I love magic gone wrong...or 'performed incorrectly', ALA Tommy Cooper.

I only have a couple routines so far (not performed. Just 'on-paper' routines)

- Spinning playing card - do the routine as you normally would, until you 'see a wasp' and try to dodge and get out of its way. All the while, the playing card is flailing wildly.


- Nailed It - I would do the 'Nailed It' routine with the addition of me 'calling my insurance company' and trying to get a higher insurance rate through the entire bit. Once you get down to two bags, the insurance company denies the insurance increase. So you throw the other two bags in a garbage can.

I have done the McCombical prediction card routine for years, and it always plays well.

Totally agree about Foster Brooks ..he was all over TV when I was growing up and even as I child I thought he was hilarious.

I think an interesting idea would be to do a mis-made fan where the fan breaks on YOU, but works when the spectator opens it! When he opens it, you get excited because you can use the fan after all, but when you take it from him, it breaks again! After the second time, you give up and let the spectator wave the fan.

The volunteer making the mistakes can be fantastic. This is my favorite such routine: Whit "Pop" Haydn's linking ring routine.



Here's the link because I seem to be doing something wrong: https://youtu.be/oAOmXqYiL5o

Check out Gerald Deutsch's Perverse Magic. It is amazing!

Just a thought on the tipsy or drunk theme - in 2021 being drunk on stage is not nearly as funny as it was considered to be in Foster Brooks heyday. Attitudes towards being drunk in public have changed considerably since then.

I developed a rope routine where I kept claiming I was going to restore the rope, only to have the rope restore itself and leave me hanging;

I've recently seen video of an act by the late great Purnell Zorch / Al Cohen that was hilarious. There are some snippets on YouTube worth searching out; it included a silk-to-cane with some silk hanging out over the top and an absurd Miser's Dream. It's possible the act was only done for other magicians as there were several inside jokes and reveals, but my goodness it was funny.