Johnny Carson Magic - Why He's The Best Host Ever

Johnny Carson was a legendary award-winning talk show host, writer and comedian. But did you know he was also a great magician? In this video world-renowned magicians Aaron Fisher, Adam Grace, Alexander Slemmer and Steve Barcellona react to Jonny Carson magic and discuss what made him such an incredible performer. In our opinion, Johnny was truly one of the all time great TV hosts for reasons like this – he was an all-round entertainer.

Check it out…

Transcript:

Speaker 1 (00:02):

All right. Hit it boys. What’s up? Welcome. My name is Aaron Fisher and I’m here today with Adam, Alex and Steve from our Chondra community club team. Yeah, if you haven’t heard about the new CC club, we are absolutely the best magic club on earth, online or off. And in these videos you’re going to get a taste of what we’re all about. Uh, we provide you with some real secrets that you know, passionate magician to actually need and you won’t find this stuff anywhere else. Uh, we also make videos filled with impossible tricks, professional training stuff you’re not going to see on any other magic site at all. Okay. So today we’re going to share our reactions and analysis to some a little seen clips from some of the greatest magicians on the Johnny Carson joys. The love that. So if you like what you see, like, and subscribe and you’ll be notified every time we go live with a new video, leave a comment with your favorite magic clips and we’ll try and include them in our upcoming additions.

Speaker 1 (01:00):

Now I have to tell you, I have never seen anything like the rare clips of our magic friends performing for a nationwide audience that we’re going to show you today. So Adam, what are we going to get started with today? Okay, so we have picked out a really cool clip to start out with. Um, it’s an old clip. It’s from 1971 but we’d love to get your guys’ reactions to one guy who is a very famous magician, but he wasn’t famous for being a magician. Really? What’s it like when a famous comedian tries to do magic tricks? Oh, I don’t know. Is it, is it funny or is it magic? Alright, you guys ready to take a look? Let’s delete. All right, here it is. Here’s our, here’s our first clip. Let’s take a look at the man himself. Oh, this is that. [inaudible].

Speaker 2 (02:00):

So on the way over, so help me, I stopped and I think of a deck, just a normal deck of cards, still sealed, hermetically sealed, hermetically sealed. And then I thought, just for the fun of it, we’ll do a card trick. I know fun, but I hope so until the big acts get here to a contract guy, Johnny Olson.

Speaker 1 (02:24):

He’s like, why can I get them open, filled up? God, I wish I was smoking right now.

Speaker 2 (02:32):

How’s it going? John? [inaudible] trick is to get the car. Just hope I get to thank him. Like, uh, when, when you, when you say you did you do what a magic act. I really did. I started when I was about 12. I did all the stuff I used to do the levitation. So they uh, or the, uh, you know, all of those different things. Can you break that seal for me, Mike? That’s why you asked me daytime working for nighttime. Still got the jokers and everything. We got to mix them up with the quickness of the wind. Graceland, I have a little, you know, what would you like to do? Do you want me to do it on my biggies? Yeah, do one of the big trick. Can we go, do they have an overhead? Cause I have to stand to do this and I don’t want to overproduce it. They’re all not that I lift this up.

We hope you’re enjoying this discussion of Johnny Carson magic. Remember, if you’d like to see what we’re talking about, just scroll up to watch the video.

Speaker 2 (03:40):

Give me the radio mic and I’ll hold it for you. Going to be a part of, Oh, I have to be a part of it. All right. Yes. All right. Kill John. Really cute. You keep it up. I’ll send letters. They’ll keep Bishop on forever. Dropped one. What should I know? I’ll get it. No, you’re ready. Beautiful. Yeah. Joe, what I’m going to do, this was really very simple. We’re going to take 10 cards. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. Okay. I have not done this really for about 15 years, so if it goes badly, I will apologize and leave early. I have to empty the right pocket, right to show you that it’s empty. That’s my money I’ll put over in this pocket. My money. Clinton. Okay. 10 guys, right? Can we count them again? Yes. If you like the idea, they dog watch. Come on. This is a big chaos. Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to take the cards one at the time, they’re going to disappear from the left hand. They’re going to travel down the sleeve. You won’t believe this. They’re going to travel down the right sleeve and into the pocket. It’s empty. Right. Put it back in. Go ahead. Come on up. Come on, come on. You’re all right.

Speaker 1 (05:11):

Oh, 71. That was awesome. That’s a couple of weeks ago. Right. And he, he literally knew these guys cause he was writing on them living color and he was young comedian back then. And he was saying that, uh, at this point in history, you know, Jerry Lewis was a, even a bigger star than Johnny Carson was. It’s a big deal. It was a big deal. So Johnny had been doing the tonight show for a while and I believe him when he says it had been 15 years since he did a card trick. But I love that part where he says, you’re all right, John. John doesn’t stop it. You know, he said that in such a loud way. He was like, he was hoping to literally interrupt Jerry’s messing around with the,

Speaker 3 (05:58):

with the crack of his voice. You know. Does anybody, uh, maybe any of you guys or anybody in the chat? No. When Dean and Jerry broke up, was it in the 60s? Mm. Cause this is like 71, right? I know they’re together in the 60s so this could be just a couple of years after.

