Visionaries are always ahead of the technology. William Gibson wrote the ground-breaking cyberpunk novel Neuromancer on a manual typewriter. Likewise, the character Max Headroom was never computer-generated at all; he was just actor Matt Frewer wearing a plastic headpiece, with some Plaster-of-Paris make-up troweled on and some choppy editing thrown in to make it seem like Max was flickering from screen to screen.

A synopsis of the 1987 pilot episode went like this: It’s a few minutes into the future. TVs can’t be shut off and networks literally kill for ratings. Investigative reporter Edison Carter stumbles across Network 23’s cover-up of a deadly new form of advertising called “blipverts,” subliminal ads that flicker so relentlessly that sedentary viewers build up an energy overload in their Cocoa Puffed fat cells and explode like Mentos in Diet Coke.

Fast forward almost two decades: Compare this news item from a June 2006 issue of Advertising Age:

Clear Channel Eyes One-Second Radio Spots:
‘Blinks’ Format Explores New Radio Ad Strategies.

Ad Age reported that radio overlord Clear Channel has come up with ‘Blinks’, that is, one-second radio commercials. “It really is to find new uses of radio for advertisers who are continually asking us to demonstrate that our medium can successfully extend brands, can successfully reach the consumer with touchpoints that are new and surprising” said senior VP-creative for Clear Channel Radio Jim Cook.

And they weren’t the first. In the late 1990s, Chicago’s Cramer-Krasselt Advertising did a one-second TV spot for Master Lock padlocks in which a padlock is shot with a bullet in front of a bull’s-eye. The image had been part of their the Super Bowl ads for many years, and was a proven commodity before the one-second spot aired.

Clear Channel explains that Blinks could be used in a number of ways, such as using the McDonald’s “I’m lovin' it” music spike placed between hip-hop songs. Or BMW’s Mini Cooper horn honking and a voice shouting “Mini!” during news breaks. Can the Intel chime and the Affleck quack be far behind?

As if the thought of swarms of little one- and two-second commercial gnats piercing your eardrums between every song on the radio doesn’t send chills up your media-shocked spine already, what will really send you over the edge is the sheer frequency required to make the concept work.

The New York Times reported that the first big test of Blinks occurred on September 10, when all 1,100 Clear Channel radio stations ran relatively leisurly two-second ads for that night’s premiere of the Fox comedy “The Simpsons.” That adds up to 28,600 repetitions in a single day. Doh!

Clear Channel was ecstatic about the concept: “You’ll be hearing a song, you hear Homer go, ‘Woo-hoo,’ and then you’ll go into another song,” explains Kaye Bentley, a senior VP at Fox. What makes Ms. Bentley especially giddy is that the spots are nearly impossible to avoid. “You can’t go past it,” she said. “By the time they” -- meaning the poor hapless consumer -- “can get their finger to the dial to change it, it’s over, and you’re back into a song. It’s a form of guerrilla marketing, like a pop-up.”

And we all know how much we love those.

I had a box of Krispy Kremes next to my Barcalounger and was all set to listen to the radio that day, but after the 2,500th repetition of "Cowabunga!" the fat in my brain exploded, and I took Max Headroom and Clear Channel with me.