Larry Wilson Interview "Comedy/Magic Influencers" Show #292

Larry Wilson is a seasoned comic magician with over 40 years of experience, renowned for his captivating performances both on TV during the 70s and 80s and at prestigious venues like the Magic Castle in Hollywood. He believes that comedy and magic are intertwined art forms that entertain the masses through the expression of individual sensibilities and worldview, valuing performers who let their true selves shine through, such as Shin Lim. In discussions with R. Scott Edwards, Wilson explores the intersection of these arts, emphasizing their shared goal of entertaining audiences while highlighting the diverse approaches within magic that keep it innovative and appealing. Inspired by comedic legends and pioneers like Carl Ballantine, Larry continues to mesmerize audiences with his unique blend of humor and magic, celebrating the endless potential for growth and creativity in both arts.

(00:00:22) The Fusion of Comedy and Magic Art

(00:07:49) Enhancing Magic Through Theatrical Performance

(00:13:05) Limitless Creativity in Magic Performances

(00:17:35) Innovative Young Magicians Shaping Magic's Future

Learn more about Larry Wilson: TheWilsonMethod.com

Transcript

Announcer: 0:04

This is another episode of Stand Up Comedy. Your host and emcee celebrating 40 plus years on the fringe of show business stories, interviews and comedy sets from the famous and not so famous. Here's your host and emcee, Scott Edwards.

R. Scott Edwards: 0:22

Comedy and magic and how together these two art forms entertain the masses. Joining me in the studio is a television celebrity. He did over 100 TV shows, shows back in the 70s and 80s. He's done large corporate events and a regular at the Magic Castle in Hollywood. Ladies and gentlemen, Larry Wilson. Larry. Larry. The crowd goes wild.

Larry Wilson: 0:45

The adulation of the crowd.

R. Scott Edwards: 0:48

Well, we've had some amazing discussions about comedy, about magic, the two working together. You are a master comic magician. You've done stage, tv, corporates, small, intimate, close up shows, huge stage productions in Vegas and in Reno. Really a well experienced professional entertainer. But you have an unusual story in that you kind of fell into it, as you said.

Larry Wilson: 1:19

Hell yes.

R. Scott Edwards: 1:20

Kind of dumb luck all the way.

Larry Wilson: 1:22

And still continues.

R. Scott Edwards: 1:23

It's still amazing. But you and I have both name dropped several professional entertainers that we've interacted with and worked with over the years, over the decades. Really. Larry, please explain to the audience. First, as a person and as an entertainer, but also as a comic magician, is there any idols you have or anybody that you kind of looked up to or maybe learned from? I'm going to break into an example. Maybe your comedy came from a certain type of comedy that you heard from, you know, Bill Cosby or somebody, George Carlin or not. And then magically, you know, there's a lot of famous magicians, Thurston and Houdini and go on and on. Historically, Cardini, one of the first comic magicians, at least by some standards, that have been out there doing this art form for you who affected your life and your career.

Larry Wilson: 2:29

Well, it's a really complicated question. I don't.

R. Scott Edwards: 2:33

Well, that's why we have the whole show to do it.

Larry Wilson: 2:35

Well, thank goodness. I, I mean so many of those comedy influences you talk about. I had every Cosby album he ever released and I would listen to them until I wore them out. Bob Newhart, of course.

R. Scott Edwards: 2:53

No, I love Bob Newhart.

Larry Wilson: 2:54

Oh my God. But all these people remember Bill, Dana.

R. Scott Edwards: 2:59

Oh, yeah.

Larry Wilson: 3:00

I mean the Smothers Brothers classic. God, the Smothers Brothers. All these people had huge, huge influence on me in terms of comedy magic. Do you remember the Great Valentine?

R. Scott Edwards: 3:17

Yes. Now that was. Oh, it's interesting you mentioned him because he was not really ever considered. I mean, I guess he was a comic magician.

Larry Wilson: 3:27

Oh my God.

R. Scott Edwards: 3:28

But that's not how he was presented.

Larry Wilson: 3:31

Don't make me come over there and slap you. Carl Ballantyne, the Great Ballantine, I think, is probably the first official comedy magician.

R. Scott Edwards: 3:42

Oh, see, in the Magic Castle, there's a whole tribute to Cardini, the Great Cardini, as being the first. And he was earlier in.

Larry Wilson: 3:49

Of course, he's in the 40s.

R. Scott Edwards: 3:51

Yeah.

Larry Wilson: 3:51

Valentine, I don't think.

R. Scott Edwards: 3:53

Really 60s, right?

Larry Wilson: 3:55

Well, 50s, I think.

