Hi all,
I have been told by some magic friends of mine that Steve Dela, did an amazing cup and ball routine to music at the Magic Circle! this had people raving at the time as it was a comedy routine set to music, Ali Bongo said he thought it was great, and this was also part of the act that got Steve the 'UK Junior Close Up Magic Champion' award!
Steve you will have to show it to me next time we meet.
hope all is well Mate.
Joe Tracini

I just picked up a set of Ganson's Felt Cups on ebay... great routine, pack flat and you can do some unusual things with 'em.

Wanabe1,

You will not find much in print on solid cups. The people who use them (Shawn Farquhar for sure) have had their cups custom made.

I've enjoyed reading Eddie Joseph's book, "The Last Word on Cups and Balls" for all the unusual routine ideas in contains. I haven't seen magicians use most of them...but there are some fun ideas in the book...even if they require a bit of craftmanship to put together...Cups that become water fountains, inexhaustable cups of liquid, firecrackers, showers of cards, lantern productions...special riggings for bird productions...all inspire creativity....

Hi all, and hi Joe thanks for the kind words mate!
you can get solid cups from http://www.cupsandballs.nl I use Auke van Dokkums standard set in my own routine and the standard is amazing and I highly reccomend these cups to anyone!
all the best
Steve Dela

IMO

Tim Ellis is by far the best.
Elmsley's final load blew my mind when I first saw it.

Personal favorites also are:

Johnny Paul
Paul Gertner
Tommy Wonder

Not to mention that Aldo's juggling routine has some possibilities.


All and all these routines are different from the standard, and have made me think nights on end & helped me develop my own routine.


MM

Muggle, since you like Johnny Paul's routine, you can buy the real thing (the cups) from http://www.stevensmagic.com

(I had them made special and there are a few sets left).

I thought the most unique was a NY magician, who I cannot think of his name produce a bottle of water from three stacked cups.

I like it...

Thanks, I was looking at them the other night. A nice set indeed. I also like the Riser cups that are similar.

MM

The live chicks are the most unusual I have seen.

It was GREAT.

Wow-
SO many different cups and balls routines out there! There are several that are unusual or stand out amongst the 'guess where the ball is' or 'and how many would you say are under The cup now?' types that seem to plague magic.
A few that I really like are:

Shawn Farqhuar - A great routine that ends with the cups being shown as completely solid!

Tommy Wonder - Mr. Wonder definitely thinks 'out of the box'. Using two cups and the drawstring 'pom pom' from the bag which contains the cups, Mr. Wonder executes a beautiful two and a half minutes of pure magic. The final production is the scrunched up bag appearing under one of the cups.

Mark Jenest's Jiggernaut - PERFECT for the bar magician, Mark uses a shot glass, a coffee cup, and bartender's jigger to subject the bar patrons to a 'sobriety test'. A couple of olives, a cherry, and a lemon later the audience is convinced they've all laughingly failed the test. A really fun routine!

Ricky Jay 'The History Lesson' - Arguably one of the most entertaining and EDUCATIONAL routines from a LAYMEN'S point of view. Mr. Jay talks uses actual items (bowls, candlestick holders, etc,) and speaks of how the cups and balls have evolved since ancient times. A VERY well thought out and scripted routine from his HBO special, Ricky Jay & his 52 assistants.

Eric Mead - The INCREDIBLE Eric Mead ends his routine by stacking the three cups and lifting them at once to produce a large bottle of Perrier!

Paul Gertner's 'Steel Ball-bearing' routine in which he talks about growing up in Pittsburgh where they didn't have 'normal' balls. Instead, Mr. Gertner uses steel ball-bearings, using the sound of the balls to his advantage. At the end, he produces several larger sized bearings and finally a bearing that's too big to even fit inside a cup!

Scotty York 'The X-Rated Cups and Balls' - If you'd like to get to know an someone you're attracted to, Mr. York's Cups and ball routine is AWESOME! Also called 'M'Lady's Teddy Bear', this is a ONE-CUP routine using a few olives from the bar. Towards the end, Scotty produces a tiny, doll-size, yellow hat from under the cup. When he lifts the cup one last time, there sits a small stuffed Paddington bear (minus his little hat) with a little note attached to it!

OTHER PLACES TO LOOK FOR 'UNUSUAL' Cups and balls-style routines:

Beenie Weenie - From Michael Ammar's Encore 3 and also found in Paul Harris books. Using a can of 'Beenie Weenies', you produce a ball, have it reappear, etc,. At the end of the routine, the ball disappears, the can is shown to solid AND sealed!

