Aqua Teen Hunger Force viral ads cause Boston bomb scare
By Ryan Block 
posted January 31st 2007 7:19PM
posted January 31st 2007 7:19PM
[Thanks, Dan]
Update: One's for sale on eBay! Thanks, everybody.
posted January 31st 2007 7:19PM
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
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You're spot on Mauricio. The Boston prosecutor's office is out of its freaking gourd charging this dude with felonious perpetration of a hoax. WHAT WAS THE HOAX??? It was a lite brite of a cartoon character! Is the neon sign above my neighborhood bar a hoax too? What a crock! Bostonians need to extract the corncobs from their bums. "Hoax" must be the scapegoat word of the day in the Boston Municipal Government building. The FBI and Boston police's disproportionate response is to blame. They blew up an LED sign attached to a battery? WTF? I thought these people had bomb sniffing dogs and exposive detection devices. The FBI knew darn well what these things were, but they dragged it out to TERRORIZE the country for a few hours. Chertoff is the real criminal.
A new flavor is gonna come out at starbucks and people are gonna think its a bomb next - you watch.
Honestly, what do people expect the Boston Police department to do if they got a call saying that there is a suspicious object with lights suspended under a bridge? Ignore it, laugh it off like its another viral marketing tactic? This has nothing to do with Homeland security, the general public isn't used to guerrilla marketing, to most its more illogical to have someone put LED objects under I-93 that is normally inaccessible to the public.
When this article was posted on Engadget, I thought it was a bomb.
The day the McRib came back at McDonald's, I was sure it was a bomb and informed my local police station.
When I woke up this morning, I thought I was a bomb.
True stories. Don't make fun.
Someone down the block still has their LED christmas lights up - call the bomb squad!
Of course, better information was available on YouTube and the like, where you could actually see these signs and video of the guys placing them, before you could in the mainstream media, who were going nuts about terrorist threats.
The City of Boston completely overreacted, driven by uncritical reporters and pandering public officials. What a joke.
Full Discsoure: I HATE the Aqua Teen Hunger show.
Reminds me of when Microsoft got fined for spreading MSN butterflies over downtown Manhattan. Most advertisers pay the city money to have their ads displayed in places like transit stops. You can't just stick ads up on public property without permission, otherwise, what's to stop people from covertly installing billboards beside payed-for ads?
This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard in my life!! Led cartoon characters are suspicious packages that may be bombs?!?!?!?!
They should bring criminal chargers against the idiot that reported it in as a suspicious package and the whole Homeland Security group in Boston!!!!
Guess the terrorists have already won ;(
I hate to break it to you, but this was not a Viral marketing Campaign. This was a Guerilla Marketing Campaign. Look it up before throwing around your latest dime-store motivational speaker phrases. Hint: Malcom Gladwell's The Tipping Point should clue you in on the difference. For a Follow up rty looking into Jay Conrad Levinson.
Since when did terrorists make bombs out of a Lite-Brite? People are so incredibly stupid.
I made a nice t-shirt so I can display it around boston. Help yourself: http://www.cafepress.com/mooninitesign
God knows the real things are going to go for thousands on ebay.
I bet the upcoming movie ticket sales double because of it.
I'm frickin glad somebody finally did somethin' about these little aholes. They swim in my pool they steal my porn take all my smoke. They even pounded moonrocks in my... well you don't wanna know where. And they shot me with that fricken quad laser thing of theirs...
Yer not gonna print my real name are ya engadget? -Carl-
I'm thinking a lot of people would be (happier?) if the next bomb had Lite-Brite pegs on it...
actually I see this the other way around. ONLY the Boston PD is enough in the know, to attack the Mooninites on site. The Mooninites are a terrorist faction! They have come to steal our pornography and sodomize our imaginations! Destroy them before they form the quad lazer!!!
I'm amazed at the over reaction of athorities in Boston. Here in Chicago it would have been laughed off.Shame on you Boston.
This reminds me an awful lot of the girls in Ohio who placed Super Mario powerup boxes around their town, and they were reported as possible bombs. It was last year sometime. They weren't charged for it.
Another example of the ignorance of our government. Cartoon Network you rule!!!
Sad- They arrested the people involved
Sadder- Boston PD Thinks a bunch of LEDS will explode. Because, as we all know, LEDS are among the most unstable things known to man.
Saddest- If they thought these were a threat, then HOW THE HECK WERE THEY UP FOR 3 WEEKS WITHOUT ANYONE NOTICING?
Another example of the ignorance of our government. Cartoon Network you rule!!!
I created an icon commemorating this event:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/156/376809246_dcd920f79c_o.png
If you think I am wonderful and clever, or if you are my mom, you can read my whole blog entry:
http://beagley.livejournal.com/119499.html
All hail the Mooninites and their awesome power.
Nah.
If I saw you on the street I'd just beat the shit out of you.
That would solve everyone's problems.
Yes. People are indeed stupid. Thank you for demonstrating that point.
What kind of mind-state does it take to associate pixelated cartoon characters with bombs? I don't get it! Do I need to watch FOX news 24/7 to understand?
