Highlights include over 10M unique participants across 75 different countries through ‘eventizing’ the web, for instance the use of cell phones ringing from within cakes in Bakery stores. All in all it kept The Dark Knight in the news and alive and well on the internet for over a year, leading up to the July ’08 release.

Campaign Overview Video

Comic-con Event Video

Harvey Dent campaign video

Found via /Film and FSR

Download audio of the call

Coinciding with this phone call, the latest episode of Gotham Tonight has been added to GCN, the episode is set to interview Harvey Dent, the “White Knight”, however half way through it cuts to news of The Joker’s bank robbery.

Celebrated journalist Mike Engel sits down with the “White Knight” of Gotham City — District Attorney Harvey Dent. Dent defends controversial crime-fighter Batman, and says they’ve “benefited the entire city.”

Dent takes calls from viewers on Jonathan Crane and fears of a new outbreak of Fear Toxin, and confronts a GPD police officer angry over Dent’s prosecution of corrupt cops. And Engel asks the questions everybody’s been talking about — is Harvey Dent dating Assistant District Attorney Rachel Dawes? The episode ends with the breaking news that the Gotham National Bank has been hit by robbers who made away with 68 million dollars from the vault.

On each of these pages a puzzle piece with a letter was left, combining all the pieces the phrase “Kicking and Screening” can be found, which leads to the next Why So Serious page,

www.whysoserious.com/kickingandscreening/

Note the play on words, “Screening” — the prize — Free tickets to an IMAX pre-release Dark Knight screening on July 15th!. As quickly as they appeared they have now SOLD OUT.

AND HERE WE GO!!!

“You’ve played your part, here are your just rewards. Meet at the rendevous points below. Don’t be late, don’t forget your ticket or heads will roll. Casual attire, smiles optional.”

Sold Out Chicago, Cinemark IMAX (Woodridge) 9:30pm
Sold Out New York, Palisades IMAX (West Nyack) 9:00pm
Sold Out Edmonton, Silver City IMAX 9:30pm
Sold Out Pittsburg, Cinemark IMAX (Tarentum) 9:30pm
Sold Out Kansas City, Studio IMAX (Olathe) 9:00pm
Sold Out Phoenix, Deer Valley IMAX 9:00pm
Sold Out San Francisco, Metreon IMAX 9:00pm
Sold Out Los Angeles, Universal City IMAX 9:00pm
Sold Out Las Vegas, Palms IMAX 9:30pm
Sold Out Minneapolis, Metropolitan IMAX (St. Michael) 9:30pm
Sold Out Dallas, Cinemark IMAX 9:30pm
Sold Out Toronto, Scotiabank IMAX 9:30pm
Sold Out Salt Lake City, Jordan Commons IMAX (Sandy) 9:30pm
Sold Out Grand Rapids, Celebration IMAX 9:30pm
Sold Out Atlanta, Mall of Georgia IMAX (Buford) 9:45pm
Sold Out Denver, Colorado Center IMAX 9:45pm
Sold Out Houston, Marq*e IMAX 9:45pm
Sold Out Orlando, Pointe IMAX 9:45pm
Sold Out Portland, Bridgeport IMAX (Tigard) 9:45pm
Sold Out San Diego, Mira Mesa IMAX 9:45pm
Sold Out Omaha, Star IMAX (Council Bluffs) 9:30pm
Sold Out Indianapolis, Showplace IMAX 9:30pm
Sold Out Boston, Comcast IMAX (Natick) 7:00pm
Sold Out Seattle, Boeing IMAX 7:30pm

An email was also sent out shortly beforehand via Human Resources:

http://www.whysoserious.com/kickingandscreening HA HA HA HA HA ha HA HA ha HA HA ha HA HA HA ha HA HA HA ha HA HA HA HA HA HA HA ha ha ha HA HA ha HA HA HA ha ha ha HA HA ha HA HA HA ha ha HA HA HA HA HA HA HA ha HA HA ha HA ha ha HA HA HA HA HA HA ha HA HA ha ha ha HA HA HA HA HA HA ha ha HA HA HA ha HA HA HA HA ha ha HA ha HA ha HA HA HA HA HA ha ha ha HA HA HA HA ha HA HA HA ha HA HA HA HA ha HA ha

Thanks to everyone that sent this in! Hope you got your tickets in time! (We poor brits miss out again it seems — we’re getting the movie a week later anyway).

The official website has also been man-handled by The Joker:

On the small USB dongle that comes with the gift set, which contains a number of production images, etc, there is a plaque paying reference to the Gotham Historic Trust. There is also a paying in slip for the Gotham National Bank with username and password scribbled on.

Gotham National Bank

# Username: gnb3792
# Password: 99g28ct75k

Heading to the GNB admin page, www.gothamnationalbank.com/Admin, as of July 8th, there is a webmail login box.

Gotham Historic Trust

Calling the number, 1866 241 1150 as listed on the plaque returns the automated message:

Thank you for calling the Gotham Historic Trust. Nobody can answer your call right now, but you are welcome to visit our website at www gothamhistorictrust dot com where you can find our current hours of operation, information and online exhibits of Gotham City in days gone by. Thank you for calling.

