Larry Wilson "Magic, When a Trick Goes Wrong" Show #283

Larry Wilson, a celebrated comic magician with over 40 years of experience, has captivated audiences worldwide with his unique blend of humor and illusion. As the 2019 Comic Magician of the Year, he is renowned for his ability to seamlessly combine comedy with magic, a skill he believes enhances the overall performance by allowing laughter to mask the mechanics of the tricks. Wilson emphasizes the importance of improvisation and having "outs" for unexpected mishaps, demonstrating how comedy can turn potential failures into engaging moments, keeping the audience captivated. By mastering both physical and verbal comedy, Larry Wilson showcases the precision and skill required to integrate these elements, creating an entertaining experience that remains vibrant and dynamic in any setting.

(00:01:55) "Precision and Improv: Comedy Magicians' Secrets"

(00:05:13) Utilizing 'Outs' for Magical Mishaps

(00:07:05) Navigating Comedy Mishaps: Professional Recovery Strategies

(00:16:48) Precision and Skill: The Art of Comedy

(00:22:11) "Precision Rehearsal for Physical Comedy Mastery"

Transcript

Announcer: 0:04

This is another episode of Stand Up Comedy. Your host and emcee 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 emcee, Scott Edwards.

R. Scott Edwards: 0:22

I'm so lucky again to have in the studio one of the world class comic magicians, a regular on TV, the 2019 Comic Magician of the year and a regular at my club, Laughs Unlimited for a couple decades. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Larry Wilson. Yes, Larry, good to have you back.

Larry Wilson: 0:45

Oh, thank you.

R. Scott Edwards: 0:46

Last time we were together, we were talking about how a trick and comedy and magic work together to build how you start off and get it somewhere in your act by rehearsal and practicing and really honing with the audience. The best thing, and what was great about the last episode, right at the end, you shared how the laughter from the comedy aspect helps hide or makes the magic a little easier. So a straight magician may not have that working for him, but for a comic magician, it's one more tool in your arsenal to deflect the attention of the audience. But I'm going to take you down a more difficult road when coming to professional comedy and magic. And if you guys haven't heard any of the other shows, Larry's been doing this for over 40 years. He is world class, known from coast to coast and around the world, and pretty much can entertain any type of audience from a small close up show to a huge Las Vegas stage production.

Larry Wilson: 1:53

Not dead people. I can't entertain dead people.

R. Scott Edwards: 1:55

Okay. They're off the list. All right. But here's something that I'm sure in your many years you've experienced and this all has to do with comedy and magic. I don't. Maybe you can explain what a magician does and then how a comic magician, what happens when a trick goes badly. You know, for us naive regular audience members, we will sometimes see when something goes awry and sometimes not. And I'll give you a great analogy. There was a certain magician that had to do his act in a different time format than he had hoped and wanted. And when he was presenting magically some doves, they were dead.

Larry Wilson: 2:41

Yeah.

R. Scott Edwards: 2:41

Now, it only happened. I saw this happen once. It was sad and yet hysterically funny at the same time. But mostly funny in rears in the rearview mirror, as they say. But it was obviously a trick had gone awry and there was no way for him to get out of it comedically or magically or anything. It was just a sad situation that now historically is funny. So I've Done all the talking. Larry Wilson is a comic magician and a straight magician. What happens when a trick goes awry from your side of the stage?

Larry Wilson: 3:15

Well, that's a very interesting question. It's one of the reasons that I have an advantage being a comedy magician. No one can tell when something goes wrong.

R. Scott Edwards: 3:28

Well, easy into that answer.

Larry Wilson: 3:30

That's right. I mean, I'll tell you, in my show Wonderland there was about, oh, I don't know, towards the beginning of the show, at one point I would pull out a deck of cards and I would walk right up to someone in the front row, I'd spread the deck, cards take any card you want, they'd take it, stick it back in the deck, shuffle it up, they'd give it back to me, I'd put it in my pocket, I'd reach around, I plug card goes that your card? And invariably they go no. And I'd say that's because it's not that kind of show.