Speaker 1 (06:14):

It’s gotta be pretty, really know the telethon history, you know, I know that John Carson, you know he’s up there. Yeah. He’s trying to figure out if it’s too early to pawn the cards, you know, cause he wants to, but he’s wondering if it’s going to look weird. Yeah. In this exact moment. All right. Wow.

Speaker 3 (06:38):

I’m sorry. Uh, Fred says they broke up in 1955. I’m surprised. I thought, I guess that’s right because the rat pack was all in the 60s. Yeah, right. Yeah. I guess

Speaker 2 (06:50):

there goes card number one already. Mike, would you hold it? There’s number one. No, no. Watch Karen play. Sorry. Number two. Ready? Should be number three. You’re ready for the next one. Should be number four now just to make sure that the cards are going one at a time. That leaves how many from ten four from 10

Speaker 1 (07:26):

yeah. That look on his face is classic. What is happening here? He did like three faints in a row, you know? Right. If he keeps doing this fake back POM thing where he’s coming over here, we’re already in.

Speaker 2 (07:48):

This is a man that’s coming into your home. There were six loud, three four, five, six. Now, just to make sure they’re passing one at a time, would you pull the pocket inside out and leave the pocket out? Leave it just full of pocket. Come on. [inaudible]

Speaker 1 (08:07):

I guess I notice. Boy, is that plenty of cover right there? They don’t really.

Speaker 3 (08:13):

Okay.

Speaker 2 (08:13):

Just pull the pocket out here. Come on. We’ll be shopping for furniture on a week to three four, five, six guides right now. That’s right. Six now hold that wrist. Mike, you want to hold that one? I will let the six card go just like that. Which leaves one, two, three, four, five if you’ll reach in the pocket to see if number six showed up. [inaudible] have to watch this very closely because I don’t move as well as I used to. There’s the next one, one more fat and and ready. That goes to the next one, right? Nothing that, no nothing there. No one there that leaves one card. So you can do this very slowly. You can put it in the hand like that and have it disappear little by little or you can take the card and you can put it in the hand like that and have it disappear and come out of the pocket.

Speaker 4 (09:32):

[inaudible]

Speaker 5 (09:34):

wow. That wasn’t like a totally easy routine either. He just does

Speaker 1 (09:40):

one and I think he’s had an extra card for the, for the count because Jerry reaches in right before the last poem. Right. And feels that there’s only one and then Johnny takes the rest of everything and puts him in and then he faints his way to the finish line. And Alex, have you ever seen a faint like that for the last card?

Speaker 5 (10:02):

Something like that. But not quite that. I’ve seen something similar to that, but not that that was pretty hot what he was doing it. That was great.

We hope you’re enjoying this discussion of Johnny Carson magic. Remember, if you’d like to see what we’re talking about, just scroll up to watch the video.

Speaker 1 (10:09):

Cause when he did the vanish, instead of just doing the vanish, he did the vantage into a back poem. Faint like it looked like. So it was like a spider grip vanish. A double fate Manish. Cause everyone thought you put it in and was hiding it and that’s how he came out like that. [inaudible] tell, tell these people how much skill it takes to make faints look that good. Right?

Speaker 5 (10:39):

Yeah. You have to, you have to be working at these things for years, right? Because there’s all those moves. There’s only two places it could be it’s one hand or the three. I guess he had the pocket. Right. But he’s, he’s controlling that attention so hard. There’s just no way you can follow what he’s doing because he’s putting the action exactly where you think it is. And then by the time you figured out that nothing’s there, it’s already done. I mean like every single one of those phases was that is really, really great. That’s a great lesson in a just [inaudible] spectator management. Right.

Speaker 6 (11:08):

You have to be bold too. You have to be pretty bold to pull that whole routine to anybody know whose routine that is, where that came from. It’s old. I man, I just don’t know.

Speaker 1 (11:17):

Well there’s so many, you know, I forget how many Ballantine found in [inaudible]

Speaker 5 (11:22):

in his release on it, but there’s, you know, 10 or 15 of those. Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 6 (11:29):

yeah. I love that. I love that too. That uh, I love that part where, you know, to some extent he was really, he’s really trying, you know, you’re talking about that faint, but he’s really trying to make it feel as though he’s trying to draw the, the, the perception that he is doing some sort of thing with this hand. It’s funny. It’s a really funny choice cause a lot of magicians would handle that completely different. They may come here with it, but then they may, you know, really show their hand empty, but he’s keeping it, he’s keeping it very ambiguous.

