Dan Sperry Made in China

DAN SPERRYS MADE IN CHINA
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Copyright Dan Sperry and The Spooky Kids www.dansperry.com
I’m not sure you’d really call this magic per say. It is just something cool I
came up with for doing like floating bill, bill switch, or something like that. I
remember hearing a guy do a joke when demonstrating the floating bill at
a mall magic shop by saying something like “there’s a lot of these floating
around these days”, like he was doing it as a way of checking to see if the
bill was counterfeit by holding it up to the light. Typical stupid magician
line…except this one was super corny.
So of course I thought about a way to try to make sense for saying that
line and sort of a way to take some more heat off of any possible way of
causing the bill to float or to help ditch any gimmicks. So I came up with
the MADE IN CHINA bit that I’m about to explain. Like I said it isn’t
necessarily a “magic trick” or “routine” so I can’t make any promises as to
how cool it will actually be for your character to do it. I’ve honestly only
done this a few times since walk around or street magic really isn’t my gig,
and it really does get a good reaction of curiosity, your audience will be
trying to hold it up to the light as soon as they get it back and checking for
signs of a slit in the bill, etc. It should not be done just by itself, but as a
little cute add on to whatever it was you were doing with the bill before like
pen though dollar, floating bill, etc. So here it is…
WHAT IT IS:
After doing you favorite bill bit, such as floating bill or pen through bill the
magician makes a remark about how advanced the government is getting
on cracking down on fake money. There are many ways of telling like
wiping a special marker across the face and whatnot but the easiest is
holding the bill up to the light and seeing the hidden face or message
printed within the bill.
As the magician says this he also offers to show this to the audience and
displays the bill on both sides to be completely normal and borrowed from
a spectator and all that jazz. But when the bill is held up to the light
printed within the bill is the big words MADE IN CHINA. He shows this to
the audience and can make some remark about how even our money
now is coming from China or something stupid like that – I don’t do
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comedy so this is difficult for me to contemplate. When the bill is handed
back to the spectator and they try to hold it up to the light they cannot get
the words to show up.
THE STUPID SECRET:
All you have to do in order to create this little special effect is take some
clear plastic overhead projection screen film that you can find at any office
supply store like Office Depot or Office Max and cut out a strip the width
of your middle and ring finger and as long as the distance from your first
knuckle joint of your middle finger to the base of your middle finger. This
will make it especially easy to finger palm.
Now go on your handy dandy computer and find a big bold font and type
out the words MADE IN CHINA so that they’d fit within the space of the
film. The best is if you can find or have a stencil like font on your
computer, that’s what I’d really recommend doing, but it is not necessary.
So now you have this printed out and what you want to do is take an
Exacto knife and cut out the letters to make a stencil and place that stencil
over the plastic piece and color it in with a sharpie. Once the sharpie
marker ink has dried turn it over and color it in on the other side too so
that you have a completely ink black printed lettered piece of plastic.
That’s it! That’s all this little gimmick is, nothing too crazy.
IN PERFORMANCE:
You should probably start with the gimmick hidden using your favorite
method. I prefer swallowing it in a balloon and retrieving it later in private.
Or if that’s not your style you can just keep it in your right pant pocket. Or
if you’re left handed your left pant pocket. This is totally up to you and
whatever you’re more comfortable with.
When you’re ready to perform just casually display the bill after doing
whatever it is you’re doing with it and just put your hand in your pocket in
a normal fashion. Don’t move your hand around down there like you
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usually do, just keep your hand normal and still. When you reach in you
should let the plastic piece go into finger palm position. As you begin
talking about fake money being printed or whatever you want your patter
to be bring your hand out and show the bill both sides with the plastic
piece still clipped in finger palm position.
Keep the back of the bill facing you and make some comment about
holding the bills up to the light and seeing things imprinted within the bill.
As you do this sort of try to look up and away for a good light source to
take too much head off your hands and the bill. While you do this little
clever ruse use your thumb to help flip the plastic piece behind the bill and
hold it there with your thumb along with you fingertips. It should look as if
you’re just normally holding the bill by your thumb and fingers openly and
clearly. Once you’re good to go just hold the bill up to your light source.
Usually I flip my fingers around so I’m also looking up at the face of the bill
so I can help sort of eyeball the gimmick. Just press it right up to the bill
and the light will sine though the clear plastic and the black lettering will
boldly show up. You don’t have to worry about it being straight or
anything, I kind of like it if I can sort of get the lettering to be at a slight
angle.
To ditch the gimmick simply just pull it back into finger palm as you bring
the bill down out of the light and show it both sides as you did before and
try giving it a little snap even and then hand it back. You can put the
gimmick back in your pocket or by any other fashion as you go to get
something different like a pen or something like that for a different routine.
AFTERTHOUGHTS
Keep in mind that you can really have anything appear within the bill. You
can make a little pair of sunglasses or a Hitler mustache and make it
appear on George Washington’s face. Or you can have it say “you’re a
loser” or “Queen of Clubs”. Really whatever you want it to have “within”
the bill. This is really something you can carry with you all the time, in
your wallet, etc. So even if you’re caught in a situation where it comes up
that you’re a magician and you get put on the spot you can bust this out
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since you’re virtually prepared for it not matter what.
Honestly with things like The Davinci Code and National Treasure there
are any number of themes you can base your patter off of. Just have fun
with it!
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THE STUPID SECRET:

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