Andy Gross Comic/Magician/Ventriloquist- Interview Show #217

Andy Gross is a seasoned comic magician and ventriloquist who found his love for magic at age nine, influenced by the film "Magic" and magicians like Doug Henning. His perspective on the combination of comedy and magic is one that sees these elements as crucial components for captivating and engaging audiences. This unique approach was shaped by his early experiences in St. Louis, where he honed his craft in card tricks and ventriloquism, frequenting local magic shops. Adding a comedic twist to his performances, inspired by comedy legends Don Rickles and Rodney Dangerfield, Andy believes that comedy provides an extra layer of entertainment to his magic shows, creating a dynamic and engaging experience for his audience. From a successful racquetball career to becoming a full-time magician at age 26, Andy Gross has continued to entertain audiences with his unique blend of comedy and magic.

(00:00:21) Andy Gross: Comedy, Magic, Ventiloquism Fusion

(00:01:14) Influential Figures in Andy Gross's Comedy Magic

(00:07:11) From Stock Lines to Comedy Success

(00:12:01) Magic Acts Enhanced with Humorous Elements

(00:23:15) Humor Integration in Magical Performances

(00:25:35) Comedic Patter: Enhancing Magic Performances

(00:28:03) Intertwining Ventriloquism, Magic, and Comedy Brilliance

(00:36:15) Chuck and Bob: Ventriloquism Legacy Inspiration

Transcript

00:00:04 - Announcer
This is another episode of stand up comedy. Your host and MC celebrating 40 plus years on the fringe of show business. Stories, interviews, and comedy sets from the famous and not so famous. Here's your host and MC, Scott Edwards.

00:00:21 - R. Scott Edwards
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this special part of the series comedy magic and what makes it all happen. Our star today is very successful on the Internet. You may have seen his videos called Split man. If you haven't Google, use the googler and check out Split man. You'll find it. He has his own YouTube show called Andy Gross. Are you kidding me? And he is just a terrific guy. Longtime friend, used to work for me for, for many years. Ladies and gentlemen, let's welcome comic magician Andy Gross. Andy, welcome to the podcast.

00:01:01 - Andy Gross
Well, thank you.

00:01:04 - R. Scott Edwards
We're so excited to have you here. We're talking to comic magicians, and I was wondering if you wouldn't mind sharing your story. How did you start doing magic?

00:01:14 - Andy Gross
Okay, well, here I was about nine years old, and I saw the movie magic with Anthony Hopkins and Ann Margaret.

00:01:22 - R. Scott Edwards
Oh, really?

00:01:22 - Andy Gross
That was the coolest thing ever. Yeah, it was Anthony Hopkins. I think it was his first american film. And I remember my dad taking me there, and it was so cool just to see that dummy, you know, on the screen. And so really ventriloquism intrigued me first. So I got this. I wanted a dummy so bad. I remember asking my dad, how do I do this? How do I do this? And he said, go to the library and figure it out. So no Google back then. So that's exactly what I did. Went to the library. Yeah. It would have been so much easier, you know, so went to the library, started reading about ventriloquism and learning how to do that. And then I had another friend that showed me a card trick, and it just, that was it. It just set me off. And I was at the magic shop, you know, every week, local magic shop. I'd get my parents to take me down there. And my dad was, he liked this stuff, too. He wasn't into it. He didn't do it, but he was just intrigued by magic and kind of liked it. So I remember when the magicians would come to town in St. Louis where I grew up, like Doug Henning. You remember Doug Henning?

00:02:21 - R. Scott Edwards
Oh, yeah.

00:02:22 - Andy Gross
So Doug Henning would come into town. Even Blackstone would come in the town, and he would take me to the local theater, and we'd go see these acts. And he would also, he traveled. He had his own business. And one time he went to New YOrk, and I'll never forget, he came back and he had this magic trick and he showed it to me. It just blew me away. But he, the second time he did it, he messed it up. So I caught it and I was like, ah. And then he just tossed it to me and said, good luck, you know, here you go. Good luck. And that was it. I mean, it just, it was always just a hobby of mine. I would read about it and study it as much as I possibly could and practice card.

00:02:57 - R. Scott Edwards
So at an early age, you're practicing both ventriloquism, which is a type of illusion, and magic tricks. At what point did you put together maybe a little show or something where you were showing strangers? Was it, did it stay a hobby through your teens, or were you starting to do little performances?

00:03:18 - Andy Gross
It was mostly a hobby through the teens. I mean, I would do a few shows here or there. One time we went on this little trip and it was like a local resort town, and they had a open mic mainly for the adults. And somehow I was twelve or 13, they let me do this open mic thing. We're not happy about it. We don't want kids. But I was like 1213 around the cusp, and they said, okay, well, let you do it. And I remember putting this little ventriloquist magic act together, maybe five minutes. And I won. I won that contest.