Speaker 5 (12:04):

He’s taken advantage of the fact that that’s like one of the few methods that layman actually know, right, is how to like back Palm a card. So he’s using that as like a, as the faint, you know, and doing this sort of thing and doing it slow. So it looks like he could be turning the card over. Right. So it looks like a good really be, they’re really good. Really good. I love that man. It’s so much fun.

Speaker 1 (12:24):

And I think, you know, the big challenge with the card pocket routine of that sort, but the big old fashioned 10 card type pocket card divider again is the last card. So Johnny’s entire routine is based on being able to set that vein up so that he’s got that clean, bare handed vanish of the last card and having it work, you know, so as it’s happening, you may think there’s slights and stuff, but he just keeps doing it and it starts to Dawn on you that of course that card isn’t in his hand, you know what I mean? But it really,

Speaker 5 (12:59):

by the time that it dawns on you, it’s too late on that last one though. He is, he has on the last one, he actually was pushing it through and palming it like this cause he went like this and then pulled it out, you know, so we did some sort of fame. He did that faint first, right, where he pushed it through this way and you pretend this way then he actually, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We hope you’re enjoying this discussion of Johnny Carson magic. Remember, if you’d like to see what we’re talking about, just scroll up to watch the video.

Speaker 1 (13:21):

Fake. And then when he did it, and of course I don’t even do this move, he went right into that with all the tension [inaudible] up there. And then by the time it’s down to his pocket, he’s letting that go and pulling it, you know? So he did, aside from the last car, he did the whole thing with just three palms, right. The first big group. Then one card in the center for Jerry to go back in and do an [inaudible]. Jerry had a second. The first one was, you’re all right, John and the second one, you should have sewed the bottom of it up and takes everything the last card. And uh, and faints his way on home to the finish.

Speaker 6 (14:00):

That’s all right. That’s all right. So, you know, we, we love Johnny Carson, uh, in the old days cause he was such a huge proponent of magic. He always had guests on his show. On this next clip we’re going to take a look at a classic, a classic Johnny Carson actual Johnny Carson episode where Michael mr does an appearance and a routine for Arnold Schwarzenegger and Billy crystal. And this is a hilarious routine watching it very young. Michael Lamar, uh, do a great, beautiful set, which, um, it’s really funny to just, while you’re watching this, you have to know that Johnny Carson is a master magician. So Johnny knows most everything that he’s watching, but watch how good of a sport that guy is. This is what I really appreciated about, uh, Johnny Carson and, and his love for,

Speaker 7 (14:52):

you know, making magic really fun and keeping it real. All right, here we go. [inaudible]

Speaker 4 (15:02):

[inaudible]

Speaker 7 (15:02):

my glamor is here tonight. He’s an extremely talented sleight of hand with a girl, part of the addition of the year, the magic castle in Hollywood. The fifth year in each of the year. We just won that award. It’ll be in Houston, Texas at magic garden in June 16th through the 21st Wednesday. And that the comedy magic live and the most obese California June the 24th. You’re welcome, mr [inaudible]. How’s that sound going? Are you just a, this is louder to goes. A lot of people always ask, why are you twitching my daughter Lucy? So I thought I would get any sample. But it gives you some idea that you decide, watch, watch regularly. Yeah. She has a trick. [inaudible] what? I do a trick with the ball. Okay. I’ll do the illusion with the ball. So I think let’s squeeze this and to change this was fun to see that.

We hope you’re enjoying this discussion of Johnny Carson, who was not only an incredible talk show host but a great magician. Remember, if you’d like to see what we’re talking about, just scroll up to watch the video.

Speaker 8 (16:08):

Okay.

Speaker 7 (16:34):

It would cost, I’m sure it does for that reason. It’s, hang on. Sorry. Okay. You’re the guy that watches it and also since you test your lemon. All right. Can you guys see the video? Okay. Yeah, we can seek radio. Okay. Can you hear it? Okay? Hmm. That’s so much, uh, Harry during the first effect, but it seemed to have come back. So I don’t know. Could you hear it during the first effect, Adam? Uh, yeah, I could. Hold on. Let me just try resharing it again and see if we can get it. Uh, get a little bit louder. [inaudible] hold on. How many been a magician on my, you know, that magic suppose the way to break the ice to meet people for the first time. We’ve never met William [inaudible] example.

Speaker 4 (17:40):

[inaudible]

Speaker 7 (17:40):

how are ya? Good to see you. So you got a bell on here. This way you break the ice. I’ll show you how to build. I don’t get them up.

