talkmagic.co.uk

Any of you do the old 'rabbit out of a hat' thing. People often joke and ask me if I'm going to take a rabbit out of a hat so i decided I'm going to do it. It'll follow on to a production of silks I usually do - which leads nicely to one of the rabbit productions in Tarbell's course.
I usually produce a rabbit out of a drwaer box, and i do a guinae pig out of my dove pan - all which get great reactions from the kiddies.

I was wondering if any of you do this. I know sometimes work with animals is frowned upon. I usually check with the hosts of a show if they have any problems with me using animals and assure them that they're well looked after and cared for etc. (which they are )

i dont use animals since one of my doves died on stage, well at a childrens party anyway.
so now i say i dont pull a rabbit out of a hat i pull one from my fist, then go on to do the sponge ball to rabbit trick. more humane

I once saw a magician with a 'naughty' lion puppet, who claimed that he couldn't pull a rabbit out of a hat but could pull a hare (hair) out of his...

You get the idea.

his tail?

taneous wrote:his tail?

...you are close, so very, very close...

i've often considered this as the one trick everyone knows about but most havent seen!!

however a stuffed bunny toy may be a better choise(?)

anyway try it i know the gerbil in chick pan worked well!! (just have to wash the pan!!)

so try it if it works well let us know if it doesn't let us know!!

PcWizMe

i've often considered this as the one trick everyone knows about but most havent seen!!

That's probably the one of the main reasons I want to do it, along with the reaction I get from the kids with the guinae pig.

I was hesitant at first about using animals at all. It seemed a bit cruel. The first animal I used was at my daughter's birthday. We got a rabbit as one of her presents and i produced it using a drawer box as the finally.
I've never been much of an animal person, but having the rabbit has been fun. We then got the guinae pig for use in my dove pan and he seems to have made great friends with the rabbit.
I've watched the rabbit an gpig and they are most comfortable when they are in a really small space. I made this nice 'house' for the rabbit, but instead he prefers to squeeze under it and sleep there, which has made me realise it's not such a big deal for them to be in a dove pan for a short while, or a load for a hat. (ok I'm no dr doolittle, so I can't say for sure)
I think the key is to spend lots of time caring for and playing with the animals that are involved in a show - so that they know they're not in danger when they're around you - if you're going to use animals at all.
I'll see how it goes - I have thought about it a lot and I personally don't feel it's being cruel, but I'm open to suggestions..

a rabbit can die of stress in a heartbeat (pun intended), as mant a performer has foun out to there cost, so if you are going to use a rabbit go for a dawarf lop eared rabbit for several reasons.
1) they are naturaly small.
2) are neerer to cavey guinee pigs in temprament.
3) the cutsy factor .
4) are generaly calmer and more hardier than other breads.

also please take the time to condition your rabbit not only to be comftably hanging around in sacks and in boxes for extended periods.
but also get them used to noise if your rabbit is generaly indooors then use the vacume if outside periodicly bash the cage, this may sound cruel to thoughs that arn't thinking things through.
in a party situation its not always possible to have a nice quiet place to keep your animal and load them just before performance, so the animal must be comftable in a noisy enviroment so as not to be stressed.

my rabbits sit out on bonfirenight looking at all the flashes and thunder claps withought batting an eyelid, same with my guineepig and three cats, they have all been conditioned to accept noise.

A bit of magic trivia. 19th century magician John Henry Anderson from Scotland, known as the Wizard of the North, is thought to be the first magician to produce a rabbit from a hat. It is reputed to be a kind of topical social comment at the time, relating to a woman who was supposed to have given birth to a rabbit.

Does anybody have a good idea of how I could produce a rabbit out of a hat in a cool way instead of just showing the hat empty, saying the magical words and pulling one out?

I just can't seem to get the brainwave...

Oh, I don't work with live animals; cuddly bunnies don't mind being in small spaces for quite some time. At least, I've never heard them complain

In my adult act, I take a rubber rat out of my case and then pull a cigarette from a slit in it.

