Hi,

I bought an exquisite 14" hippity hop rabbit set a year ago (magnetic version with yellow cover boxes - cannot remember the make but they are probably the best on the market)and have never used them in my children's shows. I know that sucker tricks make kids go wild - I have a die box and they almost wet their pants telling me that I'm cheating! However, even though I have practised the usual routine I just think that the finale of showing the black and white rabbits having changed to blue and red is not that big a deal. Is it for you guys?
I just took some photos of the rabbits and was about to put it up for sale on ebay but they are sooo beautiful that I really want to have another go with these things.
I know that some people use this prop as their closer but I just don't get how you can create a stupendous ending just by turning them around and saying, in effect, "Oh they are blue and red, how nice!"
Please can somebody put me out of my agony and tell me how I can use my beautiful rabbits to proper effect.
Thanks
Shane King

I agree with you, it's not a strong finish. Like many sucker effects it's not very magical.

This is usually because, firstly, they get big reactions during performance so most people don't care that it's not got a strong finish (magically)and secondly, the sucker element draws them in to thinking they know how it works therefore the ending seems more magical by contrast.

For me, the acid test for tricks like this is; Does it stand up as a magic effect without the sucker part?

For Norman's Elusive/HH rabbits it's a 'not really'. "Who's who at the zoo" type effects don't really even have a magical finish. The die box, however, does have a strong magical finish.

You can give the ending more oomph (and taking the nyah nyah nyah edge off it) by claiming that "I was turning them around, if I was really magic I'd turn them into completely different colours but if I could do that I'd be in Vegas by now" or something to that effect as you turn them around. That way you get a look-don't-see reaction from the kids as they tell you they have changed colour. It's still not very magical but at least the routine doesn't fizzle out.

For a more magical finish I think you'll need to add something else into the mix.

I think you have that spot on George. I can suggest an alternative. Do you remember Billy Day?

Billy came up with a very strong alternative to Norman's Elusive Rabbits. He called it Magicats and instead of rabbits it is a pair of black cats. Similar set up without the wooden covers. Instead, a pair of triangular cloth bags dropped over.

Basically, one black magic cat changes colour - and fails to teach - another learner black cat how to change colour from black to red. The usual turning around. Just the one cat becomes red whilst the learner remains black. How often you repeat this is up to you. The pay off is strong.

The black/red cat is turned and uncovered to show blue. And the play on words - Billy was a great player of words - "he's blue with cold, waiting for him to turn red which he never does" and uncovering the learner reveals a white rabbit - "mind you, he does makes a very good magic rabbit!"

Daft? Yes. But funny, unexpected and surreal. Typical of Billy Day. Children in the UK love playing with words and this goes well. I've used it for years. Originally an Eddie Burke Magictrix effect from way back when they were in Hope Street, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent.

They still come up occasionally at auction.

I agree with you, it is not a strong finish. I will buy them from you cheap.

Alright, alright. Its a great ending to a show and the only reason why it is not my current ending is because my set is in such sorry condition from over use.

I use Bob Markwood's routine from 'Poof you're a Frog' which has a message about racial harmony. To elevate the comedy I do the routine right after I have produced my rabbit and with the rabbit still on the table. So, the part where the kids are shouting, 'no, turn the rabbit around,' I turn the real rabbit around. That always gets a big laugh.

The rabbit production is my official finale and the Hippity Hop Rabbits are an after thought, or an encore if you will. I say, "you really don't want to see one more trick do you, because every figures out the secret to this and I know you don't want to know magician's secrets do you?" Of course they all scream, "Yes we want to see it."

It would not be proper to tell you Bob Markwood's routine but I can tell you if done properly the Hippity Hop Rabbits can be the perfect ending to a kid show.

PS If you can’t work it out I am serious about buying them from you.

I have one for sale if anyone is intersted.

I don't think I would want to end with a sucker trick in any case. But I also am not a fan of trying to at a story or some such thing to the effect, that may just be me. The biggest mistake I see at the end is turning the two rabbits around separately and pattering while you do it.

When I did this effect, and I have not done it for some time, I would have one rabbit in my hand and do the typically shtick of turning it upside down to the right and then the left and then pick up the other and switch hands with them, and for the climax would turn them both around at once and pause for the reaction.

Hope this is clear and will say I always got a good response from this effect: I just don;t have the required table space.

Gil

Frady Kat Rabbit is my answer to the proverbial hippity hop rabbit issue. Because you can use a pun to end the "story"; i.e. that is the "end of the tail" which suggests that the routine has to be in story form. Maybe it can be the same with hippity hop rabbits: A story of two bunnies who saw life only in black and white etc.

Fraidy Kat Finale'> "What do you expect to find on the back of a black rabbit, but the BACK of a black rabbit!" (old line)

Julie

I also have HH rabbits and Fraidy Cat rabbit. I find I never use the HH set and always use the Fraidy Cat. Two reasons: Fraidy packs a bit smaller and the ending is stronger. After working the kids into a frenzy with all the turn-it-around bits, I finally ask, "How many of you want to see his back side?" And of course when they see the rabbit's "back side," that gets a huge giggle/squeal from the kids, and parents too.

I love 'em. I'll tell you how I finish it. I don't! Put that in your chair suspension and smoke it. The kids go crazy and in frustration I just abandon the rabbits leaving them on the table. This drives the kids even nuttier and when I'm done some kid will always make a bee line for those rabbits and turn 'em around. So I use it as an extra after the how zinger for the lil' fellas.

