Product description : Every magician on earth has done at least one time a sandwich in their life, whether it was a gimmicked one or based on sleight of hands, it’s a standard among card routine. Bill Goldman approach to it is very special in the way that his trick doesn’t require any special move or sleight of hands, you never shuffle, cut or even move the pack of cards in any way. The idea is simple, you pull out the 2 jokers out of your deck, and let them on the table, ask someone to select and sign a card, put it back in the middle of the back. From this point, you do nothing, and I mean nothing ! The spectator then clearly place the 2 jokers, one after the other, on your pack and just with a snap, their signed card is now trapped between the 2 jokers ! You can do this as many time as you want, it will be as clean and pure every single time. You must be wondering if this is the holy grail of sandwich routine, let’s find out !
Price and where to buy it : This is sold at $19.95 and you can find on Penguin Magic website !
What you get : You get a small ziplock bag with inside the artwork, it’s not a fancy packaging but it does the job pretty well, I’m more interested in what’s inside rather than the ziplock bag. So inside, you’ll find a business card with the link in order to download the explanation video, which is done by Magick Balay which is an amazing teacher ! I would have loved to have him on every single explanation video I’ve watched, his tips and way of teaching you the trick are amazing and very clear. The video lasts a little bit more than 24 minutes and Magick goes in depth on how you should use your gimmick and also explaining in details the (only) move you have to use in the routine. You’re also provided with several gimmicked cards, I’ve had no problem at all with them (I saw people complaining on other review) so maybe Penguin fixed that little issue. They work great and what I like about them is that people can handle the gimmicked cards without finding anything, you can even ask them to place the gimmicked cards on the deck, and they won’t notice a thing. $20 for a few gimmicked cards and a very well shot video explanation, it’s a little bit expensive but you’ll use the routine, I’m sure !
Teaser : http://www.penguinmagic.com/p/7508
The pros and the cons : Here is the core of my review, let's begin with the cons, as I will usually be doing, I prefer to keep the good things for the end.
THE CONS :
[if !supportLists]– [endif]As I said, for the price, this is a little bit expensive, it could have been sold as a download since it’s not that hard to make gimmicks at home. But I understand the fact they wanted to provide you with everything so you can start right away !
THE PROS :
[if !supportLists]– [endif]The ad copy is spot on, this is very very easy to do, and there is only a single move which is well explained by Magick. You can then completely focus on your presentation.
[if !supportLists]– [endif]Spectators can be involved by putting themselves the jokers on top of the deck and this is a very strong point because, with sandwich routine, it’s often the magician which puts the jokers on top to do some sneaky stuff. Here, they can make sure nothing is trapped between them.
[if !supportLists]– [endif] The gimmicks are well made and I can see them lasting a long time, if you take care of them. And even if they wear out, it’s not that difficult to make new ones.
[if !supportLists]– [endif]That’s another point which I think is brilliant, it’s that you can make your gimmicks in any back you want (if you have the little something at home to make them) so you can use any deck you want.
[if !supportLists]– [endif]This is the purest sandwich routine I’ve seen, no shuffle, no tricky move, you place the jokers on top and instantly, their card is trapped between them which has a huge impact on people.
[if !supportLists]– [endif]Even if I used the word “gimmick”, the cards look pretty normal so it’s not a problem at all having them in your deck. They won’t interfere in your existing routine. But Magick says you can have them in your wallet and adding them to the deck whenever you want to perform the trick !
[if !supportLists]– [endif]I didn’t think it would get such reactions, this is a very strong piece of magic and I think people enjoy more this kind of routine, in which you do no move, rather than sleight of hands ones. Maybe because they think you can’t cheat.
Overall rating : I think this is a very good and strong sandwich routine, it’s pure and very impactful for lay people, unfortunately, I have a non gimmicked sandwich routine that I do all the time and I don’t think I’ll be using Monkey in the Middle. But if you don’t have one or that you liked the video demo, you won’t be disappointed with this trick ! 3/4 hearts.
As for the difficulty level, there is a little single move you need to do but it’s very easy, I would say 1/5 stars.
Similar products : A lot of sandwich routine are out there on the market, it’s hard to list them all. The one I’ve been using on a daily basis is Ishkabibble Sandwich by Eric Jones.