00:03:49 - R. Scott Edwards
Wow.

00:03:49 - Andy Gross
It was a contest. Yeah, amongst all the adults. And I was like a little mini star there for the next day or two that we spent at this little resort. And it was kind of fun. So that really, that was really one of the only times I was on stage as a young guy doing it. But I would always shoot the friends and family. But the thing was, I had that other career that you knew about I had was racquetball. Sports was like the thing that was my destiny. You know, when I was young, I was playing this racquetball, which was huge. So no one really took my magic of ventriloquism real serious, including my parents. They loved it. But it was racquetball. It was sports, for sure. This guy's going to excel in sports. You know, he's going to do great with racquetball. It's a hot sport, make a lot of money. Everything will be great. Yeah.

00:04:29 - R. Scott Edwards
We should explain to the audience that you were a bit of a young legend in random racquetball, made some money, went pro basically right at a young age, and rode that train for a few years.

00:04:42 - Andy Gross
Right, exactly. And the reason I'm saying is because I'll tell you, that's how I kind of transitioned into this match up full time. So I'm doing the racquetball. I mean, I guess they figured that, yeah, I'm twelve years old, and he's sitting in his room talking to himself with a doll. And I figured that will go away eventually. It'll phase out. Don't worry about it. He's going to play sports. I did. I went on to play sports. I played professionally for ten years. When racquetball was at its peak in popularity, the sport was a huge, fastest growing sport in the country. It was awesome. There were sponsors. I was making money playing tournaments, doing exhibitions. Moved to Los Angeles to be around the more racquetball stuff. There's a lot of tournaments, and a lot of the sponsorships were out here. And so when I moved, about three or four years later, the. The sport just died. I mean, the sport, you couldn't believe it. It went from making great money. So I didn't go to college because I was making all this good money. I was 1516 years old when I started playing on the pro tour. So there was no college because I figured, this is it. It's gonna last forever. I'll have enough money. And then it died. I got the phone call one day. They said I went from making a lot of money to being lucky to get free shoes. So I hung up that phone, and I was really. I was depressed. I go, my God, what am I gonna do now? And then I go, I'll do this magic. I'll do some magic. That's what I'll do. And it was like the natural progression. I go, doesn't everybody go professional racquetball through ventriloquism?

00:06:03 - R. Scott Edwards
How old were you then, Andy?

00:06:05 - Andy Gross
I was 26.

00:06:07 - R. Scott Edwards
So you weren't a kid anymore. You were a young adult, and you brought back this childhood hobby and turned it into what has been an amazing career. When was your first professional show?

00:06:25 - Andy Gross
Well, here's what I did. I had done a couple little open mics, even when racquetball was okay just playing around. I've done a little bit, but nothing. Nothing much. But once it die, I go, that's it. I'm gonna go to every open mic I can go to. So I started going to these open mics, and I would do a magic trick, and they would like it, but they said, can you. It's a comedy club. Can you add a little comedy to it? Can you make it a little funnier and then come back? And so I did that I started saying, well, I gotta be funny. It's a comedy club. So I started adding as much comedy as I could to it and kept going. And then they said, hey, can you come back and be the middle act? And then, honest to God, my biggest break was with you. I mean, you were the first guy to really start bringing me into your club a lot, and I'm thankful to this day for that because I learned a lot of it. I really did. I remember when you called.

00:07:11 - R. Scott Edwards
Yeah, yeah, I remember those days. And you were very talented, but let's backtrack just a little. So you added comedy to your magic because it was basically a request of the producers you were working with at the time.

00:07:27 - Andy Gross
Right?

00:07:28 - R. Scott Edwards
Did you. So you didn't do it by choice, but once the decision was made, I mean, I've seen your act a hundred times. It's very funny. Did the comedy come naturally? Did you need any help? Can you explain to the listeners how a magician who's doing straight magic tricks and a little bit of ventriloquism, now, ventriloquism in itself is usually humorous. So maybe it wasn't a big transition to adding comedy to your magic, but maybe you could share with us how that process happened.

