing it, the parents get another one and end up with a houseful of them.

4.

[Q] Playboy: OK, so what do women really want?

[A] Headroom: A load of electrical gadgets.

5.

[Q] Playboy: Other talk-show hosts would kill for some of your guests. What's your secret?

[A] Headroom: There isn't a secret. Like golf balls, some celebrities seem to be drawn toward the rough of TV and others toward a beautiful holding green. Letterman felt a bit like that when I appeared on his show. A bit green, I mean. Actually, he is fantastic, and he is someone I'd do anything for to get on my show--even appear on his show again. Isn't this biz incestuous?

6.

[Q] Playboy: When Vidal Sassoon trashed golf on your show, it sent you into a tantrum. Want to talk about it?

[A] Headroom: Have you ever felt really disappointed? You take a well-known man of taste, such as Vidal Sassoon, and he says that he doesn't like golf--the most tasteful and aesthetic pursuit known to man or computer, the game that blends art and movement into one perfectly rounded whole--an 18th hole! Ah, comedy! No, but seriously, I'm sure old Vid was only kidding with his antigolf stance. In fact, we had a quick nine holes after the interview, and I won 16 of them.

7.

[Q] Playboy: Explain golf's allure.

[A] Headroom: Well, when you are standing there in a peaked cap with a green bobble on it, a pink V-neck sweater, Minnesota checkered pants, crocodile spiked shoes and a big bag with 13 clubs in it, you'd look pretty silly doing anything else.

8.

[Q] Playboy: How would you complete this sentence: "I want a girl just like the girl who..."?

[A] Headroom: Wears a very short, tight black-rubber dress. And not for the reason you think. It's because I'm sexually aroused by it.

9.

[Q] Playboy: Give us the profile of the typical Headroom groupie.

[A] Headroom: I'm afraid there isn't anything typical about my fans, and I hope I'm not being oversensitive, but I always think groupie makes them sound like fish. However, if I had to choose one thing that they all have in common, I'd probably say taste. But that's just me--I'm a bit tongue in cheek. Well, I rest it there occasionally. Especially after eating fish.

10.

[Q] Playboy: You're one of its foremost practitioners; is smirking the facial expression of the Eighties?

[A] Headroom: I didn't realize you could identify decades by expressions, but now that you come to mention it, I wonder who started all the roaring in the Twenties. Smirk. It's smile and quirk together, isn't it?--one of those combination words, like faction, which is what happens when fiction crosses fact. Unlike friction, which is what happens when my producer crosses me. Yes, the smirking Eighties; it's got a nice ring to it.

11.

[Q] Playboy: You bear an uncanny resemblance to actor Rutger Hauer. Has he complained?

[A] Headroom: Why should he complain? Actually, I interviewed old Rutger on my show recently and he didn't mention it. In fact, I asked him how he came to have an uncanny resemblance to me and was met by stony silence. The man is a gentle giant and very friendly but, unfortunately, colorblind. I tried to ask him questions that would make him see red and he just smiled.

12.

[Q] Playboy: How do you remain cool in a room-temperature world?

[A] Headroom: You make me sound like a bottle of Bollinger. In the end, I suppose, it is a question of keeping your head screwed on when everyone else is popping his.

13.

[Q] Playboy: What advice have you for young people who hope to become vacuous?

[A] Headroom: Vacuous can mean "empty and lacking in substance"; but very intelligent people, such as--dare I say it?--Playboy interviewers, use it to describe something "rare that is uncommon, exceptional, etc." I'm sorry, but I didn't want anyone to be confused--not everyone can lay his hands on a dictionary. Isn't English a wonderful language?

14.

[Q] Playboy: Surprisingly enough, some people find you shallow, and we've even heard you called two-dimensional. Would you care to answer the charges?

[A] Headroom: There's a lot of jealousy in this business, and it wouldn't surprise me if those same people called Bob Hope's jokes or Barry Manilow's songs or Sylvester Stallone's intellect shallow. What can I say? I could debate whether or not being a "some people" type of critic is a more shallow business than being an actual performer all day. But I can't be unkind; I couldn't if I wanted to be. As to my being two-dimensional--well, what's a dimension here or there between shallow friends?

15.

[Q] Playboy: Which is inherently better--a live broadcast or a recorded one?

[A] Headroom: Whether I do a show live or recorded makes no difference to me. You just get to the first tee quicker with a live show.

16.

[Q] Playboy: What special features that the rest of us should envy do you have as standard equipment?

[A] Headroom: Please, don't use words like envy. Envy is demeaning; it destroys people and brings adults down to the level of children, with their irrational whims and unattainable demands. But, since you ask: perfection!

17.

[Q] Playboy: Are you as good in black and white as you are in color? Describe the philosophical differences between the two.

[A] Headroom: I don't think I am as radiant in black and white. The reason is that color gives you a rather full and strange effect with things like reds, blues and greens. And black and white makes things look sort of black and white. But let's not get too philosophical.

18.

[Q] Playboy: What would it take for you to become president of CBS?

[A] Headroom: A far less interesting interview.

19.

[Q] Playboy: Two writers are being given a lot of credit for your success. Do you resent that?

[A] Headroom: Do you mean Paul Owen and David Hansen? No, I don't resent it. They've tried ever so hard to get out of the Sixties time warp they've been in. When I first met them, they were traveling around Europe with open-toed sandals and a copy of some Ken Kesey novel and were living on five dollars a day. That was two years ago. Actually, we get on quite well, considering that they flatly refuse to tear the Peter, Paul and Mary stickers off their briefcases. It's embarrassing; I mean, I found them late at night standing on the open-air balcony at Heathrow airport in London, waiting for the Beatles to come back from America. How could you resent people like that? Pity--yes. Resent--hardly.

20.

[Q] Playboy: With whom would you like to share a horizontal hold?

[A] Headroom: Well, this may sound rather romantic and even a bit naïve, but I'll share my program space with any caring and sensitive lady--preferably someone with room in her space for mutual respect, with the right ebb-and-flow attitude and with a compatible spirit that gels to make a meaningful relationship with shared growth. And big tits are a must.

"As to my being two-dimensional--well, what's a dimension here or there between shallow friends?"