R. Scott Edwards: 3:56

50S.

Larry Wilson: 3:57

But Valentine also. Valentine started out as a straight magician.

R. Scott Edwards: 4:02

That's what I was alluding to, by the way. Everybody go to the Googler, look up this guy. There's got to be some. I know he did some early TV and stuff.

Larry Wilson: 4:10

Oh, he's on Ed Sullivan all the time.

R. Scott Edwards: 4:13

So. So you can go check this guy out. But go ahead, Larry. He was. I remember him as a straight magician that got funny well, because I think.

Larry Wilson: 4:23

He felt he just couldn't get any traction as a straight magician. And I've seen his daughter Saratoga is a member of the Castle, and so I've gotten to know her. Before he passed away, I got to meet him several times. He was enormously complimentary. Couldn't have been nicer. He saw some set of mine and had very nice things. I mean, it's just unbelievable. He was one of those guys. Now, I'll tell you, it's funny, you start me thinking about stuff. To me, Carl Valentine is the real start of comedy magician. He's not pretending. Now, obviously he could do great magic, but he saw that's not. What was the cell that got him.

R. Scott Edwards: 5:12

All those shots on the Sullivan show and stuff?

Larry Wilson: 5:14

The cell is this bombastic, ridiculous guy. Puts on a blindfold, spreads these cards out on his outstretched arm, starts talking about this. It's gonna be incredible. He's gonna throw the cards, gonna catch him. His description is so overwhelming. He says, I can't stand this. Whips the blindfold off, says, this sounds so good, I gotta see it myself, you know. Oh, my God. You know, he's got a bat, a hat on the table. He's talking about. He's going to reach in the hat, pull out a rabbit, big build up, leans over, shouts into the hat, get ready, boy. I'm coming down. And reaches into this hat up to his shoulder, you know, I mean, I remember as a kid seeing this on that Sullivan show and just losing my mind. So he's the very first. But, you know, it starts me thinking of all these people. I saw a guy once at the Magic Castle named Vito Scotti.

R. Scott Edwards: 6:14

Never heard of Him?

Larry Wilson: 6:15

Nope. But you've seen him, just not as a magician. Oh, as an actor. I even think he may be in the original Godfather film, Vito Scotti. I'm not positive. But again, IMDb and you'll find it. But when I saw him at the castle, he didn't do a single trick. His act was all pantomime, pretending to do magic.

R. Scott Edwards: 6:45

Oh, really?

Larry Wilson: 6:46

To music, no speaking. But he was such a fantastic actor. And he would do a thing where he would pretend he was taking a ring off his finger, but we could see there's no ring there. So he's just pantomime. Then he would hold it up and display it the way magicians do. Then he would appear to grab his other hand, then show his hand empty, and he would gesture like, wasn't that incredible? And then he would say, he would show both hands and show both sides. It's not there. And he'd say, he'd make a face as if, where is it? And then he would turn his head to the audience and point to his earlobe like the ring was there on his earlobe. And the crowd burst into applause. There was no ring. He would do all this.

R. Scott Edwards: 7:34

That was hysterical.

Larry Wilson: 7:35

It was so amazing.

R. Scott Edwards: 7:38

I'm sorry, I never got to see that. It sounds so classic.

Larry Wilson: 7:41

It was incredible. And again, I'm looking at going, this guy is the real deal.

R. Scott Edwards: 7:49

Well, and that kind of talent. And it shows the importance of acting in the physical aspect. I mean, we've already talked in earlier parts of this series about how important the verbal patter of a magician or being a comic doing magic is. And we talked a little bit about the difficulty of using physical comedy in magic. However, being the kind of actor that he was, that he could generate an interaction with the audience simply by acting, pantomiming magic without even doing it is incredible.

Larry Wilson: 8:28

It was amazing. Now, I have to tell you, what you're saying is absolutely spot on. I mentioned in an earlier episode about this Japanese magician shoot. Ogawa, who's a multi award winner, is incredible. But shoot, we brought up for this event for the nonprofit I told you about this event, Spellbinders we do in Reno in November. And one of the things shoot did for the group of us after hours, he did a lecture, he taught a bunch of stuff. And Shute was talking about how you have to rehearse the movements you're doing. If you have a deck of cards and you take one card off and stick it in your pocket, if you're doing some secret move where you don't really take the card off. He said, you have to rehearse it over and over again so that when you are doing the fake move, it's.

R. Scott Edwards: 9:26

Absolutely identical to the river.

