Max Headroom

It generally isn't considered a compliment to be called arrogant, pompous, self-centered and rude. That is unless you're Max Headroom, the computerized image of a talk-show host gone mad, who eats insults like popcorn. That crudeness has sparked fame and fortune for Headroom, first in England and now in the U.S. where he's at the forefront of the cola wars as a spokesman for Coca-Cola. Starting Tuesday, March 31, Headroom gets his own network show, "Max Headroom: 20 Minutes Into the Future.

Several TV shows on DVD hit stores Tuesday, but none was more creative than a short-lived series from the late '80s. Max Headroom: The Complete Series: Matt Frewer turns in the best performance of his career as a former reporter whose mind is copied into a computer after an accident. He becomes the sarcastic on-screen Max Headroom. The late-'80s series is set in a world with 4,000 TV channels where the networks rule. Only Max can help keep a check on them, with help from a handful of supporters.

If you tuned in to ABC Friday night at 9 looking for Max Headroom, you might have been surprised to find Mr. B-B-B-Belvedere. The network decided to yank Max after its fourth episode proved to be the lowest-rated show of the week. Ironically, the conclusion of Oct. 16's fifth and final program found Headroom, whom speech therapists have cited as ranking alongside Porky Pig as the fictional character most offensive to stutterers, speaking to the issue of ratings: "We will fight them on the beaches of Miami," said Max with the fervor of Winston Churchill.

A video pirate wearing a Max Headroom mask briefly took control of two television broadcasts here Sunday. But the bogus "Max" appeared to be but a pale shadow of the real TV hero. The real Max, a futuristic computer-generated character, was full of offbeat humor and routinely saved the world, although he couldn't save his own short-lived series on ABC. The character wearing a Max Headroom mask who electronically interrupted programs on two Chicago stations Sunday night spoke in a garbled voice that was virtually unintelligible - unlike the real Max, who spoke in a garbled voice that was intelligible.

Max Headroom is potentially the best television series to appear since L.A. Law premiered in September. This keenly cutting satire is up-to-the-minute, state-of-the-art TV: inventive, irreverent and thought-provoking. Max Headroom imagines an Orwellian future in which most TV sets cannot be turned off, commercials sometimes kill people and networks occasionally create wars to boost their ratings with combat coverage. The title character of Max Headroom is a computer-generated head who appears only on TV screens, commenting with caustic wit on the media-dominated world he sees.

"Max Headroom" should be part of 60 minutes in your future, starting at 8 tonight on Channel 6. That decidedly un-lovable videotron whom most of America switched off last fall is back for two weeks (and maybe longer) - at least in part because of the television writers' strike. And the wonder, indeed, is why bad ol' Max never succeeded. For those who don't know - and that may be most of you, based on the ratings disaster that canceled the show in October ("Max" never rated higher than 57th of 69 prime-time shows in the weekly Nielsens)

Prime time is rather empty tonight, but late-night TV offers two back-to- back treats. EVENING HIGHLIGHT THE ALAMO (8 p.m., Ch. 17) - John Wayne both directed and starred in this 1960 epic exercise in cinematic jingoism. It's an unapologetic, all-American romp of a movie, and does for the Alamo what 1968's The Green Berets tried to do for Vietnam. The difference is that The Alamo is a much better movie, with infinitely better battle scenes. LATE HIGHLIGHT MARTY (2 a.m., Ch. 29)

Everything on network TV tonight is a repeat, and most of the shows being repeated weren't worth watching the first time. If you want something new, turn to cable. If you want something good, rent a cassette. EVENING HIGHLIGHTS CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS (8 p.m., Ch. 10) - Part 1 of 2. This 1985 mini-series, like a frightened mole, is really boring. Gabriel Byrne plays Columbus, Oliver Reed shouts his way through a supporting role, and Faye Dunaway earns a hefty paycheck for a very lightweight role.

Several TV shows on DVD hit stores Tuesday, but none was more creative than a short-lived series from the late '80s. Max Headroom: The Complete Series: Matt Frewer turns in the best performance of his career as a former reporter whose mind is copied into a computer after an accident. He becomes the sarcastic on-screen Max Headroom. The late-'80s series is set in a world with 4,000 TV channels where the networks rule. Only Max can help keep a check on them, with help from a handful of supporters.

