This week, it’s exciting to be back doing business in the way these reviews originally selected Tenyo to review: throwing darts at scrap pieces of paper with various names of Tenyo written on them.
If I’m able to read the papers that is. My hand writing looks like I was incarcerated for 15 years, and all I had to write with was a rock, a human jawbone, and a mechanical pencil with no lead.
Normally, there is an air of excitement of reviewing Tenyo as per the ‘current business model’, but landing on this one brought on a hard realization: even though using a randomized selection process is ‘edgy’ and ‘what the kids today are doing’; there are MASSIVE repercussions when one is selected that there is a good reason why it’s been held off for so long. REALLY, really, really, didn’t want to write about this one. AT ALL.
There might have been an overly optimistic, yet misguided idea that it’ll be easier to write this one in the future.
HA! HA! HA! No. This weeks selection is one of a few Tenyo in the inventory that’s probably going to give me nightmares and anxiety attacks. I’m going to get some airplane glue to write this one. Salut.
UNDERCOVER CUBE
Inventor: Petrick & Mia
Year: 2000
Cost: I don’t want to say.
Type of Effect: Vanish/Penetration
Skill Level: Intermediate
CONTENTS:
- 1 Clear box & Clear Lid
- 1 Orange Cube
- 1 Gimmicky-gimmick
EFFECT #1: You, the magician present the following: clear lid, clear box, orange cube, handkerchief, and a cup. You set the cup upside down with the box on top and cover the audience members hands. Without the ability to see what they are doing, they use only their hands and the sense of touch to place the cube and the lid all back in one piece on top of the cup.
However, when the handkerchief is uncovered, the orange cube is gone. BUT WAIT! IT penetrated through the box AND the cup!
Guess you, the magician, weren’t really the magician after all.
END SCENE!
REVIEW:
All right. Look at the contents above: Box, cube, and gimmick. You see why I’m grumping over this?
Yes, the boxes are very box-like in nature and they perform in a way that boxes should act. And there is a lid to ensure that the orange box stays inside the clear box, should the orange box get any smart ideas of going rogue and try to escape.
Okay. Here’s the lowdown of the ‘You-See’…That an abbreviated ‘Undercover Cube’ in GANGSTA!
This trick plays on an interesting concept: the sense of touch.
It’s tough as balls to get an entire group of people in on an entire tactile magic trick. I mean, that’s like Copperfield-level magic logistics. And I lack the creative team, money, magic knowledge, creativity, contacts, and resources to do something like that.
Because of this, we’re going to work on one person at a time. And ‘Undercover Cube’ does just that. The premise is one of my favorites in Tenyo Magic: You make the spectator the MAGICIAN!
However, at the end of this trick, they don’t even know how the magic has happened. AND, the magician gets to wipe their hands completely clean.
The way it’s presented in the instructions, the orange cube penetrating right through a cup; with the correct presentation, you could also have the cube disappear completely. If you wanted to use a different colored cube or something a little closer to a pop culture theme, I don’t see why you couldn’t do that. I’d recommend doing so to add some customization to your character and routines. It’s hard for me to say which effect would work better over—we’ll get into that in a bit.
Let’s go into design. At least everything I am able to talk about.
The cube and the box are sturdy plastic. Considering that ‘Undercover Cube’ doesn’t pop up for sale or trade, like, EVER. AND that I paid a hefty chunk of change to acquire this one; I can assure you that I’m not exactly going to be ready to test the limits of their sturdiness. I can assure you that you can’t crumple it in your hands, unless you’re a bodybuilding magician who doesn’t want to listen to what this gaunt geek has to say.
All right, the presentation. It’s hard talking about a couple of boxes. The only way to really go about this is its presentation.
That’s REALLY going to be the only thing that carries this effect because, if you look on Youtube, the trick plays rather FLAT. It’s not the most exciting Tenyo out there.
