Citation Needed - Broadcast signal intrusion

Episode Date: October 8, 2025

A broadcast signal intrusion is the hijacking of broadcast signals of radio, television stations, cable television broadcast feeds or satellite signals without permission or licence. Hijacking inciden...ts have involved local TV and radio stations as well as cable and national networks.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello and welcome to citation needed. The podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia, and pretend we're experts. Because this is the internet. That's how it works now. I'm Eli Bosnick, and I'll be calling the board this evening, but I'll need the cues to my blues. First up, the bars and tones to my 10 count, Noah and Heath.
Starting point is 00:00:40 All right, if anything, I'm the tone. Heath is obviously the bars. All right, I'm going with the bars. But just in general, waking up on the couch to that long beep and the color bars, that made our generation what it is. It was terrifying. Middle of the night, and it's just dollars and cute. They've got to go upstairs.
Starting point is 00:00:58 And of course. There's a man who always knows you're talking to him when you say Q talent. Cecil, something Italian. Yeah, I know it's my time to hold the cue card straight at that point. Yeah, right, right. Before we begin tonight, I'd like to take a moment to thank our patrons. Patrons, without your money, we'd be lost and adrift among the podcast signal. But your dollars guide us back like a lighthouse in the storm.
Starting point is 00:01:20 And if you'd like to learn how to join their ranks, be sure to stick around until the end of the show. And with that out of the way, tell us, Noah, what person, place, thing, concept, phenomenon, or event. what we'll be talking about today. We're finally going to get some fucking use out of concept. We've said that the whole time. I don't think we've ever done a concept before. It's like four of them. Yeah. You know, television broadcast signal intrusions
Starting point is 00:01:41 today. And Cecil, you read the rundown. You're ready to take us to the airwaves? I'm ready to wiggle this antenna until it finds the right spot, Eli. You tease. So tell us, Cecil, what are television broadcast
Starting point is 00:01:57 signal intrusion? Love those ravities. years, right? Broadcast signal intrusions are rare quick moments when someone manages to hack a television or radio broadcast, breaking through the airwaves with a message that was never meant to be there. Most last only a few minutes, some only a few seconds, but they genuinely freak the fuck out of anyone watching. In fact, I was witness to one of these intrusions, pin in that for later. Yes, pin in that for later.
Starting point is 00:02:26 1980s and 70s, a handful of incidents stood out. In fact, these are the three that I found on Wikipedia, so I'm actually going to use those. So the dick on a Zoom call before it was cool. I keep trying to tell you, Eli, it's still not cool, okay? That's pretty cool. I'd prefer if you were a cat, man. Or your dick was a cat man? Oh, yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:02:52 It does say, what? It's not supposed to say that. that. You're very sick. So, Grandpa Cecil, what was traditional broadcast television, you may ask? Well, back before streaming, we had a bunch of airwave channels. He deleted my part where I said that. Back before streaming, we had a bunch of airwave channels. A bunch of speak for yourself, City Boy. We had two and a half.
Starting point is 00:03:22 They would broadcast these channels via satellite. to either your cable company or your local station, and then you would tune in using a cable box or just the antenna on the back of your television. There were the common stations that showed programs across the nation transmitted through local broadcasters. These were ABC, NBC, CBS. Later, more stations joined the lineup,
Starting point is 00:03:45 and you could also tune in your local PBS channels. So if someone cuts into the broadcast back then, there would be no resetting the signal or reloading the app. You just have to be subjected to some weird shit for a few minutes until someone at the networks took back the signal from the intruder. Oh, man, and that was the dream, right? The, like, signal hacking fantasy. You get to give your big speech.
Starting point is 00:04:09 That might just be you, Big Dog. What? No. No, you know, some of us became podcasters. I get it. Yeah, the John Gault thing. I was, I used to like that book. That's who I think of when I think of good, big speeches.
Starting point is 00:04:23 Right. there was one other way for people to get a TV signal. They could own their own satellite dish. See, back then there was cable, and then you could pay extra to your cable company for premium channels like HBO or Showtime. Hey, see, so that's still the case. How far in the future are you casting this line?