00:07:59 - Andy Gross
Well, you know what? I originally first took, and probably a lot of guys might do this, I don't know, but I did. I took a few stock lines. Few stock lines have been out there forever in the magic. And I came back and I could, I, you know, I wasn't really sure how to write comedy at that point yet. And I just threw a few of these little stock lines in there, started getting laughs. And I'm telling you, the more I perform, my thing was to get on stage as much as I could, and then I would just start adding to these things and ad libbing and something to kind of be funny. And then I'd keep it in the act. And then I did sit down daily, got in the habit of starting to write, whether good or bad. I would sit down for an hour and I would just try to write stuff, whatever I could. Sometimes I had nothing. Sometimes I had a little bit. And it just kind of progressed. I mean, over the years, it just kept changing and changing and changing, getting a little bit funnier and funnier. And the hardest part for me was taking out stuff that I liked but didn't work. But I personally liked it. I'm sure a lot of comics write with that. And everyone said, that's not good. And I go, I like it, though. I'm going to keep. I'm going to try it again. They didn't understand it. And after you do it a hundred times and fail, you finally realize, okay, this does not work. It's got to go.

00:09:01 - R. Scott Edwards
Yeah, no, I find that interesting, that you were somewhat forced into adding comedy. Did it gradually by using stock material, which I think is actually very smart, Andy. And then realizing that the comedy was a vehicle to maybe get you more work, especially because comedy had really taken off in the mid eighties, you were forcing yourself to write like a stand up comic. So you're already a magician, you're already a ventriloquist, but now you're making a point of writing material like a comic, and then like a stand up comic, you're hitting the stage as much as you can to work out the patter, to, to hone it down and get to where it was very succinct and always funny. That, that's very interesting. Did it make it more fun for you, adding comedy?

00:09:58 - Andy Gross
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm glad I did. I really am. I wouldn't have known where to perform if I, you know, the comedy clubs were really so popular right then, and I didn't know that's the only place I could think of to perform. But, yeah, it made it a lot more fun. I mean, it was great to start doing that. And one of the reasons going back to adding a couple of stock lines in the beginning, because just to help someone new, I'll tell you why I did it, because I still now more than ever, I know that it's about confidence on stage. If you're confident, almost anything can come off good. If you're really confident. So I knew adding a couple stock lines, I said, okay, these are going to get last because they're tried and proven. We know they're going to get last. And then you kind of get a little more confidence. You know, they're laughing week now you're feeling good. And your whole act, it just helped me out tremendous amount just by adding a few little things. Yeah.

00:10:42 - R. Scott Edwards
Do you remember, I mean, what, I mean, I have an idea of what you mean, but to the listeners, what would be a, do you remember what a stock line might have been that you were using, you know, at age 25, at your first open mic at a comedy club?

00:10:57 - Andy Gross
Oh, my gosh. I mean, you know, got, there's so many of them. And here's the thing. I still throw some of those in there today because they still work, you know, I mean, there's one bit you ask somebody in the audience. Okay. What's your name, sir? Nice and loud. Steve. That's correct. It was just a stupid line. And you just say, that's the thing. You say, that's correct. That one, you know, or there's another stock line I do sometimes. I say, where you from? You know, Minnesota. I'm sorry, Minnesota. No, I heard you. I'm just sorry, you know.

00:11:27 - R. Scott Edwards
Well, that reminds me of my Mc joke. You know, there, there's a, you know where the people from Lodi saw a tractor parked out front or. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that, oh, one of my favorites is where you're from, Tucson. Oh, okay. I'll talk slower.

00:11:45 - Andy Gross
Great. Yeah, those are great. And those work, all work good. You had another one, I remember, I remember about a blonde one. You talked about, you see somebody blind, say, oh, stop it. You can tell from here she's not a real blonde. Wasn't that it? I think that was it. I think that was it.

00:12:01 - R. Scott Edwards
Yeah, that was it. Well, so some, some material that, that was kind of stock in stand up comedy, you're adding it to your magic, which you had practiced on and on since you were eight or nine years old. The ventriloquism, which is kind of naturally comedic, is already working for you, and you're putting all this together and building a set when interacting with the audience. How did comedy help? For example, a straight magician is doing cup and balls or a card trick and, and you knew how to do that. Did adding comedy make a difference when interacting with the audience?

00:12:43 - Andy Gross
Yeah, I think so. I mean, I really do more so than that, though. I just think that it was just, you know, the direction that I just, I found that so much fun to get the comedy, get to get people laughing. It's just, and it was really, truly, again, it was the only place I could perform. There weren't other place. Where was I going to go? I wasn't going to go to, like, down to the, you know, legion's hall and start doing little shows or something or old folks home. I figured that I, comedy clubs were the place to be. That's where to go. So I needed that comedy. Plus, I love the comedy. I mean, I love comedy stuff.

00:13:15 - R. Scott Edwards
Yeah. I think that two points I wanted to share with the audience. One is that I think comedy, and you agree or disagree helps you engage with the audience. So even though magic is visually like candy for to, to watch, you know, the, the shiny object is the, is the magic. The patter. The comedic patter is what really connects the audience to the magic.

