Mario Question Blocks freak out small town in Ohio

Mario Question Blocks at UC Berkeley

"Five teenage girls from Portage County face potential criminal charges after attempting to play a real-life version of Super Mario Bros. The Portage County Hazardous Materials Unit and Bomb Detection Unit were called in to downtown Ravenna on Friday morning after seventeen suspicious packages -- boxes wrapped in gold wrapping paper with question marks spray painted on them -- had alarmed residents," reports the Akron Beacon Journal.

The girls, aged 16 and 17, could face prosecution. "The Ravenna Police Department will be working with the Portage County Prosecutor's Office regarding possible criminal charges as a result of the game," says the paper.

Comment: Much of America appears to be operating with the the mind-numbing stupidity frequently associated with Zero Tolerance ideas, which suggests this could end badly. It has prompted Ryan to put a warning notice about these Mario Question Blocks at Dinosaur Comics. He notes:

This is not a sinister 'game', it is supposed to be a comment on public spaces being routinely used for advertising (billboards, etc) but not for art (these boxes). Also, despite what Ravenna Police Chief Randall McCoy says, the purpose of these boxes is not "just to see what kind of response you get". It is to bring a smile to people's faces, to get them to connect with their neighbours, to bring colour into an otherwise grey urban landscape.

See this Flickr photo set to see just how scary Mario Question Blocks really are.