Some costumers are just dumb.... wait, let me back up a bit.
There is this good old routine of the "Vanishing Bandana". An audio track is running. A voice is coming up telling you to teach you how to vanish a bandana. But the magicians mishears the instructions and instead tries to do it with a banana. It's a classic routine by now.
Now this gag works in English quite well. In German... not so much. Banana and Bandana are very close. The German words are "Banane" and "Bandana" So technically the routine could be done in German. Except for the fact that nobody knows what a "Bandana" is. Seriously, nobody knows. The native German word is "Kopftuch" which means "head cloth" which totally describes a bandana. And "Banane" and "Kopftuch" are clearly different words.
Now still some German magicians perform this routine using the Banane/Bandana gag and wonder why it doesn't play that well. And a German magician/voice actor (who is unable to speak proper German btw) is selling this routine.
Some costumers are just dumb.
Oh, i have seen a variation of this by a german Commedian/magician, was a good one, where he is instructed to destroy a spectators watch and burn it. Worked pretty well. I think his name was magic Udo. Chech out Youtube.
ReplyDelete"Seriously, nobody knows"? Sorry, but ... this is just not right. The word "Bandana" IS used in German. So is "Kopftuch", but the latter tends to refer to women's headscarves or religious headdress, while "Bandana" is for the biker-style type. Maybe it's a generational thing? If you don't believe it, just search some German web sites for "Bandana". Hell, try amazon.de -- over 6000 bandanas for sale.
ReplyDeleteBadly-performed gags? Sure, they're a dime a dozen. But nobody under 40 should be confused by the word "Bandana".
banana and bandana are pronounced exactly the same except for the d.
DeleteGerman "Banane" and "Bandana" don't sound similar at all - they don't even remotely rhyme. Thus, the entire play of words that the routine is based on doesn't work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WAb4K54W6M
ReplyDeleteI can probably make a good translation. Although I only know the words in this song.