Do you like sake? Do you like throwing stars? Ever wish there was a place where you could go to pound sake and throw throwing stars? How about an indoor ninja throwing star range where they serve sake? That sounds like either the best idea ever, or a lawsuit waiting to happen, or both, right?
In what is surely the craziest publicity stunt you’ll hear about today, Whit Hiler, one of the Lexington, KY-based Cornett IMS masterminds behind beardvertising and “Kentucky Kicks Ass” announced that he was behind the crazy “Ninjas Indoor Throwing Star Range.”Hiler and crew created “Ninjas Indoor Throwing Star Range” because “Everyone loves throwing stars and everyone loves alcohol.” Hiler and Cornet decided to present their “establishment that allows people to pound sake and chuck throwing stars” to the world, presenting it as an establishment that would open in Lexington, Kentucky in the spring. Enlisted to aid Hiler in spreading this madness were “Kris Kross Ange on the design, Golden Nick Child on the video, and Shammy Shamick Gaworski on the web development.”
And spread it they did. The video makes use of YouTube’s “Best Death Scene Ever,” while the website quotes Wu Tang and, according to Hiler, Japanese curse words. They even created a fake Gmail account under the name Satou Watanabe (which has to be the coolest sounding alias this side of Throb Darshall) Soon everyone was talking, tweeting, and posting about the crazy new sake bar/throwing star range coming to Kentucky. For obvious reasons, most people wanted this to be real. The crew received articles from people asking how they could become a franchisee. Articles appeared in the likes of Gizmodo, io9, and Laughing Squid. Hiler even faked an interview with Yahoo, under another cool alias: Timothy San Bernardino.
Throughout the process, Hiler and crew got a lot of attention for Lexington and the agency in which they toil. But when can I really walk into an establishment, get shitfaced on sake and chuck throwing stars, you ask? Well, “maybe we’ll turn this joke into a reality and end up opening the world’s first throwing star range and sake bar later this year,” says Hiler. One thing is for sure though, as we mentioned above, Whit Hiler is a self-promoting ninja.