Hi. I wanted to do a cups and balls routine with mugs. Has this been done and do you think it would be possible?! Thanx

Yes I have seen a few out there. Carney does an excellent chop cup type routine. David Williamson has an incredible 2 cup routine using coffee cups. There is an old clip in youtube from an old Mandrake episode. I do have a 3 cups routine as well.

Have fun. I hope you can share with us your performance!

Peace!

Rannie

Thanks Rannie! Do you have the link to the youtube clip?

Monkeypuzzletree, do you have any cups and balls sources already? There are a lot of sequences that can be done with coffee mugs. You can pretty much do anything with coffee mugs that you can do with regular cups, as long as the cups aren't supposed to be stacked at any point in the routine.

Here you go!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=nDetbiBfRX4

http://youtube.com/watch?v=tWrqQPKqgt8

http://youtube.com/watch?v=_EIeyAAzWhs

This has been around a long time. Bruce Elliott's "Classic Secrets in Magic" published in 1952 for the open market (and still available from Amazon) has Charlie Millers version using tea/coffee cups. Bob Read does it totally impromptu by using rolled up balls of bread for the balls, coffee mugs for the cups, and onions copped for a final load (he is in a restaurant with friends). It can be seen on the new International Magic DVDs “The Bob Read Collection”.

I have several other references I could quote but no need. This is not a new or novel idea but is still one worth exploring and developing into a strong, impromptu seeming, routine. I say go for it

I have recently revisited Carney's "Fruit Cup" routine and find it to be one of the most straight-forward, "worker" routines I've ever found. I don't know why I poo-poo'd this in the beginning. I've started doing it at the bar and it smokes people.

Thanks for the links rannie! Carney's is a great routine. I thought about using a pk ring to turn ordinary mugs into chop cups. I don't own a pk ring but thought that this might be possible. Has anyone tried this?

thanks for everyone's help!

Yep, there have been a number of rings, wands, properly loaded Band-Aids, which have been used to make an ordinary glass, cup, paper cup, coffee mug, etc into a Chop Cup. There have even been gimmicks similar to the Shamada gimmick made that hid the gimmick (Hank Lee used to sell something called an "Enigma” gimmick that was specifically designed to turn an ordinary drinking glass into a chop-glass. Karoll Fox published an idea over thirty years ago about how to turn a paper cup or Styrofoam cup into a chop cup “impromptu”. The literature is full of routines of such routines.

There is not much new under the sun and less so in the world of magic!

I just saw John Carney's Fruit cup routine for the first time. All I can say is wow; so clever!

Monkeypuzzletree: Yes you can do it with a PK ring, I just think that it would work better with papercups, because I don't know if these PK rings are strong enought to work with coffee cups.


Cheers,

Miikka

Plus you don't need a weak PK ring. You can get a rare earth "dot" that is much more powerful and simply place it under a Band-Aid and get the trick done. I've even used very colorful children's Band-Aids and no one thinks of them being gimmicked to do dirty deeds. It is sort of hide in plain sight! LOL!!!

My impression (no offense meant) from your questions is that you don't know much about magic (and that's OK!). I wonder if you even know the cups and balls and have a cups and balls routine. I wonder this because if you did have a routine you would know that it can be performed using almost almost any continer as the cup!

I know quite a bit about magic but have never done cups and balls! lol. I want to learn a cups and balls routine but don't want to use the strange looking "magic cups" because I think no one can relate to them because no one knows what they are. thanks Harry Murphy!

Cups only look strange if we work with them using strange moves. Being a professional magician, there should be no problem using beautiful props. Some pros actually se paper cups and tissue balls. It really depends on yor persona. In a casual setting.... it is great to be able to do similar effects with "ordinary" stuff such as coffee mugs etc. Especially if you are having fun with fellow magicians.
Best of luck in your magical journey!

rannie

People will relate to your props as you relate to them. Pull out a set of cups saying that they are the "badge of a magician, something every magician has to learn and present before the elders before allowed to call himself a magician. Since I had to learn this I'm going to perform it" (said in mock seriousness and a big easy grin). Let people touch and play with them and get on with the routine. People will relate to you and what you are doing. If they are focusing on your props (whatever they are) you've missed the shot! Tis' you that they should be relating to and only you!

I use a 4-inch hand carved wooden "Imp Bottle" to perform an Imp Bottle and Prayer Vase routine, everyone relates to the routine (me) and never questions the strange prop. I do a ring on cord routine and no ever mentions that they have never seen a 3-inch brass ring and many have never seen a length of velvet cord, I do a coin production, coins across, and coins thru table and no one ever questions the antique silver dollars I use and they have never in their life seen. Hell I do a copper silver brass thing and no one questions the coins. What I am saying is that a lot of what we use has no real relation to many of the spectators.

It all adds visual interest and enhances your persona as a mystery man. A mystery man probably should have something mysterious and a little odd about him.

But then I could be wrong!

I applaud you for wanting to add the cups and balls or Chop to your repertoire! I recommend that you start with a very basic routine, say the one that comes with the cheap plastic Adams set or better yet the one published in Mark Wilson’s Complete Course in Magic (a best buy in magic books and had cheaply from Barnes and Nobel’s or Amazon). Use your idea of using coffee mugs (find a set with bottom’s that stack a little), use rolled up paper napkin, dollar bills, or even rolled up bread balls as the balls, and use three small lemons or onions for the final loads. You’ll have a great cups and balls routine looking totally impromptu in no time!

You can also find Bruce Elliott’s “Classic Secrets of Magic” and look at the Charlie Miller routine. It is totally impromptu and used borrowed coffee/tea cups.

Me? I want to know what you decide on, how it is going, and the outcome of your first performance of the Cups and Balls! You will be surprised at how many people have never seen it performed in real life! It is a staple of my shows (yes I will do it totally impromptu!).

Good Luck man!!!

Thanks Harry Murphy! I think that if I were to perform with a mug people would be less likely to assume it is a trick mug. If I were to perform with a brass cup that only exists in "magic land" then people will be more likely to think it is a trick cup.

that's what I think anyway and it suits my character to perform with mugs. lol! I mean mugs you drink out of, not "he's such a mug!" lol!

thanks for all your wonderful help!

You may want to take a look at-
'Tarbell's Course In Magic', Volume 6, Senator Clark Crandall's Cups & Balls: One cup routine.
and
"Dai Vernon's Impromptu Cups and Balls" from 'Stars of Magic'.

The cups and balls with teacups has been around since the end of the 19th century. Bob Read used to do cups and balls with teacups which he would borrow at the event.

What the heck's a tea cup?

Sweet mother of mercy! In general a teacup is a light weight, china (porcelain), often fancy cup that is used to drink tea often in a specific social situation. That is in contrast to coffee cups and mugs.

http://images.google.com/images?q=tea+cu......ct=title

Sometimes they contain tempests.