Desert Bus for Hope

Background

The Challenge

The cast agreed to play for an hour for each increment of money donated - the amount necessary increased by seven percent each time the increment was reached. So the first hour would require one dollar to be donated, the second a dollar seven, and so on. The money earned went to the charity Child's Play which provides video games, toys and books to children's hospitals all over the world.

Desert Bus 2007

James, Paul, Morgan and Bill played a total of 108 hours raising $22 805 dollars for Child's Play.

The first annual Desert Bus marathon included several noteworthy events.

• Penn, Teller, and Eddie Gorodetsky (one of the producers of Desert Bus) called the cast during the first evening of playing and donated $500 each.

• Eddie Gorodetsky offered to donate $500 if James (the first player) would "take a dive" seventeen minutes into the first run. James accepted, and let the bus be towed back to Tuscon.

• There were donations of Subway sandwiches, chocolates, and pizza from various general individuals including Teller himself.

• The original donation goal of five thousand dollars was met before the first shift was complete.

• In the "taking a dive" vein, several people made requests of the cast in exchange for a donation of a specified size - for example, Bill drank an entire carton of eggnog, and James played the game while upside down for nearly fifteen minutes. Matt raised $75 by drinking a "Nog Bomb", that being a shot glass of egg nog, dropped into half a pint of Colt 45. Paul offered to shave his beard in exchange for a single donation of $5,000.

• Morgan stated that he would do a single Whatever Thing update for each $200 donation recieved for that purpose. None were made.

• Three "upside-down girls" bussed a couple times for a grand total of $450 ($100 each the first time and $150 for TWO upside down girls and a PS3 the second)

• James married Dark_Realm in an online wedding.

2007 Trivia

Penn, Teller, and Gorodetsky learned Paul's cellphone number by calling his mother earlier in the day.

During one of the calls, Teller had a brief conversation with a half-asleep Morgan, who told him to "Fuck off". Morgan did not realize that it was Teller.

Desert Bus 2008

Desert Bus for Hope 2008 was formally announced at the gathering of LRR fans at PAX 2008, and to the world in the "'Movie' Movies Movie" podcast. However, it had been mentioned and informally announced on the forum, in the podcast, and on the Desert Bus website for many weeks previously. According to the information in the podcast, Desert Bus 2008 would have taken place in a Seattle hotel and feature several guest appearances and drivers.

On November 18, 2008 Desert Bus for Hope 2: Bus Harder was officially announced. James, Bill, Morgan and Jer will bus starting November 28 at 6 pm PST at a yet to be announced location in Victoria.

The LRR Crew failed multiple times during the run. You can view the fails here.