However, this is one of the MOST spectator involved effects in the Tenyo inventory. Everything about it is simple and will require quite a bit of thought (and a handkerchief…maybe a cup) if you want to keep your audience off your tail. With that in mind, you will need to have a colorful and very involved presentation because your audience can go from ‘involved’ to ‘figuring out what’s going on’ very quickly. What’s worse is that they might get it right. So keeping them distracted with a phenomenal presentation is an utmost priority. Then again, when isn’t a phenomenal presentation the utmost importance? I emphasize it here, as well as place it on ‘Intermediate’ on difficulty is because your audience has a good chance of figuring this it out if you give them the time—and this trick CAN be lengthy.
Part of what I’m thinking of doing with the misdirection is pulling out a stopwatch as their hands are covered so I can ‘time them’. I believe that this way, I can add some excitement and put their focus on them attempting to put the cube in the box, rather than the focus on being how it works. This is because there’s a bit of a ‘dull space’ while they are on the ‘assembly line’. And since it COULD take longer than it could, you want a kibosh on that quick. STOP that preemptively with a STOP-watch. Ha ha!
Again, I have yet to try it out, but it looks good in theory and on paper.
So, what’s the final word?
It’s a tough recommendation. I want to say, ‘SPECTATOR DOES ALL THE WORK! EVERYONE JUMP ON THIS!’
But let’s look at this reasonably. First and foremost: it’s becoming harder and harder to find and it’s about doubling in price. I saw it go for $25 new-in-box last year in 2014. Now it’s doubled in price for versions that are used in Fall of 2015. If you do get your hands on one, understand that it needs a LOT of elbow grease in presentation. So be ready for that one. You have the darn thing and you have your presentation; where do you go from there? Honestly, I think it’s very versatile in how and where you can utilize this. You can even do this surrounded.
But that presentation. Man…Make it good.
Between the difficulty in finding this (because it was ‘oh so fun!’ checking Ebay every day for months on end in order to find) and the difficulty of making this work, you have to be absolutely sure you want to swallow the red pill and jump into the ‘Undercover Cube’.
If I’m able to read the papers that is. My hand writing looks like I was incarcerated for 15 years, and all I had to write with was a rock, a human jawbone, and a mechanical pencil with no lead.
Normally, there is an air of excitement of reviewing Tenyo as per the ‘current business model’, but landing on this one brought on a hard realization: even though using a randomized selection process is ‘edgy’ and ‘what the kids today are doing’; there are MASSIVE repercussions when one is selected that there is a good reason why it’s been held off for so long. REALLY, really, really, didn’t want to write about this one. AT ALL.
There might have been an overly optimistic, yet misguided idea that it’ll be easier to write this one in the future.
HA! HA! HA! No. This weeks selection is one of a few Tenyo in the inventory that’s probably going to give me nightmares and anxiety attacks. I’m going to get some airplane glue to write this one. Salut.
UNDERCOVER CUBE
Inventor: Petrick & Mia
Year: 2000
Cost: I don’t want to say.
Type of Effect: Vanish/Penetration
Skill Level: Intermediate
CONTENTS:
- 1 Clear box & Clear Lid
- 1 Orange Cube
- 1 Gimmicky-gimmick
EFFECT #1: You, the magician present the following: clear lid, clear box, orange cube, handkerchief, and a cup. You set the cup upside down with the box on top and cover the audience members hands. Without the ability to see what they are doing, they use only their hands and the sense of touch to place the cube and the lid all back in one piece on top of the cup.
However, when the handkerchief is uncovered, the orange cube is gone. BUT WAIT! IT penetrated through the box AND the cup!
Guess you, the magician, weren’t really the magician after all.
END SCENE!
REVIEW:
All right. Look at the contents above: Box, cube, and gimmick. You see why I’m grumping over this?
Yes, the boxes are very box-like in nature and they perform in a way that boxes should act. And there is a lid to ensure that the orange box stays inside the clear box, should the orange box get any smart ideas of going rogue and try to escape.
