Iced Safe Opener
A tweak of Colin Cloud's Safe Opener
Safe Opener is explained on Colin Mcleod’s Penguin LIVE lecture. This is just how I’ve tweaked it to better fit me — and to give me TWO moments of surprise instead of just one.
Okay, back here with an addition to how I do Safe Opener with the iced coffee.
The two paper bags are on a table at the front, but I don’t refer to them at the beginning. I tell the audience I stopped by my "home away from home", Dutch Bros, on the way here and picked up an iced coffee. To help me get the show started, I'm going to telepathically send someone what kind of coffee I got. I try, but they don't receive anything, so I explain how hard this is and give them a hint -- it was an Annihilator, a Caramel Macchiato, or a Double Torture. Then I try and "send" the thought to them again and this time they mention one of those coffees.
"You're pretty good at this. Could you help me with something else?"
Then I just drop the coffee thing and go into Safe Opener. After I pop the empty bag, I pull out the coffee and say, "There's the coffee I was talking about earlier. And remember you said it was a Caramel Macchiato? Loud so everyone can hear you, what does it say on the label?" "CARAMEL MACCHIATO!"
The crowd roars with approval and you’re on your way to an awesome performance. Also, you now have a nice drink to slake your thirst during the upcoming mentalism.
Okay, but what if they had said Annihilator or Double Torture was what I'd stopped to get? No, you don’t have to turn and run from the room. When I started doing Safe Opener with the iced coffee, I just did it normal, but with a coffee rather than a bunch of broken glass.
Then I started thinking about how to make the routine last longer than 30 seconds and came up with the extra “what kind of coffee did I get” addition.
My hunch was that Caramel Macchiato would be chosen most often (a hunch that’s proven correct so far) so that's written on a label on the back of the cup. Annihilator is written in Sharpie on the back of the bag holding the coffee, and inside the bag is a receipt showing I bought a Double Torture.
I’ve pulled out the coffee (with the label toward the back), stuck a straw in the top and taken a drink, then thanked the person for making the correct choice. If they previously said I picked up a Caramel Macchiato, I turn the cup around, move closer to someone, and have them read what the label says.
If they choose Annihilator I keep the back of the cup away from the audience and just turn the bag around to show the name. (The label on the back of the cup is small enough and far enough away that they couldn’t read it even if it was turned toward them — I don’t make any big deal about keeping it hidden.)
And if they choose Double Torture I pick up the bag and dump it into someone's hands, keeping the back of the bag toward me, and have them read the coffee shown on the receipt.
There are some angle issues with this due to something written on the back of the bag, but based on how my audience is typically situated, it's workable for me.
I loved the original Safe Opener, but switching to a cup of coffee and then adding the “influence” bit to it turned it into one of my favorite routines and I use it as my opener as often as I can.
(Colin Cloud is one of my favorite mentalists and I’m looking forward to seeing his new show in Las Vegas later this year.)
Here’s me doing Iced Safe Opener the summer of 2024. Sorry for the subpar audio; shortly after that I invested in a wireless mic that connects to my camera.