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.

Q 1

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

Max 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.

Q 2

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

Max 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.

Q 3

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?

Max 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.

Q 4

PLAYBOY: OK, so what do women really want?

Max Headroom: A load of electrical gadgets.

Q 5

PLAYBOY: Other talk-show hosts would kill for some of your guests. What's your secret?

Max 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?