Starting point is 00:04:44 Hold on, you interrupted me before I say, but a group of mostly engineers started sharing how to create and maintain these satellite dishes, and then you could get a lot of these channels, even the ones the cable companies made you pay for for free. This wasn't anything illegal like fake chips in a direct TV box. These were just regular people with enough ingenuity
Starting point is 00:05:06 to grab signals from the air and not pay the man. Okay, that one friend's dad who had the dish in everybody's town, I don't know if you guys had, I had one of these and he was so fucking proud of his top secret dish. It was like a spy thing and you had to do this whole thing. I sign an NDA to go see his fucking, come on. So, okay, so back then, if you had, like, the full-sized dish, though, pre-direct TV, you had to, like, point it at the correct satellites.
Starting point is 00:05:34 Like, we didn't have that, we know this geosynchronous shit you guys have today, right? And we had these little black market charts where you would have to adjust the azimuth and the elevation. Like, literally had to have a fucking compass at was it. Like, we worked for our free porn back then, damn it. Well, in the mid-1980s, the companies, that were transmitting these premium stations, they decided to start scrambling these signals.
Starting point is 00:05:59 The satellite owners could then buy more descrambling equipment and also start paying a monthly fee for stations like HBO, or they could slam their face right up against the tube TV and hope to look through the matrix long enough to catch a nipple on occasion. I got a couple. There's like that one second where everything's upside down, but you're like, that's a real picture, and then it disappears. Yeah, it's like,
Starting point is 00:06:22 B.S. Porn. I haven't felt that good since. Three to one contact. Right? Really think about how hopeful you were when the on and the boobs. And now think about now. It's not even close. It's not close. Hey, guys, I'm violently suicidal. Give me one second. Often these fees for the satellite owners were more than the cable company charged for the same service. Even with these satellite owners actually owning all the equipment to get the channel in the first place. To give you an idea of these prices, HBO was charging satellite dish owners 1295 a month in 1986, which is about 37 bucks per month in today's dollars. Those people also had to fork over 395 bucks for a scrambler, which comes to about
Starting point is 00:07:11 $1,150 today. Yeah, but the money my parents would have saved on glasses if I hadn't been trying to squint watch Red Shoe Diaries for my entire teen years. Well worth it, my friends. Well worth it. But the audio wasn't scrambled. It felt like an upcharge for having a bad imagination. Okay.
Starting point is 00:07:31 One reseller of satellite dishes found that this pretty much killed his business. People bought these things to get around monthly fees, not pay more for the privilege of having monthly fees. So this man, John McDougal, decided to write some protest letters to legislators and spent some of his own money trying to raise awareness for this cause. This didn't change anything, though, and he was forced to cut costs on his own business, and then eventually get
Starting point is 00:07:57 a part-time job at Central Florida Teleport Uplink Station, which uplinked services to satellites. These new measures are making stuff harder to steal. Who do I write to about that? Is it a senator? On April
Starting point is 00:08:12 26, 1986, his co-worker left for the night. His job was to uplink the movie Pee Wee's Big Adventure to People's Choice Network on pay-per-view. After the movie ended... Wait, that was on pay-per-view? People were paying for people. Doing God's work right down.
Starting point is 00:08:30 In 1986, yes. Oh, yeah, baby. After the movie ended, he logged off and decided to make a color bar message. This was the typical color bar that you see when his station stopped for the evening, but he put some words on it, and the message read... The source of my trauma. Good evening. Evening HBO from Captain Midnight, 1295 a month, question mark, no way, exclamation point.
Starting point is 00:08:56 Showtime, movie channel, beware. He pointed that back at the dish and into its storage position, and he pointed it at the satellite that carried HBO. He then transmitted that message to all HBO customers for four and a half minutes, interrupting the Falcon and the Snowman. How dare? It wound up showing to the. eastern half of the United States, which is about 14.6 million subscribers to HBO. Okay, that's such a confusing little manifesto.
Starting point is 00:09:28 If I'm watching HBO at this point, I'm happily paying more than 1295 a month to make sure I can keep following the very inept manifesto guy. I don't think he's sabotaging the station the way he thinks he is. Well, the owner of that satellite noticed the jamming, and Wikipedia uses this language. Quote, Hughes Communications, owner of the Galaxy One satellite, immediately noticed the jamming and threatened to shut down HBO's satellite signal or alterless satellites course with executives believing the hacker was a domestic terrorist, end quote. Then the HBO Tech and McDougal had a wattage duel,
Starting point is 00:10:09 each pumping up the power of their signal to push the other signal out. It probably made exactly that sound. after a couple minutes McDougal relented and packed up his shit and just went home for the night calls the other guy
Starting point is 00:10:22 hey were you making a me minima noise of your mouth too you weren't okay good good I love the idea
Starting point is 00:10:30 of like some tech right there Ian trying to explain to Mr. Hughes why they can't just steer the satellite a little to the left why doesn't it work
Starting point is 00:10:39 what do you mean reset it so why do you have to put the message the manifesto thing into the color bars. Like he thought people would like not understand it
Starting point is 00:10:48 outside of the format of the color bars. This made national news. The network was pissed and when corporate overlords are mad about something, they do what they always do. They got the government involved.
