Four Card Monte Revisited
By Professor Spellbinder and Wiz Kid Rider
I have not been able to figure out where this venerable old
trick came from or who invented it. I have found catalog
advertisements for it dating back to the 1940's, but no
inventor's name has ever been mentioned.
The original Four Card Monte effect still plays very well and
fools audiences today, so I’ll show you an old version that
I was using back in the 1960’s with Rabbits and Top Hats,
being used by today's Wiz Kid Rider in Wiz Kid shows. One of the
flaws I found with the original version was not being able to
show both sides of all the cards. Wiz Kid Rider demonstrates a
special series of moves I combined together that allows him to
show both sides of all the cards at the beginning and end of the
routine.
I will also provide you with other options so you can make
your own versions of this trick in either Jumbo Size for stage
presentations, or regular playing card size for close-up. Just
print out the cards from the templates I provide in the e-Book,
or make up your own from playing cards.
Wiz Kid Rider also uses a special card gimmicked as in my "Talking Greeting Cards"
effect so the Rabbit can talk to the audience when it reappears
at the end of the routine. You would need to get that effect if
you want to make one of your cards "talk."
Wiz Kid Rider also came up with a new move that greatly
improves the Four Card Monte by having the different card (in the
above example, it is Rider himself as a Christmas Elf ) suddenly
appear after the cards are shown front and back. You can see Rider's
cousin Wik Kid Qua-Fiki using his new move in "The Three
Little Pigs." The templates for the cards shown above
are included with the e-Book for those who want to use the
Christmas Theme with a personalized card like the one Rider is
showing.
WJ17-06
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