Check out my post in \"What are the best tricks for kid\'s shows?\" thread. It gives a run down on what kinds of things to do for different age groups.

With that said, I like to do these effects for kids;

Pom pom pole
Bangled beads
vanishing bottle
triple rope cut
temple screen
Rabbit production in clear top hat
My mouth coil routine w/ BD child
needle thru balloon
ESP Thought Transmitter
Flying Carpet
Chair suspension
Saber saw cutting in half (With older kids around Halloween)
My original IMPOS spell
cards across (Older kids)
bill in lemon (older kids)

I could go on and on depending on the group. Do I do them all during the same show? Absolutely not! But I will mix and match and design each show to best effect for each audience.

Appelsmagic wrote:

Check out my post in \"What are the best tricks for kid\'s shows?\" thread. It gives a run down on what kinds of things to do for different age groups.

With that said, I like to do these effects for kids;

My mouth coil routine w/ BD child

Appelsmagic - Can you provide any details on your mouth coil routine?

For years, I would see magicians take white tissue paper, put it into their mouths and pull out a streamer that was multi colored. ????? How did it get colored?

After seeing Jeff McBride do his miser\'s dream, I started to contemplate the theater that goes into his routine along with a way to make the color make sense.

For the color to make sense, I decided to take four clear cups set on a tray, a tissue box, and a bottle of water. All of this is on a side table and covered with a patriotic scarf.

I start by removing the scarf and picking up the bottle of water, place the balled up scarf to the side of the tissue box (Covering angles) I talk about why I drink bottled water. It’s clean and pure. I talk about some of the weird things that come out of the tap in some places.

Picking up each glass, I pour some water into it talking about a different local town, only to have it turn to a different color in each glass. The worst of all though comes from “Flushing, NY” ie Yellow water. The kids and adults crack up at this.

Now I go to take a drink from the bottle, only to find the bottle empty. I look at the glasses of colored water and make a face. Oh well, I guess I will have to do this the old fashion way. I then drink each glass making faces, comments and silly noises, leaving the yellow to last.

When I go for the last, I make believe that it smells really bad and refuse to drink it. Before you know it, the kids are chanting “Drink it, Drink it” and finally I do. Now when I go to talk, My voice is falsetto and I start and stop a few times, until I smack myself on the back of my neck, and my voice comes back to normal.

Now I call the Birthday child up to help and explain that mom and dad said that he/she likes magic and they asked me to teach him/her a trick. Is that ok? Say yes! The child says yes. We are going to do it now ok? Say yes! The child says yes. To the audience I say, “He/She takes direction well too.”

Lesson number 1; I have them put their hands at their sides, stomach in chest out and SMILE! (with this, from behind I turn the corners of their mouths up into a grin) This gets everyone going nuts with laughter. I may or may not repeat this one more time, because most parents want to take a photo at this point.

Lesson number 2; I step to the side and tell them to “Strike a pose” and I show them the pose I want them to do. Again, more laughter. I do a few variations of this with the child (Depending on reactions of the crowd and how good the child is doing) then I say let’s get on with the trick, YOU HAVE POTENTIAL!

I walk to the tissue box and pull out a piece of tissue paper that I have cut to 4x18 inch pieces, and hand one to the child. I then go back and get one for myself (And steal the coil) then tell them to do as I do. Reach up with your left hand and tare off a small piece saying in a nice clear voice “1”. Now move on down the paper and say “2” and “3” “4” and keep going till you run out of paper, keep going till you run out of paper, (At this I load the coil and my torn pieces and mumble this one more time)

Now here you have to be close AND quick. If they try to put the paper into their mouths, YOU MUST STOP THEM! The direct them through gestures to place the paper into YOUR mouth along with your papers.

I then shake the hand of my helper and go though a body gyration then reach up and pull out “THE COLORED STREAMER”. I then say that this is the way I get rid of impurities from tap water.

I then use this time to present my magical gift to the Birthday child and have made them the star.

I have tried to drop this routine a few times to make room for something else, and every time I do not do it, I hear about it from my customers. They LOVE it. Go figure.

There is a lot of room for interaction and byplay, and it gives a reason for the color appearing on the coil. I know some have gotten away from pulling the coil out of their mouths, and this was one of the reasons that I tried to take it out of the show, but like I said, my customers like it the way it is.

This is the first time that I have written about this routine in such detail, and I just ask that if you like the premise, please change things enough to make it your own. I would hope though that this will get you to thinking about WHY we do certian things at certain times.

If there is a reason for doing something, it flows much better and the audience can follow along on the journey you provide for them.

Hope this helps,
Eric

Hi Eric,

Thanks so much for having shared Your routine with us; to me You\'re a great thinker and this routine is a terrific lesson on stage and volunteers theatrical handling.
Great stuff; please, keep \'em coming!

Thank you Pier for your kind words. I just like to put something more into the things I do. I try to teach my youth members of IBM Ring 200 to think outside the box. Do things with a reason. Don\'t just become a cookie cutter magician and do what you saw on a DVD the way it was done verbatum. Make everything you do your own.

It is ok to take a basic principle, and tweek it just enough to suit your style, but it is better to twist it into a whole new presentation.

One of my kids did just that at tonights meeting. He had bought the CD version of silk serenade. Threw away the sleeve that comes with it, and using some card moves, did the whole routine out in the open and without any seemingly odd moves. It was a thing of beauty, and it made me proud to see him thinking through and doing the modifications to make it his own.

If I can get even one person on this site to start thinking that way, I will have done MAGIC a great service.

Thanks Eric for that routine, I really appreciate you going into so much detail. I was thinking that would be a great routine to use with the old UF Grant Teakettle where different colored drinks are poured out of a kettle and a dry colored silk is produced matching the drink. It would a great ending to drink the liquid and then do the mouth coil. I like it.