Speaker 4 (17:56):

[inaudible]

Speaker 7 (18:13):

how about this? I’ll take care of

Speaker 4 (18:21):

[inaudible]

Speaker 7 (18:22):

for everybody. Okay. I will. Thank you. I love the, I love the fact that when he said, can I borrow a bill Arnold source integrated? And nobody was talking about, he didn’t know that word in English yet. It’s a very young Arnold. No, I bet you’re on mute Erin. Sorry. Young everybody. Yeah, receipt. Yeah. Yeah. This will be a receipt they just put in. This side goes on the one, I’ll do 200 of those in my pocket. You to write before they show us forward. This is what people do. This is a good way to break the ice in a social situation. Yes, the ice needs broken here. All you have to do, a lot of people, she went to take him though and hold it on their plate. Where are we going to go for one minute in a minute?

We hope you’re enjoying this discussion of Johnny Carson magic. Remember, if you’d like to see what we’re talking about, just scroll up to watch the video.

Speaker 7 (19:18):

Yes, you do hold the flame close to the mill. It seemed as if this were the light. Okay, but don’t go. Don’t worry. We’ll we’ll deal with this. We’ll deal with this. I’ll take that. That’s how I got it. But a deck of cards. Whenever you hear me, the [inaudible] think some of the cards. I grabbed angel play cards with him, so let me quickly show you that. All the cards, you don’t want a niche. They’re all different. Okay. That doesn’t matter which order. We use some deli, just me. Any card often chosen quietly. Make sure that we have it in here. I don’t necessarily play to the full day. When I played it on salt, I can like this and it changed because I know you think you’d want to find a selected something else, so I’ll go be like this. Just crack any card.

Speaker 7 (20:30):

I’m going to show it to everybody. Okay. Hey, I want to deal with your 50 right after this shuffling. Then you hear the kinds of cut out whenever you cut apart. Yeah. There’s a lot of ways to interpret that. Okay. I can cut them differently. Does anybody here have a razor on them? Just be tight. That joke did not work. Yeah. Wait, you’re muted. Sorry. Everyone have a razor on them. Yeah. Well, yeah. It makes you feel good when Michael and bars on the tonight show in his joke bombs, you’re like, Oh, that’s it happens everyday. Hey, uh, when, when I’m sharing this video, is anybody in the chat let me know? Is the sound messed up or can you guys hear it?

Speaker 7 (21:30):

Someone, anyone let me know. It’s okay. Ish. It comes and goes. We can barely hear it. No, just bits and pieces. All right. You’re going to have to turn your computer volume up garbled, garbled, garbled. No, it’s totally messed up. I think if we can let them get to the end of the effects, everyone can see the end of the effect. We can probably tough it out through the end of this. Uh, but I think he’s about to get there. I don’t think we should go to the end of the act. And last to Alex, is he gonna do another eight minutes before he gets to the 11 no, no, no. I think we’re more than halfway through this thing. We got to, yeah, it’s two minutes. We got two minutes left. All right, here we go. Let’s tough it out. Get to the ending. What does this take out the blade, but don’t touch him. Oh, he pulled the blade out of the razor. The electric razor pattern. Shake it up. The razor goes down through the deck. It’s going to stop at your card. Thank you Adam. This is the perfect time for your mad pageant videos. Whoa, that’s a good trick.

Speaker 7 (23:01):

That’s a good trick. Like he’s got one more. All right. All right. So all right, sorry, I missed that. What just happened? Well, you got that razor blade out of the electric razor, dropped it into the deck. He shook it up and the razor cut through all the cards until it got to the selection and they dumped everything out. Everything was cut up except for the selected card. Wow. And he dumped it into their hanky. So it’s real clean. Has pretty depth. Okay, here we go. Okay.

Speaker 4 (23:41):

[inaudible]

Speaker 7 (23:42):

but where’s my 20

Speaker 4 (23:47):

[inaudible]

Speaker 7 (23:47):

forgotten, lesser, reasonably handled. Never let him. He said I would give you overall idea

Speaker 4 (23:53):

[inaudible]

Speaker 1 (23:53):

yeah, good picture.

We hope you’re enjoying this discussion of Johnny Carson magic. Remember, if you’d like to see what we’re talking about, just scroll up to watch the video.

Speaker 7 (23:57):

You still do it kind of all the way around. It’s just been had a core inside cause this woman does have a cord and there was a hundred all along. I was laughing. I noticed you weren’t meant for so much, but I noticed $100 zero all along. In fact, inside the center, this is $100 zero not just any hundred dollars zero. So a hundred dollars bill that has a quarter this and if you’ll take the quarter on prove without any shadow of a doubt. Was that the $100 bill that you gave me?

Speaker 4 (24:37):

[inaudible]

Speaker 6 (24:37):

come on, talk about strong baby.

Speaker 1 (24:42):

Okay.

