Legal Sea Foods unveils more snarky ads

Get ready, Green Line riders. The foul-mouthed fish are back.

After months of negotiations, Legal Sea Foods said it has received approval from the MBTA for a new series in its "Fresh Fish" ad campaign.

The new insults include zingers such as: "Kiss my bass;" "If that's your girlfriend, I'd throw her back;" and "Darn, you smell like carp."

The wisecracking cartoon fish made quite a splash last June when they first appeared on the Green Line. One ad, which featured the line "This conductor has a face like a halibut," prompted outrage among the trolley conductors, whose union complained to T management.

The conductor ads were immediately removed.

At the time, Roger Berkowitz, chief executive of Legal Sea Foods, only inflamed the controversy by taking to the airwaves to issue a "solemn" apology to the train operators, saying: "We should have never, ever said, 'This conductor has a face like a halibut,' when the truth is, most conductors don't look anything at all like halibuts. Some look more like groupers or flounders. I've even seen a few who closely resemble catfish. And there's one conductor on the Green Line that looks remarkably like a hammerhead shark. So we feel badly about this mischaracterization."

Legal Sea Foods said the T blocked the second round of ads, which were supposed to appear in August, until now.

Joe Pesaturo, a spokesman for the MBTA, said Legal had presented several ads last summer that did not meet court-approved guidelines. Pesaturo said Legal Sea Food's ad agency took many weeks to bring back revised ads for the T to approve.

"What can I say?" Berkowitz said. "My fish is really fresh."

To read some previous Globe coverage about Legal's fresh fish campaign, please click here and here.
(By Jenn Abelson, Globe staff)