Magic Questions

[Nettie Belle]

Hi,

A friend of mine had to stop clowning because of health issues and I inherited a lot of her clown stuff ... I'm trying to weed out the things I will use and won't use.

With that background, one of the things I have inherited is new in the box (with a little slit in the side to retrieve the directions) and is called a Telesphere. It has tubes and clear tubes and balls. I've tried and tried to figure out how to use it from the written instructions, but they are so hard to understand ... this could be why it's still in the box. My friend probably bought it and couldn't figure it out either.

Has anyone heard of this and/or does anyone have any SIMPLE easy directions for this? Is it a good trick or something I should pitch? Also, is it a walk around thing or a stand-in-front-of-the-birthday-party-kids-thing?

Which brings me to another question ... at birthday parties, I sort of use the same magic tricks over and over but with parties the next year for the same child, I need some new stuff. I currently use a dove pan, the magic coloring book (with magic paint pallet), and a change bag. Since I will be going to convention in less than a month, I would like some ideas before I go shopping, if you have any.

Thanks!!

[Snugglesnort]

Here is a website with a telephere set on it:

http://www.magic360.com/telesphere.html

It looks pretty nifty though be sure to make it magically do what you don't "want" it to do or make it look a lot more difficult then it does. For instructions, I suggest looking up "telesphere magic trick" on yahoo, and finding a real shop that has it, and e-mailing the owner, explaining your situation, and they might tell you (stupid magicians oath.

As for new stuff. There are a bizillion books and websites out there on magic. What I have been doing is just browsing them, and figuring out what I like, can do and make funny.

My best stuff is finger tricks. Besides the normal pulling off and stretching the thumb sort of things, I have made up a "card" finger trick. My fingers are shuffled cut, and fanned. Then I close my eyes and have a spectator choose a finger and hold it up where every one can see. They almost invaribly choose the middle finger (at least my friends do). I then tell them to put it back. I open my eyes and I shuffle again. I then fan out my fingers with the selected finger mysteriously gone. I ask them if they can see the finger they selected. They can't, so I then try and find it, looking in my pockets, behind furniture, behind peoples ears, in vases whereever. Then I come back to the person who chose the finger, snap my fingers and say "Oh there it is!" and show that the finger has magically transfered to the spectators hand! How I do this I cannot reveal.

So magic especially clown magic doesn't have to be expensive or complex, or even there. It just has to be entertaining and funny.

[Nettie Belle]

That sure looks easy ... thank you. I guess I'll open it and try it.

[Fitzwilly]

My connection is cting up tonight so... without following the link SS is the telesphere basically the same thing as a stratosphere? It sounds similar. Three balls (visible) one red, one yellow and one green. Put them in the clear tube cover with the other tube and they change places. If so then it really is easy...
I mean really difficult so you will probably want to give it away, maybe to another clown friend on the forum...
Really, the main thing is to think up a reason that you are putting the balls in the tube and then covering them up. For example: One upon a time there were three very good friends. There was Mr Red who tended to get angry very easily, Mr. Yellow who was a little more scared than most, and Mr. Green who was always a bit envious of his friends. Well one day Mr. Yellow decided to prove that he was no longer so scared of everything and he decided to lead his friends on a hunt. What they were hunting for noone new but didn't really matter. They walked into a nice woods with the birds singing and rabbits playing when all of a sunnen a big cloud slid accross the sun making it very dark for a moment. But then as fast as the cloud came it left and the sun was shining bright again. But do you know where Mr. Yellow was? He was no longer in front leading. He was hiding between his two friends Mr. Red and Mr. Green. Now Mr. Red who had gone into the woods last was first, and Mr. Green who was in the middle was last and he wasn't very happy...

That is the end of storytime for today boys and girls. Willace has laid out plates with cookies an juice in the back.

[Nettie Belle]

I thought about trying to return the whole thing to Fun F/X but it's pretty old and thought the guy in charge over there might throw me out and tell me never to come back, so I kind of sort of figured it out once I took the whole thing out of the package, but the story line is cute. Mine has all red balls, though, so I'll have to think up another story.

Thank you all for your help ... I now have a new magic trick I can play with.

[Fitzwilly]

All red balls? Maybe I am on the wrong track after all. I will have to look up telesphere tomorrow and see what I can see.

[magicgeorge]

Originally Posted by Nettie Belle

Hi,
Also, is it a walk around thing or a stand-in-front-of-the-birthday-party-kids-thing?

I would say it's probably too small to use at birthday parties and too awkward to use walk-around (unless there are plenty of surfaces available). It probably could be done table-hopping.

I'm pretty sure that is (or was originally) a tenyo trick. Some of the Tenyo stuff is pretty good they often have very original and novel ways of making tricks work. The problem with a lot of their effects for actually workable magic is that you don't really want to store, sort or bring a clatter of molded plastic out of your pocket every time you want to perform an effect.

George