Speaker 5 (24:43):

What was that like? Five of them that he did not appearance. That’s great.

Speaker 1 (24:47):

That’s a strong showing. When Michael did his living room a lecture for us a couple of years ago, it was a real special night and he definitely said that when he’s working, you know he’s a one card trick guy. Yeah. It doesn’t do a lot of card tricks. He does one card trick and uh, and in this case he really just did one card trick, right?

Speaker 6 (25:07):

Yeah. There is something to be said about bill and lemon Carden, lemon. I mean the fact is is that when you watch lots of tonight’s show clips, people always win on there. And did that trick as their finale. I mean it was like you would see it again. Again, there’s hundreds of magicians that have been on the tonight show over the years and a lot of them always did. You know, card had impossible location and for some reason it would be inside a piece of fruit. You know, still to this day, that trick is killer. I mean, come on, there’s no real better way to end a set than that, just as

Speaker 1 (25:44):

it’s the ultimate impossible location, right? Because it’s not a wallet or an envelope, but it was sealed from the source. All right. That’s all right. Possibility. And there’s something about that image of slicing the lemon open and seeing that the core sticking up out of it that, you know, I remember it from before, I even know when long before I was a magician, I remember seeing someone pop open at lemon and seeing that and going, wow, you know, and having my jaw drop in a way that it hasn’t ever since I’ve been a magician really? Like it was so primal. So incredible. Uh, the big debate always is, is about the torn corner versus the signature. A lot of guys think that the signatures, the only way to go, and I think Alex swears by the signature cause technically it’s more impossible, right?

We hope you’re enjoying this discussion of Johnny Carson magic. Remember, if you’d like to see what we’re talking about, just scroll up to watch the video.

Speaker 5 (26:32):

It’s more impossible. I mean the reality that you’re cutting up on a piece of fruit and there’s something in there is impossible in and of itself, I think that knocks people on there. But that’s the first thing. That’s the memory that I have seen that before I, any methods is just what, how it’s like incongruent. It doesn’t fit into the world and it stops you in your tracks. But there, you know, I tried it both ways and the reaction is always stronger when that’s a signature as opposed to a torn corner. And that’s the reason that I go with a signature every time. Uh, methods are a little bit trickier, right? You have to work generally a little bit harder if it’s the same bill that’s in play, but that little extra work, it seems to be worth it to me. I, uh, I don’t do it without the signature at this point.

Speaker 6 (27:12):

You know, when I was a, when I was a kid, I, uh, when I was about 10 years old, I wanted to put bill and lemon in my, a, in my little Cub scout show act that I was doing. And, um, and, and, and so I thought my, I thought it was rude that I would borrow a bill and give it back all juicy and wet. So I thought it would be smart if I just wrapped the bill in some sort of plastic and then put it in the lemon. Right. So I’m 10 years old and, and I make a bill vanish and then we cut them. We cut it open and there it is. It’s wrapped in plastic inside a lemon. It makes no sense. Like how did the plastic get in there? What is the point of the plastic? How did that get in the lemon? But I didn’t think about that. Yeah, I didn’t think about that when I was 10. I was worried about my audience’s feelings.

Speaker 5 (28:01):

But you had no lemon juice on the bill, right?

Speaker 1 (28:03):

Right. Or that, that are meant to be deceptive.

Speaker 5 (28:10):

Okay.

Speaker 1 (28:10):

Now did you make the bag disappear too? Yeah, I didn’t, I wasn’t that good. It hurts like a orange lemon, egg Canary. You know, you make a bag disappear, making bill disappear, opened up the lemon inside the lemons of bag inside the bag. I mean it’s silly as hell, but you could have used one of those very special flash bags. The bag board, you really just have it be a Corona, a quarantine friendly performance person. They stick it in a bill, they place it in a plastic bag, it all vanishes. And you know, it’s give it a nice acid bath or even better bag in the bit, bill in the bag, make them both disappear, pull out a sealed box of Clorox bleach. Don’t put it out, you know, and with the tweezers, pull out that soaked bag of the, you know, and in the end, Adam removes his mask and it’s Aaron standing there and everybody’s disgusted. Rhonna magic. We’re on a magic. Oh yeah.

Speaker 6 (29:11):

I have seen some other mr clips and I think that he, you know, I think mr really understood working to the tonight show really well. I think he, he understood his audience always. Like he came out, he’s just a very unassuming guy. He’s got a very, he’s got a very like laid back, uh, relaxed, uh, attitude and you know, he laughs a lot. He’s very, you know, he’s not goofy. He’s just,

Speaker 5 (29:36):

it’s funny. It’s funny that you mentioned all that Adam, because remember when he did our lecture with us, he talked about that. He talked about what it meant to go on television to him and that he changed his living room around when he was doing those Letterman appearances when they had that magic week on David Letterman. I forgot about it until you just said it, but he went and do the Letterman show and he said that for like a month he had the table and the chairs set up in his living room just like Letterman’s studio so that he could practice with the exact angles and he was going to deal with, while he was performing for Letterman. I would imagine that his process was probably exactly the same when he was thinking about how to do it on the tonight show. Right. Working with the table, having those chairs there and the spectators so that basically, there’s no surprises.