Starting point is 00:11:00 And then the FCC said that the television hacker would be prosecuted. They in turn got the justice department involved and they started narrowing down the satellites that could actually do this. They cut it down from 2,000 to 580
Starting point is 00:11:12 by narrowing down of particular uplake satellites and then they track the font and the other characteristics cutting that number down to 12. They should have done the you should have done the fucking magazine cutout thing. Jesus, fucking amateur.
Starting point is 00:11:27 Are there certain fonts that are like indigenous to central Florida or something? Fonds have like they have an accent. You can tell the fonts. Interesting. Then they visited these stations. From camp damn man, man.
Starting point is 00:11:42 Then they visited these stations. to investigate and finally got a tip that it was McDougal. He was bragging about jamming the signal at a pay phone and a rest area in your Gainesville and someone wrote his license plate down. Hey, that's a weird phone call to make
Starting point is 00:11:57 in your life that you like stopped to make at a pay phone. Sorry. Sorry. Cheryl, I just can't wait to get home to tell you this. Guess what I did on. I've endangered our livelihoods. You have the rest area in Gainesville again? Yeah, you should get out of there. I'm making hard-eye contact.
Starting point is 00:12:17 Hang up right now. Hang-up right now. Hang-up right now. He has a notepad. Why does he have a notepad? It's crazy how much like a notepad he has. The government brought charges that could fine him $100,000 and have to spend a year in prison, so he pled guilty to illegally operating a satellite uplinked transmitter. And then he had to pay $5,000 fine and spend a year on probation. I feel like his probation officer was just way out of his league with the questions he would have to ask at this point. It doesn't understand any of it.
Starting point is 00:12:50 He's just reading this. Have you, Hey, done any satellite? It's your job. Okay. Well, are you checking in from a rest area near Gans?
Starting point is 00:13:04 Don't smoke hot. McDougal was either regarded by the public as a folk hero or a terrorist. The House of Representatives, communication subcommittee decided that Congress should pass a law making hijacking a satellite a felony and then made sure that things were in place to track what satellites transmitted what signal in the future so they wouldn't have to do so much investigation and only have anonymous tips off the case wiki notes that the takeover and the press did not motivate HBO to change their pricing structure huh yeah be fair neither did not having a good show since the
Starting point is 00:13:43 early seasons of Game of Thrones, but I've got some angry emails to answer, so let's take a quick break for some apropos of nothing. Hey there, elder millennials, tired of today's, their straps and gooners.
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Starting point is 00:14:44 For just $14.99 a month, you'll get access to Scramble Hub. With all the HBO and SkinnaMax late night hits you remember, exactly as you remember them. Was that a boob? Who knows? But you can pretend it was. Woods porn. Because whatever the kids are doing these days is confusing and scary.
Starting point is 00:15:05 Hey, Denny, you guys have Riz? Is it? I don't think so, no. I don't know what day. Can we buy it? What it? What do you? I don't. I don't think so. Oh, man. Feels important. Your magazine smells like a mushroom. Notebooks? Got them. Pencils. yeah they have like big ones now it's crazy big pencils yeah they're supposed to help them write better i guess they don't start with the number twos and don't forget you raycon jesus what is that thing
Starting point is 00:15:50 oh see so you remember randy randy the raw dog don't wear it out right hi yeah you just surprised me i guess um but randy why would you need rancons for back to school oh oh i thought you said back to cool in which case the racon classic earbuds would be a must Well, why's that? Raycon's Everyday Earbuds Classic are packed with upgrades, active noise cancellation, multi-point connectivity, so I can pair with two devices at once and a super comfortable ergonomic fit that stays put.
Starting point is 00:16:23 Plus, they come in a cool mint flavor that'll never cramp your stop. But what about battery life, Randy, the raw dog? They've got up to 32 hours of battery life, quick charge for 90 minutes in just 10, an awareness mode when I'm out walking the dog. Wait, you want a dog? Of course I do. Dogs are great.
