Mooninite Invasion of Bean Town

2/1/07


Boston, Massachusetts ground to a halt under high alert yesterday when authorities discovered the city had been peppered with “suspicious packages.” Police, feds and even the Coast Guard were mobilized to deal with this massive, obviously coordinated threat of imminent terror. Authorities stated early Wednesday that the packages had components consistent with homemade bombs, and even destroyed a few of them with controlled explosions of their own. Bridges and major roads were quarantined as swarms of special law enforcement officials locked down Bean Town in order to deal with this horror. Finer coordination and swifter action has rarely been seen as Boston mobilized and captured all “nine suspicious devices”! Well…actually, they managed to locate and subdue nine marketing displays.

It was discovered late Wednesday afternoon that the full force of Boston’s response had basically had a full-on freak out and performed the city-wide equivalent of holding a billboard at bay with a shotgun. The devices which must have seemed at the time to be the very face of terror and destruction, turned out to be Lite-Brite style signs in the form of the Mooninites from the Cartoon Network show Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Which may be the best Adult Swim (who have a disclaimer about the incident up as of this posting) show ever, by the way. When looking at these signs, which have been up for weeks in other cities without police strapping explosives to them and exploding them, it’s difficult to see exactly what’s so pee-in-your-underoos horrifying about them, but then again, I’m no terror expert. I find it hard to believe there isn’t a single person on the massive Boston response team who hasn’t heard of this show as police blasted one of the signs with a water cannon in order to, I dunno, embarrass the “bomb” into not exploding? Now that’s a 1960’s-style solution to a 2007 problem!

Turner Broadcasting, who owns Cartoon Network has apologized for any confusion and trouble the signs have caused, but honestly, what the fuck was Boston thinking? I mean, I guess a massively ridiculous response to totally innocuous magnetic marketing signs is better than ignoring the dude suspiciously creeping away from his fertilizer truck after parking near city hall, but…wow did you fuckers overreact! Boston authorities are pissed, too. Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis had this to say,

“This has taken a significant toll on our resources.”

Spokesman for the Massachusetts Attorney General Emily LaGrassa was a little firmer when she said, “Our office is involved with an investigation with other federal and state authorities to determine if any criminal charges should be filed and, if so, against whom.”

I can understand that this was a big horror show for the Boston, but that kind of talk smacks of a city whose authorities have been terribly embarrassed and are pissed as hell. Boston has now become the equivalent of a man who has just been told the hottie who just gave him a suck-off in the bathroom is actually Earl the butcher in a wig.

The best part about this whole affair is that the Mooninites from ATHF who’s visage had, up to this point, been seen giving motorists the finger, would love how much chaos they’ve caused. The characters are kind of dicks, you see. What’s almost as good is listening to upstanding, official news reporters attempting to explain the show. Courtesy of the website Test Pattern:

“Trouble-making characters that look like 1980s-era computer graphics.”
(Associated Press/MSNBC.com)

“Outer-space delinquents who make frequent
appearances on the cartoon." (CNN.com)

"Boxy characters ... named Err
and Ignignokt ... Err is described on the "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" website as
"rebellious and angry." (Boston.com)

“The show follows the misadventures
of a carton of French fries, a milkshake and a wad of hamburger meat who live
together in a run-down suburban house.” (Associated Press/MSNBC.com)

“The show is an animated comedy about three detectives in the shape of
human-sized food products that live together in a rental house in New Jersey.”
(Fox News)

If you listen very closely, you can almost hear the sound of millions of Gen X and Y’ers laughing their collective asses off…in between the hits of pot, of course.

The promotion was for an upcoming ATHF movie which will undoubtedly be the awesomest thing ever. Watch the show. The explosion will be enormous. Jumping is useless.