I have a beautiful jumbo hot rod... clear acrylic and about 9" long.

I recently purchased Paul Green's Lecture notes, and found out first hand that his "Pygmy Paddle" trick plays big! I get gasps of amazement peforming it, surpassing any paddle trick I've ever done. Best of all, Paul's routine involves the spectator by writing their name on the paddle. You even have a personallized plastic pygmy paddle as a give away item...

If you contact Paul, he can set you up with a very practical paddle trick.

Check out Wild Magic... They have a 9" walnut rod and its gems slip off into a glass! Different!

I have a small, black hot rod. It has colors on only half the dimples so that it does more than one change. So if you hold it one way, you have the illusion of a color in the entire simple. Upside down, it is another. Does anyone know what this one is? I haven't used it in years and am looking for the instructions

Ok, I found the instructions, this hot rod is called "Spectra!" from "Optical Oddities. The instructions are from David Pavlov. The power of this routine and stick is that the colors/no color is visible on all four sides! So with the audience looking at the stick below eye level, they see the top, left and right sides all change back and forth. Just thought I would put that out there in case anyone else has one or someone was looking for it. I got this 30 or 40 years ago.

I like the clear hot rod, it is very effective, since you can say "You can see right through here, no chicanery"

That being said, I have found tricks relying strictly on the paddle move somewhat underwhelming...

My favorite" gem stick" trick is Spot off (or similar name. You have a die with gems, specter rolls. Then you give it to them to hold tightly. Bring out a blank magic wand, tap spectators hand and the gems or on the stick. They open their hand, and it is off.

It seems like a childish trick, but trust me, it is a real fooler

Check out Eric Stevens on his "At the Table" lecture.

PLUS this "goodie" was supplied with a second ungimmicked stick with the changed color on all four sides to further confound the onlookers.

Julie

I completely agree re: the O-N-E bit being a weakness, but I'm not understanding how the force would work with only 5 - it seems like 2 and four would kill the force. Does anyone have insight on this?

Might have to do with which way you hold the prop.

I sold well over a thousand Hot Rods when I worked behind the counter at a local magic shop for 7 years. Yeah, yeah...the local magi always pouted and frowned over the stupid forcing method...I wonder if they ever actually did the trick for regular folks to establish how sound their theory was??

To reinforce what your saying I worked at Magic Inc. for a decade. People coming in to do tricks for their grandchildren and for their kids and those friends or at parties LOVED that trick and never cared one iota for the method.

No I would probably not use it in my show. But there is a very wide chasm between the two. It is wonderful for use in places that will not get huge amounts of scrutiny. It is perfect for informal environments.

My old hot rod was red, so I didn't bother with the force.

People would just choose red about half the time anyway.

The other half of the time, I'd say, "good thing you didn't pick red" and proceed from there

It's such a quick trick anyway that the force seemed to slow the effect down to me

Also, I experimented with changing half the gems back to multi-color and handing out the rod for inspection. No one ever tipped to the paddle move while playing with it, BUT the overall effect was NOT improved much in my opinion.

I got one that changes to all diamonds so I could do a routine I wrote about jewelers and diamond rings. No force and there are a couple opportunities for jokes. It plays great for kids and adults like it too.
Sometimes I end with a switch, sometimes a vanish. Sometimes I let them inspect it before pocketing it and moving on.

[quote]On Aug 7, 2020, Dannydoyle wrote:
To reinforce what your saying I worked at Magic Inc. for a decade. People coming in to do tricks for their grandchildren and for their kids and those friends or at parties LOVED that trick and never cared one iota for the method.

No I would probably not use it in my show. But there is a very wide chasm between the two. It is wonderful for use in places that will not get huge amounts of scrutiny. It is perfect for informal environments. [/quote

I totally agree with you Danny. I move a lot these through the magic shop at SDC!
One thing I can say for sure is that people prefer the clear hot rod over the black one.

This is a real trick for real people who just want something to perform for family and friends and be amazing!

Mark