Revisiting Max Headroom

I've been at my parents' house for the last three days, and due to a combination of suffering from work fatigue and wanting to shut my body and brain down, and being stuck in suburbia (although a beautiful corner of suburbia) and bored, I've watched a couple of hours of VH1's "Why I Love the 80s" programs. One segment visited the phenomenon of Max Headroom, which I remember quite clearly from my TV-addicted youth, and was a reminder of what a strange phenomenon it was.

Nothing was congruous about the character, nothing quite fit, from the too-blond, too-white, L.A. borderline-Nazi sheen of the character's physical appearance, the hyper-glitchy cadence of his speech, his altogether spectral appearance and back-story, and his weird commitment, in references and commercial engagements, to pop and consumer culture. I remember when he first came out, being struck at how thoroughly odd and slightly scary Max Headroom was, but finding a great appeal in that, particularly as a pop and commercial phenomenon. At second glance, the appeal still holds, and I'd go so far as to say that I prefer the disconcerting freakiness of Max Headroom as an aesthetic to they bored irony pervasive in so much contemporary popular culture.

Go To Work On An Egg

RM sends me a link to the classic "Go To Work On An Egg" commercials, starring Tony Hancock. The proposed re-introduction of the ads - which are funny, whimsical, absurd, in short, everything you would want a commercial to be - run aground when Mother England decides that an egg a day is, in fact, bad for your health. And then brings the hammer down. Controversy here. Lengthy clips above. Smaller clip here.

Potheads Beware: Aliens Will Steal Your Girlfriend

Actually, I'm in total agreement with Seth Stevenson over at Slate.com. This ad is thoroughly charming, and kids shouldn't do drugs.

Kids also shouldn't hire shamanic strippers to help try to holistically heal sick relatives. Like this angry man from Malaysia:

Mokhtar Mohamad Noor, 53, a teacher who wanted his sick wife to be cured, said the healer gave his wife a drink and spoke an incantation before she and some male followers in their 20s and 30s started dancing in the nude, the Star newspaper reported.

"She kept muttering unintelligible incantations which sounded like the singing of Koranic verses," Mokhtar said, adding that the woman sat under a yellow umbrella and the dance continued before he left with his wife, tired of the group's antics.

Thoroughly weird.

Commercial Breakdance

Picking up on my non-marathon marathon weekend for a moment, Reebok is running an odd ad campaign in which they are encouraging you to "Run Easy," and ask such questions as "What Are You Just Doing?" (which is sort of funny). I don't know what to make of it, but I do love when the shoe companies start senselessly cannibalizing each other, with no apparent self-awareness.

As an apology for discussing an on-going commercial campaign, please watch this:

[Courtesy of Nothing to Do with Arbroath]