Just saw this nice routine!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrJTsVg5fN8

These young kids are nipping at our heels!!!

Delightful!!!

Very nice!

Thanks for posting this Michael.... it's brilliant in so many ways.

The amazing thing about seeing this routine is that the multiplying bottles have been around for years and yet no one, including my good self, has come up with a magically satisfying routine for the bottles... until now. (Although I haven't yet read Tome Stone's ideas on the multiplying bottles and his ideas are usually well worth taking note of.)

This is the first routine that I've seen using the multiplying bottles that has a presentation that does what I think most magicians mistakenly believe the multiplying bottles actually do. Namely; entertain and astonish.

Most routines, if well presented, are usually mildly entertaining (but rarely more than that) with the foundation of the entertainment quotient being based on 'producing' a table full of bottles from two tubes... but the magic content is minimal. The very thing that gives the usual type of routine its entertainment value also makes the workings of the effect more or less blatantly apparent to any audience able to dress themselves and tie up their shoelaces. As such, the entertainment from the multiplying bottles is rooted in the same ground as Dinardi's production of flowers from a chest. It's not really magical or fooling anyone... it's simply that the volume alone provides the foundation for the entertainment within the ongoing action.

Consequently, multiplying bottle routines usually start as a weak magic trick that quickly ends up becoming a non magic piece that is solely an entertainment piece. Rather than entertaining and astonishing it is at best, (mildly) entertaining.

Some performers are happy with this state of affairs with but for me this has always been such an obvious 'flaw' in the structure of the trick that I have never been able to consider putting it into my act.

I have seen a few routines that have made an attempt to re-introduce a 'magic' quality back into the effect by the inclusion of tying a handkerchief around the neck of the bottle and having that travel from one tube to another. This registers well with an audience and can catch them off guard but unfortunately this usually happens right at the end of the routine and by then any mystery this addition introduces is wholly insufficient to sway an audiences understanding of what they have seen. The nature of, how they know the 'trick' works, does not get shaken by the hanky addition even if it provides a momentary minor magical lift to the effect.

The routine in Michael's link starts off as a good piece of magic, develops into the entertaining bottle production phase that is part and parcel (and usually the whole extent of) of the bottles.... and indeed it starts to 'give itself away' but before this reasoning takes an unshakable hold the magic element of the effect is reintroduced in a way that leave I'm sure will leave the audience doubting any explanation that might have occurred to them during the production phase.

The end result is a routine for the multiplying bottles that at last, and uniquely for me at least, both entertains and astonishes.

As with all good ideas it's simple but oh so brilliantly effective.... and that's without any understanding of what's being said!! That just makes it even more brilliant.

CAMERA TRICKS!!!!

at 1:08 both tubes are shown empty
at 1:36 there is a jump cut
There had to be one more edit later. but seeing the first was enough.


The addition of the music was last. This is another technique that leads you to believe the routine was seamless.

Of course both tubes are empty at 1:08, but there are TWO bottles showing. Watch again.

I did

At 3:13 there is another edit, getting rid of the silk.

Count where the bottles come from, 7 bottles appear from the audience-right tube. I don't believe there is a set can do that.

Posted: Apr 22, 2013 10:16pm
Correction: 7 bottles came from the audience -left tube

Sorry to bust your theory Jay, but you need to watch more closely to see why more bottles seem to come from the left tube. Ditching the silks is as simple a technique as one could imagine. Think Slydini.

Once again, on the verge of greatness, but no climax.

Ken Brooke's routine beats them all. See Nick Lewin, Denny Haney (and unfortunately in my prime no videos) but all mentioned here KILL with the presentation crated by Ken Brooke.
NOTE: "APPROACH CHINA" who did this and I assume are selling these bottles, is the outfit that RIPPED OF MUCH OF MY AND JOE PORPER'S CREATIONS.

See here
http://www.approachchina.com/bottle-and-glass-p-973.html

Here's an example of them ripping of our folding key. Look at the insanely cheap price. The sample I got from them broke the first day I had it. hey even mention Porper's name in their ad copy. They even copy his signature on the card clips... which bend.

http://www.approachchina.com/folding-key......423.html

Pete Biro wrote,

Many people like this routine and have used it successfully but I think it has inherent flaws as I mentioned in my post above. Many people kill singing 'American Trilogy' but that doesn't mean it's a great piece of magic... it just means that it can be entertaining.

