Boston's Finest Thwart Cartoon Network Terror Plot

I don't think the bomb squad has overreacted in this "hoax". They're just doing their job. Its the media thats overreacting.
 
They should be glad I don't get to choose their punishment because tar and feathers don't easily come out of dreadlocks.

btw-Was it ten years ago that a policeman was blown up by a real bomb some idiot planted under a car in Roslindale?
 
The Boston Globe said:
Hub's fright is fodder for comics

By Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff | February 5, 2007

Hey. The rest of the country is laughing at us over that cartoon thing!

Last week, after discovering that the blinking electronic devices that triggered a massive antiterrorism response were not bombs but ads for a cartoon starring a meatball and a pack of fries, Boston politicians spoke with one voice.

It's not funny, they said.

Begging to differ are the late-night comedians and pundits from New York to Los Angeles who have spent the last few days snickering over the city's, ahem, comprehensive response to the scare.

On his ABC comedy show, Jimmy Kimmel broadcast a fake message from the Department of Homeland Security juxtaposing pictures of Yosemite Sam and Garfield with a real bomb: "Bombs kill," a somber narrator deadpanned. "Cartoons are funny. Report bombs, not cartoons." On Comedy Central, Stephen Colbert reported that Boston was besieged by what were "clearly the Lite-Brite doodlings of terrorists."

"That Al Qaeda are getting sneakier and sneakier, aren't they?" chuckled Craig Ferguson of "The Late Late Show" on CBS .

In an interview yesterday, Councilor John Tobin , who booked comedy acts before turning to politics, said, quite soberly, that it is far better to be safe than sorry. He added that he is confident that Bostonians are tough enough to take the teasing by others in stride.

"At the end of the day, I think they're jealous because they'd rather live here," he said of the out-of-staters doing the ribbing.

Jealous perhaps. Relentless, certainly.

The Dayton Daily News ran a cartoon, reprinted in The New York Times yesterday, of Paul Revere riding into Boston, calling out, "The Cartoon Network is coming!"

The NPR news quiz show "Wait, Wait . . . Don't Tell Me!" gave the episode a thorough going-over this weekend.

"They're all over the place, but only in the Athens of America were the little animated aliens thought to be working with Al Qaeda," marveled host Peter Sagal .

One of Sagal's guests, humorist and author Tom Bodett , cut in.

"Think of it though, from their perspective, if they think they found a bomb -- and a terrorist so bold that he put a flashing box of french fries on it flipping you the bird before it goes off -- what are they capable of?"

A column in the Dallas Morning News was subtitled "When a city is brought to its knees by a Lite-Brite, I fear for our culture."

"Can you spell 'overreaction,' boys and girls?" wrote Jeffrey Weiss , the paper's religion reporter. "It was a perfect storm of intentional stupidity meeting maximum-strength inflexibility, all on live TV."

Other cities where the devices were planted without incident blinked astonishment at Boston's reaction. A headline to a story in the San Francisco Chronicle preened, "Calmer Reaction in S.F." and quoted a local art gallery owner calling the signs "cool."

"But those people are pretty paranoid," the gallery owner said, referring to Bostonians.

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann , who devoted no less than six minutes and 40 seconds to the story Thursday night, also wondered why only Boston reacted with such alarm -- two or three weeks after the electronic signs were quietly hung.

"What am I missing?" he said. "Did they start humming, or smoking, or ticking, or what happened?"

MSNBC's counterterrorism expert, Roger Cressey , joined Olbermann in concluding that Boston's politicians should have taken more responsibility for their role in creating what he called an overreaction.

"The political leadership had an obligation to get out there and say, 'We've taken a look at a couple of these, and they're Lite-Brites giving you the middle finger, OK?' " Cressey said. "This is not Al Qaeda's M.O."

But some of the comics also turned their wit against the guerrilla marketers responsible for the ads. Colbert lamented that thanks to them, he would have to cancel the marketing campaigns he had planned.

"For instance, to market my new show, 'Time to Travel,' I was going to go to major American airports and leave unmarked suitcases with clock radios taped to them," he said. "To get the word out on my winter-themed charity gala, I was sending out envelopes filled with fake snow. And I was so excited about my new Times Square ad campaign for this show: 'The Colbert Report: It's the Bomb."'

Others also directed their barbs at the marketers.

"Those wacky marketing guys at Turner Broadcasting," wrote David Hiltbrand , TV columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. "Because, let's face it, nothing says cartoon hijinks quite like a level-red terrorist threat."

Hiltbrand noted, however, that the devices were also planted in Philadelphia, "without causing much of a stir."

