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.
i'd love to see more of him ;)
I swear it looks just like him..
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Thanks, Tommy