An update to the Gotham National Bank also mentions the trust:

Gotham National Bank downtown is proud to be on the Gotham register of Historic Buildings. The main branch of Gotham National Bank was originally the old 1st Gotham Bank. In 1934, it was sold when the bank closed. The building passed through many hands in the intervening years and was vacant when it was purchased by Gotham National Bank. After several years of restoration under the oversight of the Gotham Historic Trust, the bank was restored and proudly re-opened its doors at 9:00 am on March 7, 1985.

This leads us to www.gothamhistorictrust.com

Thanks Pierre!

“I believe in Batman” — “I am a citizen for Batman“
July 8th.

Thanks Pierre.

Poster: BriDog72 — Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 at 00:12
Seems there’s been a bit of a slipup with the project me and Batfan73 have been working on. BatFan’s in jail and I need everyone’s help. He left me a voicemail, it was kinda garbled, but he said he was picked up by the cops for trespassing, so he needs some help getting everything activated. He’s not sure when he’s going to be able to extract himself from his situation.
He said he needs someone to get some sort of key off of an invoice, number 38272899 (geez, I hope I copied that down right), but he got cut off before he could tell me what this invoice is or even where to find it. We need this key to activate everything.
Can anyone figure this out? We’re going to need to fix this or the whole thing’s ruined! Anyone?

In an email to Glenn Barhyte, Jim Gordon made reference to Maroni Imports, leading us to a new viral site, www.maroniimports.com

With the invoice number from the forums post and the sruname “Craston”, which appeared in a small news update to the Gotham City Rail website:

ALERT: The STCS will undergo initial fine-tuning of its software on the evening of July 8th. This routine maintenance may result in temporary intermittent system delays. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. — C. Craston, Sr. Elec. Engineer, GCR

With this information the aforementioned invoice can be downloaded, at the bottom of it there is a key for a signal booster, Key: 5D45C08AA6C3638D7829C0D5183FDB14B0CDBF1DCB12. With this key, the signal booster was activated and CFB was updated to show two sets of co-ordinates in New York and Chicago. Hence the two locations for the big event this July 8th are now known:

New York and Chicago

CFB has since been updated to include a new mission statement:

Sometimes, you have to take a stand. You have to fight for respect. You have to let the entire world know you’re here.
On July 8th, nobody will be able to ignore us. Gather at the above coordinates at the appointed time, and help us take a stand in support of Batman!
If you can’t join us on the ground, we’ll be providing a way for you to watch what goes down, live on this website.
Defend Gotham! Defend Batman!
Key: 5D45C08AA6C3638D7829C0D5183FDB14B0CDBF1DCB12
Signal Booster status: ON

Thanks Pierre!

Wake up, clown! You have *one hour* to reply to be a part of today’s fun. /operator

Following a reply, this was sent:

Good. Do not reply again. I’ll be in touch…

After the hour deadline, participants were sent code words:

Work together, clowns. Your code-word: XXXXXXXX. Your partner: XXX-XXX-XXXX. Do NOT call until told to. Do not publicize this number.

Wait for a call — you will receive one or more code words. Relay these words to your partner.

You’re the first in the chain. Call your partner and relay your code-word NOW.

When all “relays” were completed, all five chains had dropped and five words are shown, these all have the word “house” in common, entering that into the box reveals a new game, “Punk Drop”.

Thanks Pierre!

Three future tasks have yet to be ticked off:

12. Be good to my guests
13. Gather all my fans
14. Leave a big mark

Reports

Some of the viral links on WSS contain reports on the viral event, with date, a list of occurrences, the end result, pictures and the aftermath — providing a succinct review of how we’ve got this far:

Citizens for Batman

Where a page originally stood we now find a countdown, heading ominously towards July 8th. CFB have also been sending out their propaganda to lucky Gotham citizens,

Including the letter:

Citizens for Batman!

It’s time to go public. To really defend Batman, we have to show the world how big our movement is. So check out the goodies inside and show your pride in CFB!

And get ready for a MAJOR show of force July 8th. (check out citizensforbatman.org for the latest.

Defend Gotham. Defend Batman!

Brian Douglass
Founder, Citizens for Batman

Thanks Dioz, Csam and Pierre!

To find the next sideshow, share these with your fellow goons. There’s no substitution for fun.

The pictures looked like this and were labelled 1A, 3B, etc. to form a larger grid:

In this grid there are 21 distinct shapes, each of which can be assigned a letter. From this pattern of 21 letters, a substitution cypher (as hinted in the text message) can be applied to reveal the message:

Color me impressed. Just use the second letter of the fourth word to the right of each circled five-letter word to find out where to go from here

This applies to the new Ha Ha Ha Times, revealing “Red Balloons” and hence:

WhySoSerious.com/RedBalloons

This presents us with another flash game with the apparent aim of inflating and bursting balloons to get points. At a certain point of inflation the clown eyes turn blue — when they are all blue a ticket pops out which links to “Inept Lackeys”.

Hired goons are so unreliable these days. That’s why I only employ the ones that graduated from the top of their class at Clown College (and being opera-lovers didn’t hurt, either). But Maroni’s got his hands full with inept lackeys like little Stevie and Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo? I’ll tell you where they are: sittin’ pretty with a smile on their face. They tried to reschedule their pick up service at Pasquale’s, but things didn’t go according to plan.

HAHAHAHA.

Pasquale’s has a telephone number for which the passcode is “Verdi” (83734).

Thanks for the heads up Pierre!