Max Headroom & Spuds MacKenzie

When I think back to television in the 80s, I'm reminded of a couple of my favorite commercials. A couple of characters from the 80s with very memorable and iconic commercials were Max Headroom and Spuds MacKenzie.

Max Headroom was a TV fictional character played by actor Matt Frewer. He was known for his computerized and digitalized stutter and playful tilt of his head in Coke commercials who went on to have shows of his own.

Spuds was a Bull Terrior dog starring in Anheuser-Busch Bud Light commercials who debuted during the Super Bowl.

Both of them are considered 80s TV commercial icons. If you're over 40 years old, I hope you appreciate the trip down memory lane. If you're under 40, then allow me to introduce you to a couple of cool characters.

• The storyline is that Max was an artificial intelligence created from the memories of Edison Carter. Carter was involved in a car accident that left him in a coma and the last thing he saw before the crash was a low clearance marker that read “Max. Headroom: 2.3 meters”.
• Max Headroom had his own music video, a series of Coke and Radio Rentals (UK) commercials, his own shows, The Max Headroom Show, and The Original Max Talking Headroom Show, the TV movie Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future. The character was created by George Stone, Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton.
• Max became the spokesperson for Coca-Cola during their New Coke/Coke Classic transitions. In his stuttering synthesized style, he delivered their “Catch the wave!” slogan. If you're under 40 you probably don't even know or remember the New Coke/Coke Classic mess.
• On the music scene, Art of Noise featured Max Headroom on their song “Paranoimia”. He was also featured on a Christmas song released by Chrysalis Records titled “Merry Christmas Santa Claus (You’re a Lovely Guy).
• Commodore 64 and Sinclair ZX Spectrum gamers in the UK were able to play the Max Headroom game released by Quicksilva in 1986. In the game, your character was protecting Edison Carter from bad guys as you set out to rescue the captive Max Headroom.
• In 1987, two Chicago TV stations had their broadcast signals hijacked by an unknown person wearing a Max Headroom mask. The hacker has never been caught.
• In recent years, an aging Max Headroom was used in a commercial campaign warning UK households of the digital TV switchover.
• In 2009 Max can be heard providing short commercial bumpers for an 80s channel on Sirius Satellite Radio.

Spuds MacKenzie was a cool, Bermuda shirt-wearing sunglasses-wearing Bull Terrier who made his debut in a Bud Light Super Bowl commercial in the late 80s. He was Spuds MacKenzie. The only problem was, he was a she, and she was Honey Tree Evil Eye. Honey Tree Evil Eye was born in 1983 and died in 1993 from kidney failure. What a name, huh?

Spuds was extremely popular which led to quite a bit of controversy. Several large organizations like the Center for Science in the Public Interest and Mothers Against Drunk Driving (M.A.D.D.) claimed in 1992 that Anheuser-Busch was trying to entice children to drink beer because they were using a cute dog in their advertising campaigns. The Federal Trade Commission found no evidence, but Anheuser-Busch dropped the ads anyway.

Other references to Spuds MacKenzie include:

• 3rd baseman for the Cincinnati Reds, Chris Sabo, who was nicknamed Spuds by manager Pete Rose,
• Character "Slurms MacKenzie, the Original Party Worm" in Futurama is a parody of Spuds.
• Character "Santa's Little Helper" as "Suds McDuff" on The Simpsons was also a parody of Spud MacKenzie.
• Neil Young's "This Note's For You" is a parody to "This Bud's for You" and one line in the song says he "ain't singing for Spuds". A Bull Terrier appears throughout the music video.
• Spuds is referenced in "Funky Cold Median" by Tone Loc