VIRAL NEWS

The Joker's Worldwide Bowling Alley Treasure Hunt

by Alex Billington
April 1, 2008

The next phase of The Dark Knight viral marketing campaign has again yet kicked into high gear. Early this morning the envelope on ClownTravelAgency.com was opened to reveal a list of 28 cities around the world (including London, Hong Kong, Paris, and Brazil). The message stated that there was only one "bag of fun" to be found at each location on the list. With that information alone, I gathered up my things early in the morning and ventured an hour north into the suburbs of Denver to find out what Joker had left for us. To give you a hint: it involved a bowling alley.

On my drive up, my friends and I discovered that the places were bowling alleys and the message on the site was a riddle that actually specified bowling alleys (with mention of a "ball", "strike", and "spare"). With that, I began searching around Lakewood, Colorado for any and all bowling alleys and ended up finding the right one a few hours before the address would hit.

Every hour a new set of locations is revealed. Until each address is revealed, just the name of the city is listed. If you were lucky enough to be the first to one of the locations, you'd find a bowling bag with a ball and evidence bag full of more goodies. All of the locations in the US were bowling alleys with lockers. Once the information was revealed, you'd enter the combination written on the site on the locker and pick up Joker's goody bag inside.

Here is information from Empire on the first pick up from London:

The ball was in the basement of the Tavistock Hotel, also known as Bloomsbury Bowl. Queensway, Bayswater is also home to a bowling alley. So, we're guessing these are all hidden in bowling alleys.

The ball apparently had a telephone number scratched into it and the bag also contained an evidence bag, inside which were a phone, a charger, Joker playing card and a note saying to call the number immediately. One of our users, Sowasred2012, says he found one of the bags, the lucky boy.

Each bag contained a bowling ball with a telephone number and Joker name on it (the one in my area had Groucho), another cell phone and charger, a brief message, and a Joker card. You can see the photos below of one of the bags (courtesy of the SuperHeroHype boards):

Once you pick up the bag, you can make a call on the phone to the number on the ball and it gives you the standard "we know who you are" and "await further instructions" message. It seems like the Joker is really building up his army. You take those 17 that were involved in the anagram on Sunday with phones and add on another 28 of them, including internationally, and that now makes 45. That's 45 people who now have phones that are directly in touch with the Joker, who must be planning some incredibly expansive worldwide domination campaign come July. He really wants to take down Gotham City!

Unfortunately I didn't get the bag... Well, I was at the right bowling alley a few hours beforehand, but the place was scammed. Some guy had shown up at the same time of me and begged the confused manager to give him the information. After admitting that he had heard about some game being played, he searched through their records to find the information and gave that guy the combo. An hour and half before Colorado's information showed up officially on the website, this guy had stolen the bag and ball right out from under me!

As of now, 21 of the bags have been picked up (which leaves another 7). Many are still speculating that something big will arrive at the end once all of them are picked up. Another trailer perhaps? New photos? Something else that makes this viral game even more exciting? All we know is that we got screwed out of our ball and cell phone and we're still awaiting some big news to hit once they're all picked up. Stay tuned!

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