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Carlos Hampton Veteran user 363 Posts |
I think I proposed this long time ago, for those who remember, please excuse. I am interested in learning about chop cup routines presentations that stay away from any challenge to the audience. I am tired of wathching the "were is the ball under the cup or in my pocket" theme that in my humble opinion is not good at all.
Any takers? Thanks |
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Kozmo V.I.P. 5473 Posts |
Dan tong...has a routine that was designed with just that in mind ...to not challenge the spectator great routine
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kerpa Special user Michael Miller 594 Posts |
I think it is good to keep the where is the ball theme, if for no other reason than that it leads well into final load productions, which seem to me to be a very strong way to end. You can keep the where is the ball theme (after all, that is the effect for chop cups) without challenging the audience. Tell a story about yourself being the "spectator" while using the chop cup to demonstrate how you could not find the ball. For example, see Brad Burt's routine.
kerpa
Michael Miller
(Michael Merlin: original family --and stage-- name) |
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walid ahumada Special user sinaloa, mexico 892 Posts |
Lets take a look in this demo, I do not understand la laguege however I don't need to, I belive is the routine you are looking for:
http://www.jedinat-zaubershop.de/shop/sh......d419.htm
“Magic becomes art when it has nothing to hide.” BEN OKRI quote
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Bill Palmer Eternal Order Only Jonathan Townsend has more than 24312 Posts |
There are ways to do the chop cup as a challenge without even making it a challenge. It all depends on how you word your statements.
If you say, "Where is the ball, in my hand or under the cup?"that's a challenge. If you say, "I know what you are thinking. You are thinking 'I didn't see anything in his hand when he put it into his pocket, so the ball must be under the cup.' No, it's not. It's in my pocket...but if you had thought it was in my pocket...it would have been under the cup." You show the ball both times, of course. This takes the sting off the whole thing.
"The Swatter"
Founder of CODBAMMC My Chickasaw name is "Throws Money at Cups." www.cupsandballsmuseum.com |
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Gary Dayton Special user New Jersey 542 Posts |
Carlos,
You probably already know this, but just in case you don't .... Don Alan used the "ball under the up or in my pocket" approach, but not as a challenge. He would start with a flirtatious question to a female spec: "Do you play games?" And then go on to explain "the game," as it were. He would ask at the appropriate time the "under the cup - in my pockt" question, but not in a challenging way. He would always say: "Just guessing, now, do you think it is under the cup or in the pocket," or he would say "Where do you think it is, just for fun? Under the cup or in my pocket?" It was always done as a game, never a sting. I get a lot of mileage out of his approach and routine (and truely owe it all to Mr. Alan), and I have never seen the specs react with anything but laughter and amazement. I'm not in any way suggesting that I = Sir Donno, but I do believe that the routine is solid worker. I've never found anything better for my chop cup magic. |
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TheAmbitiousCard Eternal Order Northern California 13425 Posts |
Quote:
On 2006-11-04 16:41, Bill Palmer wrote: Bill is right on! I hate the chop cup challenge patter BUT I really really like John Bannon's routine. There's so much other BS going on that the challenge just disappears in the mist. Another gem from Impossibillia.
www.theambitiouscard.com Hand Crafted Magic
Trophy Husband, Father of the Year Candidate, Chippendale's Dancer applicant, Unofficial World Record Holder. |
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Christopher Moro Special user 793 Posts |
I dislike the challenging aspect (in any routine) as well, especially when it is done at the expense of the spectator. Curtis Kam has a terrific way of avoiding this in one of his Copper Silver routines wherein he asks the spectator, "Where SHOULD the copper coin be?" To which they answer incorrectly, "In your hand." And he says, "Right," while showing the SILVER coin in his hand. While they may be incorrect as to the whereabouts of the copper coin, they are correct as to where it SHOULD have been. It's a great touch and thanks to Curtis, I've used this in many routines (not just coin routines) to take the sting off of a challenge.
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Bill Palmer Eternal Order Only Jonathan Townsend has more than 24312 Posts |
I saw Don do this live a number of times from 1973 until about 1980. The amount of "sting" in his presentation depended on how the audience was reacting to him.
"The Swatter"
Founder of CODBAMMC My Chickasaw name is "Throws Money at Cups." www.cupsandballsmuseum.com |
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flimnar Special user Salt Lake 577 Posts |
I think the approach Christopher shared from Curtis Cam sounds terrific! "Where SHOULD the ball be?" sounds like an excellent way to move the routine along without making the volunteer feel like they have been made to look bad. Great idea!