Re Jay's post... I nearly posted a comment to point out that Jay was mistaken to post in capital letters, Camera Tricks!!! There are no camera tricks or edits in this video clip... why would there be when none are needed to do the routine as shown?

But I didn't post a comment because I thought he must be or might be joking! But apparently not!

To answer Jay's point... he showed both tubes empty but he plainly empties the second tube to show the inside of it by leaving the bottle that was inside it on the table. It just seemed too obvious to miss which is why I thought Jay must be joking. I thought that maybe the reason for this strange joke was that he really liked the routine and wanted to playfully suggest it couldn't be done as a comedic way to protect it from being plagiarised.

However if Jay wasn't joking(?) and it seems that he wasn;t.... then this is a huge endorsement to the magical strength of this routine, in that it fooled someone like Jay who is very well versed in the workings of this effect. (Unless of course there's another reason for emphatically stating camera tricks were being used? when in fact none were being used or were necessary.)

Re Pete Biro's comments:
It's true that there are an awful lot of knock offs from China in all areas of commerce and this is very frustrating for those that are having their work copied. I certainly sympathise with those that are affected by this but would add that I had and have no knowledge of any proprietary issues that anyone might have with Approach China... or even come to that if the video clip Michael posted is connected with them.

However I have a question regarding the specific point about them ripping off Pete Biro's/Porper's folding key. (which I fear will de-rail this thread even more than Pete's post, so feel free to answer in a PM or start a new thread to answer)

Haven't folding keys been around for years? I know I had a couple of excellent one's from Presto Magic back in the 70's with no visible groove and I always thought that they were Peter Presto's own original idea.

... feel free though to steer the thread's back to the topic of this multiplying bottles routine.

The standard multiplying bottle sets like Abbotts uses 9 bottles. But this is a 10 bottle set. Interesting.

I like the color changing silk effect built into the routine. A nice addition.

The silk vanish has to use something more than standard Slydini "L.....g." The hand does not go to the edge of the table. It appears that a "p..l" is used. If so, the hook-up is very clean and fast.

All in all, it's a great routine with some new thinking brought to this classic.

Dennis "Denny" Loomis

If you see when he grabs the final yellow silk, how he removes the bottle from that tube, then sets down the tube without picking it up again, I think you'll figure out where that silk is. . .

I was not referring to the silk vanish, but the ditches. The vanish is obviously a pull. The hook-up is likely the same as one I saw Henry Evans use.

The ditches didn't need the hand going to the edge of the table, because the bottom of the tubes did.

I'm still mulling over the silk under the upside down glass.

QED. Think about why he doesn't show the tube empty before he places it over the bottle and what could possibly be in there. This is right out of Marconick. Of whom I'm suprised no one has mentioned in this thread as he's the first I'm aware of to use the ploy of having silk handkerchiefs tied around the neck of the bottles.

It's a nice routine, but I still like mine best

One just needs a degree in physics to get it. . .

Cute routine, take elements of other ideas, like Marconic and Ken Brooke and has created a different routine. Not bad!

I don't believe there are any creative camera editing to this presentation.

billappleton, the routine call for a showman type of Climax, as all the bottle on the table is the climax. There have been huge bottle productions for the finale, but that requires special tables to be built, and then detracts from the simplicity of the bottles multiplying without any possible way to produce all those bottles from a tube.

While at a big box store, I seen beer and cola bottles as giant savings banks for your pocket change. The beer bottle can be repainted if one wishes to look like the others. This creates the problem of getting a 2.5 foot bottle into the event unnoticed. The defunct company "Magic Hands" use to sell a production of a champagne bottle and that splitting into 2 bottles visually.

Once again, I suggest you purchase the Ken Brooke routine from Stevens Magic, read and actually go though it with the props in hand. Ken gives the false climax and the climax stance to get the applause for what the audience has seen.

Having watched and studied just about every MB routine on YouTube, I believe that only the silk vanish and bit with the upside down glass on the bottle at the beginning is new. I don't have the Marconick routine, so I'm not sure if that beginning bit is included in it or not. Looks to me like a combination of various routines with a 10 bottle set. My routine uses 12. Lance Burton does the silk color change in his routine.

Terry