Lately, I've had the opportunity to view a number of different cups and balls routines, either live or on video. One of the things I've noticed about many of these routines is that much of the theming and patter runs along the same lines.

For instance, many routines start out with something like, "Now I'd like to show you one of the oldest tricks in magic, the cups and balls". Then the rest of the patter goes on to do nothing more than describe what is happening. I have to admit that I have also fallen into this category and I've been struggling to create something more unique and entertaining from and artistic perspective.

I know that innovative routines are out there. Performers like Jason Latimer and Tim Ellis have created remarkable routines set to music. Others have compared the cups and balls to the old 3 shell game and have effectively created a gambling theme. I thought it might be interesting to see what types of thematic presentations we might be able to come up with.

To get the ball rolling, I've thought of presenting the cups and balls to a remake of a well-known carribean Christmas song. I talk about a recent trip to the carribean where I learnt this trick. In fact, every time I perform it, it takes me back to those tropical days and pristine white beaches. I indicate that I'd like to end my show with this very special effect. I then put on a reggae wig and go into a humorous version of the song, complete with carribean accent. I haven't performed this routine in public yet, but I had a lot of fun creating it.

Does anyone else have any interesting themes to present the cups and balls?

Kent

Go to here:

http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewt......orum=115

Thanks for the link, but I wasn't looking for one-liners. I was looking for presentational themes or approaches to the cups and balls.

Kent

He was trying to help...actually Walid has his own very unique take on the routine...Unfortunately for us, it's in Spanish

I do a one cup routine with a rolled up dollar bill. The theme is that the cup is a "Safety Deposit Cup". It was published in the May 2004 Linking Ring.

I've seen everything from "Birth Control Equipment" to Rhyming Patter. I think you just need to decide on a theme that fits you and strt to work on it. It maight take a year or two to develop, but then you will have somethig all yours.

Greetings and Salutations,

I designed my routine for renfests/faires, so naturally, it has a historical theme, discussing the history of the trick, the cups, the balls, the wands. I basically took what Ricky Jay did in his HBO special, mixed in a large helping of information I learned from the likes of Bob Read, Bill Palmer, Pete Biro and others, plus what my own research has revealed and come up with a routine that works for me.

I'd suggest looking at why you want to perform the routine, what intrigues you about it, why you like it, and where, primarily, you'd like to perform it, and go from there. I've discovered that, for myself, until I come up with a reason for when, where and why I want to perform a routine, I have little motivation to develop a good story for it.

That's my $.02 (USD) worth. YMMV

Joe Zeman aka
The Mage Ulysses

Joe,

That's a great way to approach an effect like this. Looking at it now, it's very similar to the approach I adopted when developing my Jamaican Cups & Balls Routine.

First, I looked at my performing character, which can be described as controlled mayhem. So, whatever them I put to an effect needs to be in line with that character.

Then, I looked at the effect itself. In comparison to other effects, it runs long. But, structured properly, it had a clearly definable beginning, middle and end. This lent itself to either a story or a song.

I actually created scripts for both. However, the story was much more serious in nature as compared to the song. So now, I present the story whenever I want to intentionally slow down the pace of the show (or regain control of the chaos), and I present the song, when I want to pump up the volume of the show a little bit more.

I have to say, the song is a lot more fun to perform. It allows for costuming, music (me singing in a Jamaican accent) and some really visual magic. It's also much more demanding on me since I have to do so many things at once and perform in rhythmn to the song.

I have yet to test either of these routines in front of a live audience, but I'm really looking forward to it. I'm sure they will go over much better than my old, "And now I'd like to show you the oldest trick in the world" presentation.

Thanks to everyone for all of the great ideas!

