Greatest Press Conference in the History of Media
February 2, 2007 | 1 Comment
The insanely ridiculous terror scare in Boston on Wednesday lead to the greatest press conference that has ever occurred. Watch above, you can’t help but love it!
Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens walk out of the Charlestown District Court and turn the media into a laughable circus, a feat they usually only accomplish on their own. The only topic open for discussion would be “haircuts in the 70’s”. The press conference goes on for a good amount of time with them refusing to consider any other topic and their lawyer repeatedly supporting this position. Eventually the media gives up and leaves them alone.
They were arrested for putting up throwies around Boston that depicted an advertisement for “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” on Cartoon Network’s late night Adult Swim. Considering the fact that they were hired to do this work and their only intention was marketing and not terror, legally they should be fine. Luckily the judge handling the case seems like a reasonable person. “Judge Paul K. Leary seemed skeptical of the state’s case, telling Grossman that the law requires that people must intend to create a panic to be charged with placing hoax devices. This case, the judge said, seemed to involve two men who relatives say were paid to place unorthodox advertisements throughout the city.” [from the MAKE article]
Clearly the devices they used were innocuous and reasonably common (at least in principle) amongst netizens. I first learned about throwies a year ago in this Amanda Congdon Rocketboom video. Boston was the only city, out of the many that saw the same marketing campaign, that overreacted in this way.
Some of my favorite quotes I’ve heard related to this incident:
- “Boston police protect me from marketing!”
- “Couldn’t these have really been bombs?” response: “So could trash cans, mailboxes, and tubes of toothpaste…”
- “The press accuses of them of not taking it seriously but, in a sense, they’re taking it just as seriously as they ought to.”
- “omg exploding light brights”
In the end, what I find most disturbing is that this was a win for terrorism, even though no terrorists showed up to play…
Thanks to Cliff for finding the embed friendly YouTube video
Tags: adult swim, amanda congdon, aqua teen hunger force, boston, cartoon network, MAKE, marketing, Peter Berdovsky, rocketboom, Sean Stevens, terrorism, throwies, youtube
Aquaman is Lame, TV Pilot is Not
August 8, 2006 | 1 Comment
I was as surprised as you may be, but the Aquaman pilot for the show that is unlikely to ever be made was pretty good. It turns out I’m not alone in my opinion here as the Aquaman Pilot has hung around the top sales charts on iTunes for weeks. I think The CW is missing out on a potential hit. I’m left wondering how this show would be cancelled over 7th Heaven…
OK, now on to the Aquaman bashing that is almost too easy to take part in… When I found out my good friend Keith was a life long Aquaman fan, I decided I might as well dig up all the hilarity that is Aquaman bashing.
First of all is Seanbaby.com’s profile on Aquaman as a member of The Super Friends. Here are a few tidbits from this must read page:
Aqua Man does things like send a school of little fish against a submarine. There are rare times when he remembers he can call something tough like a whale or a shark — usually when they’re in some freshwater lake or a swimming pool. And you don’t have to be a marine biologist to know that’s fucked up.
Plus, Aquaman forgets he has powers all the time. He’ll be going for a swim, and for no reason, a disgruntled octopus will try to kill him. I guess they hate him as much as we do.
When they first formed the Super Friends, they had a good time making office pools on how long it would take until they had to rescue Aquaman again. Now it’s just part of the day’s scheduled events. Their day goes breakfast, arts and crafts, Earth Science, Batman’s Bat-Tips, Lunch, free time, rescue Aquaman, lecture Aquaman, crisis prevention, song practice, rescue Aquaman, punch Aquaman, dinner.
OK, if you enjoyed any of those quips, go read the whole thing, it rules.
Even Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim got in on using Aquaman as the butt of their jokes, check out these two quick clips on YouTube [1] & [2].
Finally, I remembered this fantastic clip from the under appreciated Dr Katz series. In this one a guy is talking with Dr. Katz about how lame it would be to have Aquaman’s limited powers. Classic.
OK, that’s enough, if Keith stumbled upon this he may be tearing by this point so I should let up, cause we all know if his brothers find this he’ll never live it down. Maybe I’ll look up Hawkman parodies next…
Tags: adult swim, aquaman, aquaman pilot, cartoon network, comics, cw, dc, dr katz, hawkman, itunes, lame, parody, pilot, seanbaby, the cw, videos