Psst, hey, you, you've got to watch this, he won't believe your eyes.
Okay, I'm going to cut this piece of string, like so.
I'm going to cut it, like, right there, okay?
I'm going to put it in my hand, bring one end over here, one end over here, tug on both
ends, of course, and blow on it.
Voila.
I'm Malcolm Jamal Warner, and this is Show Off!
Cool stunts, tricks, and gags to amaze your friends.
As I was saying, this is Show Off.
Show Off is about how to be the life of the party.
You are about to see some of the funniest, most startling, outrageous, and cool tricks
you've ever seen.
Be sure you learn these incredible feats before you attend your next party, and remember these
three rules.
Number one, be cool.
Number two, have fun, because if you're not having fun, how can you expect your friends
to have a good time?
And number three, have courage.
Where would Washington be if he hadn't had the courage to show off and throw that silver
dollar across the river?
Where would I be if I did not have my incredible string trick?
You need to set this part up before your friends come in.
First you take a piece of string, the kind that's made up of a lot of strands.
Now take the middle of the string and pull the parts out, and then you twist them, like
this, to make them look like ends, okay?
Now you take the actual ends and put them together so they look like they're attached.
You kind of twist it like this.
Now you're ready to amaze your friends.
You take scissors and you cut horizontally, like so.
Now it looks like you have two strings.
Put this in the palm of your hand, take one end here and one end here, like so.
Then tug at the ends, like this, tug on this end, blow on it, and say some magical words
like abracadabra or something.
And the big finish, ta-da.
One, two, three, I grabbed the key to my daddy's ride, I took my girl down by the riverside,
I'm going up, upside down, I'm going up, upside down, down, down, down, down, upside down.
Lipsyncing is fun, but everybody does it these days.
Use an upside down face to give a new twist to your favorite hits.
Here's how.
First, in the mirror, use makeup to paint a pair of nostrils on your chin.
Next, take a handkerchief or a bandana and just cover up the rest of your face like this.
Then sit on a couch or a chair upside down.
In this position, your chin is the performer's nose.
Now the secret to making your upside down face look like it's really singing is to
cover your lower teeth with your lower lip.
And expose your upper teeth with your upper lip.
Then cut loose.
This will take some practice, but you'll soon be showing off the hits to your friends like
this.
One, two, three, I grabbed the key to my daddy's ride, I took my girl down by the riverside,
I'm going up.
You know, a lot of times it's too much trouble to carry around your drum set with you, but
you can be your own beatbox.
I mean, I have my own theme music when I walk, right?
When I walk down the street, I'm looking good.
Now here's how you can make your own beatbox sound.
First, practice doing a buh sound, explosively as you can.
Here it is.
Try that.
Now make a hard K sound in the back of your mouth.
Now put the two together and you get this.
Now you can add a little cymbal by drawing in air very sharply like this.
See, I think it's party time.
Show Off Sports presents All Stars Pum Wrestling.
And in this corner, the challenger, the measured digit, known for his dirty tricks and cheap
techniques, and the champion, in this corner, the Newark Knuckle, the most fit wrestler
in his weight class.
May the better participant emerge victorious.
And the Newark Knuckle is coming on strong, but the measured digit is not to be outdone.
Bro, that was a close call.
It looked like the Knuckle had him down that time, but the measured digit has pulled himself
away again.
Oh my, I think the Knuckle's got the digit on the ropes.
He's got to hand it to the Knuckle.
He really knows how to press his opponent.
Hold it, what's going on?
The measured digit is up to his old tricks.
Oh, the Knuckle is mad now, but he doesn't know what to do.
I'm surprised the referee has not broken up this fight.
Wait a minute, did you see that?
The measured digit has pulled an incredibly sneaky trick.
Who knew this match would turn into a tag team fight?
Now let's see that quickly in slow motion.
Well, fans, it was a simple maneuver, as you can see.
First he hides his thumb on the side of his opponent's hand, and then surprises his opponent
by pulling his index finger over into the match to pin, a very clever feat.
Thumbs up to the new champion, the measured digit.
Now here's a quick one you can do while waiting for your hamburger to be served, and all you
need is a straw.
First, you crinkle down the paper.
You'll stick from the top, and you crinkle up from the bottom until you get a nice, tight
coil.
Next, you get a drop of water or some other kind of beverage, drop on the wrapper, and
voila, straw worm.
Okay, Shaw fans, watch out now for the incredible imaginary stairway.
It's a great way to make yourself vanish into thin air.
I'm going to show you how to do this.
Just imagine that we are on this side of the stairs, or in this case, it's not a stairs,
is it?
It's a hedge.
And over there is somebody else, and they don't know what's going to happen.
And what we're going to do is walk down the hedge like this.
