Totally Whacked by Steve Mayhew and The Magic Bakery – DVD

Steve Mayhew is a funny, sneaky koala-bear of a guy with serious card chops and mad comedy skills. He’s Erdnase with an arrow-through-the-head, but a lot more loveable, and less fictitious. He’ll talk a lady out of her last twenty bucks, toss it into the crowd, and she’ll just laugh and hug him. He’ll swipe someone else’s money and people cheer as he tries to make the poor guy feel better. That’s just part of the routine he gives up here, along with a brand new way to “accidentally” vanish a volunteer’s money, bringing the total known ways to do that to about three.

You’ll see Steve’s whole show on this disc, with real laughs and real astonishment from a real audience. No Loud & Loopy reactions, (like on other discs) and no breaks for explanations, so your friends can enjoy the show from beginning to end. Later, you can select the explanations and learn how a master mixes magic with mayhem, and still manages to get the girl in the end.

But it’s not just laughs. Freedom, a.k.a. the Mayhew Poker Deal, is the ultimate demonstration of false dealing, in which you appear to deal not just from the middle, but from random positions throughout the deck; 3rd, 6th, 35th, 49th or whatever, when all you can really deal is a second. Best of all, its so clear and simple that audiences with no knowledge of cards instantly understand what’s going on.

And for the working pros there’s Full Frontal Conus, in which Steve says he’ll steal the aces out from under the spectator’s hand, then does it. He warns the audience that he’s going to do it again. He then teases them mercilessly, by apparently shifting the deck, or dealing off the bottom, but every time they check, they find the aces on the table, right where they should be. Finally, while everyone is burning the cards, Steve gives them to the spectator. She deals the aces herself, and immediately covers them with her hand. Nothing could be fairer, and then Steve steals the aces again.

This is the Conus Aces, a routine revered, even feared, by generations of performers. While most accomplished magicians can handle the moves, only an elite few know how to manipulate the audience through serial sucker tricks, culminating in a hands-off miracle. Steve handles this with fun and charm, and teaches the critical points that get the audience to trust you even after they’ve been repeatedly punk’d and pwn’d.

And if that’s not enough, Steve tips four more commercial routines from his working repertoire that are as unique and fun to do as their names suggest: Three by Three (aka a Balloon, a Cartwheel, and a Pony Ride); The James Brown Aces, Delores in the Meadow, and The Sanborn Switch. Okay, maybe not so much with that last one, so we’ve also included a bonus interview with Steve, outtakes, and, we’re pretty sure, the first use of the word “crunk” on a magic video.

Running Time Approximately: 1 Hr 21 mins.