Stuck

Introduction:

Ah . . . the classic cards across plot. Timeless. The following idea was inspired by an old gag. You know the one.

Magician: The card disappeared from the deck . . . flew across the room . . . and landed in your pocket sir.

Sir: What!!!! No Way . . . (sir jams his hand into his pocket looking for the card . . . sir never finds it).

Magician: . . . but it didn’t stop there. I left your pocket and reappeared over here . . . (magician produces the card/coin/whatever)

I always thought it would be fun, if you were making an object magically travel invisibly, to have it get stuck somewhere along the way . . .

Effect:

The magician, while performing for a small seated crowd, gives ten cards to someone on the far left side of the room. He then gives ten cards to someone else on the far right side of the room.

Magically 3 cards vanish from the “left” person’s pile and reappear in the “right” person’s pile. However, when the person on the right counts her cards, she only has 12, not 13. The magician then “senses” that someone in the middle of the crowd between “left” and “right” should stand up. When she does, she is found to be sitting on the missing card.

Method:

If you do cards across, you probably have already figured out a method to perform the above effect. I’m not going to go into any depth regarding the cards across method. There are so many methods in print that it’s best if you do the research and find one that fits you. I personally use Paul Harris’s Las Vegas Leaper. It’s my all time favorite method for this effect.

With that behind us, let’s focus on getting the missing card under the unsuspecting spectator. It’s simple . . . just put it there when nobody’s looking. This is the kind of thing that you set up well in advance of the effect happening. Use the other spectator for an effect where you need to come out to her and stand near her. It’s a simple matter to stand beside her and place your hand (holding the deck) on the back of her chair and thumb a card off the deck and between her back and the chair’s back.

This can be done to someone between your the two people that you’re going to use for the cards across effect later, or it can be done with someone sitting next to the person who will be “receiving” the cards. It’s up to you. If you’re performing for a group of people at a table, it can be anyone else (other than the two cards across people) sitting at the table.

Also, you don’t have to load it under a person you’ve used in a previous effect. Instead, while using someone for an earlier effect, slip the card onto someone else’s chair who happens to be sitting next to or near the person you’re using in the current effect.

Further, you can just do it casually early on in the show as you’re walking out amongst the audience and not using any particular spectator for an effect. Your goal is to have the card loaded well in advance . . . long before you perform the actual cards across routine. Also keep in mind that not all venues and set ups are appropriately laid out for this to work. You’ll have to kind of get a sense, based on the venue, as to whether or not it will work in that particular staging.

Presentation:

What makes this work is how you “sell” it. During the presentation where you are making your magical gestures that represent the magical traveling of the cards, you can glance at your “middle” spectator and say something like, “did you feel the card make its way past you over to her?” Anything like that can be used to set up the ending.

Then at the end when the “right” person only has 12 cards instead of 13, you can give the “middle” person a “look.” The hope is that the audience will catch on and get ahead of you. Either way, you simply say, “you really did feel the card, didn’t you? In fact, I think it didn’t make it past you.” Then ask her to stand up to discover the card.

If you’re performing it where the “middle” person isn’t really in the middle, but next to the “right” person or just somewhere else at the table, then you can use a different “line.” This time when you’re gesturing to make the cards travel, don’t say anything to the “middle” person about feeling the card. Rather, you can act as if you stumbled or mis-fired when you make your gesture. Look at the “middle” person and say, “I almost sent the card to you.” It’ll get a laugh, and everyone will assume you’re kidding. In fact, even if you weren’t going to have the card appear there and you were just doing a standard cards across routine, this line totally works.

At the end when the 13th card is missing, act as if you maybe screwed up. Then as a joking way to get out of your mistake, look to the “middle” person and jokingly say, “maybe I did send it to you.” Let that “sit there” for a minute as an awkward I-screwed-up moment. Then politely ask her to stand up.

Another line that works at the end when the 13th card is missing is simply, “I missed. Sometimes I miss.” Then look to the “middle” person and say “maybe I ‘hit’ you?” At this point, rather than looking at the “middle” person, you can look around the room at multiple people (or everyone, depending on the size of the group) and say “did any of you end up with the missing card?” Then have someone stand up. Then another. After each sits down have another stand up until you “find” the card.

Finally, a nice touch is to be aware of what card you slipped under your “middle” victim earlier. Let’s say it’s the Two of Spades. During the presentation, later, when you are making the cards travel, on the last card, say something like ” . . . and the final card I will send you is the Two of Spades.” Then when she (the person on the right) counts the cards and finds only 12, ask her if the Two made it. When she says “no” you can start looking around the room suspiciously. As you ask people if they have the Two of Spades, the effect becomes slightly more powerful when the “middle” person shows that not only did she end up with the card, but it was the Two of Spades.

Extras:

Rather than having only one card get stuck, you can have all three get stuck. The beauty of this is that during the procedure where you are counting out the ten cards for the “right” person, you can be extra super fair because you’re not hiding any extra cards. You can really milk this and build it up that you are only giving her ten cards.

Then at the end when she still has only ten cards, you can make a joke about “maybe I shouldn’t have been so fair about how I gave you those ten cards.” Then proceed as before to find the missing cards.

Lastly, the above joke can be used as cover for a standard (non “middle” person) cards across. When everyone is laughing about the fact that there are still only ten cards you can easily load on three more if needed.

Final Thoughts:

I know that it has become “the thing to say” in magic to say “don’t overlook this just because it’s simple,” but it’s so true in this case. This is the kind of stuff that will set you apart from other performers. You’re taking a simple idea that adds a little “something” to an effect, and it becomes something more. It becomes more memorable and unique. Give it a shot. You won’t regret it.