A.P.E. Magic Trick: The Gorilla They Never See

“What I love about this trick is that the audience are lead down an innocent garden path and then sucker punched off the edge of a cliff! It’s engaging, different and funny with an out of left field kicker that people love”
– Lloyd Barnes

“I was lucky enough to pick one up at Magic Live and I absolutely love performing it! Apart from the fact I feel Craig should have shaved for the trailer I give it 100%!”
– Peter Nardi

“A.P.E. is a real trip! Craig has recreated the famous viral video of the invisible gorilla experiment – as a packet trick. It’s funny, fooling and hugely entertaining. Your audience will go bananas! (Sorry, not sorry.)”
– Mark Elsdon

APE HITS HARDER THAN A 500LB SILVERBACK

You ask if your audience has seen the famous perception experiment on YouTube, where a bunch of basketball players pass a basketball around and to count the number of passes …….the one where you totally miss a giant gorilla, walking out, beating his chest and leaving.

You say, I’m sure if you were there live and close up, you’d see it? Well, we are going to recreate the experiment. You pull out 3 cards from a vegan leather holder and on each card you show there are a different number of basketballs. You fairly show each card, front and back and ask them to guess the total number of basketballs? Then you say, but did you miss the gorilla? They look confused. Then you turn the cards over and show that emblazoned across the 3 cards is a huge gorilla. How the hell could you miss that?

Cue absolute chaos. Waves of laughter, disbelief, chatter about how could they have missed it. Then the loop repeats. Caution – this reaction will carry on till you leave.

As soon as you’ve made the gorilla appear you can show the cards front and back, you can hand a couple out to be examined but nobody wants to because their brains just melted and they need closure, talking about it helps.

The cards were designed by the king of card marking and design, Phill Smith with a very smart and devious touch to help with the method.

This packet trick is the perfect opener or a killer closer. It’s got an incredible hook, it’s fun, it’s interactive, 2 second reset, takes up almost zero pocket space and it’s incredibly easy to do.

You missed the gorilla, DO NOT MISS A.P.E