I do not like dropping the blue silk prior to pulling out the mismade flag. Just looking for other ideas instead of dropping the blue flag.

The easiest way to avoid the "dropped blue silk" routine is to eliminate the red & white flag and go to the reversed flag, which would still be a good routine, but would only have one "mismade" element. If you don't want to look like you blundered by dropping a silk, you could have a volunteer hand you the red then the white silk and forget to ask for the blue silk and quickly produce the red & white mismade flag before realizing the mistake.

Nice idea

Some people describe the colors, and they're meaning, as a preamble but you could patter about the colors as the assembly takes place.

Example: Take the white and red from your breast pocket (leaving the blue poking-up) and describe why all the colors are needed to make a flag. Then perform the first change. This brings you back to the blue color which is added for the climax.

In this way you are in control and the routine does not have incorporate a "Goof" aspect in any way.

I know bending over in a show seems beneath most of us. How about doing it near a chair, and the silk drops there. Another idea is would just "play" forgetful. Or you could miscall the colors and when the children yell out ignore them, children like to laugh at adults making simple mistakes.

Probably the best solution is to have an assistant, probably why someone invented the "drop" idea. Assistant brings on the props and leaves with the blue silk. Later she returns with blue silk when the mistake is realized by the audience response.

We as magicians have to do what we can if we refuse to take advantage of using assistants. After all we put up with our acts not running as smoothly as it would if we used an assistant to bring and take props to us while on stage.

No one seems to mind that our acts would be 100% better with the interaction brought about with the use of an assistant.

Jay, isn't that still a "Goof" as you put it? It still requires good acting as you realized the flag is not correct.

Great idea with assistant, would bring some great by play between the magicaian & the assistant.

Bill. No goof

It's like a costume trunk in a way. You show all the pieces, assemble them and the assistant appears.

In the case of the mismade silk or flag , you would assemble the parts in phases and it's all intentional.

Wiz Kid Wilhelmina came up with a different solution for the blue silk. In her "Hooray for the Red, White & Blue" from the Wizards' Journal # 21, She calls up a youngster to help her and places the three silks on his shoulder. She removes the red silk and white silk and stuffs them in her transparent tube, then removes the blue silk and starts to stuff it in as well, but the blue silk (apparently unseen by her) flies back to the shoulder of the assisting helper from the audience. As you can imagine, this sets up screaming from the audience and it is much stronger than just dropping the silk on the floor. It also provides heavy misdirection for certain tasks required at that second in time when all eyes are on the silk flying through the air to the helper's shoulder.

Jim, I love the routine by Wilhelmina that you described, but can't imagine how she pulled it off without any detection from the volunteer... but I guess that's why they call it magic!

Mismade flags has been a great comedy routine for some time now, so I don't quite understand why anyone would want to take the comedy elements out of it and turn it into a mediocre silk transformation. There are plenty of much more impressive silk routines out there if you aren't going for the laughs. I am all for taking a routine and changing it to make it your own original presentation, but I'm not so sure this one comes across as well without the comedy.

The volunteer knows nothing until she pulls the blue silk off his shoulder and starts to stuff it into the tube, lets go and it flies back to his shoulder. It happens so fast there's not much he can do about it. She always picks one of the littlest kids for the role and his reactions to the flying shoulder silk are part of what makes this so funny. She reacts as if the boy did it on purpose and he is left protesting his innocence. When she removes the silk from his shoulder the second time, it is minus the power source and is now just an ordinary blue silk with a bit of the magic "V" stuff attached.

I have a set of "Lazy Susan" Tongs that I use to retrieve the silk that has fallen to the floor. It keeps me from having to bend over and gives me a great visual joke at the same time. Plus there's a lot of byplay to be had trying to retrieve the silk from the end of the device.

Payne strikes again. Good idea.

The Lazy Tongs was a Patrick Page item from years ago, in the 1980's I believe. Have not seen them since. I have mine in my working case and use it for many different routines. I believe Show Biz Magic imported them to the U.S.

I picked up my first set of Tongs from Mr. Page in the late Nineties. They were too short for me. So I found the medical supply company he most likely got them from and ordered two sets. I put these together to make one twice as long (hence twice as funny) as the ones Mr. Page used to sell.
They were made for extending the reach of the old, infirm and disabled. Unfortunately there are far better mechanisms on the market these days for this purpose. So the old scissor tongs are very difficult to come by. Some crafty dealer is eventually going to make these up in China and make a killing with them. I'm always asked where I got mine whenever someone sees me use them.