Tissel Tassel (Tizzel Tazzel) by Harries

The Pom-Pom Prayer Stick was invented by Louis Histed and published in his book The Magic of Louis S. Histed c. 1947 as the effect Papyrus (pg 55). The effect was made famous and very popular by the great Ali Bongo (William Oliver Wallace: 1829-2009). You can read more details about the origins here. It is really a beautiful effect full of comedy and mystery.

Pom-Poms with Extra Tassles! I’m a big fan of the Pom-Pom Prayer stick and I’m also a big fan of Harries Magic in Sweden. This effect combines both: a very clever version of the Pom-Pom Prayer stick made by Harries. The tubes are well finished and the mechanism is very smooth and silent. The hook up is also very easy. It appears to work exactly the same as the Pom-Poms, but with the added complexity of three strings instead of two.

I’ll leave it up to you whether the added string makes this more impressive or more confusing, but this is certainly a clever idea and beautifully executed as you have come to expect from Harries.

Here are the full details from the original Harries’s advert that ran in Genii which you might find interesting (Genii Vol 50, No. 8, Feb 1987).

Effect: We are very pleased to be able to introduce you to our very latest SUPER DE LUXE item after two years of research and development. No doubt you already know the classical Pom-Pom-stick. TIZZEL-TAZZEL is a development of the basic idea of this trick. But it is a lot more. As a matter of fact it is an entirely new trick both to the audience and fellow magicians. If you know how the Pom-Pom-stick works you will be even more stunned by TIZZEL-TAZZEL!

You show a very beautiful gold- or silver-colored stick (length 24″) with three big tassels hanging in three white strings with a small bead on top. There are two white tassels in each end of the stick and one red in the middle. You show that the three tassels and strings are absolutely free with no connections between each other by pulling them up and down. Then it starts.

When you pull one of the white tassels the red one goes up and when you pull the red, one of the white ones moves up or down. This is just as with the old method. Play it for a while and get all the benefits of the old Pom-Pom-stick! Then you raise the effect into a third dimension, telling the audience that you do not understand the trick yourself. When you pull one of the outer white tassels the other white tassel moves up with the red tassel still in between. A miracle! But more than that. We have only told you half the story yet. You can make TIZZEL-TAZZEL to a whole comedy act with a hilarious patter and in the middle of the routine you SEPARATE THE STICK IN THREE PARTS SHOWING THE AUDIENCE THAT THERE IS NO CONNECTION WHATSOEVER! You can do this as many times you want to and then go on with the routine.

You can easily remove the tassels and replace them with characters from movies or TV-soap operas. For example Donald Duck, Goofy and Mickey Mouse for children (use your own figures) when you tell a funny story from Disney World. For an adult audience only the sky is the limit: make up your own characters fron Dynasty, Dallas or General Hospital and tell them what’s really going on back stage and who is in when somebody else is out. We leave this to your own good taste and imagination. What we offer you is a trick for the next century. TIZZEL-TAZZEL is very easy to perform. You can start doing it 15 minutes after you receive it.

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