Larry Wilson: 9:28

Identical. You cannot. And as he was doing, he was tossing a coin from hand to hand. And he said, if I'm doing this, I have to look at my hands and look. And while he was doing it a couple of times, he would open the hand that he tossed the coin, and it was empty. And we realized he hadn't tossed the coin, but because he was doing what he was talking about. Your brain registered. Yeah, he just tossed that coin.

R. Scott Edwards: 9:54

I mean, I think you mentioned earlier that there's a visual. Was it Houdini that said. Somebody mentioned that it was important that what people see and what people hear.

Larry Wilson: 10:08

That's Houdini. Is what the eye sees and the ear hears, the mind believes.

R. Scott Edwards: 10:14

Yeah. And that is a big key to illusion. That's fascinating. So you've named a number of people that you were able to. Not necessarily emulate, but shown you a different way and helped you.

Larry Wilson: 10:30

There's so much. I mean, this is why it's interesting. When I hear about people who say they're bored, I can't even imagine what's going on with them. There's so much in this life to learn, to practice, to do. I don't see how you could ever be bored. I don't get that. I don't understand that. I mean, when people say, oh, no, no, I've gone as far with this as I can, I'm thinking, why would you even say that? In other words, there's so many people. I met a guy last year in Erie, Pennsylvania, A guy named Garrett Thomas. He's from New York. He did some of the most amazing close up magic I've ever seen. It was seriously melting my brain. And I have no idea how he was doing the stuff he was doing. Now I found out later, Garrett is the guy who's sort of the number one consultant for David Blaine.

R. Scott Edwards: 11:37

Oh.

Larry Wilson: 11:38

That he creates stuff specifically for David.

R. Scott Edwards: 11:40

For David Blaine. Yeah.

Larry Wilson: 11:41

And. But it was so well conceived. It was so brilliantly thought out. I mean.

R. Scott Edwards: 11:48

Well, I think it's great that what you're saying is that even though you've had 40 years in the business and you've done it all, seen it all, you're still learning, you're still amazed by people that are doing some. Maybe the same trick, but a different way. And it's interesting that you make the point that I think in all the arts, you know, for A singer, there's always another song to sing. In actors, there's always another play to do. In comedy, there's always another direction. You can take your humor. And in magic, there's maybe a better way to hone a trick, or always a new trick or a new way to do it.

Larry Wilson: 12:25

Always a new way, always some genius thing that nobody thought was possible. And then someone says, well, there might be a way to. And they come up with something. I mean, I, I think of the words of the poet Bob Dylan, who said he not busy being born is busy dying.

R. Scott Edwards: 12:50

Oh, well, they're a little philosophy for everybody.

Larry Wilson: 12:53

I mean, it's. If it works like you say, there's so much stuff, there's so much stuff to learn. I don't understand when people sort of go, that's enough, I've got it all.

R. Scott Edwards: 13:05

And in magic, I wouldn't. Comedies, you know, because it's basically talking. There's. You can go a thousand different million different directions, right? Magic. There's not just close up and then there's card magic, and then there's the kind of the big stage box magic. And then there's the other illusions where death defying stuff, right? But there's probably a million. Well, I'm exaggerating a little bit, but probably a hundred to a thousand different variations of all those different types of magic. It all falls under magic, right? But it. Or illusion, to be more specific. But they're all. And then you take how many different ways they could be presented and you have an infinite, an infinite number, right?

Larry Wilson: 13:50

Well, I'll tell you something interesting about that. Magicians frequently won't share their secrets sometimes if you're friends with someone. Most of the magic I know I learned from books, and I frequently got it wrong because the books were so impenetrable, so hard to understand. Somewhere along the line, some more experienced magician would see what I was doing, go, why are you holding your hand like that? I go, I thought that's the way you're supposed. They say, no, no, turn your hand so it's palm up. And then I go, oh, this is much better. And they go, yeah, you're someone shows you, corrects you, coaches you, shows you how to do it properly, right? Well, sometimes, though, magicians won't share stuff. They have pet effects that they don't share with anyone. Well, there's no law against thinking. So somebody sees somebody do some amazing thing and they're thinking, hmm, how did that work? Now they go back and they come up with a way to do It. But frequently they're wrong.

R. Scott Edwards: 14:59

It's a different way to do the same illusion.

Larry Wilson: 15:01

They've invented a new way. That's the reason. Take a iconic effect like sawing a woman in half. There are probably a dozen different ways. Now to the audience they all look like song women have to magicians. There's subtle differences to them. Oh, this you can only do with a woman who's 5 foot 2 or shorter. This you can only do on stage with stage lights set. This you can. The audience doesn't perceive. But so in that regard, any effect that you can think of, there may be a dozen or two dozen different ways to do it.

