2 Men Released From Jail in Hoax Case

Members of the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority police, the Masachusetts State Police and the Boston Bomb Squad respond to a suspicious package found near the Sullivan Square subway station in Boston, Wednesday morning, Jan. 31, 2007. Four additional suspicious devices, similar in nature to the one found Wednesday morning, were found Wednesday afternoon in four different areas of the city. All devices proved to be hoaxes. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger) (Adam Hunger - AP)

In the Seattle area, authorities thought the devices were "obviously not suspicious."

"In this day and age, whenever anything remotely suspicious shows up, people get concerned _ and that's good," King County sheriff's Sgt. John Urquhart said. "However, people don't need to be concerned about this. These are cartoon characters giving the finger."

Tobe Berkowitz, an advertising professor at Boston University, said it's easy to understand why there is a generational gap between the way the target audience for the promotional campaign reacted and the way older Bostonians reacted.

"For people who are hip and live in the world of blogs and all sorts of cool alternative media, it's one thing," he said. "But for the rest of us ... they don't get it as a marketing or a clever event, they see it as a huge disruption of their lives."

The publicity campaign was conceived by the Adult Swim marketing department and approved by the head of the Cartoon Network, Turner spokeswoman Shirley Powell said Thursday. She said the devices had been up for two weeks around the country and the network had not received any calls about them.

"We were simply promoting a TV show," she said. "If we had ever perceived this to be something threatening safety, we would never have proceeded with it."

The network told the marketing company to decide where the devices should be placed, with the mandate they should be in places likely to be seen by young men. Adult Swim's target audience is men aged 18 to 24.

The marketing company that placed the signs, Interference Inc. of New York City, did not return calls seeking comment and its offices were closed Thursday.