Try it the next time if you ever slip up ;)

17 Things To Say When Things Go Wrong
by Gary McCaffrey
Every magician screws things up sometimes, as humans we are naturally going to get things wrong from time to time. There are always days when things just won't go as planned. The most effective ways to keep the audience on your side is to either act like it was supposed to happen and make good from your mistake (if you can), or, my favourite, just say something funny and dive straight in to another trick. Here are 17 examples of things you can say, learn a few of them and apply them to the kind of mistake you made.

1. "jeez...thats weird, it worked in the magic store"

2. "Oops...did I say I was a magician? I meant musician! For my next song I'd like to play..."

3. "The real magician will be here shortly, I'm just standing in"

4. "It's all part of the show folks--the part that hasn't been rehearsed!"

5. "That's the first time that ever happened again"

6. "It doesn't look as bad from my side"

7. "I'm curious to see how i get out of this myself"

8. "What do you expect, I'm payed 3 dollars an hour, and don't even work for more than 10 minutes, you do the math"

9. "I knew I should've had decaf"

10. Stare blankly at the trick that went horribly wrong. Blink your eyes a couple times really stupidly. Then throw it over your shoulder and practically yell "...AND FOR MY NEXT TRICK..." Then just go on with your routine.

11. If you drop something, "Wow, good thing the floor was there to catch that"

12. "I forgot to compensate for the rotational effect of the earth"

13. "Did... did I show you the (insert last successful trick) trick?

14. "Wait - COME BACK"

15. "wow, its so quite in hear you could hear a career drop"

16. "Thats what we magicians call misdirection, I pretend to mess up, and while I have your attention, my assistant sneaked by into the next room with an elephant for a trick I'm doing later. If you don't believe me, go check."

17. "There is only one thing this trick is missing... talent!"

LOL :lol:

I must memorise some of that..... :lol:

I'd like to try #2 ...with a little happy dance too! :rolleyes:

if i start to sing, they will completely forget i messed up the trick coz they will be too tramatised. :lol: so maybe that will work for me as well :D
#3 is good and can make a snappy exit after that.... :P

hmmm, #2 sounds good to me, i'm a musician!!! haha... i'll just need a guitar with me everytime i perform then...

wuahahahaha... ok, glad that helps :lol:

Cool lol.. Nomally when things go wrong I will say hmm... thats proofs that magicians is still human. They do mistake*laughs* on with the next trick lol.. Or I will say hmm somehow your card lost it way in the deck do you mind picking another one lol... ;)

eh i got "magic for dummies" too lol! :lol:

i remember once i said this, "now, even my cards know tricks that i don't know of."

Thats a good one lol.... Sure will bring laugher hahha

Here are some more:

"Heh, lucky that floor was there, or the cards would still be falling!"

"What you expected to see what MAGIC, but what you've just witnessed is kinda TRAGIC"

"It was a JB tv effect, what do you expect?"

"Now... how the hell did I do that?!?!"

"AHHAHA! you got punk'd!!!"

"Um... ever notice something weird? On the card, there's a NAKED angel.. riding a bicycle!! Things don't get weirder than that!"

"Okay, now the deck is REALLY MESSED UP... just like me"

"ooooh! it has walls!"

Most of these are ones that I made up, and have been tried and tested.. especially the "Punk'd!" one. Hehe.

-Kev

Kev!!!!! That was way COOL! :lol:

Thanks for sharing!!

Once when I was performing on stage for a whooping 2000 people, the loaded card for my tie card stab fell to the floor along with all the other cards during the climax. And so when the shower of cards landed, there was still nothing on the tie. :huh:

"As you all know, I'm a mentalist as well."

Worked for me. :D Thank god the card somehow landed beneath the chair the spectator was sitting on, isolating itself from the rest of the cards. So I cleaned up from there. Hey actually a friend of mine sent me the performance video...muahaha
For those who want to watch it, add me on msn at gestury@hotmail.com and cry because you're not getting it. Unless you beg and send me a deck of Jerry's Nuggets. :P

My fav line from Aldo Columbini's little manuscript with awesome one-liners
"I still remember my Grandfather's last words... 'S***! A TRUCK!' "

Out of point? Yeah kinda. But I like it. :)

I love Kev's JBTV one. HAHA... seriously guys, go to www.jbtv.co.uk if you're feeling really poor and want a free trick or two. or more. Many more. Almost
everything there is done NOT SO WELL. Just don't lift their patter.

