During the 1980s, Garry Trudeau thought it would be fun to do a political parody of the television program Max Headroom (of which he was a fan).

[citation needed] The idea was that Ron had been created to serve as a backup president during the long periods Reagan spent on vacation.

It ends up being a disaster: Headrest is stuttering and incompetent, openly mocks the administration he is designed to serve, and causes nothing but trouble.

During the first week of his appearance, he flashes the White House's phone number on his screen and tells children to call if they wanted "rock-solid information on safe sex" (because the number printed was accurate, the real world White House got calls which jammed their switchboards.

The real Ronald Reagan had retired and left the public view, and Max Headroom's program was long since gone, making the character far less topical than he had once been.