Show Time at the Tom-Foolery by Richard Kaufman Book – USED

Copyright 1992; first edition. Hard covers with dust jacket; 222 pages. Very good to excellent pre-owned condition!

Book Size: 8-¾ inches by 11-½ inches.

A full night at the Tom-Foolery magic bar in Atlanta, GA, with explanations of effects, several black and white photos and line drawings. Much of the book consists a second by second breakdown of the effects caught on the Evening at the Tomfoolery video. This book also includes a short autobiography of Tom Mullica and the story of his Tom-Foolery bar.

The tricks in the first section consist of almost exclusively card stuff done behind the bar with a few gags thrown in. Tom opens with a four selections sequence in which the cards are lost, produced using Lepaul’s Acrobatic Aces technique. Then they are lost again only to be found under the ashtray and then again lost and immediately found under the ashtray. Tear A Diddle comes next which is the torn bill followed by a torn and restored card followed by returning the restored bill. Tom does a gag in which he removes a giant contact lens from his eye and puts it back. Tom does Jim Ryan’s cards across. He does a version of card to mouth. His infamous cigarette swallowing effect but he doesn’t tip that in this book. He closes with a really nice card to apple.

This book is full of good solid card and cigarette magic that works for real people. Also, it’s one of the best examples of seeing how a professional takes solid effects and makes them fit into a longer routine and fit with their personality. That also makes it really difficult to take the effects out of context and do them yourself. Anyone doing a routine straight from the book will look like a Mullica clone and some of the effects aren’t as strong by themselves as they are in the full show. The book is full of gags, like the frog in throat, and an excellent handling of cigarette up the nose, and jokes that some people might find of interest.

The last part of the book contains things that were not part of the “evening at the tom foolery” performance. The real gem of that section is Tom’s cups and balls. He started with Jim Ryan’s routine and modified it with his own presentation and changed the structure a bit. He also has some card tricks and a routine with cigarettes and cigarette smoke that gets captured in glasses that looks interesting.