00:13:41 - Andy Gross
That's it. It's interesting you say that, because my wife always says the same thing. She always goes, you know, a lot of magicians do the same or very similar tricks. You know, you're vanishing a dollar, turning into dollar 100 bill reappears on a lemonade. But it's not so much about that. It's the presentation. Is it funny how he presented it? We all know the magicians, how the tricks are done. There's only so many different tricks you can do. It's how you present it. So the more comedy you can put in there is great. And when I leave a show, I love when people come over to me and go, oh, we had no idea it was gonna be this funny. So that I feel like I've done my job because I wanted the comedy first and foremost, and then the trick. And a lot of people have told me through the years, you know, straight comedians, you know how it is, they'll think I'm using the magic of intriguing as a crutch. Why don't you just do straight, stand up, pure stand up comedy? And the truth of the matter is, I like the magic. I started doing magic. I enjoy it. It wasn't, I wasn't using it as a crutch. I liked it since I was nine years old. I just love it. But adding a comedy just helps so much.

00:14:42 - R. Scott Edwards
Yeah. And then the other point I wanted to share with the audience is in your mid twenties, when you were really getting going out of racquetball and into entertainment and magic was during the peak. I mean, I opened my club in 1980. By 1985, 86, I mean, there was a almost a club on every corner. All the discos had converted to comedy clubs. And so for a young magician, there's a limited number of places you could do shows and other than kids parties and maybe a few adult parties. But as adding comedy, especially in the eight late eighties, allowed you many, many, many more opportunities to get on stage and hone your craft. I mean, I think your timing, whether on purpose or accidental, was really, well, first with racquetball and then with comedy.

00:15:35 - Andy Gross
Magic, it really did. I joke about it, you know, that I could have done this, could have gone longer. But you know what? I did hit perfect time. And you're right, I did get into comedy right when it was still booming, things were still good, and, and I was lucky with it. I really was lucky to find a guy like you for real, that, you know, would have me back and keep giving me stage time. So, you know, because there was a lot of competition back there, you remember, you remember the competition back then, how much stuff there was you got. And I remember going to your club and other clubs, and, you know, you'd have, you have so many vhs tapes from people back then that you put them under the tables or, you know, level just to balance off the table. And one day I saw mine, I go, no, no, no, you, what do I care? You must have watched it.

00:16:18 - R. Scott Edwards
You were one of my favorite regular variety acts. And thank you for that. Well, you were taking advantage of the wave of stand up comedy, and with all the clubs and stages, you could get on to not only make a living, but also hone your craft. I wanted to take it down to some of the basics. When you're working out an illusion, are you already thinking of the comedy, kind of like, you know, when you're writing the patter? Every magician has either out of a book, something you should say when you're doing a trick, or they're creating the patter for a trick. Where and how did you find the comedy?

00:17:01 - Andy Gross
Well, it depends what trick it is that I am doing. I mean, some are easier. Some of the comedy just kind of falls into place. It really does. And it's a little bit easier. Now, what I do is probably not the best, best way to do it, but what I do now is I'm so confident. I've been doing it so long, that I'll almost introduce a new trick. I'll practice it a few times so I have the trick down, but then I'll just start presenting. I'll just stick it in the middle of my show somewhere just to see how it's going to go and almost ad lib on this trick and just see how things are working. But that's where it takes a long time to really hone it, like you said before, to really hone it and get this trick to where it's, where it's perfect. But a lot of times I'll present a new trick, I swear to you, I'll just bring it out and try it.

00:17:46 - R. Scott Edwards
Yeah, that, yeah, you mentioned it earlier, Andy. That takes a lot of confidence because a lot of, you know, anybody that understands people, music or acting on stage, being in a play, there's hours and hours, sometimes weeks of rehearsal and magicians real quick, when you decide to do a new trick, how long does it take you to learn it? Is it something you could do in hours, weeks, months? Is, you know, if you, some you.

00:18:17 - Andy Gross
Can do, some you can do pretty quick, you know, because some are a little bit easier. You already know, that move to make it work, but some will take quite a long time. Some could take, you know, six months before you perfect it, and then it could take another six months of doing it on stage before it's really honed where it should be.

00:18:33 - R. Scott Edwards
Right.

00:18:33 - Andy Gross
So that's why I try to get in the middle of the act, because I'm that way. You have the confidence, you know, your act is going well, proven stuff. So then all of a sudden, you stick a quick little bit in there, whether it be three, four, or five minutes, and if it's going terrible, then you just kind of abort or get out of it quick and go back to the proven stuff, you know?

