David Copperfield's Magic Secrets Revealed

Warning SPOILER FOLLOWS!

Steel Plate

Notice the flexible rubber-like blanket? Notice how they flipped it up a bunch of times? Very early on, David slid out from under the sheet during one of the flips. The remaining shapeless blob was either placed there by David, or it was something going up through the holes in the plate, or the plate was not solid steel

Duck

The duck was inflatable and mechanical. There was a real duck in the beginning, but that was just to make the audience think there were only 2 ducks- the real and stuffed. The stuffed duck was ratty, dingy and limp. It was obviously a fake. The purpose of this duck was to reinforce the image of the other duck(s) as one duck. There were at least 3 ducks. Note the box that the duck was placed into had a lid that was fairly thick, say 2 inches. The inflated duck deflated immediately after David placed it in the bottom. The bottom of the box was spring loaded. When David placed the duck inside, the springs retraced the bottom of the box upward towards the lid

Portal to Phillipines

With video, you can do anything. The image on the beach was pre-recorded. Just because the gal was wearing the same clothes doesn't mean doggie-doo. She also went to the Phillipines for the 4pm show. The boom box was rigged with a wireless receiver and the "play" switch was actually a record/receive switch. What about the numbers recorded on the tape? Well, it is quite possible that David pre-recorded all numbers between 0 and 50. Then his crew would just type in the numbers into a computer and they would be transmitted along with the canned header and trailer message components. The tape given to the audience member was recorded in the boombox, instead of being played. The only thing I couldn't figure out was how they got off the platform that was suspended over the audience.

License Plates

It is very easy to stamp license plates..... Besides, how many license plates have you seen that are of the form: 49 17 9 43 2? So yes, his crew stamped the plates, painted them and applied a finished to make them look like old tarnished aluminum

13 Audience Members

The audience members were ushered out of the unit very quickly. It happened before all those flashlights were being handed inside. When all the lights were spinning around, that was simply hidden servor operated stage lighting. The audience members didn't see the flashlights shining... they were already behind the stage. The stage at the PAC has a lower level that is covered up. It is quite possible that the people climbed down a ladder into that stage.

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©2004-2005 Charles C. Bader