Aqua Teen Hunger Force bomb hoax
2 men held on bond after publicity stunt goes awry
Feb 1, 2007 Dominic von Riedemann
(Source: news.yahoo.com)
A Boston judge has ordered two men held on bond after a publicity stunt promoting Cartoon Network's Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie backfired, shutting down parts of the city.
Sean Stevens, 28, and Peter Berdovsky, 27, had been hired by a marketing company, Interference Inc., to put up 38 blinking boxes promoting the animated flick. The 1 foot tall boxes resembled a circuit board with protruding wires and batteries. The boxes would light up, showing a image of a Mooninite, a character from the show, giving passersby the finger.
Instead, each man found himself held on $2,500 cash bond after Boston police, thinking the boxes were a homemade incendiary device, deployed bomb squads to destroy them. The two men pleaded not guilty to placing a hoax device and disorderly conduct, for placing one of the boxes in a subway station.
Boston officials were quick to denounce Interfence's promotion.
"It is outrageous, in a post 9/11 world, that a company would use this type of marketing scheme," Mayor Thomas Menino said Wednesday. "I am prepared to take any and all legal action against Turner Broadcasting (owner of the Cartoon Network) and its affiliates for any and all expenses incurred during the response to today's incidents."
"It's clear the intent was to get attention by causing fear and unrest that there was a bomb in that location," claimed Assistant Attorney General John Grossman at their arraignment at Charlestown District Court. Both Berdovsky and Stevens, plus many members of the gallery, were amused by the statement.
The prosecutor generated even more amusement when he claimed the box found under Interstate 93, in Sullivan subway station, looking like it had C-4 explosive.
"The appearance of this device and its location are crucial," Grossman pronounced. "This device looks like a bomb."
Michael Rich, the attorney for both men, was quick to rebut prosecution statements. "If somebody had left a VCR on the ground," he said in an interview outside the courthouse, "it would have been a device with wires, electronic components and a power source."
Berdovsky, an artist, told The Boston Globe he was "kind of freaked out" by the furor.
"I find it kind of ridiculous that they're making these statements on TV that we must not be safe from terrorism, because they were up there for three weeks and no one noticed," he said. "It's pretty commonsensical to look at them and say this is a piece of art and installation."
Fans of the show ridiculed Boston authorities for what they saw as an overreaction.
"We're the laughing stock," said Tracy O'Connor, 34.
"It's almost too easy to be a terrorist these days," agreed Jennifer Mason, 26. "You stick a box on a corner and you can shut down a city."
Turner Broadcasting went on full damage control after the two men were arrested.
"We apologize to the citizens of Boston that part of a marketing campaign was mistaken for a public danger," said Phil Kent, chairman of Turner, a division of Time Warner Inc.
Kent said that Turner had told Interference Inc. to remove them immediately. The network also informed police of other cities where the blinking boxes had been placed for the past two to three weeks.
The devices had also been placed in various locations around New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Austin, San Francisco and Philadelphia. Police in those cities removed the boxes without incident.
The Aqua Teen Hunger Force Movie opens on March 23.
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