00:18:49 - R. Scott Edwards
Yeah. And then it doesn't so bad for a magician. I think that's called an out. If something isn't going correct, you kind of have a way. I know, for example, a stand up comic, if things aren't going well, they know to bail and go back to what they know as their a material. And it's interesting that you mentioned, as a comic magician, that if you're trying something new, you put it in the middle of your show, because as a producer of comedy for, uh, 40 plus years, I've taught a lot of up and comers, new comics, that if you are going to try new material, you have to first captivate the audience and kind of prove you're funny and you want to end the show on your best material so that they, uh, you leave them wanting more. The place to try new comedy is in the middle. So I. I think you follow that path, even with your magic. But I do think you have an extra amount of confidence, because as a producer, I would be nervous if you said, hey, I've got a new thing and I want to try it out, and it's never been done on stage, and you're going to go up and wing it.

00:19:58 - Andy Gross
I do do that. I got to admit, I do that sometimes, but it's not, you know, I try not to do it. It's funny because when I was doing corporate shows, the corporate shows, they pay good money, and so you don't want to try new material out there, that's for sure. You know, I'll still do a one nighter, somewhere smaller venue, and that's where I'll try them. That's where I'll try it, you know?

00:20:20 - R. Scott Edwards
Right, right. And I, and I. Even though I don't think you should tell the producer what you're doing from a theatrical or entertainment point of view, you do have to just like a good comedy bit, a magic bit or trick or illusion needs to be practiced in front of a live audience. It doesn't matter how well your moves are in front of a mirror, until you get in front of an audience and make a trick work along with making the patter or the comedy work, you're never going to know. I just think it's brave of you to throw it in there and then figure out what you're going to say.

00:20:57 - Andy Gross
You're right. You have to look at, you know, you. It really is. You have to really, really work on it on stage because you could practice in front of a mirror forever, but then all of a sudden something on stage, you know, it's just, it's different. I'll tell you what else I like to do, and this may sound a little strange, but it really works for me. And it worked in sports as well. It was visualization, where you visualize yourself performing this thing over and over and over. So sometimes before I would go to bed, I would just visualize myself being on stage, but so real. I know this sounds kind of strange, but I would really, you could hear the audience. I could smell the room almost. I mean, I would just do this routine over and over because you, with a magic trick, you might have to reach out into your box and pull out a trick, you know, pull out the deck of cards or whatever it is you're getting and do these little moves. So over and over in my mind, I would play this over and over and over in my mind perfectly, so I'd have it down. And I got to tell you something that really works. I know it's a form. Visualization is a form in sports. A lot of athletes do that. And I used to do it somewhat in the racquetball as well, too, but I think it carried over into this performances too well.

00:22:00 - R. Scott Edwards
I think that's good advice for anybody that's really interested in becoming professional or just really good at anything. Me, as a producer, if I know I have a big show the next night in my head, I'm going through what I'm going to need to say. I visualize, like you said, me on stage and how I'm going to interact with the audience. And you know what I need to do. And it's kind of like a to do list in your head. I understand that in a magic trick you want to do it over and over because repetition is what provides the training for the body and the mind. But I think it's, it's great that you shared that because that's a new way of thinking, and I know it definitely works. Well, you've been doing comedy and magic and ventriloquism for several decades, even though you're still a young man. And right now you're in this show, very successful show in Florida. When you're doing comedy and you kind of explained, and let's just reiterate, is it magic trick first and then add the comedy, or do you think, is something funny and try to find a trick that fits that?

00:23:15 - Andy Gross
I think it's a magic trick first. Most of the time, for me, there have been a couple times when I had to force myself to come up with something funny. I mean, you know, the reverse. But most of the time, it's a magic trick. You know, I come up with a trick, and then I go, now I gotta make this funny. That's generally how it is. I'd say 90% of the time, I come up with the trick first, then we're gonna add comedy to it for sure.

00:23:37 - R. Scott Edwards
Well, one of the old classics is cup and balls, and I've seen, you know, we've both seen a thousand different variations of this classic trick that's been around since, you know, before Christ.

00:23:51 - Andy Gross
Right?

00:23:52 - R. Scott Edwards
What? Was there any. I don't even know if you do cup and balls, but if you did it, is there something that you would add to make it yours? And we, we should reiterate, and I'd like you to maybe expound on this. Magicians, you said it earlier, magicians are all kind of doing the same tricks. It's the comedy, it's the patter that sets every magician apart.

