TIL of GUERRILLA MARKETING and the GREAT MOONINITE PANIC of 2007 : or How a tiny LED sign turned a city upside down.
TIL of GUERRILLA MARKETING and the GREAT MOONINITE PANIC of 2007 : or How a tiny LED sign turned a city upside down.
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On the morning of January 31, 2007, the Boston Police Department and the Boston Fire Department mistakenly identified battery-powered LED placards depicting the Mooninites, characters from the Adult Swim animated television series Aqua Teen Hunger Force, as improvised explosive devices (IEDs), leading to a massive panic.
The best part:
As members of the media attempted to ask them how they felt about causing a panic, the pair refused to answer any questions not related to “haircuts of the ’70s.”
And as I remember, someone asked them more or less, what type of haircuts do you think you guys will be getting in prison? And whoever was going to answer the question genuinely hesitated and looked worried.
Jajajaja
If the Boston marathon bombing had happened within a year prior to this I might understand, but come on...
The Iraq war was still in full swing and cities were getting Homeland Security bulletins about possible revenge attacks.
That was a very dark time for the country, we've definitely not recovered from it and it allowed a lot of Christian nationalism and budding-fascism to metastasize into the danger it is today.
IF YOU SEE SOMETHING SAY SOMETHING
Dumbest bullshit ever
Correct. But yay aqua teens.
No, I'm certain there's been dumber bullshit. You underestimate our collective stupidity.
MOON RULZ #1
Can you see this? I'm doing it as hard as I can
FTL: Best of the Mooninites from the Adult Swim Show, Aqua Teen Hunger Force: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0udqZsvrux0
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=0udqZsvrux0
https://piped.video/watch?v=0udqZsvrux0
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Damn, I can't believe this was 16 years ago...
I remember when Adult Swim aired the entire movie for free... At 1/32 the size in a corner of the screen
I remember how excited I was at the beginning, until they shrunk it down. I tried making sense of what was happening by standing real close to the Tv. But like most ATHF content, it was as nonsense without sound as it was with. The Neal Peart solo was pretty cool though!
I remember that. I never watched that show so I had no idea what the reference was, but if I had seen it in person, I would have just thought it was viral marketing. What's so scary about it?
I did see it and knew what it referenced. There was nothing scary at all about it, it was clearly an LED sign. I couldn't believe how massive an over reaction there was to it by the police. Terrorists tend not to put bright LEDs on their weapons as an advertisement.
People were still pretty 9/11 crazy in those days and I remember thinking the reaction was way more entertaining than even the marketing.
As a huge ATHF fan (I have a Master Shake tattoo on my ass), it just really spoke to me. Felt like an alignment in the cosmos.
Boston PD were(are) out of their minds. They also blew up an ordinary traffic counting device deployed by the city.
I always thought they were Lite Brites.