Give Me Head Productions Part #1 [May] –

One of several logos used by Give Me Head Productions.

A photograph of Lawrence Cassidy; CEO and project leader who wouldn’t admit to having a savage cocaine problem. This was taken at the day one office party along with the others in this collection.

Meet Green Machine; one of several mascots found at Give Me Head Productions HQ. And just like the others, he was given his own desk.

A photograph of Charlie Ryba; sidekick of Lawrence Cassidy. Note the funky stiff tie trend of ’88.

In a bid to try and impress the new recruits at the first office party, Cassidy purchased a dinosaur prop which had been used on the set of the 1971 cult classic Roar Meat! The man in the chair is Bruce Brooks.

A photograph of Marty Shaw; the college drop out who was still telling his folks that he’s attending college just so he could keep receiving the monthly pocket money top up. He squatted on the first floor for the whole summer of ’88 playing video games and, after finally returning home, he received a colossal bollocking.

Andy Peck having the time of his life holding a firework at his desk. With no security or functioning fire alarms it’s a miracle that this didn’t cause a fire and loss of human life.

According to the back of the photograph, Philip Dalton went home to get lucha libre garb for a laugh. The joke is clearly on him.

A photograph of the receptionist Lara Short who agreed to an unpaid summer contract on condition of having her own office “away from the frat creeps”.

A photograph of the coolly named Vincent Vaccaro. Despite looking like he
wants to run far away, he stayed put until the end.

“I Put the Silly Con into Silicon.”–CEO Lawrence Cassidy

Give Me Head Productions was a short-lived television company based in the shoestring suburbs of eastern Silicon Valley. The CEO and sole financial backer Lawrence Cassidy had an ambitious dream: he wanted to create the first interactive television series ever to be broadcast, hoping to finally achieve something remarkable in his life.

Cassidy wanted his team to bring their own creative take on a cyberpunk-style tabletop role-playing game which was to be played alongside tuning in to a prime-time television series several evenings a week. He was convinced that, if they could bring these two elements together, they would strike gold. Merchandise alone was projected to be a billion dollars (albeit Cassidy’s own optimistic projection which we now know to be bonkers).

So in the sun-drenched summer of ’88, Lawrence rented out a cheap office space. Along with his best buddy and second in command, Mr Charlie Ryba, he began recruiting a team of creatives and tech heads to help put the engine into the vehicle.

All of the employees we meet in this story had begrudgingly agreed to work a summer contract for zero money. Instead they were to be paid in a constant supply of pizza, snacks, beverages, alcohol, coffee, peace pipes and class A drugs. They would instead have shares in the production company which were valued at two million dollars a head, providing that their creation actually saw the light of day.

When the first wave of vacancies were filled, the new team was invited to the office for the first ever social. It was held on the Friday evening with the first working day commencing Monday morning. It was here that Lawrence provided the first motivational speech to the team:

“We are gathered here today,” Cassidy began. “To mourn the loss of our previous shitty jobs which we woke up bright and early for, five days a week, just to make enough money to keep the lights on.

“Today we are also going to celebrate the birth of our newborn baby who we have named Give Me Head Productions. From this moment until the last, we promise to party particularly hard while producing one of the most lucrative television series ever made. Amen!”

It must’ve gone down a storm because nobody left the office all weekend except for “party runs” (slang for purchasing more drugs). When Monday morning came everyone was too hungover and exhausted to really do anything productive. And so the first official day of the project was spent smoking cartel big bud, discussing profound philosophical concepts and seeing who could get the highest score on Galaga ’88.

And So This Is How It All Began…

It was under these conditions that the greatest cyberpunk-themed television series and role-playing game to never see the light of day was thrown together. The title was Cyberia and that’s about all we can be sure of.

As we put the pieces together, this project will expand exponentially. It is as much about the employees at Give Me Head Productions as it is their unrealised creation. This truly is a lost media project like no other: a giant universe of neon splashes and retro futuristic nostalgia paying homage to the cyberpunk genre and the best decade in all of human history.

You can find Part #2 here.