00:24:15 - Andy Gross
Right, exactly. I mean, I really agree. I really believe that it's the presentation because you go to the place like the magic castle in Hollywood. You know, it's a famous old castle down there. All the magicians perform, and you will see, you know, ten magicians do the same exact trick, but they'll present it vastly different. And to me, that's the part that is impressive, because I know how most of the tricks are done. And people say, do you still enjoy watching magic? How can you enjoy if you know how the trick is done? I said, perhaps I almost enjoy it more because I like to see how they present it. You know, it's all about the presentation to me, and if it's funny or maybe some guy make it serious sometimes, you know, cups and balls can be very serious. Or I've seen Penn and Teller do it to where it's pretty funny. You know what? I think Penn and Teller did a version of it where they did clear cups. The cups were clear so you could see through them, which is kind of funny, right. You can see what's going on the whole time. Right.

00:25:10 - R. Scott Edwards
It's kind of anti magic, but at the same time, with their patter, they were able to take this exposure of the illusion and make it very funny. And yet they're still not really giving away the secret moves.

00:25:24 - Andy Gross
No, they didn't. It fooled you. It was some kind of a sucker effect, which I love to do. You know, the audience thinks you're in on it. They think they're in on it. Maybe they think you messed up, and then, boom, you get them again with something else. I love doing those.

00:25:35 - R. Scott Edwards
Yeah, that's always entertaining for an audience. Well, let me ask you this. When you're doing comedy, in working with your magic or ventriloquism, do you prefer verbal comedy, like it's in the patter? Or do you sometimes do physical comedy, you know, where something pretends to fall out of something and it looks like an accident, but it's really part of the trick or part of the gag.

00:26:01 - Andy Gross
You know, a little of both. A little of both. I'd say more verbal. I do. But I do have some, some physical stuff like that, too. Exactly what you're saying. And I'll do a bit in slow motion. So I'm moving in slow motion so they can see how the trick is done. I say, okay, I'm going to show you guys how this trick is done, but I'm not really going to show you because I don't want magicians to get mad at me, because if I show you, the magician will get mad at me. But I'm going to show you this trick in slow motion, and that way you're probably going to see how the trick is done. Because when you do things really hand, it's quicker than the eye, but if I do it real slow for you, you'll see how the trick is done. So now I do this slow motion music, and I'm moving in slow motion, and they totally think they know, oh, I see, you just put that in the bag, but then, boom, the bag will vanish. Still, you know, whatever happens, happens. So I still get them. You know, they think. They say, oh, I see, you know, and then, boom, you get them again.

00:26:51 - R. Scott Edwards
So you are using a little bit physical and. But most of your, most of your comedy is in the pattern, in the verbal presentation.

00:27:00 - Andy Gross
Yes, yes. Yeah. I'd say 80% to 90% is more verbal.

00:27:04 - R. Scott Edwards
Yeah, well, they're both challenging to, to do because in each and every case, in each and every magician, male or female, that's doing a presentation, you have to find your voice on stage and how you're going to connect with the audience. And, you know, Penn and Teller, like you said, kind of are the anti magic guys. You had amazing Jonathan who was really high energy. You had Harry Anderson, who was kind of a grifter. Everybody finds their path. Larry Wilson, it's, you know, famous magician school. I'm essentially going to teach you how to be, you know, a magician, which of course he doesn't, but it's all about the presentation and you've been very successful. Congratulations on that. Was combining ventriloquism and magic and comedy. It sounds like it kind of came naturally to you, but those are three different art forms.

00:28:03 - Andy Gross
Yeah, they really are. And for the most part, I think it's great. There have been some times in the past I've questioned it because sometimes people almost get confused or overwhelmed. But what, what are you, are you a comedian, a magician or controller? It's like, well, I do all three, you know, so it's really funny. Producers and people like, you know, it's, I don't, I just want to bill you as a magician or comedian. You know, they would get confused with it, but I think, I think people are kind of over that now. I'll tell you another thing that's really helped a lot was I kind of love them and I hate them. Or like America's Got Talent and Penn and tellers fool us. You know, these things have given so much attention to magicians and ventriloquists. If you look at America's Got Talent, I think four, maybe five ventriloquists have won America's got Talent. Yeah.

00:28:51 - R. Scott Edwards
Out of the 1011 years, yeah, they've had a lot of winners and ventriloquism.

00:28:56 - Andy Gross
And a half have almost been ventriloquists. It's incredible. So the old days, you know, when you used to call up some bookers, you're trying to book yourself back in the old days they say, you know, I've intrigued. It's a dying art. It doesn't sell. Imagine, I don't mean well, now you can just slam right back at them. Well, really, have you watched America's got Talent? Seems like all they want, you know, we've got, and the Jeff Dunham is immensely popular now.

