Article by Ramsey Boeckholt
Hi everybody, my name is Ramsey and I’m an intern here at MTV News Los Angeles. Yesterday, we got a FedEx from The Joker himself, with a plastic mask and note inside! Naturally, I grabbed a Flip camera (as seen on Oprah!) and headed over to the Hollywood & Highland mall to see what kind of anarchy the Batman villain had planned.
When I got there, I found hundreds of Batman fans dying to learn what would happen when the timer on the website hit zero at exactly 5:30 pm. Many came with their faces painted, or even dressed up in full costume. The note said to show up early “if you want to act like a clown,” but after I put on my mask a security guard told us we had to take them off because of security concerns. Damn mall cops, always keeping the man down!
Some people were on the phone with friends constantly checking the website; others had their computers on them. I made friends with random people who had somebody on their cell, so we were off and running.
At 5:30, our first clue instructed us to count the number of fountains in the mall’s courtyard. Next, we had to count the stone faces on the building across the street.
Soon, hundreds of geeks were on the Walk of Fame, counting the stars between the actors who played Charly Gordon and Jim Curry. I’m only 22 - who the hell are these people? Here are some of the random clues we were dealing with.
Suddenly, someone shouted that the website was saying the game was a joke and we had 3 minutes to get into the movie theater! I’ve never seen 1000 fat men in makeup run so fast.
The crowd flooded the theater lobby, where one of Joker’s henchmen appeared and told us to follow him back down to the street. As the crowd grew even larger, it stretched down Highland and around the corner, occupying most of Hawthorne Avenue. Various henchmen in masks handed out tickets, and we were told to walk back to the theater. After about 3 steps, everyone ran, trampling over the weaker among us.
Some street performer dressed as Peter Pan tried to stop the crowd. I don’t think we’ll be hearing from that guy again.
I was lucky enough to see the new “Dark Knight” trailer that you guys won’t be able to check out for a few more days (check out our shot-by-shot analysis of the trailer here!). There were tons of Batman shots, and lots of Heath Ledger, and the best part was I didn’t see Val Kilmer anywhere! It took me 2-and-a-half hours to watch a 3-minute trailer, but it was worth every bit of the insanity.
April 29th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
That boy is ADORABLE!
i’d love to see more of him
April 29th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
This intern isn’t a clown. Can hardly wait until I get to see this trailer. Best part of my comment, no Val Kilmer.
April 29th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Sexy voice.
April 29th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
This intern is no clown. Best part about my comment, no Val Kilmer!
April 30th, 2008 at 12:27 am
Isn’t this the boy from that band iNsidedowN?
I swear it looks just like him..
April 30th, 2008 at 2:11 am
This comment thread is hilarious.
April 30th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
That’s awesome. Doesn’t seem safe though. L.A. is weird.
April 30th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
This is pretty cool idea…can’t wait for the next intern video blog!
May 3rd, 2008 at 12:21 pm
this guy is grossly exaggerating. thousands of people? people in full joker costume? not quite. and the message that randomly popped up on one guys computer about getting to the theater in 3 minutes? also false. people were just too lazy to figure out the final clue, so they went to the theatre they *thought* the trailer would be shown in.
May 4th, 2008 at 8:39 am
Nice report. The viral marketing for this film has been amazing! I’ve been trying to keep up with it & it almost seems to be like a full-time job, it’s crazy. I can’t wait to see this movie!!
BATMAN FAN? Visit The Bat-Blog!
http://www.bat-blog.com
Thanks, Tommy
May 4th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
dude, that day was fun. i dont think anybody got hurt. me and my friend are in that video. my friend more then me. hes the one with the long curly hair and blue shirt that ran past the camra up the stairs.
May 5th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Apparently your definiton of ‘thousands’ and mine are completely different. My count was about 350 or so. Hope the internship hasn’t covered fact checking yet. (if it has you could still get a job at Fox News)
May 5th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
mmhhmmm yes I’m a snooty person and being so I have a degree in counting large numbers of people, and you are all idiots there were obviously thousands of people there. I laugh at the people stupid enough to think they could get in without a ticket.