Mr. Danger

Back in December I got an email from reader Brandon C. asking what I thought about an idea he had for Tenyo’s Mr. Danger.

If you don’t know the trick, here it is.

Here was Brandon’s idea…

Don't show what's inside. (The plastic man.)

Tell spectators this is a personality exercise. Give them the swords. Whichever area they attack (first) tells something about them. (Works best with group, each sword gets a reasoning....can be altered for solo) Oh, you went for the groin? Interesting. Have someone you'd like to John Bobbit, is it? Or, right for jugular -- pent up murderer are we, yada yada fun.

Then after all of it, reveal inside. The tissue that's been pierced, the solid man untouched. 

Point is, don't we know where we are going right off the bat with the standard routine? Reverse it to have more fun with the perplexing reveal... And, if audiences are one step ahead on their own -- that's okay, I prefer audience superiority over audience boredom.

I thought Brandon’s idea was an interesting one.

I find penetration effects to have an unusual blandness to them. You would think they would be one of the strongest effects you could do because your audience is seeing the actual moment of magic. What I mean is, when you do Ambitious Card, they see you put the card in the middle of the deck and then they see the card on top of the deck. They don’t see the magic, they see the result of the magic. Same with, like, Coins Across or something. You see the coin in one hand, then you see it in the other. Both of these are normal states of being for a coin. It’s just the fact that one state directly follows the other that makes it magical.

With many penetration effects, you’re seeing the moment of impossibility as it happens. But in my experience, they frequently don’t get the best response.

This, I believe, is why many people prefer performing a penetration where the impossibility of the penetration comes as a surprise at the end. Think of the brass block matchbox penetration effect. “I’m pushing a match through this box of matches. But look, it’s not just a box of matches, there’s a brass block inside.”

This type of presentation gives magicians the sort of twist that they appreciate in their effects. But there is a downside to it. And that downside comes from the fact that because your spectator doesn’t know you’re doing something impossible from the get-go, they don’t always pay attention as they should to the match going through the matchbox. Often they think that if they had known what to look for they would have caught you the first time. Maybe you snuck the brass block into the matchbox somehow after the match went through. Well… how else? That must be what happened. There’s almost no reason for them not to think that.

I gave some thought to this issue and offered a couple of solutions in this post (second email in that post). I got a lot of positive feedback from people who incorporated one or both of those ideas. They’re pretty simple and they go towards eliminating the “I must have missed something” answer, without totally eliminating the twist.

Now, what makes Mr. Danger so nice, is that your audience can pretty feely handle the prop and place the little daggers in themselves. And when they open it they’ll see the plastic guy in his compartment and it seems like there’s no way he could have moved from that spot. So that goes a long way towards preventing spectators from thinking you somehow slipped him in there.

But I agree with Brandon that the standard routine (as shown in the demo) is pretty busted. Once they see the little plastic man and you putting him in the case, they know exactly where this is going. And after you’ve put in a couple of the little swords, I’m not sure that more swords becomes any more amazing.

Here are a couple of ways I’ve been enjoying performing Mr. Danger (which is, by far, one of the best Tenyo tricks released in years). Neither of these will turn this little trick into some gigantic miracle (I can’t think of a single penetration effect that could really be described as such). But they’re both ways to allow for the audience not to get too far ahead of the trick, and they both allow for the “twist” ending.

Version 1: I trace the plastic man cut-out on a piece of tissue paper that fits in the frame. I do this before my friend arrives. When I want to perform, I show them the tissue paper with the man on it and place it inside the frame. (They don’t know anything about the plastic guy that is in there as well.) I tell them to take the swords and push them through the holes. Then I have them remove them. They do. “Isn’t that an incredible trick?” I ask. “You penetrated the swords right through the little guy.” They’re like, So what? It was tissue paper. “Oh, sorry. No. I wasn’t talking about that little guy.” I remove the clips holding the prop shut and allow them to open it to see what’s inside.

Version 2: I introduce the prop and the swords to a friend. I tell them I’m going to turn my back and I want them to take any number of the swords they want and put them in any of the holes they like. I turn my back and ask them to tell me when they’re done. When they tell me, I say, “Okay, believe it or not, I made a prediction of exactly how many swords you’d use and where you’d stick them,” I say, and hold up a folded piece of paper. I turn around with a big smile on my face. Then I look at the prop and I’m like, WTF?? “Uhm… okay. I got that wrong.” I open my prediction. It says: Zero Swords. “How the hell?” I start removing the swords. “I thought I had rigged it so you couldn’t put any in.” I pull off the clips and give them the prop to open. I shake my head. “I wasn’t cut out for this. I can’t even make an accurate prediction even when I rig the thing. And look at you! You’re doing magic and penetrating swords through solid plastic without even trying. Hold on… I’m going to think of a number between 1 and 100. What am I thinking of?”

“62?”

“Yes! Goddammit, how are you so good at this stuff?”