hack joke – MagicShow.Tips

Here’s a Joke For You…

One of the things I hate is when people tell me they “have a joke that I can use in my act“, then proceed to tell the me the lamest, street joke. I always let them tell it to me, and laugh to be polite, but it’s never a good or original joke.

I recently had a musician working the same event as I was “give” me this joke:
You show a beer and say, “I’m going to make this beer disappear” then you drink the beer. It’s a stupid joke because everyone gets to the punchline before you can deliver, that and the payoff isn’t that good. I’m sure some hack comedy magicians will tell me they kill with that gag, and if they actually do, good for them.

One of the reasons I always let the person tell me the joke is you never know what it will spark in your brain. The joke made me think of the old Ever Filling Glass. If you’re not familiar with this, it’s a glass that you drink from and then it’s full again.

Here’s a demo video of it I found:

If you pared that trick with joke, you might have something that has a magical pay out.

You show the glass and a handkerchief. Say “the beer will disappear” and cover it with the handkerchief. Pretend to drink the beer from under the handkerchief and then show the cup almost empty. You then recover the glass, say, “it’s going to reappear…now!” and whisk the handkerchief away to show it’s now full again!

I think this would also work with Mago Murphy’s Appearing Beer Trick, you’d just have to work it slightly differently, starting with the full beer and stealing the gimmick while you pretend to drink it.

I don’t think I’ll ever do this, but it’s an idea…

-Louie

Don’t Be a D*ck

If you want your magic show to stay relevant, you need to stay on top of what society say is “politically correct“. Yes, there is a place to push the envelope and be edgy, but for 98% of us we aren’t. Of that 2% that do probably less than a quarter of them do it … Continue reading “Don’t Be a D*ck”

If you want your magic show to stay relevant, you need to stay on top of what society say is “politically correct“. Yes, there is a place to push the envelope and be edgy, but for 98% of us we aren’t. Of that 2% that do probably less than a quarter of them do it in a way that has a purpose, the rest are just a-holes.

Last week I was in Washington DC and went to one of the Smithsonian Museums and saw this beloved Muppet’s character:

The Swedish Chef has been around longer than I’ve been alive, however it might be time to retire part of his humor. His imitation of the Swedish language borders on not being what’s acceptable in today’s world. If I saw someone doing a Chinese character and they spoke saying things like, “Ching chong, chin chang…” I would walk out of the show. There’s no reason that the Swedish Chef can’t speak actual Swedish. Part of the humor is making fun of a group of people’s language. If you took that out, would it still be as funny?

I get in 1975, it was a bit harder to just learn a language, but now it’s super easy to actually learn a language now. Here’s an example. I wanted to use the Khoisan language in my show, this is the one that has all of the mouth clicks in it. All I needed to do was count to three. I could have faked it and just made random clicking noises, but wanted to do it respectfully and the least I could do was learn to actually do it. It was really easy, and using the actual language was much funnier as it had a sense of build to it.

When something breaks are you still using the offensive and hack line, “Must be made in China“? Here’s why that line is bad, it’s putting down an whole group of people for the laugh, and it’s outdated as the quality standards in China are frequently higher than in the USA. In my show I have a fishing pole that breaks, in 1983 the “made in China” line might have worked, but I want to be better than that. The line I use when it breaks is, “That’s the last time a buy a fishing pole on Tinder…should have gotten it on Plenty of Fish…“. This line puts the laugh(s) on me, and I guess on the fictional person who would sell a fishing pole on a dating website.

Take a look at your show, are there any bits that have aged out of it?

No, I Won’t Use It…

When it comes to comedy, one of the things that I hate is when a variety performer doesn’t get a laugh or gets a groan and says something like, “you’ll use it”. I don’t like this for several reasons, but the main one is that it’s really only appropriate at industry events (and barely there). This line is probably the ultimate hack line. It’s a stolen line about how people are going to steal bad material!

The performers recently saw do this line was doing a show for the general public, not at a magic convention. First of all without context, it means nothing and it means nothing to all of the soccer moms in the audience. Where are they going to use it…in their next show?

The other big problem I have with this line is that they imply that I’m going to steal a line from their show and a line that doesn’t get a good reaction. Why would I steal the line that doesn’t work? They are alienating me as an audience member with that line. Sure, you can argue that working for magicians is different from a normal audience, however I don’t agree with that. Magicians will like a good, tight act. A sloppy, hack act they won’t.