No, that's the beautiful part of it. The end of the knife is actually sort of blunt. They could, if they really, really tried, make a nasty bruise on their hand. But the edge is quite dull and so is the point.

Vito Lupo told me about pumpkin cutters, and I made the necessary modifications. In fact, I even gave Ted Lesley permission to use it in his lecture notes. When he saw it, he was very impressed with it.

One additional benefit of this type of knife is this. Once you have cut through a couple of lemons with it, you can do it very quickly. But the spectator will find that it takes a bit longer than it takes you. It's a bit of work. So you cover this delay with a piece of stage business that the audience finds extremely funny. I won't tip what it is, because it is one of my signature bits.

Let me just say that the delay adds to the realism of the effect, and your handling of the delay adds to the comedy.

Wait...we're talking about a DOLLAR bill here??

and I thought you guys were going to tip the famous bill PALMER to lemon trick.


sheesh. I feel gypped.

=)

That requires a much larger lemon. Usually a Chevrolet Citation or a KIA.

A pun that awful deserves a huge GROAN......
:)

(In other words, I loved it.)

Geoff

I saw Paul Daniels do his version. It was great. One of the many bits that stood out to me was his vanish. He used the standard hanky vanish, but had a different participant than the one who lent the bill hold the hanky. As he put the bill under the hanky and in their hand, he said, 'you're holding the bill, so you are now responsible for it,' or something to that effect. A minute later when he grabbed the hanky, and the bill was gone, he acted just as surprised as everyone else; he shrugged his shoulders and said something like, 'well, you were holding it!' and went and sat down on the stage, sort of in between his two participants (the one who lent it and the one who lost it). He just sat there for what seemed to be a few minutes and let this situation--full of humor and tension-- play itself out.

Another thing that I appreciated about his version was that he asked a volunteer to come up to the stage before he asked for a bill. He then asked for their wallet and proceeded to root through it, which provided for lots of bits. He then pulled out a bill or two and did a trick with them (can't remember which one) before moving in to the bill in lemon.

Wish I could see it again!

Paul