Review by Steve Vaughn
< steve.vaughn@analog.com >
Review Date: October 8, 2005 (What follows is a transcript made from that live radio review show)
Title: The Ungimmicked Egg Bag Routine
By: Jim Gerrish
Available from: www.magicnook.com
Medium: E-book - pdf file
Cost: $3 USD
Level: Professional performer, kids' shows, family shows

The Ungimmicked Egg-bag. It’s kind of a misnomer. I would have called it something else because the title implies it is just about how to make an ungimmicked egg bag, one of your basic run-of-the-mill “how to conceal something in a bag.” What Jim has, is a basic kids routine, which is very strong. It follows all the rules as far as what you would want to do in a kids’ routine.

Jim gives you the instructions on how to handle a bag which fits the routine, which is not a standard egg bag that could cost you an arm and a leg. This routine is for a child’s birthday party… it really has no other outlet. You have to put together quite a bit of material rather than going out and buying it ready-made. But what he gives you is a lot of comedy, the magician in trouble, it’s very detailed.

If you don’t work children’s party shows, you probably won’t have much use for it.

I don’t know where the title came from because it’s more than just about an egg bag.
The egg bag aspect of it is not the regular egg bag trick, but the one where you over burden the kids arms with eggs. It starts out producing eggs. He gives you a method of concealing the eggs, how to get the egg loads, how to give it to the kid so he doesn’t trash the house, it involves a paper tear that gives you a chef’s hat and apron…. eggs are produced and you’re trying to produce a magical birthday cake.

It’s well thought out, has all the aspects of a kids show routine, but that’s the whole routine. It leads up to the production of a giant inflatable birthday cake, and Jim gives you a source of where to get this cake from.

Jim is obviously an experienced child’s performer. This is not something the hobbyist or someone who is just interested in the egg bag is going to want to get hold of. If you do run a child’s professional birthday gig it may be of interest to you, but limitations are you really have to work where there’s an electrical outlet nearby to inflate the birthday cake.

The skill level is for the professional child’s performer. It’s not real difficult and won’t require an experienced professional to learn new moves. It takes a lot of set up, but everything in the routine is logical through the routine. It’s a typical e-book routine, not like a complete and ready-to-go magic shop item. You’re going to have to make the signs, you’re going to have to make the egg bag, and everything else that goes with it.

Comparing it to the “Seriously Silly Book,” it’s similar in that you have to make a lot of the stuff yourself. It’s well written, and for the professional child’s performer it does give a lot of ideas and Jim includes everything you need to know to get yourself going.

It’s pretty good. I’m impressed. Jim gives some alternate ideas for what you can use as egg bags. It would be an excellent birthday routine; a good way to fill the show, because you have a lot of fun. The kids would find it funny. At the ending, little kids would kind of freak out… they love that stuff.

It’s not really difficult. There’s a lot of guys out there performing kids shows, whose weakness is that they don’t really routine well, so something like this would help them out because it is fully routined. All they have to do is just follow the instructions.

© 2005, Steve Vaughn and www.magicnook.com