Okay. Here’s the lowdown of the ‘You-See’…That an abbreviated ‘Undercover Cube’ in GANGSTA!
This trick plays on an interesting concept: the sense of touch.
It’s tough as balls to get an entire group of people in on an entire tactile magic trick. I mean, that’s like Copperfield-level magic logistics. And I lack the creative team, money, magic knowledge, creativity, contacts, and resources to do something like that.
Because of this, we’re going to work on one person at a time. And ‘Undercover Cube’ does just that. The premise is one of my favorites in Tenyo Magic: You make the spectator the MAGICIAN!
However, at the end of this trick, they don’t even know how the magic has happened. AND, the magician gets to wipe their hands completely clean.
The way it’s presented in the instructions, the orange cube penetrating right through a cup; with the correct presentation, you could also have the cube disappear completely. If you wanted to use a different colored cube or something a little closer to a pop culture theme, I don’t see why you couldn’t do that. I’d recommend doing so to add some customization to your character and routines. It’s hard for me to say which effect would work better over—we’ll get into that in a bit.
Let’s go into design. At least everything I am able to talk about.
The cube and the box are sturdy plastic. Considering that ‘Undercover Cube’ doesn’t pop up for sale or trade, like, EVER. AND that I paid a hefty chunk of change to acquire this one; I can assure you that I’m not exactly going to be ready to test the limits of their sturdiness. I can assure you that you can’t crumple it in your hands, unless you’re a bodybuilding magician who doesn’t want to listen to what this gaunt geek has to say.
All right, the presentation. It’s hard talking about a couple of boxes. The only way to really go about this is its presentation.
That’s REALLY going to be the only thing that carries this effect because, if you look on Youtube, the trick plays rather FLAT. It’s not the most exciting Tenyo out there.
However, this is one of the MOST spectator involved effects in the Tenyo inventory. Everything about it is simple and will require quite a bit of thought (and a handkerchief…maybe a cup) if you want to keep your audience off your tail. With that in mind, you will need to have a colorful and very involved presentation because your audience can go from ‘involved’ to ‘figuring out what’s going on’ very quickly. What’s worse is that they might get it right. So keeping them distracted with a phenomenal presentation is an utmost priority. Then again, when isn’t a phenomenal presentation the utmost importance? I emphasize it here, as well as place it on ‘Intermediate’ on difficulty is because your audience has a good chance of figuring this it out if you give them the time—and this trick CAN be lengthy.
Part of what I’m thinking of doing with the misdirection is pulling out a stopwatch as their hands are covered so I can ‘time them’. I believe that this way, I can add some excitement and put their focus on them attempting to put the cube in the box, rather than the focus on being how it works. This is because there’s a bit of a ‘dull space’ while they are on the ‘assembly line’. And since it COULD take longer than it could, you want a kibosh on that quick. STOP that preemptively with a STOP-watch. Ha ha!
Again, I have yet to try it out, but it looks good in theory and on paper.
So, what’s the final word?
It’s a tough recommendation. I want to say, ‘SPECTATOR DOES ALL THE WORK! EVERYONE JUMP ON THIS!’
But let’s look at this reasonably. First and foremost: it’s becoming harder and harder to find and it’s about doubling in price. I saw it go for $25 new-in-box last year in 2014. Now it’s doubled in price for versions that are used in Fall of 2015. If you do get your hands on one, understand that it needs a LOT of elbow grease in presentation. So be ready for that one. You have the darn thing and you have your presentation; where do you go from there? Honestly, I think it’s very versatile in how and where you can utilize this. You can even do this surrounded.
But that presentation. Man…Make it good.
Between the difficulty in finding this (because it was ‘oh so fun!’ checking Ebay every day for months on end in order to find) and the difficulty of making this work, you have to be absolutely sure you want to swallow the red pill and jump into the ‘Undercover Cube’.