Lisa Wangsness can be reached at lwangsness@globe.com.
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kmp1284 said:
It was also a very shotty ad campaign to begin with. What Joe Schmoe is going to go home and watch a tv show that is only capable of advertising itself with a Nintendo style figure flipping you the bird. It said nothing about what the product was or anything, as far as I am concerned they should all just be taken down and smashed with baseball bats just because they are so stupid looking. I watched a youtube clip and was immediately compelled to ask what kind of person actually watches this crap.
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On the contrary, it sounds like they got a lot of exposure for both the show and cartoon network after this whole thing in Boston went down, thus making it a very successful ad campaign. :)
 
This is a modern day Salem Witch Trial. The Puritans in New England can't shake there old rigid habits. It just wouldn't feel right. Their Puritanical ways can still be found in our law enforcement and political bodies. Let's step into the 21st century and be genuine free thinkers and not let stupidity rule the day.

The ghosts of John Winthrop and Samuel Blaxtone still haunt us today.
 
After the fact it exploded into a brilliant ad tactic, but the advertising object itself, without any national news headlines stating its purpose, is not particularly good. It only stands to remind current consumers of a product and does nothing to enlighten non-viewers of what the "joke" is.
 
I think the idea was to place them where lots of college-age students travel and would notice them. Thus resulting in conversations such as:

Student 1: "What the hell is that thing?"
Student 2: "Dude, you don't know what a Mooninite is? The're on Aqua Teen Hunger Force. That shit's hysterical, you should check it out."

Or thinking:
"Huh, it's a Mooninite, I havn't watched that show in a while, I'll have to see if it is still on."

etc...etc...
 
but how many college students even know where Sullivan Square is, let alone ever go there?
 
ZenZen said:
This is a modern day Salem Witch Trial. The Puritans in New England can't shake there old rigid habits. It just wouldn't feel right. Their Puritanical ways can still be found in our law enforcement and political bodies. Let's step into the 21st century and be genuine free thinkers and not let stupidity rule the day.

The ghosts of John Winthrop and Samuel Blaxtone still haunt us today.
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right on
 
My question remains, what kind of remotely intelligent person watches that crap, if you're in college, go get drunk or stoned or do something, you're too old to watch stupid cartoons.
 
Obviously you're not our age and have most likely watched maybe 5 minutes of the show total. Otherwise, you would never pose such a question.

And for the record, I'm college-aged, used to get stoned and still get drunk, and love the show. I also love South Park, Family Guy, the Simpsons, rocko's Modern Life, Hey Arnold, Ren and Stimpy, Doug and Rug Rats, and those are all cartoons.
 
kz1000ps said:
rocko's Modern Life, Hey Arnold, Ren and Stimpy, Doug and Rug Rats, and those are all cartoons.
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ah, old nickelodeon. what happened to that channel?...
 
It got kEwL cartoons like the Wild Thornberries and Jimmy Neutron!

...:roll:
 
Actually I'm 23, I attended Wharton for a semester but just really hated college at large, thus I dropped out and moved to London.

At that time of night I am often too busy with grown up things. My idea of a good night in this city consists of a going out to places like foundation lounge, eastern standard, the bristol, the oak bar, city bar, azure, bar 10, lockeober, avalon, ruth's chris, s&w, via matta, mistral, vox populi, the bso, a show, sushi, a party, whatever really, I'm just not that into sitting in my den watching cartoons.
 
kmp1284 said:
Actually I'm 23, I attended Wharton for a semester but just really hated college at large, thus I dropped out and moved to London.

At that time of night I am often too busy with grown up things. My idea of a good night in this city consists of a going out to places like foundation lounge, eastern standard, the bristol, the oak bar, city bar, azure, bar 10, lockeober, avalon, ruth's chris, s&w, via matta, mistral, vox populi, the bso, a show, sushi, a party, whatever really, I'm just not that into sitting in my den watching cartoons.
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Dude you're gay. I bet you haven't been to half of those places. Why would you really go to the bristol lounge other than say - dinner.. with your parents... gay?
 
Because I can afford to and I've done something with my life other than become a loser property manager. And if I did happen to be gay, so what of it, at least I'm not living in a redneck conservative fantasy land. But you should probably be running along, I hear Mrs. Jones up in 16B has a clogged toilet.
 
bosdevelopment said:
Dude you're gay. I bet you haven't been to half of those places. Why would you really go to the bristol lounge other than say - dinner.. with your parents... gay?
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Why be a dick all the time?
 
Bosdevelopment, great to see your vocabulary hasn't matured at all since your frat house days. Real tactful

kmp1284 said:
At that time of night I am often too busy with grown up things.
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For the record, if I'm watching cartoons, it's because someone has a DVD of them since nobody I know has cable....

Lastly, you deride "cartoons" as if every one of them are for people 18 and under. What about the Simpsons? Family Guy? South Park?


.....moop!
 
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