Lite-Brite masterminds

I’m sure that if I’d been stuck in yesterday’s gridlock around Boston, where they were caught up in a localized War of the Worlds, I’d find this story far less amusing. In the spirit of sympathy for what was doubtless a miserable day for folks in Beantown, though, I’ll do my best to contain myself (from WaPo):

A guerrilla marketing campaign for a cartoon show about a box of french fries and his milkshake pal set off a scare that nearly shut down Boston’s commercial district yesterday, as bomb squads closed highways and two bridges in search of what turned out to be magnetic-light versions of the cartoon characters.

Ahhh yes. The guerilla marketing campaign. Catchy, eh? From the Boston Herald:

A furious Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino vowed yesterday to throw the book at the masterminds behind a guerrilla marketing campaign gone amok that plunged the city into bomb-scare pandemonium and blew nearly $1 million in police overtime and other costs.

Complete with masterminds.
AC, of course, mistakenly though these dangerous devices bore a startling resemblance to a long-ago-donated toy — Lite-Brite. Silly child.

More from WaPo (my emphasis):

But much of Boston was not in on this joke. The packages were discovered near the New England Medical Center, two bridges and a tunnel. Attorney General Martha Coakley said Peter Berdovsky, 27, of Arlington, Mass., and Sean Stevens, 28, of Charlestown, Mass., had each been arrested on a felony charge of placing a hoax device and a charge of disorderly conduct.
“We regret that they were mistakenly thought to pose any danger,” said an e-mail message released by Turner spokeswoman Shirley Powell. “They have been in place for two or three weeks in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Austin, San Francisco and Philadelphia.“

Two to three weeks, all over the country? Did they not recognize the dire threat elsewhere?

In the Seattle area, the first device was found Tuesday by a Woodinville Public Works Department crew working on a railroad trestle over Highway 202, said Woodinville Police Chief John McSwain.
“Public Works found it and took it down and didn’t even bother to call us” because the device didn’t appear to be threatening, he said.

Evidently the Woodinville crew didn’t understand how serious the device might have been…. or else somebody had a five year old at home that plays with Lite-Brites… or maybe it’s just because they didn’t have the news media ramping the situation up in the background.
Such foolishness.
But it’s not really very funny, is it? As Jack Grant writes at TMV, this is what six years of fear-mongering has reduced us to.