Speaker 5 (30:17):

Right. You walk into that thing, you know exactly what you have to do and how to go about it and you can just shine, right. You can just be be a magician and shine. So, uh, yeah, he’s definitely a professional as professional as they come. Right. Very inspirational. Yeah. All right. Any last thoughts about that clip before we move on? Cause we have a great clip coming up. And this next one we’re going to watch. Anybody want to say anything about that one? Let’s do it. All right. Here we go. A couple hundred more of those in my pocket. Not this $1 for me. One minute of screen time. All right. You don’t want to give you a raw deal. Was that? Yeah, that was the movie I tell you. Last. Bravo. All right. This next one is Paul Gertner performing on the tonight show. And you may see it a little LA, a little something here that is similar to what mr did. Yeah, just that’s proving my point further. Here we go.

Speaker 4 (31:24):

[inaudible]

Speaker 9 (31:24):

we’ll try one last quick thing. Thinky Lee lives.

Speaker 4 (31:31):

[inaudible]

Speaker 9 (31:31):

go look in the hat and I’ll make sure it’s empty. Okay.

Speaker 5 (31:34):

[inaudible]

Speaker 9 (31:35):

okay.

Speaker 4 (31:37):

[inaudible]

Speaker 9 (31:39):

okay. We used to have three dice and a magic wand. All right. Okay. It’s pure slight of hand. Now the hat stays on the table. The dice stay on the table. The wand didn’t hand. Now if you watch the first time, I take it in hand and give it a tap. It leaves a hand and jumps under the hat. That’s the first time I’ll do that again. I’ll do that again. Watch. I just take the dye in the hand and if I give it a tap. Did you see it leave yet? Not yet. No. That’s cause it’s still there. It’s still there. Yeah. See, I have to take and tap it twice and then it jumps under that. In fact, this time I’ll show you how the trick is done. Okay. So really I will. Okay. So I take it in the hand and as I tap it, I quickly take it from here over to here. Why? See now I pretend to put it in the pocket, but really I slip it like this right under the hat and it looks like it was there. All the wine. Of course. That’s the easy way, right? If I do it the hard way, look, two in the hand, one stays in the pocket. If I give it a top, there’s one, two, three. Sure. That’s two in the hand. One stays in the pocket and the pocket. If I give it a tap, there’s one, two, three. This is your last chance here that that’s one.

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Speaker 4 (32:40):

Yes.

Speaker 9 (32:40):

Where do you think they are? Um, no, they’re all gone. Taking us. Where do you think the dicer probably under the hat. Would you be shocked if they were under the hash? I was surprised. Maybe or mildly amused.

Speaker 4 (32:52):

[inaudible]

Speaker 9 (32:52):

that’s the small one. Yeah. Yeah. No. See, I know where that comes from. I know where that comes from, but I can’t figure out is where in the world at that point.

Speaker 4 (33:07):

[inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible]

Speaker 9 (33:13):

that is so awesome.

Speaker 6 (33:16):

Wow.

Speaker 1 (33:18):

I know somebody caught that little subtlety right there. Is that you Adam?

Speaker 6 (33:23):

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but gosh, I mean he handled it right. I mean, he, uh, Johnny picked up the hat at the wrong moment and, and uh, and Girton or just knew exactly how to recover in that moment.

Speaker 1 (33:38):

Yeah. It seemed almost like that’s how I wanted it. Yeah. I can go, here we go.

Speaker 6 (33:45):

If you want to see the moment we’re talking about, just so you know, like this stuff happened when, when you’re a professional magician and you’re on TV, even though you’ve rehearsed this a million different ways and a million different times, sometimes things go just a little bit different than you expect. But watch how Gertner recovers in this situation. I’m going to run it back just a little bit. All right. Here we go. Check this out right here.

Speaker 1 (34:11):

All right, here it is.

Speaker 9 (34:12):

He goes, where do you think the dicer probably under the hat. Would you be shocked if they were under the hash? I was surprised maybe or mildly amused.

Speaker 4 (34:21):

[inaudible]

Speaker 9 (34:21):

that’s the small ones

Speaker 6 (34:22):

say so. He did not expect Carson to reach out and pick that hat up. That wasn’t the line, but Carson got confused and pick the hat up. But watch how Gertner handles that moment. It’s really beautiful. Watch how much audience control Gertner has over that.

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Speaker 4 (34:39):

Yes.

