PROS

What a great and novel idea! It’s not that the hot rod idea is novel or new, but how Jeff incorporated the idea into a pen is clever. In fact, the idea of a hot rod pen is not new either. However, past hot rod pens used colored dots. While not a bad idea, the “Coogle” pen looks so much more natural, and in my opinion, is much stronger

The effect comes with two pens. One very normal looking, examinable pen, and one gimmicked as a hot rod pen. The quality of the pens is excellent. They look exactly like promo Bic pens.

The effect and materials are very true to the ad copy with very simply states you are getting a hot rod effect with a gimmicked pen and an un-gimmicked pen.

The effect comes with very brief written instructions, no video. Both a pro and a con. On the pro side, the effect itself is explained in a very concise manner.

CONS

On the con side of the instructions, it doesn’t cover how to perform the hot rod moves. Maybe this seems like something even most amateur magicians would know, but beware that these basic hot rod moves are not explained. If you are not familiar with the hot rod moves, you will need to get another source to learn this. However, he does cover the handling of the routine, just not the handling of the hot rod moves. At that point in the routine, he says: “perform the paddle move”. If you don’t know “the paddle move”, you will need to learn it elsewhere.

Also, you should know that the pens say “Coogle”, not “Google”. Clearly this is for copyright reasons. Some may view this as a negative, so I’m putting it in this section. However, I really don’t see it as a problem at all. I have seen suggestions to lightly scrape the bottom of the word to make it look like the whole thing has a bit of wear. Not a bad suggestion. However, I think it would be way more interesting to incorporate the discrepancy into some sort of comedy bit.

You should also know that the routine involves a very simple force that involves a bit of magicians choice where they can say any number they desire within a range of numbers and you will either count or spell to a desired outcome. I personally think this is usually pretty weak magic because it doesn’t seem natural when they say “2” and you spell to the third item by spelling”T.W.O.”. I think even some of the dimmest bulbs realize something was not quite right there. There are other methods of eliminating selections to arrive at a desired choice. For example, you could have them pick two letters and you eliminate one, then you pick two letters and they eliminate one, and so forth. With this method, it would be important that they start with the selection of two so you can end with the final elimination. This method seems more random and less forced.

VERDICT

I normally don’t consider price in a review, because I figure each person can determine if an effect is within their budget or not. However, this product has such a low price and the quality of the gimmicks are simply tremendous. While I felt I had to knock off a few review points for lack of instruction, I think this is really a must have for anyone who has any interest in hot rod routines.

Suggestions

OK, this is a bit out there, but in the brief instructions, he talks about putting the gimmick pen away in your pocket after the effect and then coming out with the un-gimmicked pen for examination. However, you can’t do this from your shirt pocket unless you have a very deep pocket. Many years ago I purchased a device that allowed you to place a playing card in your pocket and it would switch that card for another card inside your pocket. It worked on the principle that the card that went into your pocket would lever the switch card up as the first card went down. If you perform this pen effect, perhaps with a deeper coat pocket, you might develop a simple lever device that would push a hidden un-gimmicked pen up as the gimmicked pen is pushed down into the pocket. The result would be you would start the routine by removing a pen sticking up from your pocket, apparently place that pen back into your pocket and remove it again to hand out for examination. Also, with BIC style pens, you can shorten the pens by removing the end cap and cutting the body and the ink cartridge as well if necessary. To make them hide away in most shirt pockets, you would probably only have to cut off a fraction of an inch.