Maybe they don't look like bombs to you, but someone else might think they do. Why you can't understand that is beyond me. And the fact that they were found dangling from bridges, within subway stations and at the entrance of a hospital, would make them even more suspicious to the average person. How many other national TV outlets run ad campaigns by hanging objects, consisting of circuit boards and batteries from bridges or placing them non-chalantly in subway stations and hospitals? The average person wouldn't think "Oh Gee, it's another ad campaign for a cartoon show I've never watched or know anything about." I think the average person would call in and report a suspicious item hanging from the bridge or elsewhere.
My mistake, they're not AA's. They're the much more deadly C's or D's. Can't tell for sure.