Cartoon Network Head Resigns After Scare

amen brotha

Here's what I see as one the main problem:

One of the men criminally charged after placing blinking cartoon advertisements around the city videotaped a police bomb squad removing one of the electronic devices, but did not tell the officers the object was harmless. Surveillance cameras caught 27-year-old Peter Berdovsky videotaping officers removing what they thought was a possible bomb.

The two said in their statements they weren't aware of the panic they'd caused (which if true would have absolved them of the charges), yet now have been found to have videotaped the police at the height of the panic. I'd love to hear the videotaper's commentary as he was shooting the removal.

Too clever by 1/2? We'll see.

With that said: It was still an over-reaction that should have never occurred.

But, I could be persuaded that there is evidence that Turner Broadcasting or the Ad Agency knew of the issue and purposefully let it escalate.

Worst case scenario -- both parties turn out to have egg on their face.

There allegedly was communication from Interference Inc. to Peter Berdovsky during the scare to pretty please keep everything on the dl

Doesn't say if it was a memo,email,IM or voice mail.

Why resign? In defense of innocent animations and a noble appearing excuse to put a 13 year old job behind you in exchange for pushing the throttle on a 60 ft motor yacht somewhere off the coast of Grand Cayman.

"...and if you squeeze them just right you can get this beautiful stream..."

He's probably just talking about some more '70s hair ;-)

But -- it didn't translate to numbers for the TV show. A marketing campaign that is talked about but that doesn't deliver -- still a failure.

Yes, true. I'm sure I'll make more enemies of the cult fans but I don't think anything could actually help that particular show no matter how clever the stunt.

Except that the goal was to increase viewership (presumeably) which didn't happen. That people commented on the marketing campaign doesn't translate into advertising dollars for their network and as such, it would be considered a failure, not a success.

I thought the campaign was for the upcoming movie and not so much for the TV show?

Chances are, they're blowing it -- at this point. The movie would have had to have been released within a couple weeks of the incident.

As much as they're bending in this case, I'm losing a bit of the humor that I saw in it in the first week or so.

If you look at it from that perspective, then sure, it was a success. But if you look at from a business perspective, it was a failure. If after all that happened, it only increased viewership some 6,000 people, then it was a bust -- on top of which it cost them $2 million and their CEO.

Broader question: would a bomb squad be sent in if it was any city other than Boston? Don't give me useless Euro-superiority. New York and other cities responded pretty much the way you imply those sophisticated Euros would have.

I think the Boston Police may still have some sort of complex over the fact that it was Boston where the hijackers boarded three of the four 9/11 planes. That doesn't excuse the fact that behaved like a group of police straight out of Monty Python in this case, but it might explain it.

Aqua Team falls somewhere in the middle. Sometimes it's brilliant, sometimes it's played.

It really depends on how stoned you are when you watch it ;).

I didn't realize I got flashbacks so often.