Starting point is 00:16:43 That's confusing. But Randy, have you actually tried these things? I have. Raycon sent us a set to try when they first became a sponsor. Whether it's listening to audiobooks or jamming out to tunes while I work out, Raycons have become my everyday carry. That's why I, Eli Bosnick, personally endorse Raycons. All right, I'm sold.
Starting point is 00:17:02 Where do I sign up? Click the link in the description box or go to buy raycon.com slash citation to get 20% off sitewide today. All right, Randy. Thanks. I still don't understand why he's shaved, though. Why is it? Because he's raw, Cecil. Right, got it.
Starting point is 00:17:20 No, Connie. Stop it. And we're back. And we're back. Off, HBO was totally poned by a hacktivist badass who was mad his illegal thing didn't work anymore.
Starting point is 00:17:47 Who's our next leet to skin the noob, Cecil? Now, in the other incidents that I found the investigations didn't yield any suspects. Oh shit. So, yeah. It's not getting crazy.
Starting point is 00:18:03 Drip. This next trip. That's a new one I learned. This next one takes place. in 1977 in southern England. The transmission occurred at 5.10 p.m. on Saturday, November 26th, independent television news was doing an evening report on clashes in Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe. There was a buzz that came over the signal, and then the speakers started to talk in a distorted
Starting point is 00:18:29 voice for about six minutes, and they read this statement in part. I didn't include the whole thing, but part of it. Quote, this is the voice of Rillin, representative of the Ashtar galactic command speaking to you for many years you have seen us as lights in the skies we speak to you now in peace and wisdom as we have done to your brothers and sisters all over this your planet earth we come to warn you of the destiny of your race and the world so that you may communicate to your fellow beings the course you must take to avoid this disaster which threatens your world and the beings on our worlds around you. This is in order so that you may share in a great awakening as the planet passes into a new age
Starting point is 00:19:16 of Aquarius, end quote. Okay, I feel like there was an argument in the writer's room with these like genius aliens or whatever being like, okay, how do we start? I'm going to do, oh, hello today. This is Rilat. No, that's stupid saying. I'm saying my name. We have wisdom.
Starting point is 00:19:33 I don't know. Why speaking to you? Obviously, you're speaking to me. It's also, it's, it's off, it's crazy to me how often the aliens brave the inner galactic void to offer fucking banalities, right? You know, I should pause here to let you know. We put a lot of work into this and we're just telling them like vaguely over like the course of a couple minutes, something they should just be nice. Live, laugh, love. Fuck.
Starting point is 00:20:00 Are we still open to if you sprinkle when you tinkle, please be neat. I like that one better than this. Thank you. I like, can we go back to that? Thank you, Markler. I'm Rylan. What? Jesus.
Starting point is 00:20:13 You're Markler. You didn't introduce yourself at the beginning. How would you know? I'm John Tramota from the movie Zoot Fish. Hey, podcast, sister. I'm sorry, me and he don't know for the rest of the show. Just fucking crack it up in my sword.
Starting point is 00:20:34 So I should pause here to let you know that the name Ashtar isn't chosen out of a hat for this prank because it sounds spacey. This was the name that channelers used since the 1950s when they channeled space aliens. In fact, this eventually became a spiritualist religion and they predicted the apocalypse. So maybe someone puts on their citation needed watch. this Ashtar thing. Anyway, I'm just continuing with the quote here.
Starting point is 00:21:08 Quote, The new age can be a time of great peace and evolution for your race, but only if your rulers are made aware of the evil forces
Starting point is 00:21:18 that can overshadow their judgments. Be still now and listen or your chance may not come again. Guys, did we just get one, two, three eyes on meed by aliens?
Starting point is 00:21:28 You did. You got some of the sit down and be quiet. Here's the quote, all your weapons, of evil must be removed. The time for conflict is now passed and the race of
Starting point is 00:21:40 which you are part of may proceed to the higher stages of its evolution if you show yourselves worthy to this. That's really awkwardly worded. Continuing the quote, you have but a short time to learn to live together in peace and goodwill.
Starting point is 00:21:56 They're pretty sure what we were missing for world peace was a time limit everybody. So, okay. Wait, so how did the fucking purpose perpetrators see this going right so he figured the fucking USSR would be like well you know some alien on british television did seem pretty sincere about giving up our moot so uh what the fuck so he goes on for a bit about being good and then he issues this warning quote be aware also that there are many false profits and guides at present operating on your world they will suck your
Starting point is 00:22:31 energy from you, the energy you call money, and put it to evil ends, giving you worthless dross in return. And they'll charge you $12.99 a month for it, even after you buy a fucking disgruntleter. Can you believe this shit? Continue to God.
