"Doug Henning's World of Magic" Show Four

From Doug Henning

== "Doug Henning's World of Magic" Show Four December 14, 1978 ==

A full discussion of the production of this special can be found in Chapter 8 of the new biography about Doug Henning 'Spellbound: The Wonder-filled Life of Doug Henning

Opening Illusion: Production of a camel

Part One - Oriental Magic Routine

1. Chinese fans & floating butterflies

2. Production of a girl on an oriental bridge

3. The Vanishing of the same kimono-garbed girl from the top of a rolling glass table.

4. Henning-to-Shields Transposition: Doug puts on a Chinese robe and mask. After some business involving assistants and/or dancers, the mask and robe are pulled off to reveal actress Brooke Shields.

5. Henning strikes a Chinese gong... it wilts!

Part Two - Medieval Magic Routine --Geekbrothers 18:52, 30 May 2007 (PDT) 1. Torn and Restored Thread

2. Card Trick with oversized cards: Martin Lewis's "Sidewalk Shuffle"

3. Card Sword: A card is selected and then returned to deck. Deck is placed inside a drinking glass. Henning picks up a sword. The cards start shooting out of the glass and into the air and Henning stabs his sword into the cloud of fluttering cards. A card inpaled by the sword turns out to be the selected card.

4. Tom Bosley "Midget Routine": Comedic actor Tom Bosley ("Happy Days") emerges onto a tiny stage from behind a curtain. His body, however, looks like it belongs to one of the Seven Drawfs. The head is Bosely's but the arms and hands are Henning's and the legs are being activated by Bosely who makes them move and dance. The Henning Bosley puppet proceeds to go into a sleight-of-hand routine, including billard ball passes, the classic "thumb removal" gag and the famous "Human Hen" routine in which multiple eggs are produced from Bosley's mouth.

Part Three - Egyptian Magic Routine

1. The Disappearing Sand

2. Pyramid Transposition - Two small pyramids are on the stage. They each sit on a pair of transparent platforms. They are connected by a thin horizontal pole which is in turn supported by a vertical pole. The entire apparatus has the appearance of a giant set of scales. Both pyramids are shown to be empty.

Brooke Shields appears on stage and climbs into the pyramid on the left. It is closed up behind her. Next, the pyramid on the right is closed. Now, the platforms beneath both pyramids are removed. Naturally, the pyramid on the left, the one holding Brooke Shields, slowly tips to the floor while the other "empty" one rises into the air, like a teeter totter or a scale that has all of the weight on one side. But then Doug Henning gives a magic gesture and the "scales" start tilting the other way, with the left pyramid rising into the air and the right one slowly sinking to the floor. The right pyramid is opened to reveal Brooke Sheild magically transported from one pyramid to the other!

3. Tiger Escape - Doug Henning walks out onto a stage that features an ancient Egyptian statue on the left and a large circular cage on the right. Next, he enters a large, clear cylander and is loaded into a cage filled with tigers. It comes to rest on a pedestal that is much narrower on the bottom than on the top.

As the tigers roam around him, Henning suddenly vanishes. A moment later, the arms of the statue start to move and then remove it's helmet and mask, revealing Doug Henning!

Doug performs a series of animal productions from a large jap box (black art) style trunk.

Notes: Shecky's list of celebrity illusions (http://sheckys.netfirms.com/celeblist.html) includes a reference for "Brooke Shields - Box production" for this show but I do not have this trick in my notes. Could have happened when I was away for a snack or bathroom break!

The posting on this page comes from a series of notes I used to take in the 70s and 80s whenever I watched a Doug Henning or David Copperfield television special. This was before I had a VCR and so the above information relies entirely on my notes and my admittedly imperfect memory.