We take a step behind.
We bend the knee.
The body stays straight.
We take another step.
We go down a little further.
We take another step.
We go down a little further until finally we're down here.
Now if you get down here and you still have a ways to go, you can fake the rest of it
with your upper body and your head like this, until you disappear.
You can do this anywhere you want to.
You can do it behind a counter, behind a sofa, behind a couch, behind a speeding motorboat.
Just remember, make sure someone is watching you, and have a good time.
Oh, excuse me, I was just levitating, I mean meditating.
Now I'm really going to levitate.
You know, slip the surly bonds of earth, float above the formament, defy gravity, stand on
air.
Well, let's get to it.
Rog, begone.
Now concentrate.
I need your help.
If you don't believe this trick will work, it won't.
Carefully watch the heels of my shoes.
Here is how it's done.
First, you line up your heels with your audience.
Be sure to distract the audience by waving your arms about and puffing air.
You then slowly pick yourself up on the toe of your left foot, keeping your right foot
parallel with the floor.
If you practice enough, everyone will be impressed with their spiritual abilities.
Of course, then they'll ask you to make a root bear float, or maybe give them a lift
home.
But who knows, maybe someday you'll even be able to fly, just like me.
Well that's a good way to make an exit if you're a magician.
Show-offs know most things are harder to get out of than into.
Let's see how a show-off leaves.
Now the secret to this one is putting your right foot in front of you as you exit so
that you kick the door.
Then pretend that you've just walked into it head first.
Now first practice this slowly and carefully to get your timing right, and then add in
a real loud UGH so that you fool everyone.
Now it's very important to recover quickly and then make a fast exit.
It always leaves them guessing.
And make sure you're wearing your shoes on this one.
You know, anybody can look cool, it's all in the way you carry yourself.
What's important is being able to keep your cool no matter what happens.
I guess I'll go this way.
Hey little boy, hey.
Get back, get back, get back.
Now how does he do that?
The secret to this one now is to pretend that you have a dog pulling on your pant leg.
Now you position yourself behind a door and then you begin to practice the dog pulling
your leg like this.
Now lean with your upper body away from where the dog is so that you give the illusion of
resistance like this.
Now you can add in a few growl sounds and dog sounds and some protests of your own.
That way it makes the illusion all the more convincing, like this.
Get down, get down, get back, hey get out of the way, come on.
You know, wherever I go I always take my bicycle horn with me and you can too.
First of all you have to squeeze your hand in the air like this.
Now make a high-pitched nasal sound, try it.
That's the first part of the sound.
Now for the second part you draw in air very quickly, you inhale like this.
Now let's say during class changes the hall is really crowded, a lot of people walking
in front of you, just give them a little and they scatter.
And now in the center ring, Alfonso the finger.
Born of a long line of finger contortionists, Alfonso was about to perform the amazing finger
tango.
Now let's see that amazing feet quickly in slow motion.
See how Alfonso the finger switches his two index fingers to make his fabulous feet work.
You know what they say, when in Rome do as the Romans do.
Well here in the desert I always do what the Arabians do.
So let me tell you how to become a t-shirt sheep.
I stole a secret from the tumor king tut-tut-tut.
First you need a t-shirt and I happen to be wearing one right now.
So second I pull this t-shirt right over my head.
Next I get a sweatband and I put that around my head.
This is what a sheep would wear on a festive occasion but for everyday use I just tie the
sleeves together.
The t-shirt sheep is so convincing you can even fool a camel.
Now if I only had a camel.
Magic is really just showing off isn't it?
The secret of doing magic is getting people to pay so much attention that they can't see
what's really going on.
Look I'll show you what I mean then I'll explain it.
I'm going to bend this normal solid pencil.
Here goes, watch closely.
See you put the pencil between your pinky and your ring finger holding the pencil straight
up to the table.
Act like you're putting pressure on the top end of the pencil with your other hand keeping
your hands together push down and let the pencil stick out towards you.
See now what really makes this work is if you make a big deal out of it act as though
you're bending wood.
Oh Malcolm that is wonderful but watch I'm going to show you how to make the pencil look
like it's rubber.
You just take it wave it in the air just like this and it looks rubbery and that is so easy
to do.
All you do is hold it in your right hand and move your hand up and down and that is all
there is to that and now I'm going to show you how to use this pencil to vanish a coin.
Do you have a coin with you?
Well I have a quarter somewhere here you go.
Terrific watch.
On the count of three the quarter will disappear we go one two three and oh the pencil it.
Look let me show you how that works.
Okay.
We have it up here in the air we count one two three and you leave the pencil stuck up
on top of your head and the quarter is not gone.
You don't need an instrument to play along with your favorite recordings just learn a
few expressive moves and let it rip.
