Two marketed effects in my junk drawer relate to bubbles. A few years back, I thought that a bubble effect could form the basis of a strong opener. I would walk out on stage in my stand-up act, blow some bubbles, reach up into the midst of the bubbles and pluck one out of the air. I can’t recall what I had planned to do from this point, but a couple of marketed effects sounded as if they would give me a running start. As a result, I got on the internet and purchased “Bubbles Bubbles” and “Bubble Trubble.”
In “Bubbles Bubbles,” the magician blows bubbles into the air with a kid’s bottle of bubble fluid and a wand, and plucks one from the air. The bubble is then dropped onto the floor or a table. I found that this effect did what it said it would and offered a workable gimmick.
“Bubble Trubble” offers a slightly different effect. After plucking the bubble from the air, the bubble is squashed in the hand into a flattened shape, and then returned to its original, spherical form. The problem with “Bubble Trubble” was that based on the picture that was on the Hank Lee site where I purchased the effect, I had expected the bubble to be at least an inch in diameter. (Is that a baby’s hand in the picture?)
Trouble with Bubbles
As it turned out, the “bubble” was the size of a marble, which would never work in stand-up. Just be warned. If you consider this effect, the “bubble” only works for close-up. This one went directly into my junk drawer because it didn’t meet my stand-up needs. I can’t judge the product as an effect because I never worked it up or performed it. But I would have never purchased it had I known that the effect was so small.
So even with the decent “Bubbles Bubbles” effect, why aren’t bubbles a part of my act today? I found that when I worked with bubbles, my hands got soap on them. And the smallest amount of this slippery soap affected my ability to grip and manipulate items-a big part of my show. I have enough problems with Fakini balls when I’m working on a stage with hot lights and my hands begin to sweat.
I never got to the point where I experimented with ways to clean my hands so I could perform the rest of my act. In the end, the bubble effect just didn’t seem worth it.
-Wayne N. Kawamoto
