Real World Product Reviews
Reviews from the repertoire of a real working professional!
Issue 1 - November 19th 2014
In this issue:
Latex Hammer reviewed by Jon Jensen
Even though it is not very glamorous, I chose the rubber hammer as my
first review for many reasons which I will be explaining shortly, but the main
one is that Craig and Dave, you know who I am talking about, gave it a bad
rating on their review show, but I saw the value of this wonderful prop.
I use the rubber hammer in 80% of my children`s shows. It has all the
things I like in a trick, packs small and plays big, indestructible, and it fools
the adults as well as the kids, something I find valuable for rebooking.
The routine I use closely resembles The Vanishing Ketchup Bottle that
many magicians use in their shows, but I have discovered that I like the
hammer better because I don`t have to deal with a wrinkled label after a
couple of performances which happens with both the ketchup bottle and
the beer bottle. The hammer can stay in the bottom of my magic trunk
crumpled up in a paper bag for a week until my next weekend of birthday
party shows and resets looking completely new.
Synopsis of my routine:
1. I bring out a brown paper lunch bag with the hammer secretly inside
and ask the kids to guess what I have in the bag. They will give you
various answers. I will then ask them if they think there is a magic bunny,
candy, purple puppy chow (thank you David Ginn) or other objects in the
bag.
2. I then tell the kids I will give them a hint but they still will not be able
to guess in a million years what is in the bag. "It rhymes with BLAMMER
(thank you Great Zucchini)" The kids will immediately yell out "hammer". I
look confused and ask how they knew, "did you cheat and peek." I take
the hammer out of the bag and display it.
3. I put the hammer back in the bag and ask the children if they think
we can make it disappear. I then proceed with the standard routine of
turning the bag over, while holding onto the hammer through the bag,
teasing the kids that the hammer has vanished. This is repeated several
times.
4. Finally the bag is crumpled up into a small ball and thrown into my
case. The hammer has vanished. You will sometimes hear audible gasps
from the adults at this point in the routine.
Performance Thoughts:
1. When I first began performing this trick I thought that the kids would
not believe it was a real hammer and suspect it was made of rubber, but
this has not happened in hundreds of performances. To help prevent this I
only really show the entire hammer one time during the routine, the other
times I only partially pull out the handle from the bag.
2. The real fun in the performance is when the kids guess it is a
hammer after I say blammer which is the genius of The Great Zucchini. The
children also get worked up when they are convinced the hammer has not
vanished when I am turning the bag upside-down.
3. The actual vanish of the hammer, when you crumple up the bag,
fools the adults but I have found that it flies over most of the kid's heads
and often they will have no clue at what just happened. Another great idea
from The Great Zucchini is to have a duplicate empty crumpled paper bag
in your case which you switch for the one with the crumpled hammer, kids
aren't expecting anything at this point and won't suspect the switch, and
proceed to rip up this duplicate bag as I say, "It has vanished!" I then ask
the kids what they think has happened to the hammer, and this accentuates
the fact that the hammer has actually vanished.
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