Larry, why are you crooked in your photo?

This picture is from my business card in which I'm holding a fan of rabbit and clown cards. It doesn't look so crooked when you see the entire picture, but the avatar space limitations left me with this. At least people on this list can see what I look like; I wish others would do likewise, but each person has the right to express themselves as they wish.

I used to perform this with a "non-ending-ending". I used Wizards instead of bunnies, but the effect was the same. The standard Wizards wear a white robe and a black robe. After the "turn around" business, they are wearing a red robe and a yellow robe on the opposite side. My "non ending-ending" is when I casually set them down, turniong them around once more to show that on the "other-other" side they are wearing blue and green robes "just like they were when we started". I pay no attention to this since I am already clearing them away for the next effect, but it drives the kids crazy that I don't believe that wasn't the way they started. However, I never used it as a closer, but early on to teach the kids that they have to "watch closely and pay attention, because you never know when magic is about to happen in a magic show."

Oh, wait! I didn't shamelessly plug some Magic Nook products in this post. You'll find "Hippity Hop Whatevers" in Jim Gerrish's "Hardboard and Duct Tape Magic Book 1" on my site. If you ask me nicely, I'll throw in a bonus with my Wizard templates and the non-ending-ending. This goes for previous purchasers of the effect as well, since this is not actually an addendum to Jim's trick and it won't be sent out automatically.

My gawd, there are a bunch of you with crooked photos! Well, it is better than the guys with the stern photos....

Professor Spellbinder, I have no clue who you are but I appreciate your input and directing us to alternative and often very inexpensive effects and variants. I see you are another New Jersey person, so I take it you have a spray on tan and your hair poofed, but good for you anyway. Lipman has Southern Baptist hair....

No, my tan is real enough since I like to garden, but my hair is gray, what's left of it. I see you don't live in a town but are just from "Northern Nevada." Is that like being homeless? Do you roam the deserts and mountains performing magic to hikers and bushwhackers?

I actually don't live in an actual town. The two closest towns (only one is really an official town) is Fernley on one side and Dayton Nevada on the other. Yes, I perform mostly for bushwackers.

Then, performing for the children of bushwhackers, you would probably be interested in the weedwhacker levitation, which is like the broom levitation only with two weedwhackers beneath the armpits. Or perhaps the chainsaw sawing in half illusion done with no box and plastic tarps to cover the audience (like that comedian who used to smash watermelons used to do, only this is more colorful).

But I digress. Before I am accused of hijacking the thread, let me suggest the Hippity Hop Bushwhackers or the Fraidy Cat Transient.

This is one of my favorites. It's called a classic for a reason! I do the normal sucker effect of they switch houses fo fast you can't see them. The first time I don't move anything. The gag is "did you see the switch? No, watch them switch again!" THen lift covers to reveal the same postions. The second round it turning the rabbits with covers on making a big deal that there's nothing on each side leading kids to beileve the rabbits are black on one side, white on the other. I reapeat round two turning the boxes again reminding them nothing on the boxes to trick them etc. Finally when it's time to pull the punch and I've done all the fake turn around moves and invoking the screams from the kids to turn them to exose the backs, I to a slow turn as I explain that in fact, I didn't just have 2 rabbits, "hippity and hoppity" but in fact there are four, I have their cousins, "Bitty and Boppity." The reaction is always one of both laughter and "wait a minute how did..." Great reactions from both the kids and adults.

I would never use a sucker trick as a closer - that's just me. I use Randi Rain's "The Hare and Bird Superposition". A much nicer finish to the traditional Hippity Hop rabbits

Jim

I bought a Hippity Hop set about December of 1946, and used it for many years, as a teen ager, in the "standard" presentation. I even used two tables (in those days) to separate the rabbits "to make it more difficult" (?)

When I joined the Navy in '51, I had to red light bulky props. (The entire act was carried in a shaving kit the size of a cigar box.) Out of the Navy, I used them occasionally. But, they took up space in the case, and eventually went into storage.

Then, Fraidy Cat was "invented". I had an idea! I removed the base from one bunny and made an "oven mitt" (w/out "thumb") "HH" became "FC" --and the prop packed flat, plus it could be reset "automatically", as I put the prop back in the case!

But, the "stock" sucker presentation finish still tended to get "AWW" rather than "Ha Ha Ha", so, the "FC" was set aside.

Karrell Fox and I had a session at his home in Detroit back in '75. We discussed SUCKER TRICKS. He wanted "Ha Ha" too. We decided to "soften the suckering",and, now, when I use the "FC" I soften the suckering.

I've used the "sucker" color change silk since about 1955, and, since our session, its sucker finish is softened, too--and plays MUCH BETTER.

I wrote up the "three types" of sucker tricks in the book. The "softening" is psychologically sound, AND, the finish has a built in applause cue. I thank Karrell for his input every time I do the color change silk, or the Fraidy Cat Rabbit (which was "born" as a Hippity Hop Rabbit.)

Instead of the usual colorful rabbits (or whatevers) at the end, consider making the plaques completely blank on both sides, then from the tubes produce lots of silks, flowers and stuff, ending with a large silk showing the two rabbits (or whatever) shaking hands, or making love, or whatever your sense of humor inspires.