This is the period where magic was our life. Both Geoff and I were performing a lot, Geoff got to work for Dick and Diana Zimmerman’s company, and we launched our magic company and Geoff’s first book.
Dick Zimmerman doing his amazing Dancing Ring routine.
Thanks to Dick Zimmerman, Geoff got to work with him on a Twilight Zone episode with two amazing talents- Danny Kaye and Glynn Turman. The episode was written by Harlan Ellison and was titled Paladin of the Lost Hour.
This is the first book Geoff ever wrote, featuring routines and ideas for magic props most magicians already had. We published it through our new magic company, Theatrix.
To create the cover we put a bunch of our magic props on a board between two shelves, and the artist, John Ladd (who did illustrations for Geoff’s father’s book, Electronics for Everyone), used them to put the props on shelves. I still use that Dove Pan, and the shiny chrome canister that was Abbott’s Appearing Bird Cage, and the Change Bag underneath it, in my Kid Show. Magic equipment in our house gets a lot of use! The hand on the second shelf is Bartholomew, a literal hand puppet he used in a card trick. The routine for that was published in the Linking Ring magazine.
Geoff performing his Trained Newspaper that we made and sold. When we started making it, we used the local paper, so we pitched them on the idea of doing an article about us featuring their paper. Not surprisingly, it got Geoff a nice big picture above the fold.