00:29:18 - R. Scott Edwards
Well, shin Lim, I mean, these guys in our huge shows in Vegas and it's, it's all about, and they're not even, I mean, shin Lim is pure magic. He doesn't do comedy, but there's some that do comedy and some not. Ventriloquism, by its nature, is always funny. I don't think I've ever, there's no such thing as a serious ventriloquist. But the fact that you're right, that in this day and age, the old arts that I used to always love and I used to always book ventriloquists and magicians and jugglers, I even once booked a professional tap dancer. That was really funny, and it was just so great. Well, I think that's exciting. Thanks for sharing that with our listeners. Any good road stories or anything about a trick going awry? You're out. Wasn't enough great stories about a trick going awry. And then the follow up is, was comedy helpful in those situations?

00:30:25 - Andy Gross
Oh, for sure, for sure, for sure, for sure. Early on, this is pretty early in the career, but I was working a lot of clubs. I had a dummy that would do this mind reading bit where somebody would select a card, and then I would cover him up. He's sitting on a kind of like a stool or a little table I had for him, and I would set him on there, and I cover him up with a, so he couldn't see out. And, you know, which is silly in itself. He wasn't really looking at the cards, but I'd cover his head up so he couldn't see the cards. And I had someone select a card, and I'll never forget they're looking at the card, and for some reason, he must not have been balanced right. And the dummy just fell off the table, just went. Just, I saw him out of the corner of my eyes, falling, leaning forward, and he just did, like a somersault and slammed on the ground. And as I saw him falling, I was thinking, oh, here goes, you know, 15 gone, you know, for this puppet's gone now. But as I saw him falling, I at least had prayer in mind to make him go, ah, screaming as he was making his way down to the ground.

00:31:25 - R. Scott Edwards
Really? Your mind worked that fast?

00:31:27 - Andy Gross
Yes. Yeah. I didn't know what else to do. I just, boom. You know, and then I picked up. He's like, what the hell happened? You know? And it was, got the biggest laugh of the night, of that alone. People didn't know. They thought maybe it was on purpose, but he's like, what is going on? What happened? And it was actually so funny. I was trying to figure out a way to keep it in the act. How can I do this? Every night that he falls off that thing? This should be great.

00:31:55 - R. Scott Edwards
Yeah. What came to my mind is, you know what, what, have you been drinking?

00:32:01 - Andy Gross
Yeah. What happened? Would you hit me in the back of the head with something? What happened? Yeah, it was, it was a pretty funny bit, you know, they got the card right, of course. And just the fact that he fell off the bench, I was just pretty funny.

00:32:17 - R. Scott Edwards
Yeah. But what's the point of the story is that what normally to a ventriloquist might have been a major f up in a show where your ventriloquial figure goes tumbling to the ground. You don't know if it's broken or whatever, for you have, for you to have the quick mind and add in the, and that's what I'm saying.

00:32:39 - Andy Gross
The confidence. Yeah. A lot of guys would have run off the stage early in my career. Really early. That was fairly early. But I mean real early. I might have panicked and ran off the stage. You never know.

00:32:49 - R. Scott Edwards
Yeah. It, confidence in any type of entertainment is, is so valuable. But I think also that the point of the story is not only are you obviously very quick and funny, but by playing it off with the audience, they didn't even realize that wasn't supposed to happen. And you use comedy to do that.

00:33:12 - Andy Gross
Right. I had no clue that was happening. And I always tell people, too, I had this advice, I think it was, remember John Mulroney?

00:33:21 - R. Scott Edwards
Yeah.

00:33:22 - Andy Gross
John Mulrooney. He actually told me this one time, I kind of knew him a little bit, and he would say to me, you know what? Try to start ad Libby a little bit more. He said, just look around the room, see something, mention it, talk about it. Talk to some people. He goes, remember, if you don't think you can be funny because you're not great at it yet, it's early. You got to practice to start doing it. If you're not funny, just be nice then. Just be nice. You ask somebody where they're from, if you can't think of anything funny or what they do, that's great. Well, thanks for coming out tonight, and then move on, because as long as you're going to be at least nice to them, if you can't think of anything funny, it'll come out okay. And he goes, and it'll be some practice to start out living. You'll be surprised how many lines you know you'll find. And sure enough, after that, I went to a club. You know how you said everything turned into a comedy club? You know, early in the nineties and stuff, they were turning bowling alleys into comedy club. Anything, you know, any little room in the world became a comedy club. And this guy, it was a small room I was playing, and behind me, it had like, this red curtain, and it looked like a big elastic band across the top of it, and it looked like a giant pair of boxing shorts that I was performing in front of. I said, well, thank you, George Foreman, tonight, for donating his boxing shorts for our background. And, you know, just after the fact that it looked like boxing shorts, it got a great laugh. And I go, okay, I see what he means now. Just look around the room, find some ad libs, say something about it.

