Posted by Ian on 2009-06-06
in Trick
I receive a newsletter from a friend of mine who normally writes pretty good sense; so when he suggested checking out a certain YouTube link I was happy to see what he was recommending.
This is what he wrote: “I have sent this link to a few people and ALL of them, without exception, admitted to laughing out loud at this wonderful performance. DO check this out – it’s ‘so-and-so’ and his Vanishing Bandana routine. Funny, or what? Brilliant, isn’t it?”
I have deliberately not given you the link so as to save you three minutes of your precious time. Is it funny? Well maybe – but that has nothing to do with the performer. Is it brilliant? An emphatic no.
The conceit of the Vanishing Bandana routine is that the magician has just bought a trick, he hasn’t had a chance to practise it and this is his first opportunity. The instructions come in the form of a CD which tells the magician how to make a bandana disappear inside a large handkerchief. However it turns out that the bandana is missing – in its place there’s a banana.
As the tape has already begun, the magician is forced to perform with the substitute banana, following the directives of the voice over. So the banana is folded in half, it’s squashed up in the hand, it’s placed inside the handkerchief. The unexpected denouement is that the banana vanishes– not before there has been general hilarity all round at the magician trying to manipulate and conceal it.
I have seen the trick done many times by different magicians (including Joe Pasquale) and it has never failed to be a resounding success. So what’s my problem with it? I think it comes down to my gut reaction that anybody who performs it is failing to put anything of himself into the routine.
The pre-recorded script is very specific about what the performer must do (“fold the bandana in two”; “wave the bandana at the audience” etc, etc.) and gives little opportunity to improvise.
As a result everybody who does it tends to follow the same path of actions and facial expressions. Because the trick needs so little work to produce laughs robotically, nobody seems to be prepared to put any additional work into it.
Given the recommendation, I thought this particular magician might have added something to it. Perhaps he had redone the spoken script in an Anglicised voice, rather than an American one; or added some bits of business or gestures which I hadn’t seen before. But no, the same unimaginative, hackneyed presentation unfolded before my eyes.
I suspect that my friend’s excuse for sending the link is that most people on his Newsletter aren’t magicians – and therefore the routine would be new and fresh to them. That I can understand. But if you are going to recommend non-magicians to view magic on YouTube (and I suspect most would rather watch paint dry) then at least give them something worthwhile to watch; something that displays some degree of originality of thought in construction, creation or presentation.
The saving grace is that he did recommend a YouTube link which is definitely worth a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z19zFlPah-o. Nothing to do with magic; but in its own way just as magical.
This is what he wrote: “I have sent this link to a few people and ALL of them, without exception, admitted to laughing out loud at this wonderful performance. DO check this out – it’s ‘so-and-so’ and his Vanishing Bandana routine. Funny, or what? Brilliant, isn’t it?”
I have deliberately not given you the link so as to save you three minutes of your precious time. Is it funny? Well maybe – but that has nothing to do with the performer. Is it brilliant? An emphatic no.
The conceit of the Vanishing Bandana routine is that the magician has just bought a trick, he hasn’t had a chance to practise it and this is his first opportunity. The instructions come in the form of a CD which tells the magician how to make a bandana disappear inside a large handkerchief. However it turns out that the bandana is missing – in its place there’s a banana.
As the tape has already begun, the magician is forced to perform with the substitute banana, following the directives of the voice over. So the banana is folded in half, it’s squashed up in the hand, it’s placed inside the handkerchief. The unexpected denouement is that the banana vanishes– not before there has been general hilarity all round at the magician trying to manipulate and conceal it.
I have seen the trick done many times by different magicians (including Joe Pasquale) and it has never failed to be a resounding success. So what’s my problem with it? I think it comes down to my gut reaction that anybody who performs it is failing to put anything of himself into the routine.
The pre-recorded script is very specific about what the performer must do (“fold the bandana in two”; “wave the bandana at the audience” etc, etc.) and gives little opportunity to improvise.
As a result everybody who does it tends to follow the same path of actions and facial expressions. Because the trick needs so little work to produce laughs robotically, nobody seems to be prepared to put any additional work into it.
Given the recommendation, I thought this particular magician might have added something to it. Perhaps he had redone the spoken script in an Anglicised voice, rather than an American one; or added some bits of business or gestures which I hadn’t seen before. But no, the same unimaginative, hackneyed presentation unfolded before my eyes.
I suspect that my friend’s excuse for sending the link is that most people on his Newsletter aren’t magicians – and therefore the routine would be new and fresh to them. That I can understand. But if you are going to recommend non-magicians to view magic on YouTube (and I suspect most would rather watch paint dry) then at least give them something worthwhile to watch; something that displays some degree of originality of thought in construction, creation or presentation.
The saving grace is that he did recommend a YouTube link which is definitely worth a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z19zFlPah-o. Nothing to do with magic; but in its own way just as magical.