Greg Wilson also has a routine similar to the one above. I can't recall the name right now (I'm sure someone will post it up here). Instead of Beenie Weenies, Greg uses a spoon, a bunch of Hershey Kisses, and a Hershey Chocolate Syrup can. The final production is a giant Hershey Kiss!

Gazzo's Routine for the production of the honeydew melon at the end and the aggressive routining!

There are SO many more routines out there...not all of them use the standard cups and balls set, but stuff that you can just grab off a table and do a cup and ball routine...

John Carney's excellent Fruit Cup routine from his incredible book, 'Carneycopia'. John uses a dollar bill in place of a ball, a coffee cup, and a knife as a magic wand. The routine ends with the appearance of a lemon and the spectators bill INSIDE the lemon!

Other ideas I've seen that were 'unusual'...

Magician using small terra-cota flower pots and 'sunflower' seeds. The final production consists of lifting the last cup to reveal an actual sunflower plant about 6 inches tall!

Magician using thimbles and delivering a VERY old 'thimble-rigging' con with a couple of tiny rocks.

Magician using empty snack cans, some cheetos, and a wish for junkfood. Final productions included a small bottle of soda, some oreos, and a television remote!

This list is not all inclusive.
I've never seen the Tim Ellis routine. As I said, there are SO many variations of this effect out there! Will someone ever produce the ULTIMATE reference for the cups and balls? THAT would be something astounding!

Enjoy the list...
Take care,
Tony Ley

French magician Bruno Copin has a wonderful silent C&B routine done with music. The balls are visibly travelling across the mat, jumping in thin air from the top of one cup into his hand, and even slowly rolling from the mat along the side of a cup to its top. As some members of the audience are involved in a very clever way, they have to touch the props at some moment, destroying the possibility of inv. thd. in other spectator's minds. It looks very magical.
I think Bruno Copin released a video in French some years ago, but don't know if was marketed in English.

Tony, you've seen quite a bit, but I think a little might have gotten lost along the way:

The Perrier production is the signtaure closer of Eric DeCamps, not Eric Mead (altho Mead is remarkable in his own right)

Scotty York's "X-Rated" C & B is a three cup routine. It is remarkable in that it duplicates the Vernon routine, but there are no body loads for the final productions. In fact, you could do the routine naked (hence the "X-Rated" title) The one-cup and bear routine you described is a very commerical bar bit, and it's called "My Lady's Teddy Bear".

"Beanie Weenie" is originally a Paul Harris/Looy Simonoff routine. Ammar published his handling in Encore 3. It is a modernization of the "solid Cup" idea, which predates Harris, Simonoff, and Farqhar by many years. It was originally a solid wooden cone.

BTW, the most elaborate routine of this sort has to be Tommy Wonder's, wherein he actually cuts open the can in front of the audience, causes a "meatball" to penetrate through the bottom of the can visibly, gets the big final load, and still reveals the can to be fully sealed at the end.

Frankly, Dittos on all the rest you said. Nice survey.

Helge Thum from die fertige finger. I laught for weeks the first time I saw it, and still does.

Wow so many cups and balls routines I haven't seen! Out of the ones that I have seen, I agree that the Tim Ellis routine is great....very creative and entertaining.

I have performed my own version of cups and balls silently, for more than twenty years. The rhythmn is fast fun and my presentation is highly interactive.

I use the Mike Roger's baseballs, or sometimes small dice or, on occasion, tiny bells.

My finale is either a lemon or the spectator's watch (or both in quick succession)appearing beneath the final cup.

I never tire of performing this routine and the spectators really enjoy becoming involved --waving the wand, throwing the invisible balls, pointing to the cup where they believe it might be under, etc.

Tremendous fun, over many many years, and more to come.

Paul Gertner's cups and steel balls is the most unusual routine I've seen in person while Johnny Ace Palmer's is probability the best finale. Al Goshman's balls and bowl is the most memorable and entertaining.

I love David Regal's Cups and Balls and Cups and Balls.

Love it, love it, love it!

Toomuchmagic, I agree whole heartedly. I just purchased this video here on the Café and just got done watching his video doing the "cups and balls and cups and balls" effect. He starts out doing a routine using the cheap plastic cups and puts them away. Then he gets his goods cups and does another routine, and at the end/climax the plastic cheap set of cups slide out of his good set. What a jaw dropper effect.