Paper Balls Under The Head

As I’ve mentioned, I’m in the middle of a pretty huge book project containing mentalism, routine ideas, psychological points, essays on a bunch of different subjects. Below is one such short essay right from this new book.

This’ll give you a taste of some of the weird stuff I’m writing about. It definitely fits the purpose of the Roots and Branches column for sure. As you read this, look for the root and the branch or better said, look for the opportunity to improve your magic.

Paper Balls Under the Head

Another one of my all-time favorite concepts comes from new version of  War of The Worlds – The one with Tom Cruise.  During the behind-the-scenes interviews on the DVD, one of the producers talked about the fact that often when creating a movie, they ask the question, “What if we went the other way?” That was how they came up with the idea of having the aliens come from under the ground rather than coming from the sky. They “went the other way.”

That concept has inspired a lot of journal entries for me as well as routines, ideas and thoughts. One of my routines, Miser’s Nightmare (from Gemstones) comes directly from this line of thinking. The traditional idea, Miser’s Dream, is the old classic routine where seemingly endless coins are produced from nowhere. Ah, the dream of a miser indeed.

Well, what if I “went the other way?” The opposite of a dream is a nightmare. What would be a miser’s nightmare? All of his money disappearing. So I created a routine where I borrow four quarters, and one at a time they vanish into thin air. Some of the vanishes happen in my hand, some in the spectator’s hand and ultimately right after the final vanish, my hands are totally empty. I’m left with nothing. Ah the nightmare of a miser indeed.

This line of thinking lead me to look at other classic ideas such as the Ambitious Card. Of course the old-school presentation was about the fact that this card was very ambitious. He was a go getter; he always rose to the top of everything in life. So what if I “went the other way?” What’s the opposite of ambitious? Lazy? So what would the “Lazy Card” do? Maybe he would always sink to the bottom . . . maybe he would get lost in the shuffle (i.e. he starts on top, but magically ends up in the middle).

I never fully developed the concept. Feel free to take it run (just give me some credit if you ever publish it).

Another one I played around with was Slydini’s Paper Balls Over The Head. What if I “went the other way?” What’s the opposite of over the head? Under the head? What if, instead of throwing the balls over the head of the spectator, I threw them under his head, in his lap?

Well . . .  not bad, but it would kind of be obvious to the audience. So what if I “went the other way?” What if I turned the volunteer around and put his back to the audience? Then, rather than fooling the spectator (not the audience) by secretly throwing balls over the spectator’s head to effect a vanish, you’re throwing paper balls under his head (i.e. in his lap) to fool the audience (rather than the spectator).

However, it’s still not quite there because if I’m standing in front of the spectator and apparently performing the effect for him, then the audience won’t really see much. So what if I combined the two concepts?

Then you might have something like this:

Sir thank you for joining me on stage. Please . . . take a seat here. This next effect is just for you sir. I have here a wad of paper that you just have to merely guess which hand it is in.

As you apparently place the ball into one of your hands, toss if over his head (per the Slydini original effect). Of course, he’s baffled, and the audience is laughing hysterically. Milk this until you feel like it’s time to move on.

Sir, I’m sure you’re probably a bit confused. Why are they laughing? And Why are you baffled? Well, let me show you how the effect is done.

Turn his seat around to have his back to the audience.

Here’s a back stage view.

He’ll see the balls on the floor.

Let me show you how it worked.

Then perform the effect just as before, but rather than tossing the ball over his head into the audience, toss it directly into his lap while feigning a toss over the head. Of course, the audience is expecting the ball to come flying toward them, but it never does. As you perform the effect several more times, you continue addressing the spectator as you explain to him the method of the original. It might sound like this:

So as you can see, I pretend to put a ball in my left hand like so, but in reality, I toss the ball over your head so that it lands on the stage behind you. Hence the audience’s laughter and your surprise. But now the surprise is ruined for you because you know the secret. However, the audience is now baffled because even though I tossed the balls over your head, they vanished in midair as you can see if you turn around.

He turns around and is apparently shocked at the missing balls.

The method I’ve come up with actually reminds me of Paul Harris’s suggested method for a theoretical effect, The Vanishing Man. He proposed the idea of everyone being a stooge. But there were two categories of stooges, the audience, and the “invisible” man on stage. It was dual reality to the nth degree.

Applying that to this effect and, you get an audience who thinks that the volunteer on stage is fooled by the paper balls flying over his head. He’s quite the actor. His act of astonishment gets the audience laughing. Then when you switch gears and turn him around, the acting continues. He pretends like he really thinks you throw the balls over his head even though you’re throwing them in his lap.

Of course, before he turns back around and heads back to his seat, he’ll need to stuff these paper balls into his jacket pocket, but this shouldn’t present too much of a problem because he can do it immediately after each ball is thrown. As you start to throw another one, he’s pocketing the previous one.

Once he turns around and sees that the paper balls are not behind him, he continues his snow job by showing his “genuine” surprise at the lack of balls.

Of course, you could just use a toppit or a pull or some other method of vanishing the balls during the “expose” portion of the effect. In fact, you may even be able to get away with not having your volunteer be a stooge. Rather than tossing the balls in his lap, if you use a toppit or some other method, you may be able to convince him that you threw them over his head when you really toppited them.

That line of thinking got me to wonder if you could do the original effect using a toppit or some other method. Of course in that case, there would be no part 2 expose, and the overall effect (that of a gag with the audience) would change to an effect where the audience and the volunteer have no idea what happened to the balls. Obviously this may not be as fun, funny or even entertaining as the original Slydini effect, but it is a possible effect nonetheless.

I’ve never tried any of these ideas in real life. They were just journal entries that were sparked by simply asking the question, “what if I went the other way?” The real point here isn’t that I’ve come up with a different (better or worse) version of Slydini’s effect. The point is that asking that question lead me to start thinking, brainstorming and coming up with ideas. Some ideas lead to new routines (Miser’s Nightmare). While others lead to fun discussions and possible routines ideas.

Next time you look at adding a routine to your repertoire, ask the question, “What if I went the other way?”