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  • FRIDAY FEBRUARY 9 2007 3:30 PM

Cartoon Network's Jim Samples Resigns: Aqua Teen Drama to Blame

Submitted by erin_broadley

Edited by erin_broadley



Just when you thought the worst things about the city were baked beans, fanatical Red Sox fans, and nasally accents—Boston just had to go and run the whole Aqua Teen/"bomb-like device" scandal into the ground, stomp it lifeless and leave some of our greatest Adult Swim master-minds shit out of luck when it comes to work.

Jim Samples, head of Adult Swim headquarters Cartoon Network, has resigned after the network was forced to pay $2 million in fines to the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office for the guerilla, Mooninite marketing prank that sent the entire city of Boston into a lockdown panic attack. The light-box scandal and subsequent arrest of its two perpetrators was the most unfortunate day in Boston-related history since Matt Damon and Ben Affleck won Oscars for Good Will Hunting.

[Samples] wrote in an internal memo to colleagues, "I deeply regret the negative publicity and expense caused to our company as a result of this campaign."


No word yet on who Samples' replacement will be.

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SatansPetCat

Satanspetcat

Bellevue, WA
January 2006

FEB 09, 2007 06:35 PM

bride said:
Actually a buddy of mine who is an executive over at CN told me that they had gotten city permits and the "devices" had been up for about 2 weeks prior.



I think this says the most; the fact that the mooninites were up for two to three weeks before anyone even noticed, and then all of a sudden it was a bomb threat?

Cash

Cash

USA
OLD SKOOL

FEB 09, 2007 06:40 PM

Menino is still pissed about the April Fools gag.

Stevie_D

Stevie_D

Tempe, AZ
October 2006

FEB 09, 2007 06:49 PM

malkav11 said:

HOWEVER...a fucking bomb squad cop should have been able to see the first one and go "Nope, that's not a bomb." What with the special training and all. Maaaybe they'd have to spend a little while investigating it, but really I think it should have been immediately obvious. At which point they should have breathed a sigh of relief, informed the concerned citizen that nothing was amiss, and gone on to whatever the next item of business was. Instead they wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars and many manhours finding and dismantling over ten of the things to no fucking purpose whatsoever. Also disrupted the city, etc etc.



Hmmm ...

"Look guys, I don't think it's a bomb. What? Yeah I know bombs come in all shapes and sizes, but from fifty yards away, I'm just not feelin' it. No, no, don't send the robot. That would take to long and would be inconvenient to the public. Hey Frank, just go over there and look at it. Maybe kick it a little. I don't care if that's dangerous, we need to hurry up and get out of here. We're totally being disruptive. I don't care if we don't have all the facts, WE'RE BEING DISRUPTIVE!"


Come on, now. That's not how professionals do it. No one is more qualified to assess this situation than the bomb squad. If they say to proceed with caution, then we proceed with caution. They're the experts, not some news pundit or civilian with zero knowledge or experience in their field. If they wanted to take precautions regarding these devices, I'd take their word for it. It shouldn't matter how long it takes.

That aside, it does bother me that Samples is falling on the sword over this. While I suppose that responsibility does ultimately lie with him, I think he could have paid the expenses, cracked some skulls internally and moved on.

Kris7

Kris7

Bridgewater, MA
July 2003

FEB 09, 2007 07:02 PM

Palo said:
Boston blowing a lot of things out of proportion = lame.

BUT

A marketing team not getting permits/permission to put what are essentially commercial materials up around Boston and expecting not to cause some sort of issue = also lame.



+1

thefreak

thefreak

NEWSWIRE

Gardner, MA

FEB 09, 2007 07:09 PM

Cash said:
Menino is still pissed about the April Fools gag.


How could be be pissed, he's dead!

-TM

_kungfoo_

_kungfoo_

Los Angeles, CA
April 2005

FEB 09, 2007 07:23 PM

ObservingOne said:
What do you expect from a state that repeatedly elects people like John Kerry and Ted Kennedy?

biggrin



Yeah, I know. I'd expect way better of them.

johnnyconfidence

johnnyconfidence

Barrie, ON
March 2006

FEB 09, 2007 07:23 PM

No guff eh?
That funkin blows.

That's a big FU to all the losers in charge who don't know what the fuck they're doin.

AS IF.

jj

reprobate

reprobate

New Orleans, LA
December 2002

FEB 09, 2007 07:33 PM

Oregano said:

thefreak said:

Oregano said:

Yeah, the city of boston could have handled this better. BUT a cop who doesn't watch cartoon network and finds a bunch of unidentified things with wires and batteries under bridges and near a subway stop isn't out of line for being suspicious.


Maybe so, but what about the 9 other cities that had them up and took them down or just left them be w/o incident? The whole brouhaha (plus Boston trying to charge the two men who put them up like they were terrorists) just shows that the city is going to ludicrous lengths to try and save face for the fact that people around the country are laughing their asses off @them.

Also, I don't understand how the president of cartoon network getting fired makes boston's residents stupid?


He resigned, there's a difference. This shouldn't have gotten out of hand to the point that Turner was forced in the court of retard public opinion to pay $2 million and that Mr. Samples felt he needed to leave his job.

-TM



It shouldn't have gotten as out of hand as it did, but I think everyone blaming boston as much as they are is a bit off base.



Because of what "could" have happened? A dirty diaper "could" be filled with sarin. Probably fucking isn't. A souped up light bright "could" be a bomb. Probably fucking isn't. Might want to find out before paralyzing the city all day, don't you think?

