TVSquad

Via Adult Swim HQ comes news that the charges against the two men who placed various Aqua Teen Hunger Force displays around Boston have had the charges against them dropped.

Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens were hired by a marketing firm in New York to place various light boxes around Boston that featured a Mooninite giving the finger. They have since been performing community service as part of their plea.

Cartoon Network set up a guerrilla marketing campaign in several major cities to drum up interest in the movie Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters. It was in Boston, however, that that the marketing stunt backfired when the displays were mistaken for bombs and the two artists subsequently arrested. By the time it was all over, the president of Cartoon Network had resigned and Turner broadcasting had paid two million to the cities of Boston, Somerville and Cambridge.

Whatever your feelings are on the recent kerfuffle spurred by Turner's Aqua Teen promotion in Boston, you have to admit that flashing signs is probably the worst idea a terrorist could come up with. I mean, it might attract attention, but it's not exactly boss, ya know? Although, it would be nice to live in a world where the only acts of "terrorism" were completely innocuous: they make flashy signs, we retaliate with skywriting over Afghanistan that reads, "Osama has poopy pants." We could hire kindergartners to head our counter-terrorism efforts, leading us into the great I Know You Are But What Am I? Insult War of 2012. My god, it would be beautiful.

Anyway, College Humor has an idea of how this whole mess in Boston got started. I think they might be onto something. Check out the video below.

Hey, Brigitte here with TV Squad Daily. I'll be covering the TV stories I find interesting each day, Monday through Friday, in this video blog.

Today on TV Squad Daily:

• American Idol contestants are accusing Simon Cowell of fixing the competition.
  
• Did the head of Cartoon Network really need to resign following the Boston bomb scare over Aqua Teen Hunger Force advertisements?
  
• Clay Aiken's plan for fighting back against tabloid rumors is bound to backfire.
  

The video's embedded below, or you can download the file directly (Quicktime required). You can also subscribe to this vodcast via our feed.

They say there's no such thing as bad publicity. Turner Broadcasting got way more attention for Aqua Teen Hunger Force by causing a bomb scare in Boston than they would have received if their Mooninites had only been seen and recognized by regular viewers of the program who already knew what they were.

But now it looks like Turner and marketing firm Interence Inc. will pay Massachusetts and federal agencies $2 million in compensation for the resources spent during last week's scare. That's about a million dollars to cover costs, and another million that will go to fund other homeland security functions.

While Mooninites signs were put up in 10 cities, only Boston took extreme actions to deal with them, resulting in the rather large bill for law enforcement activities.

In other Mooninite news, G4's Attack of the Show weighed in on the controversy last week. We have video of host Kevin Pereira's analysis of the incident after the jump.

You know that crazy Aqua Teen Hunger Force promotion that caused a kerfuffle in Boston recently? Well, if you've got a fat wad of cash I suggest you get yourself over to eBay where some of those neon Mooninites are currently up for auction. This is your chance to own a piece of advertising history. A promotion hasn't caused a scare like this since that time Poppin Fresh got high on wheat germ and held a press conference demanding the immediate execution of Mrs. Butterworth.

Our readers have had a lot of opinions about who exactly is to blame for the misunderstanding, and whether or not local authorities and media overreacted to the incident. I don't have an opinion about it one way or the other, but one thing is certain: a lot more people now know about Aqua Teen Hunger Force who probably had no idea what the heck it was before all of this craziness went down.

[via Lost Remote]

Hey, Brigitte here with TV Squad Daily. I'll be covering the TV stories I find interesting each day, Monday through Friday, in this video blog.

Today on TV Squad Daily:

• Boston's bomb scare turned out to just be advertising for Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
  
• Is all the praise finally going to Jennifer Hudson's head? She describes her time on American Idol as "abusive."
  
• Dustin Diamond was forced to be quarantined while filming Celebrity Fit Club because of something he said to past American Idol contestant Kimberly Locke.
  

The video's embedded below, or you can download the file directly (Quicktime required). You can also subscribe to this vodcast via our feed.