Boston gets its panties in a bunch over a Lite-Brite

BREAKING NEWS: Hot off the AP wires, we have a report of Boston police shutting down bridges, highways and part of the Charles River due to a security threat. What, you ask, could cause all this commotion? A dirty bomb? An anthrax letter? Uh, not quite. The source of all the confusion and misplaced terror hysteria was none other than a guerrilla marketing campaign for [adult swim]'s show Aqua Teen Hunger Force (late night surrealist comedy cartoon about a geek-genius box of fries, a lazy, sarcastic milkshake and a semi-retarded ball of raw meat), which is being released in movie form on March 23. The marketing effort consisted of putting Lite-Brite type signs, a.k.a. "suspicious devices", showing one of the cartoon's characters flipping the bird at points of high visibility (subways, tunnel entrances, etc.) around Boston, as well as nine other US cities. Other places, including NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta, have had these signs in place for several weeks, with nary a complaint among them. Way to be killjoys, concerned citizens of Boston. Here's the breakdown:

The sign lit up:














Action shot of sign removal:














Because these guys said so:














And had the detectives down at the crime lab working in shifts:













Once the stink cloud started descending, Turner Broadcasting ([adult swim]'s parent network) copped to the stunt, told their marketing firm that was running the promotion to pony up the whereabouts of all the signs in every city and apologized all around. Even knowing where they were, Boston PD has managed to round up only 14 of 40ish devices scattered around the city. Nobody seems to give a damn about the signs in any of the other cities. The dude hired to place the them was arrested (at his lawyer's office) and faces one felony charge of placing a hoax device and one charge of disorderly conduct. The city claims that dealing with the "scare" cost them $500,000.

Some may call this whole thing a public nuisance of the highest order, and argue that those responsible should be punished to the fullest extent of the law, but I think that's a bit of an overkill, to put it mildly. People are more terror-happy than ever these days, so much so that reason escapes them when they notice something slightly unexpected and they jump to the worst possible conclusion. Next time, citizens of Boston, before you call the SWAT team, just have a little think on the fact that a multi-colored, lighted sign about the size of a sheet of paper with a little guy flipping you off may not be a threat to national security. Perhaps you should also start watching more cartoons at midnight, just to be safe. And to you guys in the dark suits: relax a little. If anyone's out to get you, you likely won't know it until you're totally screwed. Also, you may want to loosen up those ties, too. Lack of oxygen isn't good for the brain. No matter what, [adult swim] got more publicity than they were bargaining for, and that can't be all bad.

UPDATE: On Feb. 5, Turner Broadcasting and their Manhattan-based marketing firm, Interface, Inc. have agreed to pay $2 million in restitution for the chaos called by their ATHF stunt. Unbelievable.