Seriously Boston citizens easily take the moron of the year award with this one.
The other bizarre fact is the media reporting on it. Rather than making fun and/or worrying about people's mental health, the reporting implies that it's perfectly normal to be scared to death of weird cartoons. And blames the ad campaign. WTF?
Go on, carve DA MOON RULZ#1 into Mayor Menino's car. You know you want to...
Thank god the Bush administration is here to protect us from all these terrorists. Can't wait for the US government to implant an RFID chip in our asses so they can control the population a bit more. It's all for our own good of course, 'cause terrorists are bad, government is good. Thank you for protecting and serving.
Wow, what a hardass.
Cool, elitist left-wing reply AND a witty retort with no substance or meaning.
Everyone just step away slowly...
YES WE ONLY USE LED SIGNS TO ADVERTISE ON THE MOON. AS YOU CAN SEE IT'S QUITE EFFECTIVE. - IGNIGNOKT
Gads! My five year old just pulled the back off his Fisher-Price walkie talkie … better call the FBI … I see components in here just they had in the fake bomb(s) in those pictures! Some round things. Some square things. Some wires. And a little red light that pops on every time someone talks into the other walkie talkie. Eeeekkk.
Seriously. I can see the investigation. I mean you do have to check these things out now that we know about jihads and our friendly neighbors that carry them out and all. But really. After the investigation proved it was just an ad campaign gone seriously stupid, it would have been much smarter to just let the whole thing die in column 4 on page 3, eh??
OMFG, I'd hate to live in Boston. My lunchbox I take to work would most defenitley be mistaken for a bomb or suspicious package, terrorist communications device, miniature mobile anthrax distibution device or maybe even Bush's WMD from Iraq! It's black, box shaped and has a neat looking radioactive logo sticker on it! I think I'll put some lights on it too. It'll scare the pants off my friend, he's from Bombston, er I mean Boston.
We thank you, city of Boston, for making yourself a laughing stock of the nation. Not only did your security apparatus seemed to have neglected the fact that these things were up there for most of the world to see for over three weeks, of the 10 cities that these object were alleged to have been scattered, it seems that only Boston reacted negatively.
This is my un-expert opinion: You'd think that if they had first got sight of these contraptions, they would've had contacted FBI experts to help determine what the threat was, and immediately contacted other cities in other states to verify if there was anything similar happening in their jurisdictions. Or at least used binoculars or other image magnifying device to first determine visually the threat the aformentioned "bombs".
Then again, the other cities in the US probably was in the joke too: to make Boston look stupid. If that's the case, shame on you, you other 9 cities; you all should grow up!
We whipped up this awesome t-shirt to commemorate 1/31/07
Aqua Teen Bomber Force
Never Forget....
Only available at The Cotton Factory
O get over on the 'fearmongering' presidential b.s. and learn who the real terrorists are: the frickin media. Its what 90% of Americans use to form their ignorant opinions. Its their careful choice of words to spin any situation to their own political goals and financial benefits. They have been doing this long before Bush or any of the presidents. Despite popular belief, the war is actually going quite well over here. Are you a political advisor with inside information and extensive knowledge in counter insurgency operations? No? Didnt think so, so keep your ignorant opinions on the war to yourself. The media controls you and tells you what to think and how to feel. They got you like a puppet on strings. Wake up America. Advertising is a science and they have mastered how to manipulate people to buy their product and the media capitalized on this. The ATHF advertising was harmless until the media saw potential earnings from rating increases. One last thing before Im off my soapbox, despite trying to avoid a Vietnam like mistake by not supporting the war and troops now people say they support the troops but not the war. You cant seperate the two. By not supporting the war (you shouldve stopped it before it happened, too late now) and by calling for immediate troop withdrawal your harming us over here more. Now we have less soldiers to perform the jobs we do and the government wont increase the troop level to an adequate amount that we need because the American people wont like it. Because of the media now terrorists have more rights protecting them from abuse then children do in the U.S. Because people believe everything the media wants them to we are going to lose this war. Remember, every soldier volunteered for this job and the number of deaths of soldiers over here is far less then the number of murders in any one of our major cities in the U.S. Id prefer to die serving my country then to get mugged and shot by a fricking crack fiend or hit by a drunk driver. If you support our troops then support the war because now that we have started this war campaign we have to finish it and do it right.
THEY WERE CORRECT TO FEAR US , FOR IT IS TRUE , THOSE OF US FROM THE MOON ARE "THE BOMB".
-IGNIGNOKT
YEAH , WE CAME TO BLOW THIS MOTHER UP!
-ERR
SERIOUSLY THOSE PEOPLE ARE STUPID AND THIER CHILDREN HATE THEM. - MASTER SHAKE
So all I have to do to get the cool kids to pick up IEDs or not report them is to wrap the C4 in ductape and add some cutesy LEDs over them? Seriously? You're that trusting?
I can believe it -- it's a dumb show.
People are pretty stupid to think that was a bomb
PS The moon rules Denver