Tuesday, March 18, 2008

The Adventure to Phantom Fireworks!

Citizens,

It's been awhile since Batman and I posted here. And I realized in a post I made 3 years ago that I promised to tell you all about our misadventure to find some fireworks to use in filming! Now, I know the loyal legion of you have been checking this site daily and asking yourself "Why Robin! Why won't you tell us?!" Today, my friends, the day is here.

Back in the summer of 2004, Batman and I were talking about making Episodes 3 &4. We had talked about many upgrades to the episodes like costumes, environments and props. One of those things we sought to upgrade was our knock out gas. As I already said, we used baby powder and flour to a great effect. However, nothing quite has that knock out gas feel as colored smoke flying in your face.

Batman and I talked about many possiblities. The cheapest and easiest solution was to seemily buy some smoke bombs. These devices can be lit and will produce a large amount of smoke within seconds. Plus, the smoke is multicolored. With Gotham City being located in MD, we decided to try and locate some smokebombs online. However, we soon discovered that fireworks companies could not ship to MD nor could you buy the smoke bombs in MD. If we wanted to buy the smoke bombs, we had to go out of state.

Fortunately, Batman and I had heard of a rather large Firework company that was just over the MD line in PA. While Batman and I had never actually visited the Fireworks company called 'Phantom Fireworks' we were moderately certain that we could find it. We knew that it was "just up Route 15 somewhere." So, rather than look up the store, call for directions or even mapquest it we just jumped into the Batmobile and headed off.

Batman and I drove for a long time. We were having fun talking about how great the knockout gas was going to be. However, after a while, we realized that we had been driving on 15 for a while, had been in PA for a while and no Phantom Fireworks was to be found. So, after a few more minutes of driving, the Duo agreed that we needed to pull over and ask for directions (the Bat Map was down.)

We pulled into a Texico gas station and jumped out and went into the convience store. I sauntered up to the counter and asked the attendent where Phantom Fireworks was. The look I was given was one you never want to see a doctor give you when they're operating on you. She looked back at me and said she had no idea what I was talking about. I confidently told her that it was around here somewhere and she countered with that she had lived in this area most of her life and had never heard of a phantom fireworks before.

Dejected,Batman and I jumped back into the Batmobile and decided it was time to head back to the Batcave and marked the mission as failed. Upon returning we looked up the actual location of Phantom Fireworks and discovered that it was actually not "just up 15 somewhere." Rather, it was just up route 70, the exact opposite way where we had been looking.

The moral to the story? Before you start in on something, make sure you know what you're getting into!

KA-BABP!,

Robin

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That is because the store is Keystone Fireworks. Go up 15 North and get off at the very first exit in Pennsylvania. Use www.keystonefireworks.com if you need directions!