by Rob Kohr

Interference Inc. authored a guerrilla marketing campaign in 10 cities, that involved neon signs of a Mooninite from Cartoon Network’s show, Aqua Teen Hunger Force. At this point Boston police have arrested 2 employees of Interference Inc. Boston believed that these signs might have been some sort of bomb threat and even managed to detonate one with explosives to make sure that this was nothing more than a prank or as Boston’s Mayor Menino is calling it a hoax device.

On most sites that you will read this story, they are blurring the middle finger, which is interesting, because if you bother to watch Aqua Teen, its really the only finger they have. You may as well blur out the middle finger of a guy who has a finger cast on. I guess the media figures that if you show the middle finger, or single middle digit of a crude cartoon character, people would run screaming from their homes into the streets proclaiming the horrors they just witnessed.

Either way, officials in Boston are taking this to the level of a bomb threat and are implying that the offenders will go to jail for 2 to 5 years. There is also talk that Cartoon Network, the company that hired Interference Inc. will also be fined because they knew of the plan.

Interference Inc. is not the first company to push the idea and concept of guerrilla marketing. Back as far as 1998 I recall seeing stencils of the Pi sign (3.14…) all over the streets of New York. Low and behold it was no new tag, but a marketing push for Darren Aronofsky’s film “Pi”. All in all, this was taken to the level of placing electronic devices in sensitive places around the cities, on the sides of bridges and other visible areas. At the same time these places can be seen as bombing targets.

In the end the whole thing has been taken to the level of a high school prank gone bad with an over zealous Principal at the helm. Just fine the company, all you are doing is making this an obvious example of “don’t scream fire in a movie theater”. These devices, even from street level could not be mistaken for bombs, they are too flat and only have a battery case. That and when you would get close up to it any child could see that its an over-sized light bright.

Maybe in the end its just another case of someone being offended by a 2 bit graphic flicking them off.

You can read more on this here:

[ The Gothamist.com ]

[ The Bostonist.com ]

UPDATE: Shirley Powell, of Turner Broadcasting, statement:
They have been in place for two to three weeks in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Austin, San Francisco and Philadelphia. Parent company Turner Broadcasting is in contact with local and federal law enforcement on the exact locations of the billboards. We regret that they were mistakenly thought to pose any danger.

Ars Technica reports on the final fallout of the “Great Mooninite Scare of 2007″. Congress is looking at passing the The Terrorist Hoax Improvements Act of 2007 which will implement stiffer penalties for apparent hoaxes. What is yet to be seen is what is considered a hoax. Ars points out that while the Mooninites managed to freak out Boston, the LED signs were up for weeks without incident. All it too was one over hyper concerned citizen and dozens of SWAt later to make this a bigger issue than it ever need have been. [ Ars Reports ]