Let me say this first: Kids, terror hoaxes are not funny. They cost money and disrupt lives. Terrorism kills. Stay in school.
So it is with great, great seriousness and gravity that I must report the Aqua Teen Hunger Force angle to today’s bomb hoax in Boston, the subject of wall-to-wall non-coverage of a non-threat by the cable non-news networks. Opening the non-bomb “suspicious packages,” the police reportedly found pictures of these guys (not entirely SFW):
…who Aqua Teen Hunger Force fans will recognize as the Mooninites, the tiny, Space Invader-y, pot-smoking aliens from the funniest cartoon on late-night television. Let’s hand it over to Fox anchor Shepard Smith, doing his best impression of Joe Friday in Dragnet 2007:
This stupid alien image is from, I am now told, a Cartoon Network program named Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Yes. Aqua Teen Hunger Force…. It’s stoner kind of stuff, you know? … And now, these little alien guys called Mooninites have shut down a great American city… Stoner stuff is what it is. You know, not that I have that much against that, I’m just saying that’s what this is… This will not be funny to much of anybody.
It is, indeed, not the least bit funny. Smith’s report on the Mooninite threat did not, for instance, make me laugh so hard that my coworker in the next office telephoned to make sure I was all right. And also: CNN, MSNBC and Fox devoting uninterrupted, breathless afternoon coverage to the non-threat of non-bombs not exploding–long after it was clear there was no danger–all while giving a massive free ad to Adult Swim? Not even a teensy bit laughable.