Aqua Teen Hunger Force Boston Bomb Adverts Cost Turner $2m
In this age of high security, people have to be at their very sharpest. Air travellers get stun-gunned if they leave bags unattended for even a second, X-ray CCTV cameras can now check inside your guts for swallowed bombs and movie ads can shut down cities.
By now you'll all be aware of the flashing Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie adverts that were placed around Boston last week which – instead of informing the city about a forthcoming unfunny cartoon film based around a very funny TV show – whipped it up into a frenzied screaming terrorist alert that literally closed the city down. And now Turner Broadcasting, the company responsible for Aqua Teen Hunger Force, has donated $2 million as an apology to the people of Boston, probably to start a charity to rehabilitate the crosseyed dimwits who start screaming "BOMB! BOMB!" like dickwads whenever they see any kind of flashing light.
Movie promotion can be a difficult thing when you deal with cartoons. Live action films can be promoted by making Tom Cruise go on a subway train or by pretending that your star had it off with a boyband, but with cartoons you're limited to hoofing the voice actors round the global junkets – even though most countries will be overdub them into a different language anyway – or making Shrek do horrible stilted awards ceremony speeches. Or, if you're promoting an Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie, you could hold an entire city to ransom with explosives like some kind of evil supervillain.
That's more or less what happened last week, anyway, as 39 flashing Aqua Teen Hunger Force light displays were secretly put up around the city to try and draw attentions to a movie based on a cartoon TV show that's watched by little more than a handful of stoner insomniacs. However, unlike the other nine cities where the Aqua Teen Hunger Force campaign went off without a hitch, the good people of Boston thought that Osama bin Laden has started making bombs shaped like Christmas tree decorations in an attempt to win back Whitney Houston's love and freaked the hell out, effectively closing the city down with a bomb-disposal operation that is thought to have cost Boston around $800,000.
And now Turner Broadcasting, the company behind Aqua Teen Hunger Force, has apologised to Boston by throwing heaps of cash around in the hope that all this trouble will quickly go away, as E! Online reports:
Turner Broadcasting and Interference Inc., the ad agency responsible for placing 38 electronic promotions-turned-bomb scares around Boston last Wednesday, have agreed to pony up $2 million to make amends for a Lite-Brite-esque Aqua Teen Hunger Force publicity campaign that effectively shut down the city… Of the $2 million settlement, $1 million will be divided among city and state enforcement agencies who turned out in force to subdue the Mooninite threat by removing the offending circuit boards from bridges, subway stations and commuter hubs around the city (where they had been placed about two weeks earlier). The remaining $1 million has been earmarked by officials for goodwill funding, to "enable our communities to enhance homeland security, or to pursue other important community initiatives," [mayor] Menino said in a written statement.
No doubt this big Aqua Teen Hunger Force mess will force movie studios to reexamine the methods in which they promote their products. For instance, we hear that the marketing campaign for Mr Bean's Holiday will no longer feature a commercial aircraft ploughing into a nuclear power station at full speed.
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The greatest publicity tool ATHF needed is right there in front of them. Next time they should take control of the airwaves and loop I Want Candy by MC Peepants for a week. Catchiest tune ever