Bill Murray could make me laugh getting on an elevator. I agree Bob.

Beautifully stated!

Brad, and, Danny, also!

But have you ever been to a magic show where the performer was very charismatic, but the tricks were appalling? Does such a show count as magic? I mean, was Tommy Cooper a magician or a comedian?

Hee hee! Good one, Ray!

No, I was just showing off my two word Spanish vocabulary!

I had just spoken my mind, and, then I decided that I didn't really care if "they" handed me "the black spot".

Yesterday, a "Johnny Come Lately" (that's a "play" on the Café name that he uses)stated that MISTER SCHNEIDER was a MASTER AT SLEIGHT OF HAND", and, "Why was I questioning his experience..." Well, I've known a "few" masters of sleight of hand, who couldn't make a living as a magician.

As far as the general public was concerned (and still is to some degree in the UK), Tommy Cooper was a highly successful and popular professional entertainer for many years. He had a couple of his own shows on British TV, he was a member of the Magic Circle (I don't know abut today, but back in those days the MC didn't just take anyone who waltzed in with a card trick and a checkbook), and there's a statue of him in his home town of Caerphilly. There's an interesting piece on him in Wikipedia.

So, to the people who paid his fees, did it make any difference whether we think he was a magician or a comedian?

It didn't make much difference to his bank.

I think it makes a difference as far as this dicsuiion, and the others started by Al, are concerned. If we want to be a good magician then we cannot be like Tommy Cooper, even though he was extremely entertaining and popular. He was, is, known as a comedian more than a magician. No one recalls his tricks, really, they recall his gags. I don't want to do great jokes, I want to do great magic.

A lot depends upon one's goal, but if the core interest and goal is magic orientated rather than something else, then strong, perfected tricks had to take a very high priority.

How can you proclaim what others remember? A bit presumptions and a bit of projection happening I think.

And by the way being a strong performer is the highest priority. You seem to keep missing that.

To be a great comedian, singer, actor, guitar player or magician for an audience you must be great performer. Your chosen medium while endlessly entertaining to you is not so to the vast majority of the laity. I know many great magicians technically who fail as performers and therefore the audience thinks they are bad magicians.

If your goal is to sit in your room and perform for your mirror or work at magic clubs my point is not valid.

Yup.

Well, George started it, lol .

Really I'm just going on my personal experiences of how Tommy was/is presented on TV and the mass media (books of his gags with his face on the cover are in the humour section of the bookstores) and talking to folk here in England. I think it's a fair, but very limited, assessment.

By equating all performing arts as interested in performing you're close to entering tautology territory, I think, and certainly by conflating them together you're shifting the goalposts away from specifically magical entertainment. What is it that does, or should, differentiate the magical arts to comedy stand-up or storytelling or other forms of performance? I reckon it's the tricks. So for magical performing I'd start with those tricks as the priority.

Also, I'm beginning to sense a little condescension and hostility in replies to me, but I'm not sure what I've done to deserve it. If I've offended anyone I apologise. If I don't deserve such treatment I'd rather not recieve it.

You are "...just beginning to sense a little condescension and hostility..."? Ha!

Sorry! I might accept your apology, but, I seriously doubt that anyone with your thinking/attitude could ever be "one of us':.

I have to admit I don't understand where this is all coming from, and I thought I was making offence-free posts in this thread. It seems I failed and have been upsetting people when I didn't intend to.

Can you point out where I went wrong Dick, so I can avoid giving such offence in future?

I can tell you exactly, but I doubt you want to listen.

Why do you doubt I'll listen? Please, if I've been offensive indicate where. I may disagree, but I'll listen.

Here's the thing....there are very, very good magicians, performers of a high order of technical ability who ended up famous and successful for in essence NOT doing magic at all. Consider Carl Ballantine. Hilariously funny and entertaining performer. Started out doing the same stuff as all the other magicians around him: Doves, cards, etc. And, by all accounts he was extremely good at what he did, but the market was glutted with clones of that type. He screws up one performance and folks went nuts with laughter and thus "The Great Ballantine" was created.