Flimnar
"This one goes to eleven..." Nigel Tufnel
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Christopher Moro Special user 793 Posts |
Curtis' mom said to him, "don't call your audience stupid." That's what brought about the "should" thing. Very smart.
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mvmagic Inner circle Has written 1322 Posts |
I gave up on the challenge routine ages ago. These days I do a "broken cup" routine. The carrying idea is that the cup (or actually the ball) is broken and refuses to do what I want it to.
I don't want to type the entire routine, but here is the very beginning (translated from my native Finnish): "I am going to show you something you will never believe. A scientific experiment of sorts. You wanted to see a magician and got a scientist. Whether THAT is good or bad, I'll leave it to you. Now I really wanted to bring my linear accelerator but had some trouble getting it into my car-first 5 feet or so were fine but the remaining 5000 proved troublesome. So I brought this instead (pointing the cup in front of me). Its a cup! What, you expected something more? Well, this cup has a special thing about it as it is made from copper-a metal with some interesting qualities. We are also going to use (lifting the cup) a ball-but not just yet (placing the ball in my pocket). don't worry about the ball, it will get it's turn. Like I said, now we need just the cup...(lifting the cup, revealing the ball)...which seems to be broken!" And it continues with the same theme, the ball always being in the wrong place. Towards the end, I start suspecting the cup is fine but the ball is broken (I still call it broken cup) and say "for such a small ball, its causing some big problems" and produce the final loads after that. (I have thought of having "problem"-in Finish of course-written on the final loads) The routine in itself is not very long. I like it being very compact-the audience doesn't get tired of the ball being in the cup or in the pocket (chop cup is easy to overdo) and the final loads "hit them hard". Naturally, in the end I apologise for not being able to show them what I intended.
Sent from my Typewriter
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Doug Peters Special user I have a life, so I only have 591 Posts |
I can't remember: did I offer this routine as a non-challenging chop cup?
"if you have any answers, it's time to ask harder questions!"
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dmm New user 83 Posts |
Since I was young the Chop Cup has always fascianated me, I saw Don Alan perform it and I was hooked.
I have always hated the Challenge part of the effect, our job is to share magic, not test the audience. So I present using the spin of talking about the magicians famous Cups and Balls, but when I was young, I couldn't afford 3 nice cups, so I chose to use 1 cup and 1 ball, it's an immediate hook! To audiences this makes sense, and I talk about the effect in real time showing sleight of hand skills and letting the audience get involved. I have done this literally thousands of times as my opener when I used to do restaurants, and it is not only entertaining but sets a precident of your skills with spectators. If you would like my routine just PM me. |
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Carlos Hampton Veteran user 363 Posts |
Mvmagic,
that routine sounds very interesting and it looks like it will play well with audiences. I love the approach of the magic happening to the magician (like Cardini). dmm's approach also looks good. The other approach of where it should be applied to this case instead of the copper and silver, it sounds the same to me like the standard approach just getting rid of the risk of having an audience member pointing out where the ball actually is (not that difficult to figure out with the standar approach, but to me (just a personal opinion) still portrays the idea of "look how smart I am and how stupid you are" |
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Bill Palmer Eternal Order Only Jonathan Townsend has more than 24312 Posts |
I use the same "guided thinking" approach when doing the CSB routine. I do the version where all the coins vanish at the end. I never let the spectator guess, until the last iteration.
Then I say, "You probably have noticed that I haven't let you guess at any time. That's because I'm cheating. But if I can cheat to make you lose, I can cheat to make you win, right?" "This time, I'm going to make you win, no matter how silly a guess you might make. You can try to mess me up, but you will still be right, no matter what. If I remove the silver coin from my left hand, and place it into my pocket, what do I not have here?" Now all three coins are gone. They think the silver one is gone. So they guess silver. I open my left hand and say, "You are absolutely right! Isn't it fun to be a winner!!!!" They know they have been fooled, but I don't make them look like a fool. Granted, I used to really enjoy making people look stupid. I don't any more. I would rather make them enjoy being fooled.
"The Swatter"
Founder of CODBAMMC My Chickasaw name is "Throws Money at Cups." www.cupsandballsmuseum.com |
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Christopher Moro Special user 793 Posts |
Bill, EXACTLY!!! That is one of the best bits of presentation I've read on the anti-challenge-angle. It takes the same effect ordinarily presented as a challenge and flip flops it in such a way that every aspect of the effect becomes stronger.