Speaker 9 (34:40):

Speaker 4 (34:51):

[inaudible]

Speaker 9 (34:52):

that’s the small one. Yeah. Yeah. No. See, I know where that comes from.

Speaker 6 (34:55):

Love that. I love that moment. I love that.

Speaker 1 (34:58):

Well, yeah, that do you see that Girton or he totally said, would you be shocked there and there that we can be surprised within that? Would you be shocked them and tapped him in the arm and Carson, look, we’ve all done that a thousand times. You know, would you be surprised if they were in your hand? You know, and they go, you know, and you don’t tell them to open the hand and just prompt them to open that hand. And he totally, the way it sounded, I think Carson legitimately thought he was being told to check. Yeah. But he wasn’t, it was pretty clear from rigors response. He was like, well thank God in position. You know.

Speaker 6 (35:36):

Right. Then he put, so he puts his hand right

Speaker 1 (35:38):

on top of his hand. And then I love that. I love the loads that Gartner’s doing because he’s slamming the, the dye down at the exact time, covering any potential noise issues there at this. Very sneaky, very good. Therefore, he doesn’t need that super table in order to get away with it. But Joseph is important. There’s more tension and energy on the dye slapping down so that he doesn’t have to worry about how soft the energy is still. This is cause he’s going boom, boom. And all of the energy goes there. So even when it’s a soft a table, he’s still got a lot of misdirection going away from that. Tat,

Speaker 5 (36:22):

uh, you mean finger routine, outstanding routine. It’s almost worth carrying around a half for the pacing.

Speaker 1 (36:32):

Notice that, you know, Gertner uh, he’s moving at such a clip, you know, he’s definitely moving at such a cliff that there’s not a single wasted moment so that, uh, everybody at home, no matter what’s happening, they, they, there’s less breathing space than there would even be, uh, live in a closeup show because he is making sure that people are staying locked into it. They don’t, he doesn’t let them exhale long enough to think left or right. You know,

Speaker 5 (37:02):

how long is that routine total Adam? Cause that was a pretty tight

Speaker 1 (37:07):

okay. Okay.

Speaker 6 (37:08):

It’s only a minute. 56, really a minute. 33.

Speaker 1 (37:13):

Wow. Yeah. Did the end of his show or at the beginning or did he, cause I don’t, we don’t have a reference point on it. I’m not sure. Yeah, that’s all that there was on that I, I would say it’s probably his closer though, wouldn’t you? Well are they already sitting there at the table when the clip started? Like are we, is it yes or whatever? Yeah. Cause he says I want to do one more thing.

Speaker 6 (37:37):

So yeah, that’s is closer. He’s got that. He’s got that as his big finale. Of course it’s hard to beat that too. Like once you produce a giant three giant die under the like a hat. I mean what you were working, you go from there.

Speaker 5 (37:49):

Well he’s got those showstoppers right. Cause I’m a previous in a previous tonight show appearance, he did that thing where he has the ring banished and it’s on the middle of an hourglass. Right. It’s an impossible the possible thing. So I think, I think he’s just, you know, that book is full of those kinds of things where he’s got those just big impossible show pieces that are just, you know, great closers. I think there’s like four or five of them in that book. That’s the only silver book that he wrote that has all those things in it, including that, that dice thing. It’s really good as I get

Speaker 1 (38:18):

keen to build a lemon and the giant loads at the end of, uh, the, the routine. Of course, part point of that hat is it’s, you can get, as John Tuttle knows, is when you got a hat out there, not only is pinky Lee happy, but you can get go further than you can. You can get bigger stuff and can in a cup, right? But those are like your two signature, uh, endings. And of course there have been those rare occasions like John Carney, where you know, the only thing you can do after you produce that lemon is cut it open and the Bill’s inside. But already that’s like, you know, going for the super Encore, right?

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Speaker 3 (38:52):

Yeah. Well, if you’re on TV, go big or go home, right? Yeah. You better go home.

Speaker 6 (38:59):

Yeah. I mean, back, back in the day, I mean this was, this was your big break. I mean, there’s a lot of guys whose careers got launched by being on the tonight show. So it was kind of like the pinnacle back in the day. Like it was thought panicle thing you could do as a magician is beyond this show

Speaker 3 (39:14):

or if any kind of performer. Right. I remember watching Lance Burton on new year’s Eve then I do too. Did the dub, I mean, it changed everything. I mean, it was like you saw that and you were just like, Oh my God, it’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. I haven’t get dogs. I had to like see if I could train the fly. I mean, tried everything. And that’s what did it for you, Lance Burton was what inspired you to do that? Yes. Well, arts and too, I mean, you know. Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome. Yeah, it was amazing.

