talkmagic.co.uk

All Magic tricks can 'date' BUT like fashions they all come back. The important thing is How You present them.
Everything relies on Presentation & the magician's Performing Personality.
Recently in a lecture I showed the old Kolar Straw & String trick but performed with 2 strings as per George Blake. Although it was once in every Boy's Books Of Magic, only 2 of the 30 present had ever heard of or seen it.

The Big Shower of Sponge Balls was popularised by the late, great Joe Riding in his Stand Up Routine. My own is based on this and again a number of magicians have said they never thought of it as a Stand Up/Cabaret/Stage effect. I combine it with the Hot Stool.
Miles Sinclair (Magical Wonders, Watford, Herts.) publishes Billy McComb's effective & funny routine.
I also use Aldo Columbini's 'Throw In The Sponges'; a simple but great close up routine. Although available separately it was originally published in The Linking Ring, Vol. 70, No.5, May 1990 page 74
Allen Tipton

One of the greatest reactions is when someone opens thier hand where you placed one single sponge ball and 4 come spewing out, magic that happens in thier hand and in front of thier face.

I'm going to start using them alot more now, I've altered my slient routine to include a patter and make it much better for close up performances and am working on putting together some new sponge routines too.

Sponge balls are fun and I only bought some to play around with and I was suprised how strong a reaction they got. Something that seems so simple and outdated and is associated with children's magic (in many magicians minds) can stun a layman into silence.

The late and brilliant Karrell Fox used to go into a new magic shop and ask "What's old?" rather than "What's new?"

The foxy one KNEW that the best methods were the old methods (granted, one has to update the patter, but. . .)

I never leave home without my 'Ding Dong'
Darren @ The Magic Attic

Similar to Magic Attic, I never perform in adult cabaret without using Ding Dong.

A well timed, stand up sponge ball routine plays well - and for the right audience a Ding Dong finale goes a storm and DOESN'T need to come across as crude if the patter, and most importantly the assisting spectator, are handled correctly.

Personally, I use the Joe Riding sponge ball cabaret routine (used also by Billy McComb, Paul Daniels) and have done since 1982. Joe's close up sponge routines also play well and Joe was the only magician I've known to have used sponges for other effects - for example sponges thru table instead of coins when visibility was limited.

i really need to start sponges would anyone recommend SPONGE! by jay as it seems like a real begginers sponge video....

Anyone who does that dreadful ding dong trick should be hung, drawn and quartered. They are doing the art of magic and themselves a great disservice.
Consider yourselves severely reprimanded.

good on yer lomster...

i'll buy you a nice new knitting pattern for christmas

i've never learnt a sponge routine, purely cos i love watching it so much, same as coin stuff...if i meet Dr.Todd in the pub, i usually make him do a coins across routine...

anyway, its visual, fun, entertaining...what's people's problem?

if i remember rightly, we even discussed relating the patter to atomic structures at some point, and as they all pop up and move and dissapear, the final reveal is the object you were talking about in the first place..

with two simple psychological forces, you could, and ssshhh about this..use it as a fun mental-magic kinda warm up effect...

tricks for truth have a very nice ball to sponge heart, hearts desire and alll that.
i can see some nice possibilities from kids shows to mentalism ideas.

When properly done by a good magician, sponge balls are mind blowing magic.

and im sure with a pen, you could do some balls with different letters on them..making different words appear and move...

you can even buy sponge-eyes now...hank lee had some i think...

Well last night in the pub I tried out my new sponge ball routine with it's patter and it went down brilliantly. Chatting to people afterwards I asked what they found so entertaining about it and the reply from most was 'well everyone can do card tricks but I've never seen anything like that before'.

So even though we think of sponges as old school, many specs will never have seen them before, not unless they've seen a magician on stage, which many wont have I'm guessing.

I can see myself specialising quite a bit in sponges now, this could be expensive, I keep catching myself looking as books and DVDs.

That be a lie Lomster I cant do card tricks . Ah Abraxus you must see my sponge ball to pint glass, Greedo was most impressed.