Starting point is 00:22:47 Your inner divine self will protect you from this. You must learn to be sensitive to the voice within that can tell you what is truth and what is confusion, chaos and untruth. Learn to listen to the voice, of truth, which is within you, and you will lead yourselves onto the path of evolution.
Starting point is 00:23:07 Don't be fooled by weird speeches about false prophets. The boomy voice speech givers are probably lying. Trust your gut. This doesn't get, this is a real one. This is not this one. And this one. Starts toasting your gut now. That John Travolta movie was cool. So good. No, it wasn't. She sucked his dick while he was hacking. It was a little. It was that. the best test. He's such a good hacker. They close with, quote, we here at Ashtar Galactic Command.
Starting point is 00:23:45 Thank you for your attention. We are now leaving the planes of your existence. May you be blessed by the supreme love and truth of the cosmos, end quote. Love, Ashtar. Love? Are we saying love? Should I do a sign off with?
Starting point is 00:24:01 Okay, whatever. By wisdom. The thing we said, I don't know. Check out that movie. Okay. Look, I'm not saying that wasn't aliens. I'm saying if they were, based on their message, I'd still want us to have ignored them. The most boring-ass hippie fucking aliens. Look, if you want me to listen to that kind of shit, you have to give me drugs first, okay? So the prankster took control of a transmitter near the main transmitter, sent the signal through their own equipment, and that's how the broad cast was sent. The people investigating it thought because of their own configuration of these transmitters, a relatively low power signal sent in the right way could do the trick. It would require a lot of technical know-how, but it could be done pretty easily. They never caught anyone, and no one ever came forward to claim the hoax. It was Ashtar, Cecil. He just told
Starting point is 00:24:52 it. He just said it. It's kind of hard to catch them, though, after they leave this plane of existence, right? Like that, we look under this Calabiao manifold over here. No, it doesn't make any fucking sense. It's too small. Couldn't look under that. Immediately after the broadcast, there was a public uproar. People started calling a television station after the signal, worried there was an alien asking us to be nice to each other. The next day, the newspapers announced the signal takeover in the news organizations around the world spread the story. Personally, I'd have given it a couple of days to test the sort of watchman hypothesis, right? Oh, what do you guys think?
Starting point is 00:25:32 We're all going to be afraid of the giant octo? No, no, okay. It was a scam. I also want to say this is something that some people took at vase value, too. There was a, they thought that there was an actual alien that came to broadcast this signal on a small station in southern England during the evening news on a Saturday so that mankind could be nice to each other and gain a higher stage of evolution. One editor of a newspaper in Oregon said, quote,
Starting point is 00:26:01 Nobody seemed to consider that Astoran, they misspelled it, may have been for real, or that he may have made a great deal of sense, and quote. Hey, I want to be mean to that editor. And, like, I realize I won't be doing transcendent evolution or whatever. I see the irony in this, but like, fuck that, it's so stupid. No, yeah, no, look, I put away my weapons of evil. Now I get to make fun of the motherfucker. That was the whole list, wasn't it?
Starting point is 00:26:24 It was the whole list. Only imperative I saw. It was it. So this last signal intrusion happened in Chicago, and I, caught it live on the air. Oh, explosions, broadcast hacks, whatever's happening to Tom. What haven't you seen, season?
Starting point is 00:26:41 I don't want to see what's happening to Tom, though. The other ones I did, yeah. Nobody does. On November 22nd, 1987, a prankster hijacked two signals in two different local stations about two hours apart. The first intrusion happened on WGN during the 9 p.m. news.
Starting point is 00:26:59 The Bears had beaten the line, 30 to 10 and Dan Rohn was giving the recap. Okay, is it just like a fucking Bears fan to bring up a fucking 38-year-old victory? The Belize won yesterday. We haven't had a recent one. No, let me have my 30 to 10 victory. A Jax fan would never live in the past. Then, for 30 seconds, the picture was replaced with a loud buzzing sound and terrible room tone. On the screen was a person in a Max Hadroom mask. Now, Max Headroom. was a computer-generated character that was popular at the time.