Kent

I was working on a Baseball pattered routine.
One way of doing it is to pattern it off of the Who's on First routine by Abbot and Costello.
Very tough to routine it to cups and balls though.
After a time I used the baseballs as runners stealing the bases. I used a small bat as my wand...no wand spinning but several vanishes work really well with it.
The final tag line was "It was a grand slam and all three made it home" to which I revealed the final loads.
Enjoy,
Mobius

A dear friend got me the Wonder Words set and it presents a lot of things to think about. I think one idea is applicable to this discussion.

A lot of the communication between a performer and the audience happens on the subconscious level. Small things like eye movement, facial expressions, and subtle hand positions and movements. It takes a really good actor to master all of the conscious and sub-conscious cues that make up a personality. Unless you are a really good actor who is always on, the audience can tell when you are acting or doing something out of character.

The advice is to be yourself, even when in character, do something that is basically who you are. Make your patter and jokes about things that you normally talk about or something you really know something about. The audience can tell that it is really you.

Having said this, you also have to consider why you are doing an effect. If it is to tell a story to get across your own point of view, then it becomes really easy. If you want to present the cups and balls as an amazing feat, then really polish the moves and just talk about how amazing the routine is.

A routine that plays really well with magicians is David Regal's Cups and Balls routine. He starts by bringing out the brightly colored cups and balls set that many had as a kid and talks about the magic kit he had when he was young. He does a few moves with that, and then puts them away and brings out a "regular" set of metal cups and talks about how he grew up and got this "real" set and does a few more things with that. Rather than the traditional final loads of fruit, potatoes, or whatever, he lifts the cups to reveal the brightly colored plastic cups, and lifts those to reveal the same little balls that he used at the start of the routine.

I think this really works because I could easily imagine David practicing with the plastic set, I certainly tried to do that. Later as an adult starting magic again I too bought myself a "real" set. It really seemed to fit in David and what he was saying.

Here's an idea I'm toying with...three cups and three balls..."Here's the story of a lovely lady, who was bringing up three very lovely girls (red balls)..."

And how does that story continue, Slappy?

It's a Brady Bunch reference... it was a popular? TV show here in the states... early 1970's I think... very sappy and cheesy by today's standards.

Ah yes, I see. I remember that theme song very vaguely. Thanks WoodRat. LOL I'd love to see someone present their cups and balls to that.

A 3 cup, 6 ball routine patterned to the them of the Brady Bunch song? What a great idea! Slappy, I think you have a real hit on your hands.

Kent

That brady bunch idea is actually perty great! I wish I'd thought of it

wonder if you could put a little blonde curly wig on one ball, for Cindy (the youngest one in curls)

My handling is straight out of the Mark Wilson Magic Course book. As for my patter, I begin by explaining to my patients about how I got interested in magic. I note that certain courses in medical school were very boring such as pathology and anatomy and we'd occasionally fall asleep. In fact, I often wondered where some body parts ventured off to in the lab. I needed something to perk my interest and, since I liked playing with my balls, learning magic was a natural thing to do. [sorry: this plays a lot better than it reads....]

I use red crochet balls initially. During the 4th phase (repeat production), I reveal an eyeball under the first cup ("looks like someone's been watching me a bit TOO closely") and blue crochet balls under the other 2 cups ("sorry - sometimes I get just a little too excited!")

My final loads are fake/miniature soft plastic body parts (foot, nose, hand, whatever) as I note "So, THAT'S where those parts went to!"

jeff in san diego
http://www.medicine-in-motion.com

Another theme could be "Charlie's Angels". I've not done any work on this but I offer it up for anyone else to use.

Slappy's "Brady Bunch" idea led me to this.

Thanks Slappy,
Tom

I think I saw the 'Birth Control' routine published in Genii - it was in a special pull-out section

I started to hate "I place the ball here and ... blah blah blah..." so I decided to do an impression of Shankar Jr., doing the Indian cups (I did this with Indian cups first) and adopted a "high-squeaky-falsetto voice and spoke in a FAKE Indian language (basically double talk) and it played so well it scared me. So now whatever routine I do I use double talk.