I think this is getting back to "just plain yelling" and we need to do better. Sure it can be a descent ice breaker for a show but certainly not worth noting as "advanced".



A bit better than your last example but still...



A pretty standard bit. Not awful but we can do better.

Sprinkling in a couple of these in a 45 minute show is fine but I wouldn't overdo it with ones like this. All pretty standard "get the kids to yell" bits.

I think a couple things we can use to test our "bits" is to ask ourselves:
Would parents in another room recognize what they hear as anything differernt than just "yelling" ?
Would parents watching your show enjoy these ideas? Would they participate if watching? What if you were doing an all adults show? Enjoyable for them? Or just plain silly?

At one point in a trick I say "OK, the magic words this time are "flimfoddle diddledaddle bimpetyboppledy dabble klaggle...etc, etc" It's really long and ridiculous and impossible to remember. Then I have them say it. usually a few kids laugh and start to try it, then the rest follow along. Sometimes after that I say "you forgot the "blammoflipple shadoogitz part" After that I may leave it as is, or I might just give them an easy magic word to use instead. They think it's funny, so do the parents.

For birthdays for a kid around 4 - 6 (maybe older or younger sometimes), as soon as I enter the home and get to the room where the kids are, I ask where Cindy(the birthday girl" is. I then act like I can't find her and look in crazy places like under a vase, in a bag, etc. of course all the kids yell "she's right here" and I say "where, where, she's about this big and has brown hair" and keep looking, trying to look right past her, turning around so she's behind me, etc. They say "she's right here!" and I say "I know she has hair!". After about 2 minutes I find her and say I've been looking all over. They love it - they laugh a lot - not just scream, and right away I've warmed them up and established my silly personalty before I even set up my stuff. The parents are impressed because I've gotten them laughing and having fun the minute I walk in. The down side is after that they may follow me over to my box of stuff and watch while I set up - which I prefer them not to do - but no big deal.

At schools, I find out "pet sayings" of principles, counselors and/or teachers.
I also make reference to popular youtube videos...such as ________ or _______, I start a line and 9 out of 10 times the students fill in the line. One can also see others mouthing the word without speaking.
One can do the same thing with commercials that get repeated alot.