As many of you in this section know, I'm a recent newbie to the ever-expanding world of cups and balls. I'm in the middle of learning a few routines (including gazzo), but none of gazzos patter really fits my character. Are there any specific patters, jokes, or one liners that you guys use at any part in your routine (keep in mind that I am a comedy magician)?

Any help would be more than appreciated.
Thanks for putting up with me!
~Jonathan

Knowing what your character is like might help others make suggestions. Any words you use should fit with everything else you say and do in your act. Borrowing a joke from here and a one liner from there won't necessarily make what you do funny. If you're a comedy magician, you should know that.

"You never know what'll turn up. . . Get it?. . . Turnip?" seems pretty lame to me, but Ammar's video audience shrieks with joy over it.

Or maybe they were being paid to shriek.

Anyway, what's your presentation like?

Ammar's Turnip and Spud puns usually get groans from real audiences.

I had one actually happen by accident. I was showing my daughter a short C&B sequence. I said; "I have three metal cups and three little balls." I noticed a cat hair on one of the balls, picked it off and said; "...and I also have a cat!"

She laughed. I think I'll pull a "hair" off the balls from now on and see if it gets a reaction!

Not necessarily limited to the Cups & Balls but ...

"Ahh, I love it here during tourist season. But did you ever wonder? If it's called Tourist Season, why can't we SHOOT them?!!"

"Now, watch carefully, because I'm going to make this happen at the SPEED OF LIGHT. Hey, did you ever stop to wonder? WHAT'S THE SPEED OF DARK?"

"I'm going to do this again for you real slow. On the count of three it's going to happen - I DO NOTHING. ... You know, that's actually part of my job description? Do you know how hard it is to get employment when you put that on your resume? I DO NOTHING - GIVE ME MONEY!"

Kent

I agree one liners have to fit your personality. I have the cups and ball teach in DVD with Johnny Paul, Ammar, rogers, and miller. It's fun to make her watch all the different ones and see what she likes. I thought that Johnny Paul was the funniest most entertaining thing I've ever seen my my girlfriend didn't stop laughing at Ammar's presentation. She also loved Williamson and Wonder so you just have to have your character and come up with your own one-liners... stealing one-liners is hard because they have developed then on accident like mandrake01 did. that's how you make your own persona and that's what makes YOU funny!

Speed

Sorry, I can not help, my patter is in spanish I make little jokes about politicians and how they can take money from one cup to another. here in mexico corruption is everywhere so we make jokes out of it. I love irony

Richard and Speed...I do understand that comedy isn't always funny unless its part of your presentation. My reflexes are much like Gazzos, very quick. But my presentation and character is really nothing like Gazzo. I've learned a lot about comedy from people like Finney, Williamson, and Greg Wilson. Combined, that's me. Maybe I was misunderstood when I said I wanted one-liners. I simply meant stuff like...when Gazzo hands the spec. the second ball, he uses the one-liner of "don't squeeze 'em, I'll go blind". Just stuff like that that you guys use at specific parts in your routine. I don't want to hear jokes like the "corney jokes" in the comedy section. I haven't seen Williamsons 2 cup routine, but I guess I should, knowing that his performance style is much like mine.

Anyways...thanks for helping guys.
~Jonathan

That might work here in RI as well!

Here as well. Northern Virginia is over 50% Salvadorian. You cant even go to the grocery store without an interpreter. No offense on any spanish heratiged people here, but I'm just saying that it's getting harder to do magic around town without knowing the spanish language.
~Jonathan

Jonathan,
You really need to just watch all the dvds you can find, read books on comedy, etc.
Many of your lines will come from years of practice and they will come to you from your audience over the years.

Like the secret to a new trick, you will find that magicians protect their lines. Espeically the good ones. That's what makes their routine entertaining and sets their routine apart from everyone else's.

If you want great lines buy the material and weed thru what you like and don't like.

You're basically asking for magicians to give you all their good lines so you don't have to spend time coming up with your own. From reading your posts, you're asking for the good ones. Not the corny ones or the ok ones. You want the GOOD ones. It really doesn't work that way.

Besides, a lot of what sound like stupid lines and corny lines only seem that way in print. When a pro uses them at the right time they kill.

To do this yourself, get your notebook, and write down things that come to mind as you go thru your routine. Corny, funny, amusing, dumb, stupid. Everything. Then start circling things you start to like. Eventually (after months and years) your routine will become very entertaining from years of hard work.

It is so true about what Frank says....

To give you an idea here is a simple line.

"you laugh, but some guys pay a lot of money to cure that problem"

Nothing overly funny there. But when I add it to my rope routine at just the right spot with the right inflection it kills.

I also agree with Frank. Last night I was typing up examples of a couple of lines I have in my routine when I thought, "These are MY lines. Why would I give them away on the Internet?"

We are about magicians helping magicians, here, but you're expected to invest a little work into it yourself, too.

If you like acting, you may wanna try a silent act, it's a whole challenge but if you get it, you can perform it all over the world

I agree with CJRichard. For crying out loud folks, can't you think of your own things to say?

Again...I think you misunderstood me. As we all know, there are those very common lines that magicians use and often kill with them. I use those, along with hundreds of my own creations. What I'm specifically asking for are "classic" jokes or gags that have been passed down over the years that SPECIFICALLY relate to the cups and balls. Visual and verbal gags that can be applied to the cups, the balls, the wand, the routine. As a comedy magician, I understand and follow the "rules" that frank discussed, but as with any form of comedy, you need to start somewhere.

I've been doing magic for plenty of years now to understand and respect that (and often times I, too, refuse to give up some of my favorite lines in fears that someone will misuse them and take away the entertainment). I'm not a newbie when it comes to magic and comedy, I'm simply new to the cups and balls routine. The reason that I never started earlier with the C&B is that I couldn't ever come up with a comedic appeal for it. I didn't see anything funny about it, as I had viewed it as more of a classic trick passed down from thousands of years, rather than something that I could see a comedy magician do.

Gazzo, in a sense, does not do the cups and balls from a magic aspect. He performs them as an edgey comedic entertainer doing magic. I want to perform them as a magician doing something funny. I have plenty of ways to make the cups and balls entertaining with a few laughs here and there, but not as many laughs as I know that I can accomplish with the help that a few more/different lines could give. Lines that refer directly to the cups and balls. I'm not a comedian, therefore I feel that most of my comedy has to pretain to the magic, just as much as Gazzo's magic pretains to being a comedian.

I'm sorry if it sounded like I was a newbie trying to steal some good lines to skip the hard part of being a magician...the creative part.
Thank you...
~Jonathan

Actually, I ment the patter about corruption, not the fact that it was in Spanish!

Two things that Vernon said:

1) "Most magicians shouldn't try to be funny."

2) "Magic is inherently funny".

Appreciate the inherent humor of magic and SHARE that appreciation with your audience. Producing three large balls as the finale of the cups abd balls is inherently humorous.

Best regards,
Glenn Godsey

Should we work with our natural character? can we build a character out of creative thought?
I don't belive I'm funny, however I feel that I need to put a little humor on my lines

Vernon was a genius and a master manipulator.

That doesn't mean <everything> he said about audience management was carved in stone or had to be followed verbatim!