{"product_id":"vintage-1986-max-headroom-catch-the-wave-coke-poster","title":"Vintage 1986 Max Headroom Coca-Cola Poster 🚀 \"C-C-C-Catch the Wave\" Space Theme Advertising Litho, Plate-Signed McKelvey","description":"\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uEyzkGsOOnQ\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize: 17 x 14 inches ~\u003c\/strong\u003e New Old Stock, never hung.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🛸 A Soda Pitch Beamed in From Deep Space\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHere's what you get: Max Headroom, dark sunglasses and a dark suit, grinning in front of a huge ringed orange planet, with Earth, a small moon and a spiral galaxy scattered through the starfield behind him. Down at the bottom a Coke can tips forward and pours out a stream of cola that curls up and becomes the planet's own ring - a genuinely clever bit of commercial art, turning a soda pour into a planetary ring system. \"MAX HEADROOM\" sits in a red-bordered box up top, and \"C-C-C-Catch the wave.\" runs along the bottom beside the can, its \"Coke\" script marked Trade-mark, and the Coke logo again at the corner. Down in the starfield, lower left, it's signed in the plate: McKelvey. The back is blank. New Old Stock, never hung - and like anything printed decades ago and pulled from a stack, they vary a little one to the next.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🥤 Look Closer at That Can\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRead what's actually printed on it: it just says \"Coke.\" Not Coca-Cola Classic. That one word is the whole joke of this poster, because in 1986 \"Coke\" and \"Coca-Cola Classic\" were two different drinks sitting on the same shelf, and this poster was built to sell the one nobody had asked for.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe story starts on April 23, 1985, when The Coca-Cola Company announced it was changing the formula of Coca-Cola itself - a project developed in secret under the codename \"Project Kansas,\" led by marketing vice president Sergio Zyman and Coca-Cola USA president Brian Dyson. The public did not take it well, and 79 days later, on July 11, 1985, the company brought the original formula back as Coca-Cola Classic. The reformulated drink didn't go away, though - it kept right on selling alongside Classic, and Coca-Cola needed someone to sell it to. In 1986 they landed on the strangest spokesman imaginable: a \"computer\" named Max Headroom, telling younger drinkers to \"C-c-c-catch the wave!\" That reformulated Coke was renamed Coke II in 1990. This poster is a piece of the campaign that tried to make it cool while it still just answered to \"Coke.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e📺 The \"Computer\" Who Wasn't One\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMax Headroom was already famous before Coca-Cola ever hired him. He was created by George Stone, Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton, and he debuted for British audiences on April 4, 1985, in the Channel 4 film \"Max Headroom: 20 Minutes Into the Future.\" He was billed as computer-generated, and a lot of people believed it. He wasn't. Under the stutter and the glitch was actor Matt Frewer, sitting in foam-latex prosthetic makeup and a molded fibreglass suit in front of a blue screen. The character went on to his own program on Cinemax and then an ABC series that ran 1987 to 1988 - and somewhere in the middle of all that, he became the face trying to convince America that new Coke was worth a second look.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e👻 The Night Somebody Stole His Face\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHere's the part of the Max Headroom story that has nothing to do with soda, and it's the one I like telling most. On the night of November 22, 1987, someone wearing a Max Headroom mask broke into two Chicago television broadcasts - first cutting into WGN's evening news, then, later that night, interrupting WTTW's broadcast of Doctor Who. Whoever did it was never identified, and the case has never been solved.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI love that this whole strange chapter - a fake \"computer\" hawking a soda nobody wanted - produced glossy, cosmic advertising art like this. It's a genuinely odd little artifact of a genuinely odd year for Coca-Cola.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/retro-1993-max-headroom-coca-cola-coke-nos-bumper-sticker-advertisement\"\u003eVintage 1987 Max Headroom Coca-Cola Bumper Sticker \"Don't Say the P Word\" NOS Chrysalis Catch the Wave Cola Wars Ad 🥤\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/retro-diet-coke-magnet-brings-1980s-coca-cola-nostalgia-home-vintage-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Diet Coke Refrigerator Magnet 🧲 NOS Coca-Cola Advertising Promo Collectible\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/antique-vintage-1930s-coke-coca-cola-soda-bottle-protector-chicago-il-treasures\"\u003eAntique Coca-Cola No-Drip Bottle Protector 🥤 1930s Chicago Paper Sleeve Last Design Coke Made Bag\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43507083378920,"sku":"VAG-7882852532456","price":31.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.4038653726_d5oi.jpg?v=1785357445","url":"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1986-max-headroom-catch-the-wave-coke-poster","provider":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","version":"1.0","type":"link"}