theory11 — Magic Tricks & the World's Finest Playing Cards

Effects/Tricks you wish would just go away

But for real the tricks/method i hate is the Elastic thread tricks.... Not all of them but like the [insert any flat object] to Playing Card or Bill, like for real one day we will see a Banana to Playing Card using the Flap Card method.
 
Also " Never There" by Morgan Stebler, I don't know is just not that good; and "Cortana" by Felix Bodden..... The gimmick is just not good, even someone that uses glasses (not using the glasses) can see the gimmick.
 
ChristopherT said:
Honestly? Most of the market. There's a ton of junk out there.

Though your title is a bit off. Effects and tricks are not the same thing, no matter how hard some magicians try to make it that way.

To be more specific - I would be happy to see sucker tricks disappear completely. And anything else that simply serves to stroke the magician's ego.
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Regarding sucker tricks, I saw one recently I liked. Considering that I often find R Paul Wilson to be overly egotistical as a magician and a bit sarcastic to his spectators, this sucker trick of his puts a nice new spin on the concept. Or at least it was fresh to me.

There’s a performance below.

http://www.penguinmagic.com/p/9871
 
NinoIng said:
Considering that I often find R Paul Wilson to be overly egotistical as a magician
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The thing I will always remember about Wilson is when he was acting as Lenart's "assistant" in the Green Magic videos. How he tried to look completely unimpressed the entire time. Maybe its just a Scottish thing.
 
cgstorz said:
The thing I will always remember about Wilson is when he was acting as Lenart's "assistant" in the Green Magic videos. How he tried to look completely unimpressed the entire time. Maybe its just a Scottish thing.
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Yeah it's not that he's cocky, and I actually really like some of his work and I will continue to support him, his persona just grates a little sometimes. He can be a bit patronising. It does seem to me a very British trait (I hadn't realised he was Scottish, although he has an obvious UK twang in his otherwise Americanised accent) but he comes off a bit of an arsehole sometimes. Not a dig at him though, I'm sure he's lovely and he's perfectly aware of the persona he puts out.

In the trick above the persona really works for me, because the kind of attitude he sometimes has you kind of want him to fail (as a spectator ) and he seems to mess up immediately in such a wonderful way. Calmly choosing a set of cards seemingly oblivious to the fact that the selection is one of them.

But then some people pull off those sucker tricks really well. Greg Wilson is one - his whole act is about entertaining his audience and making them smile, and he does this with bravado. He knows he's got chops, and he always has an out when he gets caught. Very few magicians can pull this off I think, as you have to be both likeable and challenge your spectators to catch you at the same time. Just do the latter and you're asking to be heckled.
 
I think a lot of you guys are missing the original point of the post, which is fine as many have brought up good points but I think the OP wanted us to name tricks that were just bad ideas to start with, not just one's we are tired of seeing. So like he said, stopping people's watches with a magnet, or imo the bra trick. Stuff like that.
 
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Here's a great example of a trick being made a really bad idea in context of where I found it.

I once found the following trick in a magic book for kids.

Perfomance: You demonstrate the ability to stick a penny to your forehead, you then remove the penny and hand it out for examination. Penny is found to have a goodish sized nail glued to it.

Really? For a kid to perform for other kids? *bangs head on desk*

I wonder if this ever lead to any lawsuits.
 
The trick(s) that involve the magician slamming his hands onto nails or spikes, but only when it involves an audience member. I've seen the trick done where it's just the magician who does it, and for a lot of the presentations I've enjoyed it. But I hate it with a burning passion when they involve someone else's hand. I'm all for including spectators into my tricks but not when there's this element of physical harm (even though we know there is no danger).
 
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DominusDolorum said:
The trick(s) that involve the magician slamming his hands onto nails or spikes, but only when it involves an audience member. I've seen the trick done where it's just the magician who does it, and for a lot of the presentations I've enjoyed it. But I hate it with a burning passion when they involve someone else's hand. I'm all for including spectators into my tricks but not when there's this element of physical harm (even though we know there is no danger).
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I've seen performances where they act like they're going to use the spectators hand, build it up, and then don't. I thought that was pretty funny but I agree otherwise.
 
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