Turner Exec Quits After Ad Stunt Panics Boston

The terrorist attack on Boston carried out last week by little middle-finger-baring cartoon characters has claimed its first victim.

Jim Samples, head of Turner Broadcasting's Cartoon Network resigned yesterday, saying he was taking responsibility for having deployed the little Lite-Brite creatures that caused widespread panic in the city.

Central Boston was virtually paralyzed for hours on Jan. 31 as bomb squads closed highways, bridges and a section of the Charles River to round up boards featuring the stars of a TV show about a box of french fries, his milkshake best friend and a meatball. The program, "Aqua Teen Hunger Force," runs in Cartoon Network's Adult Swim late-night programming block.

Turner Broadcasting notified the FBI in Atlanta, where the network is based, once it realized the terrorist scare in Boston being covered on all the cable news networks, including its own CNN, was being caused by the little characters on boards it had installed weeks before in Boston and nine other cities.

"I am sure you are aware of recent events in which a component of an Adult Swim marketing campaign made Turner Broadcasting the unintended focus of controversy in Boston and around the world," Samples said yesterday in an internal e-mail that made its way around the media swamp faster than you could say, "What are they smoking in Boston?"

"I deeply regret the negative publicity and expense caused to our company as a result of this campaign. As general manager of Cartoon Network, I feel compelled to step down, effective immediately, in recognition of the gravity of the situation that occurred under my watch," Samples said in the e-mail.

On Monday, Turner Broadcasting and the guerrilla marketing company that actually deployed the cartoon-festooned boards agreed to pay $2 million to atone.

About $1 million of that will go to reimburse various state and local agencies for expenses and lunches incurred as a result of the discovery of the little blinking, finger-flipping cartoon characters; the second mil will be used to fund the Boston area's new Homeland Security Cartoon Character Identification and Containment Initiative.

Meanwhile, the two guys who'd been hired to put up the boards around Boston were charged with disorderly conduct. We are not sure whether that was because of the job of putting the cartoon characters around town or the news conference they held after their arrest in which they demanded all questions put to them be about hairstyles.

They really know how to do things in Boston, don't they?

It's a well-known truth that nobody in the entertainment industry ever steps down to take responsibility for anything if they are otherwise wildly successful at what they do. After the 2004 Janet Jackson Super Bowl Halftime Show That Rocked the World to Its Core did you notice anyone at CBS or MTV (which produced the halftime show for CBS) issuing a public statement saying they were resigning to take responsibility? Me neither.

Which is why Samples's e-mail yesterday revved up rumors his resignation had as much to do with Cartoon Network's mediocre ratings as with the little "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" juvenile delinquent "mooninite" character that scared the stuffing out of Boston that fateful day. Adult Swim, for instance, is averaging about 472,000 viewers in its target age bracket of 18 to 34 -- compared with 471,000 viewers last year.

Yesterday, in his e-mail, Samples said he hopes his decision "allows us to put this chapter behind us and get back to our mission of delivering unrivaled original animated entertainment for consumers of all ages."

But, of course, there is no more "us." The 13-year Turner veteran is gone, effective immediately.