rvoice100 wrote:ay up chucks,
was just thinking to myself and i have a question for all the magicians pre blaine,
were the effects he used (ie. the Raven, Cig thru coin, coin bite, balducci etc.) available before his specials?
for instance after drowned alive, out came the self tying shoelace, phoneomenom strange travelers etc. these wernt available before, was it the same with earlier tricks?
Self tying shoelaces DID exist, but not in the 'mainstream'. Phoneomenon is nothing short of common sense, but using clever camera misdirection and not showing the 'full' effect, Blaine was allowed to make it look more of a miracle than it is.
Strange Travellers has been around in forms for ages, probably a hundred years. It's simply been streamlined, and re-born for/after the show.
You'll find that nothing in magic is really 'new'. Except of course some of the more technological stuff. But even then, most of it just finds tidier ways to perform old classics.
Cigarette thru quarter has been around for ages, and is the copyright of Pressley Guitar (yeah, that's his real name!) who is a notable among many magicians for his gaff coin products—I know that his name and patents go back years.
And as for the Raven, I'm afraid all Mr Blaine did for Mr Leach's effect is give hundreds of bedroom magic dabblers the key to one of magic's little secrets. And as far as I gather (Magic Cafe I think) Mr Leach is not a happy bunny about it!