Magician Mike is Super!

by Marilyn King

Reporter Marilyn King gets close to Mike Super without getting sawed in half

Don’t believe a person can levitate almost five feet off the ground, no strings attached? Or how about seeing someone cut a rope in half using only one finger, making a piece of paper float or performing voodoo magic on a volunteer who begins screaming in pain? See magician/ illusionist Mike Super and you will be a believer.

Super, a professional magician who has appeared with Regis Philbin and Joan Rivers, recently performed at the Michigan State University International Center, one of roughly 200 performances a year. Although the show was delayed 45 minutes, it was well worth the wait.

Super explains right away that he is not actually peforming magic, but his illusions make you wonder. Even students with a close-up view, in the rows closest to the stage, gasped in shock at Super’s tricks. He frequently picked audience members at random to come up on stage to take part in amazing card tricks and other illusions such as making a drawing on a piece of paper come to life or making a solid metal ring go through a rope.

For one of his last tricks, Super hosted an audience-participation version of the game “Clue.” He threw fuzzy dice into the audience and had randomly selected students call out a celebrity, location and random object from their dorm room. Later Super opened up a locked chest on stage and in it was a piece of paper with John Travolta, Mexico and Giant Tape Ball written on it, the exact things that students had shouted out. (I'm still trying to figure out how he did that one.)

Super is not only a magician but a comedian. He mixed humor with his illusions to keep the show light-hearted and enjoyable. At the end of the show, he stayed in front of the stage to meet students and thank them for watching.

“The show was lavenous,” Super said. “Lavenous” is a word that Super made up, which he had printed on t-shirts for sale.

Super (his real last name) encourages students to check out his website and join his mailing list at www.mikesuper.com He also has a Myspace account (www.myspace.com/mikesuper).

He promises his magic show will air on television in late 2007. “It will be unlike any magic shows on TV you’ve seen,” Super said.

Even people who are skeptical of magic or think it’s ridiculous might well enjoy seeing this quirky magician. His performance here left students amazed and, in a sense, super.

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