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Carlos Hampton Veteran user 363 Posts |
Christopher, I really appreciate Bill's input in this forum and his knowledge about magic is great, but in this particular instance I have to disagree. Admiting cheating and using the word "trick" (not that he did here)is just something I don't like using in my presentations. In my opinion they really detract from the magical experience an audience can have.
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Christopher Moro Special user 793 Posts |
Carlos -- You make a good point. Many of us like to remove words like "Cheat" from our patter to lessen the chance that a spectator would think of an effect as being non-magical. In fact, I agree with that point of view. I think, however, the presentational fix we're discussing here has more to do with removing the challenge aspect from the presentation. In that regard, if we read the above patter that Bill posted with that in mind, I think the purpose of it speaks very well to the concept we were talking about. If you substitute the "bad" words like "cheat" from the patter, it might go something like this:
"You probably noticed that throughout all of this, I haven't asked you where any of the coins are. That's because I'm using magic and in doing so, I could make you wrong. But if I can use magic to make you wrong, well, I could use it to make your right, couldn't I? "This time, I'll do just that. No matter what you say, you'll be right. If I remove the silver coin from my left hand, and place it into my pocket, what do I not have here?" Now all three coins are gone. They think the silver one is gone. So they guess silver. I open my left hand and say, "You are absolutely right!" --- Mind you, that's a rough rewrite, but I think challenging the spectator is as much absent in this version as in the original post. |
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Bill Palmer Eternal Order Only Jonathan Townsend has more than 24312 Posts |
Quote:
On 2006-11-11 03:23, Carlos Hampton wrote: Since I just gave you a broad overview of how the routine ends, perhaps I should put it into context. The script goes like this: "Did you ever go to a carnival? Did you ever play the games? Did you ever win anything? That figures. Let me show you why. "Years ago, I used to play the banjo at a Shakeys' Pizza Parlor that was located right across the street from one of the big shopping malls. Every year, about the middle of October, there was a big carnival that came to town and set up in the parking lot of the shopping mall. The same thing always happened. About five minutes before we started to play, on the opening day of the carnival, one of the neighborhood kids would come in with a huge, overstuffed Teddy bear, and he would say, 'Look what I got for a quarter!' "I would ask him, 'How did you get it?' "'Well, I threw three baseballs at six aluminum milk bottles that were standing on top of each other, and I knocked them all over.' " 'You did that on the first try?' " 'No, it took 60 or 70 tries.' " 'So you paid fifteen bucks for the bear.' (Disgruntled look on your face, simulating the child becoming aware that he has been cheated) Nobody likes to be told that he is an idiot. If you don't believe me, the next time you get stopped by the police, look the policeman straight in the eye and say, 'Officer, you're an idiot.' Seriously, DON'T do that. It won't be a pretty sight. It might even result in serious physical injury or permanent brain damage. "Carneys are not dishonest people. They just have a different set of property values than you and I do. They believe that when you go into the midway, everything you have in your pocket belongs to them, and their job is to separate you from their rightful property. They do this by a process they call 'controlling the outcome,' which is a carney term for cheating. I'll show you how they do it." Then I go into the routine. The ending is as follows: "Now that kid did not win the Teddy bear on the square. No, they made him win. That's right. If I can cheat to make you lose, I can cheat to make you win. In fact, nobody would play if there wasn't a winner once in a while. If you have ever been to Las Vegas, you know what I mean. The thing that keeps people playing is the constant sound of people winning jackpots. So, this time, for the first time, I will let you guess, and I guarantee that you will win." This is one routine that has a very high impact and it ends on an upbeat. I would say that I have done it more than 5 thousand times for various groups of people, from oil company executives to children in hospital beds. The psychology behind the routine is very simple. They go in knowing that you are cheating. You never let them guess. You explain the thought process to them, so they are not embarrassed or put on the spot. And even when they win, you win, too, because they have no idea what is going to happen until the last moment. The best comments have come from the proctors who take us around the hospital wards when we go into Texas Childrens' Hospital every month. One of them has seen me do this thing at least 50 times. It still fools and amuses him. That's longevity in a routine.
"The Swatter"
Founder of CODBAMMC My Chickasaw name is "Throws Money at Cups." www.cupsandballsmuseum.com |
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