This is histrionics, plain and simple. Everybody is so wound up over potential "terror" threats that it becomes self justifying, and the self important "We're important enough to be a target" bullshit takes hold. Until al Qaeda abandons Islam and starts a cult venerating Batman reruns, I think we're safe from cartoon bombs.

rij

rij

I'm lost
January 2007

FEB 09, 2007 08:04 PM

Thank you, Oregano for standing up for a reasonable viewpoint. I think there is a herd mentality of Boston bashing in the majority of the other posts.

Circuit boards on subways, bridges and highways, are not something to ignore in this post 911 world.

While I heard the same ad campaign was done in other cities, I have not heard where the boards were placed. I imagine if they were on key sites like these, the reaction would have been the same.

I can't imagine a circuit board being placed on the Brooklyn Bridge, a NY subway station or the Statue of Liberty without a major reaction.

emotedcreations

emotedcreations

Germany
July 2006

FEB 09, 2007 08:29 PM

¡Viva!

Ignignokt and Err

¡Baja con los Chanchos Capitalistas!

Palo

Palo

SUICIDEGIRL

Massachusetts, USA

FEB 09, 2007 08:33 PM

bride said:

Palo said:
Boston blowing a lot of things out of proportion = lame.

BUT

A marketing team not getting permits/permission to put what are essentially commercial materials up around Boston and expecting not to cause some sort of issue = also lame.



Actually a buddy of mine who is an executive over at CN told me that they had gotten city permits and the "devices" had been up for about 2 weeks prior.



I'm not disputing that they'd been up; Boston overreacted, but it's still a reaction to stupidity on behalf of whoever authorized the signs.

I can't find anything that says they had a permit, and I would think they would have used that in their defense.

Boston has a lot of regulations regarding liability insurance and contractors who are legally allowed to put signs up. Which makes sense because if one of the guys hanging them were injured, or it fell on someone else, Boston is going to hold someone responsible. And because we apparently have enough trouble with things falling and killing people.

MrStitches

MrStitches

Brooklyn, NY
November 2003

FEB 09, 2007 08:42 PM

With him gone, maybe adult swim will start making good original programming again.

malkav11

malkav11

Saint Paul, MN
July 2003

FEB 09, 2007 08:44 PM

StevoD said:

malkav11 said:

HOWEVER...a fucking bomb squad cop should have been able to see the first one and go "Nope, that's not a bomb." What with the special training and all. Maaaybe they'd have to spend a little while investigating it, but really I think it should have been immediately obvious. At which point they should have breathed a sigh of relief, informed the concerned citizen that nothing was amiss, and gone on to whatever the next item of business was. Instead they wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars and many manhours finding and dismantling over ten of the things to no fucking purpose whatsoever. Also disrupted the city, etc etc.



Hmmm ...

"Look guys, I don't think it's a bomb. What? Yeah I know bombs come in all shapes and sizes, but from fifty yards away, I'm just not feelin' it. No, no, don't send the robot. That would take to long and would be inconvenient to the public. Hey Frank, just go over there and look at it. Maybe kick it a little. I don't care if that's dangerous, we need to hurry up and get out of here. We're totally being disruptive. I don't care if we don't have all the facts, WE'RE BEING DISRUPTIVE!"


Come on, now. That's not how professionals do it. No one is more qualified to assess this situation than the bomb squad. If they say to proceed with caution, then we proceed with caution. They're the experts, not some news pundit or civilian with zero knowledge or experience in their field. If they wanted to take precautions regarding these devices, I'd take their word for it. It shouldn't matter how long it takes.

That aside, it does bother me that Samples is falling on the sword over this. While I suppose that responsibility does ultimately lie with him, I think he could have paid the expenses, cracked some skulls internally and moved on.



Since they are basically circuit boards with light diodes on them, I don't think it's unreasonable to think that they should have been able to conclude they weren't a threat just from looking at it, but I wouldn't have blamed them if they had decided to investigate more closely just to be on the safe side. On one. That should have been all it took since they are, as you say, the experts, and these were not bombs.

Necia

Necia

San Francisco, CA
August 2005

FEB 09, 2007 09:01 PM

malkav11 said:
All right, the thing is this. I don't necessarily blame a random untrained metro employee for mistaking the signs for a bomb. I suspect said person was maybe not that bright, but okay, fine, whatever. So them calling it in would make sense at that point. And I absolutely would expect the cops to investigate. Because yes, if it were a bomb and they didn't, well, that'd be all kinds of bad.

HOWEVER...a fucking bomb squad cop should have been able to see the first one and go "Nope, that's not a bomb." What with the special training and all. Maaaybe they'd have to spend a little while investigating it, but really I think it should have been immediately obvious. At which point they should have breathed a sigh of relief, informed the concerned citizen that nothing was amiss, and gone on to whatever the next item of business was. Instead they wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars and many manhours finding and dismantling over ten of the things to no fucking purpose whatsoever. Also disrupted the city, etc etc.

All of which is squarely the bungling of the city and its employees. So for Turner to crawl on hands and knees to lick Boston's boots in apology, and for them to pay out 2 million in "damages", and for the head of Cartoon Network to lose his job, all because of something that is not their responsibility...well, that's just ridiculous.

I'm also not entirely unsympathetic to people who feel that the ad campaign was misguided to begin with, but I don't think it's reasonable to claim that Turner should have predicted Boston's bizarre and catastrophic overreaction. Again, ad campaigns of this nature occur all the time, and this one passed without incident in 9 other major cities.



Exceedingly well said.

Postmaster

Postmaster

Austin, TX
October 2004

FEB 09, 2007 09:12 PM

Anabel said:
This whole thing is sofa king re todd did.



+ 1

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