Q 6

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

Max 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.

Q 7

PLAYBOY: Explain golf's allure.

Max 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.

Q 8

PLAYBOY: How would you complete this sentence: "I want a girl just like the girl who..."?

Max 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.

Q 9

PLAYBOY: Give us the profile of the typical Headroom groupie.

Max 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.

Q 10

PLAYBOY: You're one of its foremost practitioners; is smirking the facial expression of the Eighties?

Max 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.

Q 11

PLAYBOY: You bear an uncanny resemblance to actor Rutger Hauer. Has he complained?

Max 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.

Q 12

PLAYBOY: How do you remain cool in a room-temperature world?

Max 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.