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Scary Dessert Prompts Call to Bomb Squad in ‘Dark Knight’ Promo

Bomb squads reported to a Texas television news station in response to a call complaining of a suspicious chocolate cake last week.

The cake, wired to a cell phone, was sent to KENS 5 TV on behalf of the eight-theater Santikos Theater chain to promote its showings of the new Dark Knight film, according to Adweek.
The cake promo was the topper to a three-week buzz-building campaign geared toward local media which began on June 26 with a classified ad, ostensibly inked by the Joker, placed in local papers recruiting clowns. The ad asked  those interested to send emails to whysoserious@santikos.com; those who responded were asked to attend the Dark Knight premiere.

The campaign also included a fake news report, in conjunction with the local Fox affiliate, about graffiti artists tagging the local theater with the Batman symbol.

The cake bomb scare was reminiscent - though on a much smaller scale - of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force promo disaster in Boston in February 2007. That event led to the resignation of Jim Samples, executive vp and general manager of Turner Broadcasting’s Cartoon Network.

“Causing that kind of disturbance with the bomb squad and police officers was never our intention,” Meghan Vincent, a rep for the eight-theater chain in Texas, was quoted as saying. “This was not exactly the kind of press we were going for.” She extended the theater’s apologies to the station.

The Dark Knight has received wide publicity on its own due to the untimely death of co-star Heath Ledger. It is expected to be one of the summer’s biggest box office hits.