00:34:41 - R. Scott Edwards
Well, that's a perfect lead into my next and my final question, and thank you for being a part of this series. When it comes to magic, did you have any mentors or idols? And then segue into the second part of the question, the same for comedy. So for magic and comedy separately, who did you watch, who did aspire to be?

00:35:05 - Andy Gross
I liked early on, I loved Doug Henning. I mean, I was saying my parents would take me to see Doug Henning, so that was the only guy I knew, and he had some of the tv specials on. So Doug Henning was big. And then, of course, David Copperfield came along, and he's, you know, legendary with what he's done, too, so he was great to watch. And ventriloquism, I can tell you without a doubt, it was Jay Johnson. He was the ventriloquist from soap. You know, Jay probably right.

00:35:29 - R. Scott Edwards
Oh, Jay worked for me many times. He and Harry Anderson would come in as a team.

00:35:33 - Andy Gross
They were good friends. Yes, they were good friends. And Jay. I just saw Jay, actually, I had a couple days off and went to a ventriloquist convention in Cincinnati, and Jay was there, so it was great to see him. But I would see him on soap as a young guy, and I would wait every week, every Tuesday night, whatever was on. I was only nine or ten, and I would just wait for him to come do his one or two lines with that dummy, because that's the only place you could see a ventriloquist. I mean, we couldn't Google and get on YouTube and start looking for stuff that was impossible.

00:36:03 - R. Scott Edwards
So I thought, yeah, if I ever.

00:36:06 - Andy Gross
Meet Jay Johnson or see him, and now we're kind of friendly and it's kind of neat.

00:36:10 - R. Scott Edwards
So his ventriloquial figure, by the way, was Bob.

00:36:14 - Andy Gross
Bob, yep. Chuck and Bob.

00:36:15 - R. Scott Edwards
And Chuck and Bob on the old tv show soap and if you guys go to the googler, you could look up either Jay Johnson or the tv show soap and Chuck and Bob and you'll get to see what he's talking about. And those are all great references for magic and ventriloquism. Was there anybody in comedy that you felt like you learned something from and you mentioned Mulrooney, but it. Was there anybody else that stood out to you?

00:36:44 - Andy Gross
Well, I like the old time guys. I like Don Rickles and guys like that. You know, I used to love that, his kind of humor and comedy and stuff like that. And it's kind of a little bit, you haven't seen my acting. Well, I wouldn't say I'm like Donald Rickles, but it's a little bit more, I kind of like poke a little bit and have some fun with the audience, but I do kind of like that kind of stuff. That was great for me. Even Dangerfield, most kind of guys, just stuff like that. Loved it. Love the old time guys.

00:37:09 - R. Scott Edwards
Well, that's, those are two great references. And the people over 40 in our audience, people would know Don Rickles and Rodney Dangerfield. But I think that it's interesting that that kind of, Don Rickles, for example, is a little bit more like insult humor, but his way of bringing everybody together was by kind of picking on everybody, kind of making the point that, hey, we're all human beings, so we all have our faults. And me as a comic, I'm going to point out those faults, but I'm doing it in a comedy way because it does bring us all together as we all have our own foils. What's interesting in today's woke society that wouldn't fly because people are gotten so crazy sensitive about things. But still, these guys gave you kind of a basis for your style of comedy.

00:38:05 - Andy Gross
Yeah, I think so. I even like, I like even the one liners still. I know they're, can be a little hokey and corny sometimes, but I have some in my act that I still do. And, you know, the audiences are still laughing at them, so I keep them in, you know, the old Rodney Dangerfield, I'll tell you. I tell you, I had a weird childhood. You know, my grandfather, his dying wish was just to hold me and she was in the electric chair.

00:38:27 - R. Scott Edwards
Well, that's a great way to, that's a great way to end the series. Hey, thanks so much, Andy, for being a part of the show. Ladies and gentlemen, if you don't get a chance and you're not in Florida and you can't go see Andy live. He performs all over the country. Keep an eye out for him. You can see split man, his million viewed social media post. And if you go to YouTube, look for Andy Gross. Are you kidding me? His special that he produced for YouTube. So, ladies and gentlemen, very talented comic, magician, ventriloquist andy. We go way, way back. It's always been a lot of fun. Thanks for being a part of this series.

00:39:05 - Andy Gross
Thank you.

00:39:06 - R. Scott Edwards
Appreciate it, ladies and gentlemen. Stay tuned. More in this series coming up next.

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