It wasn’t funny while it was going on and I can’t say I blame Boston Mayor Tom Menino for being incensed yesterday after his city spent over half a million dollars running all over the city chasing down what they thought were numerous explosive devices. But when I found out it was really just some souped-up Lite-Brite type-things promoting a cartoon show called Adult Swim, well, now I think it’s pretty damn funny, only because it really speaks to how drastic generation gaps are in today’s world. Anyone under 25 probably saw the things (they’ve been there for weeks) and smiled or laughed, but as soon as an unsuspecting adult became……suspecting, well, it was crisis mode.
Anyway, my compliments to the city of Boston – it’s very comforting (and apparantly expensive) to know that the city is taking security this seriously. The whole “erring on the side of caution” thing applies. That said, it’s surprising it got that far and that someone didn’t pick up on it as an advertising campaign earlier than they did.
I’m not sure how I feel about the kid who put them up. On one hand, it’s an art school student who was just trying to make a couple extra bucks. Can’t fault him for that. Truth be told, he probably didn’t think in a million years he was really doing anything wrong, so should he be prosecuted? I mean, it couldn’t have entered his mind that a cartoon character giving the middle finger was going to cause such a ruckus. But it did. And he probably should have at least asked the people paying him to do it if they had permission from the city.
Turner Broadcasting, the network that airs the show, is really at fault, not some 27 year old art school foot soldier. They should just pay whatever it cost the city to play Keystone Cops, apologize and be done with it. Nobody needs to go to jail, fer chrissakes.
The whole thing: not funny. But very funny.