THE CARD IN THE BANANA

By Russel Swann


The main purpose of this bit of magic is to create amusement. Of course, all magic is designed, or should be designed, to amuse audiences but this trick, although mystifying, puts more stress on comedy. The amount of comedy which a magician is able to get from the trick depends upon his acting ability. Things seemingly go wrong and it is up to the performer to convince his audience that those things actually have gone wrong.
The effect of the trick is that the magician walks over to a table as be shuffles a pack of cards. I have used this trick only in night club shows. He puts the cards on the table and asks a gentleman to choose one card. The choice actually is free. The magician patters and the card is shuffled into the pack by the gentleman after be has autographed the face of the card. The magician asks that the man choose a number and count down to that number. He does so but contrary to the magician's promise the card is not found. The gentleman is asked to count off more cards from the pack until the number is reached again. Still the card is not found. He is asked to count a third time but still the card is missing. The magician gives up and goes into the next trick in which be brings from his pocket a banana. He peels the banana half way down and bites off a piece and eats it. When he bites off the second piece a folded card is exposed. It is taken out of the banana, unfolded, and shown to be the signed card. That is the way the audiences remember the trick--but there is a little more to it.
Once the card is in the hand of the magician, it is easy to get it in the banana. All that he has to do is to bold the card in the ordinary palming position and close his hand as this will fold the card in half. If the card is given a quarter turn on the palm and the hand closed again, the card will have been folded in quarters. Before the show the banana has been prepared by cutting through the skin (along one of the "seams") a slit a little longer than half the length of the card. As a banana is very soft it will be found both quick and easy to push the card into the banana. The slit should be made starting at the center of the fruit and cutting up toward the end.

How does the magician get his hands on the card without touching the pack? This, too, depends upon his acting ability to make convincing, for he does not touch the cards once be has given the pack to have the card selected. There is a special card used in the trick. This card is made special by being split in two and glued together after a safety razor blade (or similarly sized piece of thin steel or iron) has been placed in the middle of one side. When this card has been made it looks like an ordinary card but has a core of steel. Glued inside the card case, and at the lower end, is a magnet. The reason for having the magnet at the lower end of the case is that the deck may be put half way into the case--I am, of course, assuming that a case is used which opens at one end. If the case is put on top of the card with the metal insides, even though there be an ordinary card above this prepared card, the cards will stick to the case when it is picked up again. This is the basis for the trick.

This is the routine and the patter for the trick.

"Sir," (laying the pack on the table) "will you be kind enough to take any card in the pack? Please don't take the top or bottom card for there is a possibility that I might have learned which cards those are. Would you mind writing your name on the face of the card." (Here I hand him one of those giant fountain pens.) "Will you, sir, kindly hold the card up so that others may see it. Now just drop the card face down on top of the deck."

Time should be taken at this point in the explanation to mention that when the magician was walking over to the table, seemingly shuffling the cards, actually he was so shuffling that the card with the hidden piece of metal was kept on top of the pack. We have now reached the point in the trick where the freely chosen and marked card is on top of the card with the metal core.

"Funny thing about cards you can always draw the Queens if you have the Jack." On the laugh, the magician drops the case directly on top of the pack. He had taken the case out of the pocket where he had put it when the cards were first introduced as the gentleman had been signing the card. "Now, sir, will you shuffle the pack please. I won't touch it." The case is picked up by the magician and replaced in his pocket. With the case and into the pocket goes the card with the metal core and the selected and signed card. During the time the man shuffles the deck and later on hopelessly hunts for his card the magician has plenty of time to slide the card away from the magnet, to fold it, and put it in the banana.

"We're going to count down in the pack to a number thought of by you. Think of any number at all--from one to fifty-two. Remember, sir, you are going to do the counting, so don't make it too hard on yourself. Pardon me what was the number?--And the card thought of? All right count down to number ten--Remember I haven't touched the cards--and hand me the Four of Spades. (I am using that card and that number merely as examples.) Oh it isn't that card? What number did you think of, sir? Let's start over again--count ten more cards." (Here the magician begins counting with him.) Hand me the Four of Spades. Wrong again? Well start counting again." (Then as an aside)--"Last night it took me two hours to do it--last week I couldn't do the trick at all.

"Try it once more--count ten cards and hand me..." Here the magician walks around so that he can look over the shoulder of the gentleman and as the wrong card comes up again he shows by his expression that it is not the right card. He reaches over and picks up all the cards from the table and throws them over his shoulder.

"Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, the next trick is a little trick using an orange." He takes a banana out of his pocket. "Would you care to join me, sir?" Another banana is taken from the pocket and handed to the man who had just helped with the cards. Still another banana is silently handed to a second person. The magician peels the banana half way and starts eating it to the point where the folded card is half exposed. He curiously looks at the card in the banana, takes it out, and unfolds it. "Ah, the missing Four of Spades. Your card, sir? And your signature--known only to you and to God."