That’s Not A Hair Question — January 2007

This week marks the anniversary of that time Adult Swim promoted their series Aqua Teen Hunger Force by installing neon signs of one of its characters on various urban streets throughout America. It went over fine in most places (including Portland), except in Boston where their police force mistook one for a bomb, specifically from Al-Qaeda — because we know what a fan bin Laden was of subversive late-night cartoons.

Pundits started accusing Adult Swim and its parent company Turner Broadcasting of creating hysteria on purpose — basically guilty of a crime they made up. They demanded answers from whoever was responsible for installing the signage. Two underpaid slackers in white dreadlocks emerged from their mother’s house and gave a very Adult Swim response to the press, refusing to answer any questions that weren’t about “haircuts in the 1970s.”

The incident ultimately resulted in the removal of Cartoon Network president Jim Samples, and his replacements thought it would be a good idea to flood the network with cheap reality shows, which ended up cratering ratings so badly they were then willing to take a risk on a quirky cartoon about a boy and his shapeshifting dog that Nickelodeon had rejected. Adventure Time wound up saving CN and became the most influential cartoon of the 2010s. Do Finn and Jake owe their entire existence to these stupid “bombs”? Dunno, that’s not a hair question.