R. Scott Edwards: 4:03

But aren't you there though using, not to be obvious, but aren't you. That would have been funny to the audience. So aren't you in the, in essence using the comedy to mask a trick that failed?

Larry Wilson: 4:17

Well there, clearly it was intentionally a failure. But the point is, with my personality on stage, it's impossible to tell if something goes right, something goes wrong.

R. Scott Edwards: 4:28

Well, maybe we should speak of the average magician or comic magician, not somebody as exceptional as Larry Wilson.

Larry Wilson: 4:35

I know, but it's so dreadful to have to talk about anyone besides myself. It almost seems like time is coming to a standstill. No, I, of course I see what you're saying. I can only guess. I've seen some. I've had horrible things happen to me, but I can usually cover it where the audience can't tell. In fact, somebody asked me to write an article for a magazine just recently about magicians. It's very funny. Magicians have a name, have a word they use to describe what you're asking about.

R. Scott Edwards: 5:12

Oh no, really?

Larry Wilson: 5:13

Yeah. When something goes wrong but the audience doesn't necessarily know it yet, but you know it, you have to figure out some way to get out of it. In other words, if you have, for example, in a card trick, you know the card has secretly been manipulated to the top of the deck. If you somehow sneak a peek and it's not on the top of the deck, you know you're in trouble because now you don't know where the friggin card is. The audience doesn't know it yet. So somehow how are you going to get out of it. That solution is called an out.

R. Scott Edwards: 5:55

Oh, really?

Larry Wilson: 5:56

Yeah.

R. Scott Edwards: 5:56

And magicians frequently, ladies and gentlemen, make note you've learned a new term for behind the scenes of magic.

Larry Wilson: 6:02

Magicians will frequently have multiple outs.

R. Scott Edwards: 6:05

Oh.

Larry Wilson: 6:06

If something can go wrong in a number of different ways, how are you going to handle it? And the audience is supposed to be kept in the dark. So they don't. I mean this is interesting conceptually idea about magic. This is why you never say in advance what's going to happen because it might not happen. So you have to be prepared in a way that you can present all this stuff and the audience isn't really sure exactly what's going on.

R. Scott Edwards: 6:42

Interesting. So to bring it to stand up comedy, what we're here on this series to discuss the comparison would be that if a comic tries a new bit and it just lays flat and there's nothing from the audience, they don't calling it out, but they have always in their back pocket a joke that they know is going to work.

Larry Wilson: 7:05

Right.

R. Scott Edwards: 7:05

And so that you know, they will just cruise right past the quiet moment and go. Right. If they're a pro.

Larry Wilson: 7:12

Right.

R. Scott Edwards: 7:12

An amateur freezes or stumbles or apologizes, which you never want to do. You never want to act like you made a mistake. And a pro will just go to some a material that he's kept just for that reason. I have seen comics that will make fun of themselves and so their cover is being self deprecating.

Larry Wilson: 7:34

Right.

R. Scott Edwards: 7:34

Well, that was much funnier when I was in the shower.

Larry Wilson: 7:37

That's right, absolutely.

R. Scott Edwards: 7:38

And so it's an out.

Larry Wilson: 7:39

Right. But of course, for stand up comic it's much easier because it's just verbal. For a magician, frequently an out may involve some other piece of apparatus or a maneuver, some kind of.

R. Scott Edwards: 7:55

But they prepare for it, see. So me or a listening audience wouldn't know. But the regular audience is not made aware of the fact that in the industry, in the art form, this does happen and there's a professional way out of it.

Larry Wilson: 8:13

Right? Exactly. Now I can tell you some situations I've had where there was no out. This is also what we call learning experiences where you go, okay, I'm never gonna let that happen again.

R. Scott Edwards: 8:25

Right, right.

Larry Wilson: 8:26

When I was performing a corporate job in San Francisco, this is quite a few years ago with my troop, big show.

R. Scott Edwards: 8:34

Oh, wow.

Larry Wilson: 8:35

A big elaborate stage show in a big convention hotel. Big convention hotel, you know, and I don't know, 400, 500 people in the room, you know, and we had a thing without me revealing too much secret Stuff about magic. There's a thing where I would disappear from stage and reappear at the back of the audience.