It's great at parties.
This is a show off feat you can do anywhere especially good to do at a friend's party
or against the window of a restaurant your friends might be sitting at.
Just sneak up to a window and press your face against it exaggerate the effect by keeping
your eyes wide open pushing your nose to the side and it's also great if you open your
mouth a little.
You know sometimes I make such a scary face.
I even scare myself.
You're probably wondering how I do this.
This is the imaginary ball trick.
To do the imaginary ball trick you need two things a paper bag an imaginary ball.
This is the one I carry with me everywhere I go it's blue.
The secret to the trick is to hold your hands on the bag like this and then when you take
the imaginary ball you throw it in the bag you flick your fingers like this.
Although this trick takes an enormous amount of skill it took me years to learn it's very
easy to do and you can do it immediately.
Hey Malcolm, hey Bob, hi Malcolm, want to learn how to juggle Malcolm?
Sure.
Can I borrow that apple?
Sure.
Thanks.
Oh wow.
Oh do you mind if I have a bite out of your apple?
No.
Thanks.
Do you like a bite out of your apple?
Sure.
Go ahead.
Malcolm you took a rather large bite out of your apple.
You're not talking much Malcolm you've got a full mouth.
I'll teach you how to juggle but I'm not going to use these they're a little sticky now thanks
to the large bite you took out of your apple.
Instead let's use these scarves here.
You can go.
One for you and one for me I'll take the blue one because it's bigger.
Okay this is what we're going to do first I just want you to throw the scarf up in the
air.
The thing about scarves is that they fall slowly lots of times for mistakes right?
Yeah.
Okay so that's all we're going to do throw it up with both hands one after the other.
It's beautiful.
Yeah.
Nice.
Go to two scarves.
That was easy.
Oops let's go with a different color so you can know which is which.
There you go.
I'll take that one.
Two scarves.
Let's try it first let's go up at the same time two scarves.
We'll call that columns.
Okay.
Looks like columns.
Nice.
I love it when they float like that it's like fish.
Yeah.
All right now let's try it we'll alternate them one two go ahead one two beautiful one
two one two good now we'll do the same we'll alternate but we'll alternate across our body
so we'll make an X one two and we'll catch the scarf with the opposite hand okay right
right so left goes to right I catch with the right and then with the left great all right
you're learning too fast Malcolm I'll be out of a job soon okay let's see what colors
you got okay I'll take that one there you go three uh-oh three the big three six all
together right this is what we're gonna do we're gonna take two in one hand okay got
that okay we're gonna throw one up in the middle as a column okay and then two on the
sides this column looks like this I'll do it once nice huh try it good keep it going
keep it going oh great especially when you got six going together it looks really beautiful
right okay stop that a sec now let's try to cross all right this is the more difficult
pattern we're gonna go across the body with three so you're gonna go one two three four
five six seven eight nine ten go ahead one two three four five six seven eight nine
ten keep going that's great go go go go six come on keep those up eight nine okay one
two three wait that's mine wait that's all right Malcolm I got four now you got okay
take five the scarf reminds me of what I had an old Baghdad at that time it was a turban
for the Maharaj's flamingo those were the days that bird used to love to see me perform
my repertoire of secret eggy tricks you're in luck I'll show you one now watch carefully
first I hear from someone's head slowly pull it back and forth and back and forth I suppose
you want to know how it's done well don't you it's really quite simple first you tie
a knot near one end of the scarf holding the scarf between the thumb and forefinger one
hand pretend to take a hair from a member of your audience with intense concentration
wave the hair over the scarf be sure to keep your audience looking at the imaginary hair
to make the scarf move just rub your thumb lightly against the scarf just like this and
it will move in line with the imaginary hair now for my next trick I will make my scarf
dance aloha welcome to the world of the Hawaiian nose hum let me show you how it's done now
if you have a head cold this could get ugly for the rest of you try this place your index
finger right next to your nose right here now not in the nose just beside the nose now
hum with your mouth closed high voice got that now take your other index finger high
and and strum your nostril closed as you make each note like this try that do it very gracefully
here we go ready as the sun sinks slowly in the west I bid you all a fond farewell it's
a great party but how am I gonna top all of those show-offs I've got the string trick
I don't know if they've seen that one I guess I could juggle but I need more practice I
wonder if I should nose hum no not that kind of party I can make bubblegum if only I knew
how I've got it this is a job for a super show-off this is the perfect opportunity for
me to do the invisible coin and hanky thumb lift with the imaginary invisible four-figure
levitating thumb whistle you're gonna love this one hey guys watch this wow that was
great I can't believe my eyes yeah that's right works every time now let's see what
kind of show-off you can be
oh
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