Although a great many friends and associates spent time with Kesey at his La Honda, California ranch in the Santa Cruz Mountains south of San Francisco, the core group of 14 people who became the 'Merry Band of Pranksters' that drove across the country in 1964 were:
On June 17, 1964, Kesey and 13 Merry Pranksters boarded Furthur at Kesey's ranch in La Honda, California, and set off eastward. Kesey wanted to see what would happen when hallucinogenic-inspired spontaneity confronted what he saw as the banality and conformity of American society. Ken Babbs has suggested that the bus trip reversed the historic American westward movement. The trip's original purpose was to celebrate the publication of Kesey's novel Sometimes a Great Notion and to visit the 1964 World's Fair in New York City. The Pranksters were enthusiastic users of marijuana, amphetamines, and LSD, and in the process of their journey are said to have "turned on" many people by introducing them to these drugs. The psychedelically painted bus's stated destination — "further" — was the Merry Pranksters' goal: a destination that could be reached only through the expansion of one's own perception of reality. Novelist Robert Stone, who met the bus on its arrival in New York, wrote in his memoir that those accompanying Kesey on the trip were Neal Cassady, Ken Babbs, Jane Burton, George Walker, Sandy Lehmann-Haupt, Mike Hagen, Ron Bevirt, Chuck Kesey, Dale Kesey, John Babbs, Steve Lambrecht and Paula Sundstren. Zane Kesey and Simon Babbs edited the video and audio clips made by the Pranksters on the trip to produce a DVD called simply The Acid Test, which is distributed by Key-z Productions.
Kesey and the Pranksters also had a relationship with the outlaw motorcycle gang the Hells Angels, whom Kesey introduced to LSD. The details of their relationship are documented in Wolfe's above-mentioned book, in Hunter S. Thompson's book, , and in Allen Ginsberg's poem about the Kesey/Angels relationship, titled "First Party at Ken Kesey's with Hell's Angels".
Later events
In 1969, Further and the Pranksters attended the Woodstock rock festival. In the same year, they attended the Texas Pop Festival at Lewisville, Texas. Kesey's Demon Box, a collection of short pieces, several about the Merry Pranksters, was a critical success. A subsequent novel, Sailor Song, was not, with critics complaining it was too spacey for comprehension. In 1994, Kesey toured with the Pranksters, performing Twister: A Ritual Reality in Three Quarters Plus Overtime if Necessary, a play he wrote in 1989 about the millennium, influenced by L. Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz works. The Merry Pranksters filmed and audiotaped much of what they did on their bus trips. Some of this material has surfaced in documentaries, including the BBC's Dancing In the Street. Some Pranksters have released footage on their own, and a version of the film edited by Kesey is available through his son Zane's website. On August 14, 1997, Kesey appeared with the Merry Pranksters at a Phish concert during a performance of the song "Colonel Forbin's Ascent" from the album The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday. Kesey and the Pranksters also helped stage The Enit Festival, held at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on November 22, 1997, with Jane's Addiction, Funky Tekno Tribe, Goldie, and Res Fest rounding out the bill. The original Prankster bus is at Kesey's farm in Oregon. In November 2005, it was pulled out of the swamp by Zane Kesey and family and a group of the original Merry Pranksters with the intent of restoring it. The Smithsonian Institution sought to acquire the bus, which is no longer operable, but Kesey refused, and attempted, unsuccessfully, to prank the Smithsonian by passing off a phony bus. Kesey died of complications due to liver cancer in November 2001. On December 10, 2003, Ken Babbs hosted a memorial to Kesey with String Cheese Incident and various other old and new Pranksters. It was held at the McDonald Theatre in Eugene, Oregon. The proceeds helped to raise money for the Ken Kesey Memorial sculpture designed by Peter Helzer. The bronze sculpture depicted a life-size Kesey reading to three children while seated on a curved granite bench covered with quotations from Kesey's novels One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Sometimes a Great Notion. Other benefactors for the project include Bob Weir, Paul Newman and Michael Douglas.
2011 documentary
and Alison Ellwood directed a documentary filmMagic Trip about the Merry Pranksters, which was released on August 5, 2011.
In April 2014, Zane, along with friend Derek Stevens, announced a Kickstarter to fund a 50th anniversary Furthur Bus Trip, offering donors a chance to ride Furthur. The fundraiser was successful, and the trip took place between June and September 2014. Over 100 participants were invited to ride on legs of the trip as a new batch of Merry Pranksters. The 2014 journey was over 15,000 miles, 53 different events, took place in 29 different states and was 75 days of Merry Prankster mayhem and fun on the road. A group of filmmakers from Canada are producing a documentary about the project slated for release in 2016 under the title Going Furthur.