"There," I say, "now you can tell your friends that you finally saw a magician pull a habit out of a rat!"

Actually a pretty good one
But I guess that isn't going to work when performing in Dutch...

It's quite funny reading a thread that I started about 3 years ago. I still do kid's shows, but stopped using live animals shortly after making this post. I was getting quite a few shows during the day, so had to dash off from work during lunch time, do a show, and then get back to work - so my setup became quite compact, and it just wasn't practical to carry a rabbit, or other pet.

I still get asked to pull a rabbit out of a hat - almost every show, because a lot of people 'remember' that this is what I did, but I do nothing of the sort. The following is my routine (I usually doi this for 5-8 year olds):

I have a double load dove pan with two lids (I bought another dove pan for the second lid - I found that getting the second load was a bit too clumsy, so the easiest solution was to have it set up already). I also use a bolwer hat - that I use throughout the show, as well as a magic milk pitcher, a wilting flower and a fake egg.
The first load is set up with a fake snake curled around the sides and a spring rabbit in the middle. The second load is full of marshmallows.

I basically go about making a cake with the kids. This used to include one of those change bags that change into an apron and a bakers hat - but I lost the apron along the way. Now I kit the birthday kid, or other volunteer in a bakers hat and protective eyewear (huge sunglasses).
I start out asking for ingredients and they usually say flower - at which point I get the wilting flower and try and get it in the pan. Using the mechanism of the flower I animate it so that it looks like it has a life of it's own and doesn't want to get in the pan. It eventually attacks me and I put it away because it is too dangerous. I then take an egg from behind the volunteer's ear and then make it vanish into the pan. We then use our imagination for a while and I ask them to throw me ingredients (I always ask for carrots - carrot cake, and then a bunch of other vegetables - things that the kids think are gross in a cake, but may attract rabbits).

At some point I get the pan mixed up with the bowler hat and proceed to pour 'milk' into the bowler hat, with the pan on my head - of course ignoring the kid's screams. (What I'm trying to set up here is a reason for the rabbit getting 'confused ' and thinking the pan is my hat, or perhaps it heard about the carrots in the cake).

So after a bit of flash paper being lit in the pan I close it and produce the rabbit - and I act all surprised and tell the rabbit he got it wrong - etc. etc.
I play a bit with my 'real fake rabbit' (rocky racoon style) and then I put the spring rabbit into my bowler hat and hand it to the kid so that the parents can photograph them. All of this sort of re-enforcing the memory that I pulled a rabbit out of a hat. Whether they remember it or not is irrelevant, though - in their minds I, at least, tried to do what they asked me.

The rest of the routine is fun in that i say I got the wrong magic words - to make a cake they must say "pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake' but they MUSN'T say 'pat-a-snake'. Well you don't have to have worked with kids that long to know what they are going to say...
So I produce the snake and the in the commotion i throw the lid into my box of stuff - giving me an excuse to retrieve it. I then produce the marshmallows - pour them into the baker's hat and ask the birthday kid to hand them out to his/her friends.
I sometimes throw them out into the crowd - especially if it's a large audience - but I've learnt the hard way to do this carefully and warn the kids beforehand that I will only do it if they promise not to cause a riot. The last marshmallow I usually pretend to throw and put it in my mouth and say it disappeared. Either way - it is usually a good closer, and the part where the birthday kid hands out the marshmallows usually gives me enough time to pack up my show.

Hope some of you can use that - it's not a rabbit-out-the-hat but it works for me. I still have a whole lot of rabbits living in my back garden, though

Thanks for your reply. Did you base this on a routine called 'The bake-snake-cake' or something as performed by Sam Smith on his DVD Kidology & The Magic Ingredient?
It's somewhat alike.

hmm - no, never heard of it. Most of my routines evolve along the way. I usually see something in a kid's store and I try and figure out a way of using it. But yes - great minds think alike and all that