It was Comedy Magic night where 29 members turned up at Chinese Media Success’ Action Room. The evening’s meeting was hosted by Tan Jui Kuan and Baharudin.

Lim Teck Guan began the night of laughs by placing a little tin cup containing water atop his guest’s head. He then caused the water to flow through the solid, metallic cup base onto his guest’s hair, giving him a mini surprise shower. He showed the audience the emptied cup and then in a few seconds, restored the vanished water in the cup by tugging at his guest’s elbow a few times like it was a lever.

Dr Ray Loh took his induction test. He located his guest’s randomly selected Two of Clubs in a deck, and revealed that he had written this prediction earlier on the card holder. He also successfully predicted his second guest’s King of Diamonds, which he pre-scribbled on the back of the Two of Clubs he had just located. Next, he vanished an Eight of Spades between four pieces of opaque plastic cards and then made it reappear. He finished off his act by changing two red cards and two black cards into totally blank ones and then restoring them to their original states.

John Teo presented a card with ‘Rabbit’ and a picture of a rabbit printed on its front, and its name, ‘Spot’ printed on its back. He then sprinkled ‘spot removal’ powder on this card and the rabbit image vanished! To restore the rabbit, he sprinkled some ‘hair (hare) removal’ powder on the card and indeed, it reappeared on the card! He proceeded to turn a piece of gold into a diamond which was wittily presented in the form of a ‘carrot’ (carat), amusing the audience at the play of words.

Charles Choo invited a guest to insert a chosen card randomly into a deck. He got another guest to find the card by following a set of instructions – covering his right eye, aiming a telescope (a toilet roll) into the audience and reading out the card he ‘saw’. He then wound a long chain around each of 3 short sticks stuck into a block and asked his guest to guess if the chain was pulled away, which of the sticks would ‘catch’ the chain. In spite of the number of tries, his guest could never get it right. Next, he presented four cards – three Aces and a Queen. He mixed the cards, placed an Ace face-down on the table and it would turn into the Queen card even though he had not touched the card at all.

Baharudin showed how his exotic ‘pet’ snake could pick up a guest’s selected card as it sprang out of its rattan basket with the signed card tied to it.

Jeremy Pei presented a board with sixteen images of different characters from the movie ‘Frozen’. His guest picked a character, turned the board over, and his chosen character appeared on it. When he turned the board over again, all the different sixteen characters had changed into the character he had chosen. He also ‘hypnotized’ JK and caused him to lose so much of his strength that he could not even tear a small piece of paper. He also demonstrated how a red scarf in a change bag could be transported to a Pringles can, complete with a springing snake. All the items demonstrated were available at his dealer’s booth.

Cassidy Lee demonstrated how an empty purse could produce the sound of jiggling coins when shaken, and actually produce real coins as well. He also made a Nine of Diamonds appear folded in the pocket of a metal box.

After the break, Tan Jui Kuan invited his guest to pick a card. He placed a larger card upright, invited his guest to shoot at it. A real hole appeared in the card where an imaginary bullet hit it. When opened up, the card was his guest’s chosen Four of Hearts!

The Magician-Of-The-Month, Shawn Chua, presented Tenyo’s Four Nightmare where two pieces of rope of different lengths became the same length, they merged into one long piece of rope and the knot dissolved. Another knot was tied on the rope which became a loop and then it dissolved into the long piece of rope. Next, he passed a rope from his back through his waist to the front of his body. He also showed how his guest’s Seven of Clubs was his prediction although they appeared as two pieces of three and half cards. He also showed his other talent – ventriloquism – by manipulation a guest “dummy”! Shawn ended his act by producing a (latex) pigeon under a scarf. He went on to give a lecture on comedy magic with examples. He mentioned some key ingredients such as spontaneity, timing, element of surprise, not making fun of his guest or the audience, engaging the audience, selecting the right guest, and start and end on a strong note. He also spoke of his inspiration and personality for comedy.

Victor Heng drew inspiration from Sudoku in his performance. His guest would select a set of four squares of paper with question marks on top and a number on its underside. The four paper squares would be inserted into a plastic sheet with 4 x 4 pockets, in a row of his choice. This would be repeated till all pockets are filled. When the plastic sheet was flipped over, all the numbers were added up. The total of 26664 was further condensed to 24 and then 6. When Victor turned to Page 6 of the Sudoku book he was holding, this total was on that page.
Jeremy Pei rounded off the evening with a Rubik’s cube. He got guests to twist a mini and a regular Rubik’s cube separately. When both were brought together, all the sides of both cubes mirror each other! When placed in a magic bag, the mixed- up cube was restored to its solved state.

The meeting with its tickling moments ended at 10 pm.