ABC is taking a big gamble this fall, betting that a series of 30-second, one-joke ad spots has the potential to fill up 30 minutes of prime time. By taking Geico car insurance's popular cavemen marketing campaign and expanding it into a full-length sitcom called, yes, Cavemen, ABC is hoping to catch up with its rivals, who have been trouncing the network during prime time. It's an uphill battle for a cast of characters who haven't yet invented the wheel. The new series, helmed by ad genius Joe Lawson (who created most of Geico's popular ads, including the talking gecko and the celebrity voice-over spots with Little Richard and others)

Every generation gets the nostalgia it deserves - which, with perfect karmic symmetry, seems to be the decade before the last. Hence, Generation X had the feathered, bell-bottomed '70s to enjoy ironically, and Generation Y is now ushering in the blow-dried '80s revival. Hard to say which generation is being punished more severely. Check out Polly Esther's at 12th and Race Streets, across from the back of the Convention Center, and decide for yourself. The club has three floors celebrating the cheesy touchstones of the '70s, '80s and '90s.

Whoever coined the phrase "It's a dog's life" probably had no idea of the kind of luxury afforded famous four-footed friends like Benji or, more lately, His Airness, Bud. On Sunday, Showtime plays the whole animal "star" situation for laughs when "Showtime Original Pictures for All Ages" presents "In the Doghouse," at 8 p.m. A genuinely funny film, "In the Doghouse" stars Matt Frewer (of "Max Headroom" fame) as Scott Wagner, an about-to-be-promoted, mid-level radio station executive who, instead, gets fired after failing to pick up the station's new owner at the airport.

"I promise," Carol Kane screams desperately in her job interview, "I'm not nearly as unstable as I appear to be. " With Kane's screwiness (you remember Simka from Taxi) and the gentle imperturbability of Robert Urich, American Dreamer is among the best of this season's new sitcoms. It premieres tonight on Channel 3 at 9:30 before moving to its regular slot at 10:30 Saturdays. There's nothing imperturbable about John Wesley Shipp, who, as The Flash, dashes off at supersonic speed at the drop of a cliche.

"Cutting Edge with Maria Shriver," the latest in this summer's series of puffy prime-time specials hosted by NBC newswomen, outdoes them all in its arbitrary silliness. The hour-long special, which airs tonight at 10 on Channel 3, repackages drab Barbara-Walters-style celebrity interviews with MTV-like scenery and editing. In their eagerness to make "Cutting Edge" new and different, the show's producers have rendered it almost unwatchable. Describing the show to television critics in Los Angeles last month, Shriver said "The whole idea is to try to show people in a way that they haven't been shown before.

About seven years ago, when I brought that first VCR into the house, I promised my wife that it wouldn't change my life. I was wrong. That lovely little oblong box - and those that followed - gave me a new hobby (or, as my wife calls it, an obsession): collecting TV. After five years of serious taping, my collection includes every episode of such British wonders as Fawlty Towers and Monty Python's Flying Circus; American classics, such as The Dick Van Dyke Show, and such recent marvels as Police Squad!

Doctor, Doctor (Ch. 10, 10:30 tonight) is the last thing you expect at the start of the summer: a reasonably funny new sitcom. Those new summer shows are supposed to be stupid and dull, aren't they? How did this six-episode limited engagement ever get on the air? Doctor, Doctor stars Matt Frewer as Michael Stratford, a partner in a Rhode Island medical practice. Frewer came to prominence as the computerized wiseguy Max Headroom, and caused a fleeting media sensation. Whenever I saw Headroom - whether on a soft-drink commercial or in his own TV show - I always wished that Frewer, who seemed like a clever fellow, would be liberated from his make-up and allowed to do some real acting.

MALVERN'S CHRIS YOUNG ON STARDOM'S DOORSTEP All hail Chris Young who is poised at the gates of Heartthrobdom. The 17- year-old blond native of Malvern has scads of fans who have become entranced through his impressive list of projects - the young computer whiz on "Max Headroom," the lovestruck son of John Candy in "The Great Outdoors," the high school senior in last year's NBC TV movie "Senior Prom," the libidinous teen-age son on "Live-In," a...

CBS' top entertainment executives hope some new series - including a comedy by "Frank's Place" creator Hugh Wilson and a spinoff of Robert Conrad's "High Mountain Rangers" - and several "high-concept" TV movies will improve the worst prime-time ratings in the network's history. But CBS Entertainment president Kim LeMasters admitted that the network is having serious difficulties getting viewers to even sample new series in some time slots. "I think the overall problem, from my point of view, about CBS - and I'm not sure what the phenomenon is that is driving it - but we are getting into an environment where we're getting locked out of time periods . . . "We're more than failing.