Gardyloo #52
/I'm bummed that Daniel Madison has left Ellusionist. That pairing led to a lot of ridiculousness that I'm afraid we'll miss without one feeding into the other.
At least they left us with the release of the new pink Madison Rounders deck of cards as a final goodbye.
Ooooohhh my god... can you imagine? Those sick, twisted, hilarious minds at Ellusionist and the truly fucked up joke that they were going to release... it's hard to even say it with a straight face... a pink deck of cards.
Hahahahaha! Oh my god! You win April Fools, Ellusionist! I can't even wrap my mind around such a deviously hilarious April Fool's Day Joke. I can hardly even imagine how that played out.
Ellusionist: We're going to release the Madison Rounders in Pink.
The World: Oh.... okay.
Ellusionist: Hahaha, you idiots, we totally got you!
Fortunately, I got a transcription of the meeting where the concept for the joke first came up.
Voice 1 - Good morning, everyone. In this meeting we need to come up with a brilliant April Fool's Day joke.
Voice 2 - How about a deck of cards that's really a dirty diaper?
Voice 3 - How about fake vomit, but it's made of real vomit?
Voice 4 - What if we said we were going to release a deck of cards in pink?
[Laughter all around.]
Voice 3 - Oh my god!
Voice 5 - You're demented!
Voice 2 - HAHA. As if us, a bunch of real men, would use a deck that's a couple shades lighter than the deck we use all the time! What are we... a bunch of grade-A queers or something!?
Voice 4 - Yeah RIGHT!
Voice 3 - Oh... my... god, you guys. Stop! This is funny. We're too funny!
Voice 6 - Everyone who saw it would just be like, "Wait... what?" It would be funny because pink is totally a gay color and we're definitely not gay!
[Dead silence for a moment.]
Everyone - Right. Right. Exactly. Of course.
Voice 1 - You know what? I think it would also be funny... you know... as an April Fool's Day Joke if... I don't know... I'm just thinking out loud here. Maybe you could all take off your pants and stand in a circle and jack off onto the last bite of my bagel. And then I could eat it and be like, "Oh god, this is the best thing I've ever had. Oh yum. It's so good." Do you think we should do that? As a funny joke?
Voice 6 - And...like... film it for the site or something?
Voice 1 - Uhm... no. This would more be like a private April Fools Day joke. Just for us to do now and never talk about it to anyone. It's funny because it's so ridiculous to think we could ever be into such a thing.
Voice 3 - Like how we'd never use a pink deck.
Voice 1 - Exactly.
[Sound of belts unbuckling and pants hitting the floor.]
Okay, here's something I've been working on, and I'm about 65% of the way there, but it occurred to me that this is probably not an original idea and maybe someone has already found a way to take it 100% of the way there. So if you know of a reference you can direct me too, please do. [Update: Got my answer. It's Joe Givan. Thanks everyone who wrote.]
The idea is you bring out a small black close-up pad and four white buttons and then you do a matrix effect with the buttons so they all end up under one card. Then you ask someone to put the four buttons back in a square formation and they find the buttons are all sewn in place. The end. Sort of...
Next you show the close-up pad is actually a t-shirt wrapped around a small board of some kind and you'd have this shirt with four buttons sewn in a square shape that you could throw on or give to someone else as a little odd memento.
Certainly someone must have done a matrix effect with buttons before, and the obvious finale is to have them sewn in place. Any leads on if/where this is published somewhere? I'd rather not invest too much time if someone has already worked out the kinks.
[As I mentioned, a number of people wrote in to say Joe Givan had explored this plot. And then I heard from the man himself.
I have done this effect in lectures since the ’80’s and have had the effect complete with props on the market since at least 1985. It’s called “Keep ‘Em in Stitches”.
Another note - a magician in the UK took the effect and ran with it, doing a whole act inspired by the effect. It won him 1st place in close-up at the Magic Circle competition. I believe his name is Harold Cataquet. He had a segment doing the effect with buttons on his vest.]
Here's a fun prank for April Fools.
Sneak into someone's room and break the lightbulb that's in their ceiling lighting fixture. It needs to be an incandescent light bulb, and you need to leave the filament intact so the light still works.
Now you want to get a firecracker and set it up so its fuse is in contact with the filament.
The body of the firecracker should be taped to a little plastic sandwich bag that is thumb-tacked to the ceiling.
Inside the bag should be a couple days worth of rancid shit and some piss.
Now, when your target comes in the room, they'll turn on the light, the light will ignite the fuse, which will explode the firecracker, destroying the baggie, and sending piss and shit raining down on them from above.
Lots of fun will be had by all.
Hope you all have a terrifying Easter.