"At the end of the routine you can return the spectator's ring to them and let them have it as a souvenir"

Go figure. :ph43r: They don't even realize they've messed up.
"Notice that all the cards are blue except for the one card left on the table"
Unless I'm color blind it really did still seem to be blue to me.

Oh well.

Huron

CArd Trick: for mi, ill continue my trick as some people didnt see the exposure if there is a crowd, get the viewer back to the trick if some1 drew attention and said "sumthing" tht is nt supposed to be said. Example: the guy who saw the exposure, let call him exposed guy k, he said " hey, he gt 2 cards!!!", juz carry on wth the trick and say to the others "look the card goes in, snap ur fingers..." then later show the 'exposed' person the 'clearer' ways right under his nose, he will be convinced

if IT broke: if u r doin ur trick wth ur IT and it broke half way, quickly grab the object or if nt kneel down as fast as possible so as the object u work wth will fall to the ground ( its nicer to end this way), later say tht "wow, i didnt do tht before, OMG!!!"

coin: exposed of p*** of the coin if cought by spec, can say to them tht, " see thts hw david blaine did tht ", they will be lyk oh nw i understand bt in fact the reaction shld be "huh? david blaine did tht before?".

Stay cool guys!!! B)

HAHA that was how david blaine did that AHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHA

SABO DAVID BLAINE!!!! AHAHHAHAHAH ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

hmm.. normally i'd just say something like"argh, must have been the amount of blood i gave to satan was not enough...", and i say it seriously.

No wonder everyone have been saying that some of the magicians are dealing with the satans. Why can't you guys just be good and said that you didn't behave, so Santa Claus didn't give you guys enough elf power.

OKOK, Maybe i am suitable to be a Kid's Magician :X

Just say "Oops", thats the most natural word you could ever say when something goes wrong.

I like tat quote :)....

I think i might be using that when i mess up :) hehe

Its surely humour.

Cheers,
MagicB

incidentally, i used that "the deck is messed up...." thing during a performance last sat (b4 the DSA thing). but it was just a side comment as i did not really screw up the effect yet.

cos my table didnt shut properly, the surface was hence slanted, and the cards were all messed up and sliding off the table. i had to quickly gather them up and place them aside (while i had some stuff in my hands).

but if you say that the cards are all messed up, wouldn't people realise that you are actually controlling their card?

wouldnt people know that card magic is all abt control? i mean... laymen also know its all abt card control and there's nothin to hide abt that fact rite?

maybe...i don't know...

hey... i hope i didnt offend u in anyway. im curious myself. i mean... it really depends. If its all abt pick a card and then later ... reveal the card... then... that would look more like card controlling.

but if u perform effects like reset or oil and water... or other strong effects... then it look more magical.... coz u not only controlling one card..

well.... just my 2 cents.

ok ok.. im :off:

back to the topic.. lol

yeah...dun worry, i'm not offended... people do things differently..

"I saw 5 aces and decided that the deck should not be used anymore.."

and proceed by throwing everything over everyone's head and pretend to go into a trance...

Well i think i will use another magic to cover up my mistake...Say if he picked the 5 of spades and i LOST the 5 of spades cuz i messed up a f**** shuffle, I'll just randomly name a card for example 7 of hearts..... The audience will say wrong then you proceed to ask them what their card is...

Then do a DL, put the "5 of spades" on their hand.... next P*** the card to your pocket....

TADA!! Trust me they'll think that the part where you lost the card is part of the trick.... :lol:

I'll try my best not to use patter to recover a mistake...... Unless i'm REALLY SCREWED!!! e.g. All the cards fell into the drain after an elaborate 5 packet cut.... :ph43r:

i thinkyou should have some back p when you plan your routine so that in case you screw up, you can turn it intosomething else and always :D :D :D