Speaker 1 (39:45):

Absolutely incredible. Who in our little group today, uh, has, uh, was around in time to be inspired by a magician on the tonight show age wise. How many of you are from the tonight show with Johnny Carson era? So hard for us to remember, uh, that there was a time before there were 40, uh, late night shows

Speaker 3 (40:06):

and you know, what else to Carson was Hollywood. Like, he just really it, you know, I liked a lot of people that are on now. They’re very good, very funny, but they’re not Hollywood. Carson had that mystique, that Hollywood mystique, you know, that like he was like an honorary rat packer, you know, it’s a different time. Right. Being famous than meant something different than being famous means now. Exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:32):

Yeah. I mean there weren’t even other, you know, there weren’t even other late night shows to even bother to compete with it. You know, Letterman was after by the time we were around. But

Speaker 3 (40:43):

and Letterman notoriously sorta hated magicians too. Right. It was a special deal when he did that magic week. That was a big deal. Yeah. They were never on, he was happy to. And the only person that was on, I remember as a kid, cause like nowadays everyone takes it for granted. You can watch magic pretty much anytime you want. Right. You can see any magic special, you can do anything you want. But when I was a kid, like you were scouring the TV guide to see if anybody had a magician on. Right. And the only choices were like Mike Douglas at four o’clock right. Would sometimes have somebody on, then there was Carson and then there was Merv, Merv Griffin. And he would have on like, you know, amazing like old guys, right?

Speaker 1 (41:22):

Yeah, totally. Do you remember, because like of that time and because Johnny was setting the magic on dinosaur, you’d see Ricky Jay on Dinah shore, you’d see at the time Schneider show, you know it because Johnny decided what was cool magic. There was a place for magic and you know, there is again, I mean Alan has decided magic is cool and their magic is on TV, you know, pretty regularly. You know, like our friend Adam Wiley just did a spot on the Ellen show from home, you know, so everything old is new again. Yes, Steve.

Speaker 3 (41:57):

You know what I think is different though is that Carson really was about having the magic beyond the show, but be good. So he likes set the scene. He like gave the magicians what they wanted, you know, to, to perform. Like when a Mar walks out on that clip, right. That table set up exactly like Amar wants it to be set up. Or at least he knew how it was set up before. Right. When you looked at that magic week with Letterman, Letterman was not accepting. You had to sit in the chair and do it right there. Like no matter what you did, he wasn’t gonna, you weren’t gonna go to a table out there. You’re going to have to do, if you could do magic, do it right here. You know, it was like a challenge right from the beginning as opposed to Carson really trying to make it like, what do you need to be awesome? You know, that’s kind of like what the Carson, how Carson approached it.

Speaker 1 (42:41):

I’m sure that Cabot had the same point of view and I think you’re shooting as well. And I, and I think, you know, Dinah shore and, uh, when I think Island the generous, I get the impression that they were both really, uh, quite into magic, quite supportive of it. But, and they didn’t because they didn’t, weren’t magicians, unlike Cabot and Carson, uh, there was, they didn’t really feel like by doing it on the panel, by doing it on the couch, they were harming the magician. But you know, Johnny, I guess you’re saying was really making a space for table magic acts.

Speaker 3 (43:13):

Yeah. Well how many times have we seen people and they go out to the center of the stage? Everyone sits around a table, you know that. You never see that now except Ellen does do it. You know, Ellen will either do it in the chairs, we’re bringing them over to a high boy or something. I’ve seen that a couple of times.

Speaker 5 (43:28):

Well he was very, he was very kind to these guys. Let them have a table. Because if you look at magic at that time, magic was still close up. Magic was sort of still not really widely accepted and he made it widely accepted by allowing those things to happen because it was what Aaron just said, come out to the middle of the stage, do your act, we’ll open the curtains, we’ll let you do your thing. Right. But closeup magic is its own beast and you sorta have to be like, let in on the secret that makes the closeup. Magic is cool. And the only way you’re letting on that secret is to see a closeup, magic effect. And then all of a sudden you’re like, what? How have I missed out on this? How did I know that this didn’t exist? And Johnny was very skillful at bringing that around and allowing his audience to understand what was cool to him so that they could think it was cool to you. Awesome, man. Just awesome. That’s what you need with magic, right? You sort of need an ambassador to bring you around to let you know how awesome it is. Let’s, uh, let’s wrap up the YouTube stream and then we’ll talk a bit. Uh, just want to say, Hey, if you’re watching this on one of our social media channels and you like what you see, make sure you like, subscribe to our channel. Make sure that you do that. So you get notified every time we go live with new video

Speaker 6 (44:32):

and leave us a comment, uh, with one of your favorite magic clips or something you want us to watch and react to and we’ll make sure we try to get to them in an upcoming video. Uh, all you people watching this live, we will see you tomorrow on afternoon. Astonish.

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