R. Scott Edwards: 9:01

Oh, yeah, we've seen that on other shows, other tricks.

Larry Wilson: 9:06

Hopefully this is not a spoiler alert for your listeners, but in lieu of real magic, it means I have to be able to run around unseen from the stage all the way around and come in at the back of the room right now to make the illusion really strong. It's staged and arranged in such a way the audience perceives hardly any time has passed.

R. Scott Edwards: 9:30

It has to go quickly.

Larry Wilson: 9:31

Yeah. That you seem to disappear and instantly reappear at the back of the room. So I. You know, like I said, this is quite a few years ago, and I didn't have the vast experience I have now nowadays doing something like that in. During the day, as we're setting in and rehearsing, I would walk through that runaround to be exactly clear what was.

R. Scott Edwards: 9:59

Yeah, you wouldn't want to trip or fall or anything, you know, so you want to know.

Larry Wilson: 10:03

But in those days, of course, I thought, I can do anything. So. So I. We get to that part in the show. I disappear from the place I am on stage and go right. And of course, in a conventional. You're running through the kitchen. A lot of it. I go running through. I get out to where the front of the room. I burst out of the doors, and I realize this is a big convention.

R. Scott Edwards: 10:29

Hotel with the wrong room.

Larry Wilson: 10:32

There's 20 doors leading into other meeting rooms. I have no idea. I think it's the one right next to me. I burst in and shout, it's me. And the entire audience turns around as they're supposed to, to look at me, and I realize this is not my audience. It's 500 incredibly beautifully dressed men. They're all in evening clothes. The finest rewards thing, the finest thing I've ever seen. This is in San Francisco.

R. Scott Edwards: 11:10

Yeah.

Larry Wilson: 11:11

I've shouted, it's me. And they all turn around and look at me. And one person shouts with great enthusiasm, the stripper's here.

R. Scott Edwards: 11:23

In the meantime, your audience is trying to. And I'm sure your cast members are trying to figure out, where's our magician?

Larry Wilson: 11:31

I mean, the. When you start to bring this up, you're sort of bringing back a. A cavalcade of nightmare situations. Another time, with my troupe, we're in a performing arts center someplace in the Midwest. I can't remember where this was. And we had this routine that I always wanted to do where I borrow four rings from men in the audience. And then I do some seemingly ridiculous stuff. I'm gonna shine them up. And I seem to destroy them. And then everyone's alone.

R. Scott Edwards: 12:06

Kind of the destroyed watch, restored watch.

Larry Wilson: 12:08

Absolutely. Like I say, there's this plot in magic. There aren't that many. This is destruction and restoration.

R. Scott Edwards: 12:15

Okay, sorry.

Larry Wilson: 12:16

No, but that's exactly right. And so then the thing that's amazing is I have on the stage the whole time has been a big ribbon going to a old fashioned bread box. And I explain that everything's under control. And we bring that forward, and my assistants are holding the ends of the ribbon and open it. Inside is a loaf of bread that's been baked onto the ribbon. And I start to pull the bread to pieces. And there, tied onto the ribbon are three rings. And they bring me scissors and I cut them off and I say, is this your ring? Is this your ring? Is this your ring? And then of course, there's the fourth person saying, where's my ring? I go, I don't. I think it was only three rings. And he goes, no, you bought. And so there's a whole thing in this comedy. And then for the life of me, I can't remember where the fourth ring comes from, but it was someplace very exciting. And then, you know, so that's the way the routine's supposed to go. Again, without giving away too much, let us just say that there is some part in this routine when their actual rings are being substituted for look alike rings to buy us some time to do some dirty business.

R. Scott Edwards: 13:37

Right.

Larry Wilson: 13:39

When it comes to that fourth ring, one of my assistants comes on stage and gives me the weirdest look. I can't describe the look, but you.

R. Scott Edwards: 13:50

It was one of those something's gone wrong look.

Larry Wilson: 13:54

It was panicky, the world is ending. We don't know what to do. Later on, it was explained to me. They got confused backstage and weren't sure what were the real rings and what were the dummy rings.

