Seriously, I mean it — what the hell is wrong with the entire damned city?
You shut down your expressways and subways because of electronic LED signs that have been in place for weeks — and then arrest and charge the two employees of Cartoon Network who put them there?
Here’s a particularly useful comment from a Bostonian official.
“It is outrageous, in a post 9/11 world, that a company would use this type of marketing scheme,” Mayor Thomas Menino said. “I am prepared to take any and all legal action against Turner Broadcasting and its affiliates for any and all expenses incurred.”
Here’s what he’s responding to, in our “post 9/11 world”. The image is of the Mooninite Err from Aqua Teen Hunger Force. There’s a movie due out soon (yay!) and the signs are advertising gimmicks for it.
Sure as hell looks like a bomb to me, Bucky! Better call the cops just to be sure!
But wait … there’s more. These little gadgets aren’t new in any sense of the term; in fact, they’ve been in place for weeks.
As soon as Turner realized the Boston problem around 5 p.m., it said, law enforcement officials were told of their locations in 10 cities where it said the devices had been placed for two to three weeks: Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Ore., Austin, Texas, San Francisco and Philadelphia. […]
In Seattle and several suburbs, the removal of the signs was low-key. “We haven’t had any calls to 911 regarding this,” Seattle police spokesman Sean Whitcomb said Wednesday.
Looks to me like Bostonians have twice the face-egg as the citizens of these more relaxed communities. In fact, it looks to me like the two men who’ve been nicked and arraigned for this have grounds to file one hell of a wrongful arrest suit against the Bostonian PD, given that the entire rest of the universe is apparently capable of recognizing a joke when they see it.
Of course, given the way Orson Welles was pilloried for his Halloween night radio show version of War of the Worlds, I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising that (1) people are insanely stupid and likely to panic over absolutely nothing at all; and (2) stupid people, rather than take a lesson for being so damned useless, tend to blame the people who they think scared them.
Listen, Boston (and that includes your mayor): You are the idiots who overreacted to this. Suck it up. Deal with it. And learn from it.
And as for the rest of us: LED signs aren’t bombs. And they’re not to be concerned about. Let’s spend a little more time and effort focusing on the really scary shit out there, like our largely-unprotected freight harbors and railway system; and the retard in Washington that seems to be hell-bent on attacking Iran.
UPDATE: This page has an article with many reader comments on it; this is the best of the lot, I think.
Our grandparents marched into hailstorms of gunfire on a mission to save the world. We run away screaming from cartoon characters. — Grombar
12:39 on February 5th, 2007
[...] Boston continues to be a city run by belligerent asshats. Last week it shut down several major transporation routes in order to handle the Imminent Dire Threat of LEDs; now they’ve managed to bully Turner and its advertising agency into paying $2 million in restitution for Boston’s own overreaction to the battery-operated signs. “Last week’s events caused a major disruption in the greater Boston area on many levels — crippling public transportation, causing serious traffic problems, negatively affecting local businesses and perhaps most significantly, costing Boston and surrounding communities thousands of dollars,” [MA AG Martha] Coakley said. [...]
23:31 on February 5th, 2007
Agh, those crafty mooninites!
I guess now they have to make round trips to the local pubs to yank down those LED lighting fictures, though I doubt the Boston P.D is unfamiliar with these legos.
8:36 on February 6th, 2007
Da’ Moon RULZ.
Not really sure what the fallout’s going to be here. Turner and Interference (the NY-based ad agency who thought of this campaign) had to pay Boston $2 million — which makes this one of the least-expensive international PR campaigns in the history of the world — but the “perpetrators” might still face charges for … putting up signs.
This is particularly disappointing since WGBH (based in Boston) is one of the best and most prolific PBS affiliates on the planet. MIT and Harvard are there. I expected better of this city.
16:16 on February 6th, 2007
So this is like 21st Century street markteing or something?
“Enough with those damn sighns and posters, we got to make flashy lights and pictures so our audience can comprehend.”
What made them think they could stick them on random property anyway? — ‘Rebalz’
You think you found a way to ignore one form of advertising and those corporate fat-cats throw this at you. I don’t mean to throw dirt on the Turner/ Cartoon Network/ Adult Swim name, because I like their products but I guess they’re still a ‘Company.’
I doubt he will be able to dodge the bullet on this one, those Bostonites have too much pride too admitt how incompetent they really are
Besideds: 2 million? from Turner? Phht… doesn’t he wipe his ass with that amount?
16:26 on February 6th, 2007
Definitely this is a marketing ploy designed to look like subversive antisocial commentary — it’s commonly called “guerilla marketing” and it’s rooted in countercultural marketing of the type done by AdBusters, et al (myself included, targeting McDonald’s).
The difference, of course, is that — as you say — this time the guerillas were backed by megacorporatebucks.
I guess this is the ad/propagada equivalent of Halliburton getting into “peacekeeping”.