R. Scott Edwards: 15:45

Well. And the point of this is that there's always something to learn that there's no such thing. Oh, I think just as a total off the wall analogy, that's the reason golf is popular. You're never going to have the perfect game over and over and over. You know, it's just you could have all the mechanics down. You could do all the, the weather challenges and all the various aspects of it and still it's, it's different every shot. And I think magic and comedy is different, but I think magic. Well, no, I guess like comedy, they can really go anywhere. It all depends on the imagination of the person. We're closing things down. Let me ask is a professional that we're both aging a bit in, in our careers. Is there people that you're seeing in today's young magic, let's say, that are impressing you or could be the next Houdini? That's probably too big a thing, but you know what I mean.

Larry Wilson: 16:50

Yeah, they'll never be another Houdini.

R. Scott Edwards: 16:52

Yeah, I was reaching too far. I felt as soon as I said it.

Larry Wilson: 16:55

That's. I mean, I'll tell you one of the reasons on there be another Houdini. Houdini's name is synonymous with magic. But Houdini was not a great magician. He was a great escape artist.

R. Scott Edwards: 17:09

I know. Not funny so.

Larry Wilson: 17:11

But he was also a really brilliant self promoter.

R. Scott Edwards: 17:14

Yeah. Marketing is his key.

Larry Wilson: 17:17

Oh my. So he's, he's a once in a lifetime. There's never going to be anything like that. But like I mentioned, I said to you before, this guy, Garrett Thomas, I saw him do unbelievable stuff. There's a young guy now who I think has a show in Las Vegas. Shin Lim.

R. Scott Edwards: 17:35

Oh yeah. I was going to ask about him. We, we were amazed when we saw him on America's Got Talent. He seems like he could have a really good career.

Larry Wilson: 17:44

Fantastic, incredible magic. And particularly interesting that he has a background in classical music.

R. Scott Edwards: 17:51

Oh, I didn't know that.

Larry Wilson: 17:52

Oh, yeah. He was a classical penis. Classically trained pianist and developed, I don't know, arthritis or carpal tunnel syndrome. Couldn't play. And so I think, if I understand correctly, started doing close up magic just to exercise his hands.

R. Scott Edwards: 18:13

Interesting.

Larry Wilson: 18:14

And the reason I think it's so interesting is everything he does has a rhythm to it. Like he's hearing some sound in his head, like he can hear the music that goes along.

R. Scott Edwards: 18:30

So having his musical background helps him with his timing and his presentation because he is amazing.

Larry Wilson: 18:38

Really incredible. But there are, there are a number of young people.

R. Scott Edwards: 18:43

Well, you mentioned that it was earlier in the series the winner of the Asian or magician of the year award was just at the Magic Castle. What was her name?

Larry Wilson: 18:53

Oh, Juliana Chen.

R. Scott Edwards: 18:56

Juliana Chen. Another tremendous act that's new to the US that has obviously rehearsed every physical movement.

Larry Wilson: 19:07

She's fantastic. Yeah, she's utterly fantastic.

R. Scott Edwards: 19:09

So they're out there.

Larry Wilson: 19:10

Oh, there's no question. And it's interesting because I. The ones who appeal to me, of course, are the ones who. It's not because they know me or they've heard what I've talked about. It's because they've discovered on their own, they're showing what they really are, what their sensibility, what they see dealing with life, in other words, their worldview comes through in what they do. And I think that's absolutely true of someone like Shin Lim. You know, that's why I guess I'm saying the classical music is still running in his head, whether they're playing music or not. I can see him taking musical crescendos and arpeggios and rests. Musical rests. And I can see it. I mean, it's part of what makes him look so good, the rhythm of what he's doing. So the people who are able to let themselves really shine are the ones that I enjoy the most.

R. Scott Edwards: 20:19

Wow. Well, thank you so much for sharing your insights on comedy and magic and today some of your views on the future of the industry and also the people that inspired you in the beginning of this episode of this series. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us for another in the series on comedy and magic and how together these two art forms entertain the masses. Larry, thanks for joining us today.

Larry Wilson: 20:48

My pleasure entirely.

R. Scott Edwards: 20:50

Ladies and gentlemen, stay tuned. There's always more coming ahead. And please tell your friends and family.

Announcer: 20:57

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Stand Up Comedy. Your host and emcee for information on the show, merchandise and our sponsors, or to send comments to Scott, visit our website at www.standupyourhost and mc.com. look for more episodes soon and enjoy the world of stand up comedy. Visit a comedy showroom near.