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Magical Comedy – Putting Comedy Into Your Magic Act

Without a doubt, comedy is the ingredient that most attracts the audience and offers the greatest possibilities for an entertainer who uses magic as material. Just look at who the highest paid performers in film and television are – most are comedians! So how does a magician add comedy to his shows?

Most magicians start out performing directly, either up close, on stage, or with illusions, and they don’t consider themselves comedians, but rather magicians. That’s fine, but you know that having a little laugh on your show helps the audience relax and lighten the mood. Many magicians will become so good at adding comedy, that they will switch their acting style to comedy.

IF you decide you want to perform magical comedy, you should forget that you are a magician and think like a comedian and then add magic to your act to support the comedy. A perfect example of this is The Amazing Jonathan. His act is pure “comedy” with a lot of magic on top of his act. When you see people like John Ferrentino do his comedic magic act, he focuses more on comedy than magic.

This may not be what you are looking for, you may just want to add a bit of comedy to enhance your performance. In order to act, you must first study as many comedy magicians as you can and see how they use comedy. Facial expressions, jokes, improvisations, gestures and games with an audience.

Watch Mel Mellers, who is a modern version of Don Rickles and Dame Edna doing magic. His comedy is “in your face,” but like Don, he can pull it off because of his personality. This may not be your style of comedy, but studying his work might give you ideas. These types of artists should be your ROLELS, but that doesn’t mean you should be doing THEIR stuff.

You should also listen to old radio shows that had some of the great comedians including Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Fred Allen, Sid Caesar and many more. Even modern radio shows like Click and Clack are a great place to study audience interaction; Garrison Keillor has an excellent radio show with more subtle humor. He studies comedy books, reads joke books, watches sitcoms on TV and even cartoons.

Start adding some jokes or improvisations to your performance. When reading joke books, if a joke relates to a trick or routine you do, write it down and try to include it in your act.

For example the joke is: What do you call a rabbit in your head? A toupee!

It’s not much of a joke, but what if you go onstage, take off your hat, and a rabbit (a fake one would be better) sits on your head and you ask the audience, “What do you think of my new hairpiece?” If your delivery is correct, you will laugh.

How about pretending to pull a hair off your head and asking the audience if they can see a rabbit? Oh, it’s just a bit of hair! Now roll it up and produce a sponge rabbit or a real live rabbit!

Try to wear fun accessories. If you act for kids, big, oversized accessories are fun for them, or if you use an accessory for something it shouldn’t be used for. Example: I use a toilet brush instead of a magic wand! And do a secret move, which causes unbridled laughter! Want more… keep reading.

For the adults, think about props similar to what comedians like Carrot Top and Gallagher wear in their acts. It may not be that big, but watch your acts and see how you can add fun accessories to your act.

Little ad-libs are probably the easiest things to add to your act, just to get you used to having a little laugh. There are many books with these types of improvisations available at your local Magic Stop or online.

Example: Go to a person in your audience who is not smiling and simply say, “You look very sad.” (pause) Are you married?”

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“How old are you?” Whatever the answer, respond with “Is that Celsius or Fahrenheit”

None of these will generate big laughs, but add a little fun and you’ll get a few laughs from your audience.

You should only put a few of these lines of type into your program sparingly or you’ll start to sound like you’re spewing lines out of a book. You should always make your jokes sound spontaneous and spontaneous.

People often come up to me after my show and tell me how spontaneous I am with my one-liners. What they don’t realize is that I probably said the exact same lines in the previous show and will use them again in my next show. But they sound spontaneous.

Example: In my children’s show I use an old classic line of magicians. When a girl says her name, I respond with “that was my name when she was a kid too.” I’ve heard this line used by thousands of magicians and it’s rarely funny. It falls flat! Why does it work when I use it? Because I act totally surprised by the reveal of her name and I prefix it a bit too.

“Oh MY! (pause) You’re not going to believe this! (get excited) I LOVE THAT NAME! (acts like it’s your favorite thing in the world) Do you know why? (pause and waits for audience say why?) Because that was my name (pause and look around) when I was a little girl!

You have to say the line like it’s unique, the first time you said it and the audience will laugh. You would not believe how many girl names I have had in my youth!