Eloquent Incoherence

This might quite possibly be the strangest news story I have read in a long time. The discovery of several suspicious-looking devices at various places in and around Boston triggered repeated bomb scares that shut down parts of the city and sent local, state, and federal law enforcement agents into a frenzy. The devices turned out to be electronic lightboards depicting a middle finger-waving character from the Adult Swim television program “Aqua Teen Hunger Force”. The lightboards were placed at random sites throughout several major American cities as part of an advertising campaign by Turner Broadcasting, which owns Adult Swim. The advertising firm that came up with the idea apparently didn’t bother to get permission from city officials and didn’t anticipate that the stunt would cause so much fuss. “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” is a rather bizarre cartoon series about a talking milkshake, a box of french fries, and a mass of compressed meat, which perhaps makes the strange nature of this promotional campaign and the ensuing controversy appropriate. The publicity is likely to boost the show’s ratings, which means the campaign worked (but probably not in the way Turner intended). It’s a shame that the poor guy who dropped off the lightboards has to be charged with a felony over it.

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