Credit for this Rising Card Gag?

[erdnasephile]

Spectator calls out selected card: "5 of clubs"; Out of the deck, the 6 of club rises and is initially thought to be off by one, but when it is pulled from the deck, it is actually missing a corner, leaving only 5 pips on the card.

Craig Ferguson actually ad-libs a similar gag in a different trick; however, I think I saw Paul Daniels do this in the context of the rising cards. Did the gag belong to him?

thx

[Philippe Billot]

Aldo had also this kind of gag in his book The Close-up Magic of Aldo Colombini published in 1994. See Mini & Maxi, page 82.

Do you remember where and when you have seen Paul Daniels doing this gag?

[erdnasephile]

Hi, Philippe: I saw it in the middle of this routine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlAcU56AZnQ

(I know this is a classic, clever Ken Brooke routine, but the presentation is certainly a product of its time (late 1960's).)

[Philippe Billot]

Hi, Erdnase (?)

OK. It's prior to Colombini.

On the other hand I can tell you that the egg-beater's gag comes from Clayton Rawson.

See HMM, vol 5, no. 2, july 1947. The little wonder Thought Projector, page 331

[erdnasephile]

Ah yes, the "Little Wonder Double-Action Oscillating Thought Projector."

What is interesting is that Rawson spends two introductory paragraphs talking about how most magicians aren't funny and that they are using "moth-eaten puns and gas-light era gags that had long white whiskers in the days when grandma wore a bustle".

I think it shows how humor is such a personal thing--if one can somehow successfully pull off making their volunteer do silly things without looking like a jerk, more power to them; however, I find this sort of thing kind of cringy because I certainly don't have the performing chops to do that. In today's world, perhaps the gag might play better if it were the magician who put the eggbeater to his forehead instead...nor not--as I'll bet there's a whole lot of younger folks who wouldn't even recognize what the contraption was.

[Philippe Billot]

I think you can do this gag with children but not adults

[Philippe Billot]

I find a trick by Frank Chapman in Another Six Bits (1936) entitled A Gag in which you show a Six as the chosen card and when the spectator say his card is a Five, you show that the Six have only five spots.

There is no rising card and no corner fold but the idea is the same.

[Jonathan Townsend]

Was this developed about the same time as the long card gag?

[Philippe Billot]

Ah ! Ah ! Good question. Get to work!

[Philippe Billot]

After few searches in Ask Alexander and Conjuring Archive, it seems that Tom sellers and Harold Beaumont independently have the same idea in the 1940's. A three which becomes a ten in a "long" card.

BUT in the review of The Magic Wand no. 235, oct 1952, we can read : Jack Lamonte had originated a somewhat similar idea some years previously, this having been marketed by Abbott's.

So... the research continues

[Philippe Billot]

It seems that Tom Sellers was inspired by THE LAUGH CARD by Jack Lamonte, marketed by Abbott's in June 1948.

That'll be enough for today.

[erdnasephile]

I found a reference in print for the torn card gag: Alan Shaxon - The Sophistcated Sorcerer pg. 140-1. (This was the exact gag Paul Daniels used in the video above.) No credit for the gag is listed in the Shaxon write-up.

[erdnasephile]

I think you can do this gag with children but not adults

Just came across Gene Anderson's smart ploy to make the egg beater gag play for adults in his routine for the Nemo Card Rise in "The Book". Very nice!