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SCOTT JAGOW: The panic in Boston yesterday is actually nothing new. Guerilla marketing campaigns have scared the daylights out of people before.

Just last year in Los Angeles, Paramount put little music boxes in newspaper racks to promote the movie Mission Impossible III.

Police officer Paul Vernon says that freaked out people as well.

PAUL VERNON: When people opened the news racks to buy a paper, the theme song would go off. Well the little box that played the music caused concern. When people saw them they thought that a bomb had been planted in newspaper racks. And again, another example of an ill-conceived campaign in this day and age.

In Boston, authorities are deciding whether to press charges against Turner Broadcasting for its campaign.

The scary electronic devices found all over the city were promoting a late-night cable cartoon about a talking milkshake, a box of fries and a meatball.

You just can’t make this stuff up.