Hi everybody,

what comedy hats did you use with sucess in your kid shows?

My hats are:

1) Bongo Hat - a paper hat gets bigger and bigger when you put it on the head of a child. And finally there is a picture of an ugly monster.

2) Top Hat to Rabbit - a top hat changes into the head of a rabbit and you can put this rabbit head on the head of a child.

3) Cooking hat - put the (big enough) cooking hat on the head of a child, look away and let the hat slide over the face of the child. FUNNY.

Hats Incredible...The corrogated cardboard shapeable hat.
It can do much more than just hats.

I also use:

"Frank Sinatra" type black hat
Derby
Duck hat with sunglasses attached
Ram's head hat
Stocking hat which won't stay on Nigel, the puppet that rocks and talks.

These days I choose to wear the hats, rather than put them on children. A personal choice. Let's try to concentrate on hats rather than pro's and cons of putting things on kids.

Harris





Harris

The hat you produce from the paper hat tears always works well for me. More times than not the kid will keep the hat on his or her head after they go back to thier seat. I try to stick with the Wizard hat for a boy, and the girls seem just as happy wearing a Wizard hat or the sun bonnet.
Bob.

A wizard Tear

That crumpled old thing on my head in my avatar. It's actually a fairly expensive jugglers top hat but there's a whole heap of gags, magic and stunts one can do with it which make it more versatile than any hat trick out there.

Top Hat / Jack Sparrow's Pirate Hat / Santa's Hat that's too big for their head
Ali Bongo's Hat - original and the new Santa one
Top Hat to Rabbit
£1 pirate's hats, witches hats

I also use:-
Rudolph's antlers
masks of animal faces

I use these hats in this order:

bunny ears-birthday cake hat that says "lets party!"-sailors cap (where I have them sing "YMCA") and then the magicians hat, which is too big and goes over the face.

Since the magic phrase I use is "Pepperoni Pizza", I actually found a hat that is a pepperoni pizza! the keeper of the magic phrase gets to wear it.

I haven't used any hats for years but I do think they can add fun to a show.

If I did use one I'd stick to tissue paper tear hats because of endemic lice problems in the schools and elsewhere. If not maybe sprays or hat liners would work but that doesn't seem fun.

Parents and Teachers are trying to teach kids not to share head gear of all kinds. Lice problems are a social problem for kids and the bad memories that can last years. It can also be big money problem for families on a tight budget (those shampoos and sprays aren't cheap).

-Mary Mowder the Party Pooper (not my stage name)

I agree with the lice issue. I am currently doing big bag o' blitzen. I have purchased around 100 antlers and sponge noses for this reason. I use them once then it goes in a bag for next year. Any potential problems will be gone by then and I will also be using an anti bacterial spray.

Animal hats

Viking helmet - I saw one years ago that was made of plastic, with rotatable horns and a boar's head molded into the front. For adults, I was thinking of getting some of the S.S. Adams doggie cigs and sticking it in the mouth of the boar, so it appears to be smoking it. For kids, I would probably point one horn up and the other down, for a comedic effect.