Starting point is 00:27:34 Actually, I'm so sorry to 80s nerd to this TV. But Max Hegham was a real guy made up to look like a computer-generated guy because CGI was so fucking bad. You couldn't actually make a dude with it yet. Yeah. Point take it, absolutely true. You're absolutely right. I will yield to your 80s nerd knowledge. The background
Starting point is 00:27:51 of this picture was a spinning piece of corrugated metal meant to simulate the very basic line geometrical patterns that the actual character had in their videos. The person in the mask didn't say anything. Just sort of bobbed back and forth for a few seconds, picture cut to black, and then back to the news.
Starting point is 00:28:09 And then a stunned reporter said, well, if you're wondering what happened, so am I. And then Dan joked that the computer running the news took off and went wild. Yeah, someone spent way more time on the how than they did on the one. Sure did. What do you mean? You froze, man. I was like, what?
Starting point is 00:28:31 Have you guys? Spoilers, by the way, for what Cecil's about to tell us. So about two hours later on a different channel, this time it was our PBS affiliate, WTTW. There was another signal intrusion. So this last one I actually saw live on the air. It was a school night, but every Sunday night, my dad let me stay up to watch Doctor Who with him. And Dr. Hu ran from, I think, it was like 1030 to midnight. Whoa.
Starting point is 00:28:57 It was a big deal. Yeah, it was a big deal for a middle school kid. Yeah, it was huge. So we're watching Dr. Who, and then the signal fades, and a guy in a max headroom mask starts talking in a really distorted voice. It's hard to understand. I'll get to what he says later, because without subtitles, it's actually really tough to make out.
Starting point is 00:29:15 Anyway, this guy has like a whole prop comic routine he goes through that ends with him getting his bare aspect with a fly swatter. And then I remember asking my dad, it was like, what the hell was that? And he said, and this is a. quote quote I don't think it was fucking doctor who and quote
Starting point is 00:29:35 the bear ass comes out at the same time you're both like hey you're doing a weird prank I don't I'm not going to make eye contact but you're doing a weird
Starting point is 00:29:47 prank I know I kind of blew the first one but trust me when I get my butt hold tonight on PBS people
Starting point is 00:29:55 are going to be so funny amazing so I'm actually going to quote from the wiki here, the actual description, because they actually do a really job, it's pretty concise. So, quote, the mass figure spent the next minute or so, making a quick series of brief and seemingly unrelated comments and cultural references interspersed with excited noises and exclamations. He was first heard to make a comment about nerds, and then he called the WGN sportscaster Chuck Swersky, a frickin liberal, held up a can of Pepsi while
Starting point is 00:30:30 referencing the Catch the Wave slogan from a recent ad campaign for Coca-Cola featuring the real Max Headroom. Bobbing and weaving. Held a middle finger near the camera inside what appeared to be a hollowed-out dildo. Okay, I'm trying to track. The ideology is getting really muddled. Like, I'm not going to get any better.
Starting point is 00:30:51 After some random moaning, the mass figure sang the phrase, Your Love is Fading, hummed part of this theme song from the 1959 animated series Clutch Cargo and said, I still see the X, which is a reference to the last episode of that show. He also feigned defecation
Starting point is 00:31:11 complaining of his piles. Fained? Commit to the bit. I know. You're going to show your ass. You might as well shit out of it too, right? He claimed that he made a giant masterpiece for all the greatest world newspaper nerds. Now WGN, their call
Starting point is 00:31:26 letters stand for world's greatest newspaper. So they suspect that's a reference to that. and he put on a knitted glove on one hand while commenting that it was dirty and his brother had the other one. What is happening? I don't know. Do you need to watch it? It's on Wikipedia. It's crazy. After a crude jump cut, the main figure appeared mostly off screen to the left with his partially exposed buttocks visible from the side with a female figure wearing a French maid costume, which stirred something inside my young mind, by the way. When they appear to be in a mask appearing from the right edge of the frame, At some point, it was like, all right, the one knitted glove thing is going badly. We got to just cut to our awesome ending on. Unroll tape on the spanking. Go to the spanking.
