KARRELL FOX COLUMN
“MUSICAL MONEY BIT” BIT If you do the bill-in-the wallet, or any trick for that matter where you borrow a dollar bill, then you will like this little laugh bit. It’s a musical instrument store. They sell small cylindrical “pitch- pipes”. They are about the diameter of a cigarette, and only about one and a half to two inches long. They sell them for all of the notes of the scale, but you want one tuned to “C”. You’re probably way ahead of me by now, but I’ll finish anyway. The little pitch-pipe is concealed in your right hand. You accept the borrowed bill with your left hand, and holding the bill between both hands, you gaze at it closely, remarking “Hmmm, this looks like a “C” note”. Fold the bill in half, allowing the little pipe to go INSIDE the fold. Then raise it to your lips and blow on the pipe, creating the musical sound. “Ah, it even SOUNDS LIKE A “C” NOTE. But actually it’s just a one dollar bill.” As you say this, you allow the little pipe to slip back into your right fingers and continue as usual with your regular bill trick routine. Writing this gag up has resulted in reminding me of a “funny- money” collection that I once ran in my magic column of “TOPS” magazine. So I’m going downstairs to the basement and dig out all of my old copies of “TOPS” and see if I can find the bill series for the inclusion in this book. If I find’em, they will be next. If not, then I’ll write up a favorite routine of mine with two objects that you borrow from any audience. A CANTALOUPE AND A LAWN MOWER. PEEK-A-BRAIN I’ve included this effect at this spot in the book because it is an excellent follow up to “FOLDUP-CHANCE”. What could be better magic than to do a “gag” prediction such as the one you just read and to get the laughs AND THEN to repeat the trick (or at least a similar trick) and to have it be 100% correct! Intrigued? O.K., read on. EFFECT: This time, you get a gentleman up to help. You give him a deck of cards, in its case, with the request that he place the deck inside his coat pocket, as you patter, “Before the show started, I took a deck of cards and shuffled them. I then ‘peeked’ at one card. I removed that card, reversed it in the deck, and returned the deck to its case. I just gave you that deck, and you have it in your inside pocket. Now, I would like you to do the same thing with this deck that I did with mine. We’ll shuffle it, you ‘peek’ at a card. Take the deck, remove the one card you ‘peeked’ at, turn it face up and push it back into the deck. May I have my deck back now? Let’s see what card I reversed. IT’S THE TEN OF HEARTS! Now would you fan out your deck and show our audience the card that you ‘peeked’ at and reversed? Ah, IT TOO IS THE TEN OF HEARTS, truly a MIRACLE! Thankyou”. Strong effect isn’t it? Now for the explanation in case you need it. The deck you give the spectator at the beginning is the well- known, Joe Berg’s “Ultra-mental” deck. It’s also sold by dealers as the “invisible deck”, however, it’s still the same deck, just a new name. With this deck, you can show any card reversed. The second deck is ordinary. You shuffle it and let the spectator ‘peek’ at any card. Using the standard ‘peek’ move, you now know what card he’s selected (if you can’t do a simple ‘peek’ move, then I suggest that you sell your car, your house or one of your children and acquire enough cash to buy ALL of ED MARLO’S books). You hand him the ordinary deck and ask him to remove and reverse his card (turn your back), then ask for your deck, fan it out showing the reversed card which, of course, matches the one he reversed and will show. The nice subtle part is that you show your reversed card before he shows his, and he’s left with the ordinary deck in his hands.
WORDS OF WISDOM:
Read your VERNON card books for DAI’S AND DAI’S.
Keep practicing with “strippers’, and maybe someday you’ll work with one.
Practice is perfection dressed in work clothes.
Most hecklers are like buttons, always popping off at the wrong time.
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