Flight of the Phoenix

Bye, Bye Bunny!

Fish or Cut Bait

Chimney Screen

Tear-Apart/Take-Apart
Dove Boxes

Where Do The Duckies Go?
by Jim Gerrish

The Duck Production Tub and the Duck Vanish were invented by Servais LeRoy about 1909. William J. “Doc” Nixon attempted to claim the trick in 1919 but while he attached the name “Where Do the Ducks Go?” to it, and it spread rapidly among other stage magicians, like Theo and David Bamberg (who made improvements), and Harry Blackstone Sr., among others, the trick remained essentially the same until along came a young whippersnapper by the name of Jim Gerrish who reinvented the whole thing for a children’s effect using rubber duckies about the year 1970. These 2017 improvements just make it even better. Now it can be performed solo (with some young helpers from the audience) and everyone has fun quacking like ducks as the little yellow critters appear and disappear and no one knows from whence they come or whence they go!

Effect: Begin by selecting several young helpers to help you fill a translucent punch bowl with buckets of water. The Duckies appear one by one in the center of the water-filled punch bowl and are given to a helper along with a quacking noise-maker so the helper can "speak" for his Duckie. Then a small (4 1/2") cubical Gift Box is put together, piece by piece, in the hands of one of the helpers. Each Duckie Guardian deposits his or her Duckie into the box, with much quacking from the Duck Chorus. Suddenly all quacking stops. The Box is taken apart piece by piece and it is empty. Something yellow flashes beneath the magician's table, but it turns out to be a yellow feather duster as the table is taken apart. Finally, a beautiful screen covered with pleasant paintings of ducks, is shown on all sides, folded into a tube and the quacking begins again as many more ducks than you imagined could possibly fit into the tube emerge and go swimming and overflowing the punch bowl.

Servais LeRoy may be rolling over in his grave at the reinventing of his magic trick, but we are having fun! Quackers, anyone?