R. Scott Edwards: 14:08

No, the dummies were that good.

Larry Wilson: 14:11

And somehow the look she gave me on stage without a word communicated all that. And so I simply, and this may be addressing your point, how can you. I'm pretending the routine is I borrow four rings, I produce three, and I act like the fourth guy. But in reality, we had lost the guy's ring. The routine I'm doing is pretending we lost the ring, and everyone's thinking, oh, he's going to find some. No, I've really lost it. Okay, so no matter what I say, they're just laughing more and more and more. So now I'm talking as if I'm doing the bit, but I'm also. There's a subtext that's going out to my assistants. I'm hoping that someone is going to come from off stage with good news. And the audience is roaring with laughter like, oh, he's pretending.

R. Scott Edwards: 15:07

And you're the. The subtitles are, get the freaking ring and bring it out here right now.

Larry Wilson: 15:14

You might say to yourselves, how do you handle this, Larry? I have no idea. I just kept talking. And then someone did appear from the rings with a look of relief on her face. And, you know, it's funny, I can't remember what the production of the last one was, but it was something very dramatic. And so then I pulled this ring and I said, this guy, is this your ring? And he goes, yeah. And so that all's well, so it'll work.

R. Scott Edwards: 15:38

But this was a great example, this story of what you said is that a lot of times the audience is just not aware that something had gone horribly wrong.

Larry Wilson: 15:47

Well, with my personality, with a straight magician, I think they would know something horribly gone wrong with me, who's already.

R. Scott Edwards: 15:56

Like the dead pigeons.

Larry Wilson: 15:57

Dead pigeons? Yeah. I mean, I have to tell you that because of the nature of what I do, a lot of times the character I play on stage seems like he doesn't know how the magic works. Sometimes he does, but sometimes the magic seems to work in spite of me. So the audience accepts that very quickly and sort of goes, oh, we can't possibly get ahead of this guy because he doesn't know what's going to happen. So if something goes horribly off the tracks, maybe that's part of the show, maybe it's not. We don't know, you know, so be.

R. Scott Edwards: 16:37

Getting back to my original point is you said that you distracted the audience while they were looking for the ring with talking.

Larry Wilson: 16:47

Sure.

R. Scott Edwards: 16:48

Is this where comedy helps?

Larry Wilson: 16:50

Well, yes, if you can imagine. What if you were a silent act.

R. Scott Edwards: 16:54

Right. And then. And then you're something. A ring is missing or something. Yeah. So the comedy does have real use in certain times when you don't have the correct out.

Larry Wilson: 17:05

Right.

R. Scott Edwards: 17:05

To speak magically.

Larry Wilson: 17:06

Sure.

R. Scott Edwards: 17:07

Well, that's. That's fascinating. We're running out of time in this particular show, but I wanted to bring up one other thing in we were just talking about how comedy can help you when things go awry and how comedy can help you connect. Earlier in the series, we talked about how the importance of connecting with an audience and comedy can make that easier. It's a different path of Connection that is generally or always works. But when you're creating humor, there's really two basic types. And that would be verbal telling, you know, what you're saying, and others physical, you know, pretending to trip or, or whatever. Is there one that's better than another? Or how would you to our audience explain the different use of verbal comedy versus physical comedy when it comes to magic?

Larry Wilson: 18:00

Well, I can say this, and this I think probably applies to everyone. It's not just me. Physical comedy usually is much harder to do and to it requires greater precision. You know, this I mentioned on another episode I was talking about Charlie Fry. Charlie is unbelievably skilled technically and he can do stuff that you can only do if you've been practicing for 20 years. I can think of. I did a show for Disney called New Vaudevillians. A guy on who did a silent act. It was not magic. It was just slapstick comedy.

R. Scott Edwards: 18:43

Okay.

Larry Wilson: 18:44

And it was genius a la Buster Keaton or something. Yeah. But it was so clear watching him that this is perfected over a lifetime. I mean, you had to be in top physical condition. You had to know how to make your body do all these things and you couldn't sort of do it. It had to be exact or it didn't work. And it was amazing. It was amazing to see. But that's not the kind of thing that you could just bust out on a whim. So what you're saying is for if something goes wrong, it's the easiest thing in the world to think of something to say that you can say without ever having said it before or even being aware you were going to say it.

