9. He Wrote For Max Headroom...

Max Headroom was a bizarre cultural icon. The character recently returned to screens after decades of quiet, advertising Channel 4's digital switch-over to older viewers. Headroom was created as a fake digital VJ who introduced music videos on the nascent TV channel back in the eighties, somehow spawning a cultural tidal wave that encompassed an ABC sitcom, a talk show, and Coke adverts. It ended up being the ABC show that finally burst the bubble, the radical cyberpunk show set twenty minutes in the future apparently falling victim to its constant prodding and biting critique of commercial-lead television. It wasn't for quality reasons, anyway, with the show boasting an impressive cast (including Arrested Development's Jeffrey Tambor) and a great writing team. Which included - amongst others - George R.R. Martin. The writer was still penning books and short stories but had also dipped his toes into screenwriting during the eighties to supplement his income. Martin wrote a handful of episodes, including a Christmas special about the commercialisation of the holiday, which never actually got produced because of the shows untimely cancellation.