At 12:32 AM on April 27th, 1986, HBO’s movie dissolved into color bars and a message signed “Captain Midnight” — and one of America’s biggest broadcasters discovered it couldn’t take its own channel back.
Doctor Warthan opens CASE FILE #003: the most famous broadcast intrusion in American history. The backyard dish frontier, the $12.95 grievance, a thirty-foot dish at midnight, the satellite that repeats whoever shouts loudest — and the typeface that gave the Captain away.