R. Scott Edwards: 19:41

Unrehearsed.

Larry Wilson: 19:42

Absolutely. I mean, it's funny. You know, I also am the executive director of a non profit in Northern Nevada that one of our goals is bringing arts and education to kids in Northern Nevada with a great emphasis on the public library system and driving people into the libraries and stuff. We do a big event every November called Spellbinders. And it's free to the community, to everyone, it's free. And the very first year we did this big show in the Performing Arts center, which is 1500 seats. One of the performers on the show with me had an accident on stage where he fell.

R. Scott Edwards: 20:27

Oh.

Larry Wilson: 20:28

And I don't know if he was knocked out. I thought actually at the time that he might be dead.

R. Scott Edwards: 20:35

Oh.

Larry Wilson: 20:35

Because he didn't move a muscle. And I remember turning to the stage manager, I was standing in the wings, said, close the curtain. And so they closed the curtain and I walked Right out on stage. Now, I have no idea what I said as I was talking to the audience. I remember they were laughing, and so I must have been saying something, but. But I remember thinking the next music I hear will tell me who's coming out. Oh.

R. Scott Edwards: 21:10

So, yeah, so the guy falls. He's passed out, basically, on stage.

Larry Wilson: 21:14

He's out.

R. Scott Edwards: 21:15

You were able to use your verbal skills, verbal comedic skills to pass the time until you had a sound cue and who was next. And then as the mc, as the host, you could just go right into it. And the audience might be concerned about the previous person, but you're there to do a show, the show must go on, and that was your transition. And I think it's also interesting to say that physical comedy, though visually entertaining and may seem simplistic, is much more challenging than verbal comedy. Because verbal comedy can be impromptu.

Larry Wilson: 21:54

Right.

R. Scott Edwards: 21:55

Can be on at the moment. And physical comedy really needs to be practiced or perfected to work.

Larry Wilson: 22:02

Right, Right. Right. Forgive me for jumping around. I just remember the guy's name who I couldn't remember from that Disney show. That was Georgie Carl.

R. Scott Edwards: 22:11

Okay, Georgie Carl, everybody. Go to the Googler.

Larry Wilson: 22:13

Oh, my God.

R. Scott Edwards: 22:14

And check him out.

Larry Wilson: 22:15

I mean, I'm embarrassed that I couldn't think of his name for a moment, but he was unbelievable act. All his act was, was him walking up to the microphone like he was going to speak and trying to adjust the height of the microphone stand.

R. Scott Edwards: 22:31

Oh. And that was the whole.

Larry Wilson: 22:32

That was the entire act community. And then the microphone stand isn't right. And then the microphone slips through the sleeve of his jacket. And then I think, I've seen him. Oh, it's a classic. But. But in answer to what you're saying. Yeah. The beauty, of course, of speaking is that you can improvise something, whereas this physical stuff, it's the result of thousands of hours of rehearsal, of painstaking rehearsal. And so in that regard, you know, I think if it's done correctly, the audience should not be aware of it. I think people seeing Georgie Carl just thought, oh, he's just clowning around.

R. Scott Edwards: 23:16

Seems simple. But as you mentioned, years of practice.

Larry Wilson: 23:19

Me watching from the wings, I can tell every single movement has been choreographed and rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed. That's not the kind of thing you can do improvisationally. Right.

R. Scott Edwards: 23:35

Well, we've learned so much today in this version of our series, Comedy Magic. Larry, thanks for sharing. Everybody will be back with another in the series. That was fascinating stuff. Thanks for joining us in the studio, Larry.

Larry Wilson: 23:49

My pleasure.

R. Scott Edwards: 23:50

All right, ladies and gentlemen, see you in the next show.

Announcer: 23:53

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Stand Up Comedy. Your host and mc. For information on the show, merchandise and our sponsors or to send comments to Scott, visit our website at www.stand up. Your host and mc dot com. Look for more episodes soon and enjoy the world of stand up comedy. Visit a comedy showroom near.