Starting point is 00:32:11 Cut the spanking camp. So he's, while he's leading over, the unworn max headroom mask is briefly held in view. And then the voice cried out, oh no, they're coming for me. I'll make it stop. And then the female in the French made outfit started spanking Max with a fly swatter. the image faded to static and the viewers were returned to Doctor Who broadcast after that total interruption
Starting point is 00:32:35 of about 90 seconds, end quote. Okay, Doctor Who needs to make an episode that intersects with this moment in the universe. There you know. I don't want this to sound mean, but sometimes when we do like live shows, we do meet and greets afterwards
Starting point is 00:32:49 or during or something. And someone has very clearly planned a bit, but I'm a human being and not the scripted podcast character they expect. this moment is what happens 100% of the time what's up knuckle fucker I brought you some shit tits to suck on and I'm like that's my wife and they're like
Starting point is 00:33:09 you're doing a jump cut here and what are you doing okay with a fly swatter he's doing his asses out I like the French made outfit though it looks good on you and we're back did you say and we're back and then you spanked your own Okay. So the first signal...
Starting point is 00:33:27 Solfish, right? Yeah, that was a good movie. The first signal at WGN was counteracted by engineers on staff within a few seconds. They changed the frequency of the signal and locked out the hacker. The WTTW one, though,
Starting point is 00:33:39 happened after the engineers on duty left for the night at the Sears Tower. So there was no one there to stop it and we all got to see this uninterrupted bit. No one ever claimed responsibility for this hack, even after the statute of limitations had reached five years. after it happened. People suspect
Starting point is 00:33:56 it was a disgruntled WGN employee or a former employee because of the references to WGN. It's also possible that it could have been carried out by the local Chicago hacker community. And if you had to summarize what you learned in one sentence, Cecil, what would it be? You're going to hijack a television signal, maybe
Starting point is 00:34:13 write a set list? That's right, right? There you go. Script it and it'll sound like improv. And are you ready for the quiz? Podcast it out. Dude is hanging out, spanking, whatever. Tune it in. Go for it. All right.
Starting point is 00:34:28 First question is, the obvious one. Why did the hacker do just stare at the camera like a fucking idiot the first time of it? A, he was a fucking idiot. Came by it naturally. I think it's A so far. B, he couldn't see the on-air light because he was wearing a mask. That's probably, yeah, sure. C, it was the first instance of the R-We-on moment that starts every live stream.
Starting point is 00:34:51 100%. That's what it was. or D, the alternative was whatever the fuck happened the second time around, and he knew that, right? He knew it was either that or silence. Yeah. I, you know, I feel like all of them are great, but definitely A. If you watch it, it's fucking A.
Starting point is 00:35:09 Come on, man. It's definitely, yeah. All right, Cecil. What's the name of our signal hacking heist movie? A, Oceans 8 bit. B, computer tower heist. C, the Italian Fob
Starting point is 00:35:25 Okay, I get that I get that one Or D Now you TV Jesus Christ Dude I mean
Starting point is 00:35:37 It makes no sense And also like Nobody remembers that movie Unless they were like the fucking The magician consultant I'm gonna go with I'm gonna go with B
Starting point is 00:35:47 for how he spelled Heist Thank you Swordfish with a He spelled Listener He spelled he spelt he seet Keith
Starting point is 00:35:58 I want you to know From the minute We started making Swordfish jokes My nose bled With the effort Of me trying to come up With a swordfish
Starting point is 00:36:05 Fun To add on to that Toad fish with a pH Come on All right You good Your nose okay Bam
Starting point is 00:36:15 He popped Okay Cecil I got one more for you All right. So aside from the very mysterious guy getting spanked with a fly swatter during Doctor Who. What's the best conspiracy program on PBS? A. DeGrassey Noll. Fantastic. That's so amazing. You only need to what it's a digassy knoll.
Starting point is 00:36:43 I spent a lot of time working with like a porn version of PBS stuff, but it was all very upsetting what I came up with. I bet it was. I bet it was. You definitely don't. The certain world should never mix Heath to grassy knoll. There you go. The magic school bussy is part of it. There it is.
Starting point is 00:37:02 They get jizzed on in an episode. Come on now. They do. That's why Heath wins. All right. Let's hear from Eli next week. All right. Well, for Noah, Tom, Cecil, and Heath.
Starting point is 00:37:14 I'm Eli Bosnick. Thank you for hanging out with us today. We'll be back next week. And by then, I, will be an expert on something else. Between now and then, you can listen to our other podcasts. Sometimes Tom shows up for those ones.
Starting point is 00:37:27 Jesus. And if you'd like to help keep this show going, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash citation pod or leave us a five-star review everywhere you can. And if you'd like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with us on social media, or check the show notes.
Starting point is 00:37:40 Be sure to check out citationpod.com. Thank you.

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