Before you buy any
Dollar Store instructions, go to your local Dollar Store (Quid
Store in the U.K.) and make sure you can get the ingredients. Not
all Dollar Stores are alike and you may have to hunt through
several to find just what you need to make these magic props.
You'll need a large clear plastic canister
from the Dollar Store, about the size of a traditional cookie
(biscuits in the UK) jar. You'll also need a bowl to catch the
candy in for the ending. If using this as a cookie jar, you'll
need individual cellophane wrapped cookies, which is a pain in
the neck and they sometimes come out all crumbly, so I prefer
using cellophane wrapped candies just because they are more
durable... but it's YOUR trick, so suit yourself.
I will then show you how to convert the
canister so that you bring it out obviously empty and tell the
kids you are going to pass around some candy
(cookies-biscuits-whatever) now from your magic candy jar. When
they tell you the jar is empty, look surprised for a moment, then
smile and tell them it looks empty to THEM because they don't
have magic eyes that can see invisible candy.
Unscrew the lid (or do whatever you have to
do to open your canister) and hold the canister out to one of the
most annoying kids in the audience who has been on your case all
through the show.
"Go ahead and reach in the jar,"
you tell him ( I know it's a boy!). He reaches into the jar and
finds nothing. "Nothing? No candy for you? I'm so sorry, you
see this jar was given to me by Santa Claus himself and the jar
knows if you've been naughty or nice. Let me have someone else
try it."
This time you hold the jar out to someone
who has been very well behaved during your show. The child
reaches in and removes a piece of candy from the jar. "See?
If you've been nice, the jar rewards you by offering you a piece
of invisible candy!"
With that as your basic premise, you can
continue to have some children find candy in the jar, while
others find nothing. However, at the end, you hold the jar over
an empty candy bowl and enough candy tumbles out of the jar for
each person to have a piece, even those the jar deemed
"naughty." There's no guarantee that the annoying
hecklers will reform their ways by the end of your show, but one
can always hope!
BONUS EFFECTS: Turn your Canister into a
visible silk appearance trick - the sealed canister suddenly
becomes filled with silks, or in reverse the silks are sealed
into the canister and suddenly they vanish. This can also be used
as a visible transformation of silks changing to a live dove,
flowers, candy, cookies, oranges, etc.
