DISCUSIÓN
2. LESIONES NEUROPATOLÓGICAS POR EDAD GESTACIONAL Y EL MOMENTO DE LA MUERTE
T
he Miser’s Dream” is an awesome routine, particularly for children. If it has a flaw, it’s that you’re pulling all of these coins out of the air and from behind kids’ ears and then keeping them!There was a great variation of this on the market a few years back, called, “Chocolate Surprise.”
It was a Miser’s Dream using chocolates instead of coins, and the candies were given to the kids at the end. The routine came with some gaffed bags and gaffed candies and a “special some-thing.” Unfortunately, I have been unable to find the routine or who originated it. What follows is my ungaffed version of this routine. It makes a wonderful closer for any audience largely composed of children.
Effect: You get a youngster from the audience, Jerome, to come up and assist you. You show him an empty paper bag, and then send him across the room. Holding the bag, you ask Jerome to use his imagination, and to pretend that there is a small chocolate bar floating in the air in front of him. You tell him to grab it and to throw it to you. You follow the imaginary flight of the chocolate and “catch” it in the bag, where it lands with an audible “thunk!” This is repeated.
Then you notice a little girl near the front. “You’ve got chocolate on your mind, too!” You reach to the top of her head, where a chocolate appears! You drop this into the bag. You walk back to the front and drop the chocolates from the bag into a bowl on your table.
You attention turns back to Jerome. You ask him to envision a bigger chocolate bar. He grabs it and tosses it to you, but you “lose it in the lights.” You don’t catch it—in fact, you can’t see where it landed! You look around all over the stage, and suddenly the kids all start screaming something at you, but you can’t make it out. Finally, you realize what they’re yelling. The big chocolate bar is on the back of your pants! Disgusted, you remove it and toss it away.
Remarking that you’d better stick to the little chocolates, you tell all the kids to put on their imagination caps. Then they all pretend to see chocolates in the air all around them. They grab as many as they can, and when you give them the word, they all toss the candy to you. You frantically run all over the stage, trying to catch all the chocolates in the bag. Finally, you stop, mop your brow, and hold the bag over the bowl on the table. You tilt the bag, and a few choco-lates fall into the bowl. You tilt it further, and more and more stream out, faster and faster, until chocolates overflow the bowl, which is significantly larger than the bag! You put the bag away, take your bows, and give the bowl of chocolates to one of the parents to disperse while you pack up your show.
Requirements and preparation: Get two heavy-duty brown paper bags, about the size of lunch bags, but a bit sturdier. Go to your local market and get several bags of Hershey’s Miniatures and one regular Mr. Goodbar.
Carefully remove the Mr. Goodbar from its wrapper. Get a piece of Styrofoam or foam rubber and cut it to the same shape as the Mr. Goodbar. Cover this with the wrapper. Eat the Mr.
Goodbar (yea! We’re already having fun with this trick!). Put several strips of double-stick tape
on the bottom of the fake candy bar.
Open one of the bags. Fill it to about two inches from the top with the miniature candies. Next, go to your cupboard and remove a large opaque mixing bowl. Pour more of the little chocolates into this, until it is about ¾ filled. Set aside four of the miniatures.
Method and performance: The description of the effect and the requirements pretty much spell out how to do this routine, but I’ll give you a quick rundown. Everything is on your table’s shelf or in your case. When ready to do the routine, grab the bowl in one hand and the fake candy bar in the other. As you set the bowl on the table, stick the fake bar on your rump, such that your jacket covers it. Take the four minis into your right hand and grip the empty bag with the same hand. As you noisily shake the bag open, set the bag full of candy on the floor behind the table (you must have a solid table or one with a cloth cover that reaches the floor in front and sides).
Hold the top of the empty bag such that the candies are on the inside of the bag, but hidden un-der your hand.
Call on Jerome. Hold the bag up to his face to look inside so he can verify it is empty. Send him to one side or the back of the room. Have him throw the first invisible candy to you. Really ham up the bit of watching it come toward you like a major league pop fly, and as you pretend to catch it in the bag, let the first candy drop from your hand. Everyone will hear it land, and you’ll get a nice reaction here. Have Jerome do this again. Drop the second candy as you “catch”
it.
“Notice” a little girl near the front. As you walk toward her, transfer the bag to your left hand, holding out the remaining two candies in your right hand. Do the line about chocolate on her mind and reach toward the top of her head, pushing one of the chocolates to your fingertips.
Drop it in the bag. Look at the kid nearest her and say, “You’ve got chocolate on your EAR!” Pro-duce the last candy from behind his ear. Drop this in the bag as well.
Walk back to your table and tilt the bag over the bowl, allowing the four chocolates to slowly spill out into the bowl. Turn back toward Jerome. Ask him to imagine a bigger candy bar, and ask him to throw it to you. “Follow” its flight and then “lose it in the lights.” Throw your hands up to “protect” yourself. Then look all around as if you don’t know where it landed. Bend over to look closer at the floor, making sure you bend over far enough that your coattails rise above the fake candy bar stuck to your rump. Move around a bit, and then turn your back to the audi-ence as if looking behind you for the “lost” candy bar. As the kids begin to see the bar on your butt, they will start screaming at you. Pretend not to notice as you frantically search the stage, making your way behind your table, where, without pausing, you drop the empty bag and pick up the full one. As you come forward again, finally “understand” what the kids have been yell-ing. Remove the “big bar” from your behind, make a face, and set it on the table. Say that you’d better stick with the little candy bars.
Finally, ask all the kids to picture chocolates in the air all around them. Have them grab them and toss them to you when you say go. Run frantically all over the front of the stage, back and
Scott F. Guinn
Page 119forth, pretending to try to catch every last invisible chocolate. Walk over to the bowl, tilt the bag, and let the bars slowly begin to fall into the bowl. Tilt a bit more, causing the bars to fall faster and faster. Because the bowl was already secretly nearly full, the candies from the bag will start to overflow from the bowl at the end. This gets another nice reaction. Give the bowl to a mommy so she can disperse the candy while you pack up your show.
Note: If I am preceding this with a production (usually Rocky Raccoon) I will sometimes change the ending just a bit. It requires a double-load dove pan. I put Rocky in the first load pan. I fill the second load pan with another bag of chocolates and place this on the shelf of my suitcase table. After finishing the dove pan routine, I leave the pan on the table. I start to put the lid away and then “remember” that I need it and bring it back out and set it on the table. As I’m sure you’ve guessed, I steal the second load as I do this. Now I get the bag out and perform
“Million Dollar Chocolate,” but at the end I pour the chocolates out of the full bag into the empty dove pan. I explain that I’ll just put the candy back into the bag, so that Mom can pass it out. I dump the chocolates back into the bag, set the pan on the table and start to give the candy to mom, but then I stop as I glance into the bag and say, “Wait, I don’t think that’s quite enough.” I walk back to the table and turn the pan upside down as if maybe a few candies might be stuck in it. Then I put the lid on it, tap it with the wand and lift the lid to reveal it is again full of candy! This gets another great reaction, and I pour these candies into the bag and give the bag to mom so she can dole them out while I pack. This makes a nice surprise “kicker” ending, and it also ties the last two routines together very nicely.