Turner Settles Aqua Teen Case

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»Turner Settles Aqua Teen Case

Boston will make $2 million out of the stupidity that was caused by Adult Swim. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/05/us/05cnd-hoax.html">Why would Boston freak out over a cartoon is beyond me</a>. The light boards were clearly a cartoony thing.

Quote

Turner Broadcasting System and a Manhattan marketing agency have agreed to pay $2 million in restitution and other costs for a Cartoon Network advertising campaign that set off fears of terrorism, the state attorney general, Martha Coakley, said today. The agency, Interference, Inc., carried out the campaign, which placed electronic advertisements for the show “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” in public places, including a Boston overpass where it was mistaken for a bomb last Wednesday.

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Well, y'know, I heard they were up for 2-3 weeks in plain view before someone thought it was a bomb (I believe a transit worker raised the alarm) so I think it was rather the fuss the authorities made over it (which shows a flaw in THEIR system, not the advertisers, as it's their job to investigate a claim and not throw the civilians into a frenzy) that spooked the Boston people, since no one thought it was a bomb until authorities said it was one.

I love how they're trying to save face by blaming the advertisers, saying that it deliberately looked like a bomb, which it clearly didn't, and that they were trying to scare the people with an obvious hoax. I wonder if they ever think gameboys are bombs. I mean, they have batteries and wires. Obviously only bombs have batteries and wires attached to it.

It was a lot cheaper for Turner to get all of this publicity for just two million then it would have been if they went on an ordinary, clean, and legitimate ad campaign. The guys who came up with this should be promoted and given raises. Absolutely genius!

I have to agree the Boston incident gave them more than their monies worth in publicity.

I never thought about the publicity angle before- I just thought about the stupidity angle. I guess in the end more people will be checking out Adult Swim to see what the fuss was all about.

In short the campaign was successful.

What I don't understand is that this went on in several cities, why was it only authorities from Boston that thought it was bombs. The news casters in Philadelphia seemed to have a pretty good laugh about it on the night they were discovered

I love Boston it's my favorite city in the world, the people though are a bit on edge after the problem with the big dig concrete incident.

I think the Boston authorities had to try and save face due to such an overreaction. I have to agree that more people are checking out the show now, so the advertising worked!! The other cities didn't freak out. I am not sure why Boston went overboard.

Because some one called it in as a suspicious item. It's obvious to us that the figure depicted is from a popular cartoon however there is quite a generation gap between the people of the Boston police force and kids who watch adult swim. You also have to consider this: there were a lot of those scattered around the city and sure, they weren't bombs. But what if just one had been? Right now we're having a laugh at their stupidity, but if one of those had been a bomb I think we'd all be having a different discussion right now.


I'm sure Adult Swim planned for the police force to freak out. That's what made the campaign so successful. There were a bunch of these around Chicago as well but I would have never known or seen them if it wasn't for the Boston story.

Turner Broadcasting is known all over Atlanta for doing silly things like this, and we love it! They had billboards up all over town for Cartoon Network, with weird little sayings, like, "I pooted." There were lots of different funny things, and no-one knew what it was about, and then finally they showed them as Cartoon Network. What is wrong with having a little fun?

Nothing people are just totally paranoid of terrorists.