"Viewers were dumped back into the pedestrian world of Doctor Who as though the bizarre buttocks-swatting incident had never happened."

Friday Fun Link: Damn Interesting takes us back to November 22, 1987, when a clandestine broadcaster in a Max Headroom mask broke into two TV shows in Chicago: a sports report on WGN and a Doctor Who rerun on public television. During the latter he uttered various profundities ("Catch the wave," "I stole CBS," "He's a freaky nerd!") before pulling his pants down and allowing a confederate to spank him with a flyswatter.

See the footage here. See a newscast about the incidents here. Remind yourself who Max Headroom was here. Relive the low point in the history of Doonesbury, a Headroom/Reagan mash-up called Ron Headrest, here.

The Doctor Who serial was called The Horror of Fang Rock. Earlier this month BBC radio transmitted a new Doctor Who story called The Horror of Glam Rock.

[Via Bryan Alexander, who also links to what is framed as another illicit broadcast but is probably just an Internet hoax. Writes Alexander: "If it's not true, even better - a hoax about a prank."]