The Magic Cafe Forums - Labelled.....a penitration

(could someone please let me know if a dvd is of a single trick does it go here or as a trick review, I appreciate it)

Title: Labelled
Medium: DVD of routine
Arena: party magician
Available: Any shop, distributed by Murphys Magic

This is promoted as ‘street magic’ but I think it is more for the party worker, maybe a picnic show. What the routine taught is you take a plastic soda bottle, mark the label, and then with a slap of your hand the label is pushed through the bottle and is now stuck to the inside of the bottle…get this, the bottle is shown to have the cap still factory sealed! The presented routine looked great but since it was done in the UK they couldn’t find over the top urbanites to perform for so they settled for nice, calm, English people who really were impressed with the routines. The effect looks great and the label is in the bottle and the cap is sealed. Impressive and mysterious as heck to the spectator.

The video is nicely shot and the sound very good. The explanation is given very carefully and clearly and let me tell you….this isn’t a quick set routine. You will need to take time and patience to prepare to do this routine and I have to hand it to the young man you gives the instructions, he certainly put in a lot of time and effort making sure all aspects were covered and he did his work to make it look good. Keep this in mind, you will not be doing this every day for 10 people, it is one of those items you do and let your rep grow with the retelling of your heroic magical feat. I do want to make it clear that it is well worth the effort to do this routine it looks that good. One thing I would advise is to let this be a stand alone piece. Don’t be trying to add a coin to bottle etc because it dilutes the effect. This won’t deter the youngsters out there who will want to make the label go into the bottle, then a coin, then to want to melt the bottle and rub it in their arm to make the name of the long lost relative of a spectator appeared in the form of a blister. You’ve been warned.

The biggest concern is where and when to perform. You want to make sure it is a venue where the plastic soda bottle is being used. Other wise it just seems odd that everyone is chugging beer and you whip out your 7 Up bottle. This is why a party or picnic would be a great place to perform this. I would gather a crowd, do it….and then don’t do it again for the same group. As I said this is very strong and you don’t want to over do it. I have one complaint and that is the area of crediting the label in bottle. Ben, the fellow on the dvd, credits a friend of his who created a trick called, I believe, Osmosis, I’ve never seen it, but Ben mentioned ‘a few years ago’. What I was listening for was credit to be given to David Roth who was making and marketing a label in bottle routine at least 20 years ago. In Davids routine he takes a glass bottle and is going to do a coin through bottle after smacking the coin the coin didn’t penetrate but the label is now on the inside. I’m not sure if anyone did this before David Roth but Ben and his friend who did Osmosis (and I’m guessing here that he didn’t credit Roth) need to tip their hat to Mr Roth when crediting is done regardless if they were aware of it or not. Should anyone start chanting ‘this one is much different’ both have the same concept, prep, set up, and handling of the label (oh, Bens idea for the label handling during the presention is very good).

End of the story is this is a really good visual routine but one that will require you to do some work in advance. A very nicely done dvd and Ben does a great job on it.