I watched him live and one tv and I can tell you....he did not do magic. Does that mean he was not a magician? No. It means he was a magician who did not do any magic. He did, what, satire? It was great and personally he made McHale's Navy....lol. It's possible I guess to have someone who does not in fact really know magic and still could make a funny mockery of it. Vito Scotti comes to mind. He was an actor, but I don't think he was actually trained in any way as a magician. But his act was truly funny. But, mostly, to make fun of something you need to KNOW that something. Jack Benny, who was famous for mangling the violin, was in fact a superb player.

For years I took, after a lot of consideration, the position that Ballantine was not a magician. But, I came to realize that that was not actually the case. He WAS a magician, he just did not do anything "magical" in his act. Was it then a magic act? I don't think so. That's not a bad thing. It just was. It's not a complaint, it's not a criticism, I loved Carl's work. My stance was simply that for an act to be called "magical" some magic had to take place. That's all.

I have not seen Tommy Cooper much. But, I seem to recall (could be in error) that he actually did do magic within the context of his comedy. If so that would, for me, make him a magician who used a lot of comedy.

A good explanation, Brad. I don't disagree that Tommy Cooper was a magician, if defined as someone who knows some magic, but my contention has been that he wasn't really known or respected as a magician, but respected as a comedian. As I said above, 'more of a comedian than a magician.' He wasn't trying to do strong magic, he was trying to make people laugh. When people went to see him they weren't choosing to go see his magic, they wanted to see his comedy, I believe.

In short, then, I think Tommy Cooper was a great entertainer, but not a great magician. If I wanted to be a great magician I wouldn't model myself on Tommy.

Amen Brad!

I only saw Meyer Kessler, Carl Sharpe (aka)Carl Ballantine, once, in '51, in a Chicago Theater. --WOW! (I was on a "liberty" afternoon from U.S. Navy.)

On TV, many; times (Garry Moore Show, etc.) Always, GREAT!

I belonged to the "THREE SHEETERS" in Chicago (all professional novelty acts) Carl belonged, but, I never met him. He was in California, where he had "joined the Navy" (hee hee)

I echo Danny's thoughts.

In one sense, Terrible (I'm using only your "given name")the name that you have selected, IMO, "says it all". Your opinions are so far out "in left field", that, it becomes an effort to read them.

I made a living, doing some dam "strong magic" (or, I wouldn't have been booked "solid" for 50 years.) I was just 20, when my club date agent said, "Make 'em laugh, and, Ill get you lots of work!" I LISTENED, I DID, AND, HE DID!

SHOW BUSINESS is properly spelled: $how Bu$ine$$. Hobbyists never seem to understand that.

I don't have to justify, or defend my work to you, or any of the others like you, on these few threads. I never did a "Ballantine", but, I too, learned that the paying customers wanted to laugh. I didn't, as MISTER SCHNEIDER says, "tell jokes". I watched Jack Benny, while growing up. He did situation comedy. So did I.

I FOOLED them, but never made FOOLS OF THEM. --That's a hard thing for "some folks" to understand!

I can't help it if MISTER SCHNEIDER or YOU, or the others who agree with you, don't like or agree, with how I worked. The paying customers DID!

On the wall, in the SHOWMEN'S LEAGUE CLUBHOUSE, in Chicago, hangs a sign. It says simply: "You cannot smarten up a chump!".

Terrible Why do in insist that your projections and expectations are universal? You have no idea what others thought of Tommy Cooper.

The reason I (And my suspicion is others here agree.) is you have shown absolutely no leaning towards that as of yet. You have an opinion and no matter how many decades of experience make the point you forge ahead.

Coupled with the fact that it is something toy just don't want to hear much less be true I have reservations about you listening. I am almost certain you will be offended, take it wrong and be angry. No need for all of that.

Dick actually said it nicer than I would. I think of that sign often Dick.

Well, what can I say? As tempted as I am to defend myself or attack my attackers, I think I'll just leave it be as I don't really have the desire to be dragged into a prolonged exchange of negative feelings. Take care folks, and thanks for the exchange.