This is something I thought of while watching Jay Sankey. Let me know if this is something that has been thought of before.

Effect: After revealing a selected card you then put the card in your mouth(in a Sankey-like pose).

Realize that the card tastes kinda good and begin to tear it up and chew on it piece by piece leaving one piece with the spectator.

After some funny mouth contortions, pull the pieces back out and now they are restored back together minus the missing piece in the specs hand which matches perfectly!

This would basically use the torn corner principle. The card is forced of course beforehand. I'm thinking I would do like a hot-shot cut revelation then go into this as an off-beat extra effect that would catch them off-guard.

The only thing is you have to have the card in your mouth from the start which would be a little awkward and you would be left with pieces in your mouth at the end. Of course you could really eat them if you want! Or just grab a napkin and act as though you are just wiping your mouth and spit the pieces into the napkin.

Does this make sense? Any ideas?

How about this idea: Don't do it!

I won't go into it here but I have a long-standing hate for anything that involves the magician putting something in his mouth (so, if the truth be told, do most audiences, although they are willing to offer up "pity applause" and the performer thinks he is wonderful!)

First of all, what's the motivation?
Second, what's the motivation?
Third, what's the motivation?

cheers,
Peter Marucci

:imsick:

Hey Peter, tell us how you really feel. I must say I do agree. I'm not a big fan of any effect involving putting things in your mouth. Even mouth coils I prefer to produce from behind a kids neck. I know Jeff McBride closes a lot of his card routines with cards from the mouth and it can be a real eye opening effect but the thruth is the cards don't actually come out of his mouth and the routine described above, although very original, will probably present more problems than it's worth for the reaction. Where you could get just as good if not a better reaction producing the card from a piece of fruit, wallet, or what have you. And you won't have that talking problem with the card in your mouth. But hey, it wasn't a totally bad idea.

I just agree with Peter that there are probably a lot better alternatives. But if you insist on doing it I think Tom Mullica does some card from the mouth routines. I don't think he does a torn and restored effect but you might prefer what he does as another alternative. Best regards,
Tony Parisi

Don't listen to them webhead, go for it. Try it out for yourself and see how it plays. Im sure you can tell the difference between pitty applause and genuine astonishment. Only you know how you and your audience interact. Do your thing and keep being creative. Its easy to do someone elses routine(well.. not always) but coming up with your own stuff seperates you from them.

P.S. I think Peter spends way to much time on the Café anyway...4082 POSTS!!! GOOD LORD!!! (j/k Peter)

Best to all

You could also try something like putting the torn peices of a card into a 'paper shredder' i.e. 35mm film canister, shaking them up, and pulling out a card, but I'm sure that's been done before.

p.s. why does b. Malone always get good responses when he caughs up cards? but perhaps it was just a 'pity' applause.

Wassabi writes: "p.s. why does b. Malone always get good responses when he caughs up cards? but perhaps it was just a 'pity' applause."

A couple of hundred years ago, bull baiting and bear baiting got "good responses", too. Does that mean they were good things? Hardly!

Two hundred years ago, slavery was the accepted norm. Does that mean it was a good thing? Hardly!

Today, Malone coughs up cards. Does that mean . . . well, you get the idea.

Or, to paraphrase just about everybody's mother: "If all the other kids jumped into the river for no reason, would you jump in the river, too?"

Webhead -
Peter's pretty much right on when he says don't do it. On the other hand...
Truthfully? Know what type of a person you are and how you come across to the audience. As you can probably understand, from your own life experiences, there are some people you'd rather NOT see pull a salivated, yet restored, card from their mouth.
On the other side of the same coin are guys that you wouldn't expect to do it any other way because it fits their performance style.
David Blaine coughs up a card on one of his specials and the Asian kids go nuts, McBride coughs up cards and it fits his manipulation act, etc,.
Really be honest with yourself and see if it's something that suits who you are and not who you want to be or think that you are. If you're 'mister mystery' then probably not. If you're someone like the Amazing Jonathon, it might not matter what comes out.
Like I say be Simon Cowell honest.

Take care,
Tony Ley

Thanks for the honest comments guys. This one probably won't go into my show anytime soon unless I can work out the kinks (or figure out the motivation)

"I won't go into it here but I have a long-standing hate for anything that involves the magician putting something in his mouth (so, if the truth be told, do most audiences, although they are willing to offer up "pity applause" and the performer thinks he is wonderful!)"

As a last thought I would entirely encourage you. I must say that I strongly disagree with Peter in that audiences are not keen on card-mouth tricks. I have such a trick and the response is phenomenal. I have just conducted a survey and 100% of the 10 people asked love the effect. I also quizzed them and told them they had to be 100% truthful.
Have a nice day

Hi there
I just saw this post and I have to say that even though people have told you not to do it I have seen an effect like this done before by Chad Long. Chad eats a card because he missed lunch; he never restores the card or reproduces the pieces. I don't know if he performs it for laymen but he performed it for a group of magicians and we all loved it. Yes I know that there is a difference between what laymen think is cool and what magicians think is cool, but any laymen that I have done it for said that they loved it. Anyways that's my two cents.

Magic in the mouth is very much a hot-button issue. This can work if you stay 'in bounds' and make sure you audience knows you are going to stay 'in bounds.'

There are very young people that have to put everything in their mouths. And there are very sick people who also feel compelled to do such.

I am waiting for someone to do a chewed and restored after dinner mint. It will be either very funny or not work at all. This all comes down to the performer.

I was thinking of doing something similar a while back with cards but then I discarded the idea simply because I could not find a good way of holding the card in my mouth and talking/looking natural. To get rid of the pieces afterwards you can get some of those 'edible' cards. But I haven't much seen them so meh.....

But I wanted to have an interesting revelation so this is what I came up with. I use it regularily and it fits in with my style of magic (shock magic). Here's the routine:

The spec's pick ANY card (no force), sign it and lose it back in the deck which is shuffled. I try to find their card once but it fails. I try it again but if fails. I get upset and throw the deck against a solid structure near me (wall, window, whatever). The specs and I look for their card of the pile on the floor. It's not there. I take out a razor blade and cut the skin on my left hand open and proceed to pull out their signed card, all nice and bloody (ewwwwww). Then I wipe my cut with a napkin or something similar which is thrown away and lo and behold, the cut has healed (though traces of blood still exist on my arm).

P.S. That chewed and restored dinner mint idea.... hehehhe lov it!!!!