By Andrew DeCredico
Saturday May 13th was a day to remember for Ocean City fans of the Philadelphia Eagles long snapper Jon Dorenbos. Jon’s magical abilities took him to the final round of NBC’s hit show America’s Got Talent. He won the country over with his fantastic card tricks and a few stories of his childhood, his mother, and how magic saved his life.
His show Saturday night was a summarization of those tricks with new ones and old favorites giving a great show. Before Jon performed, comedian Peter Sasso got the crowd in a good mood with his lighthearted humor about his wife, his children, and his friends. The Music Pier burst with laughter during the opening act and Sasso got the whole crowd smiling before the main act had even come on stage!
To start off his show Dorenbos asked members of the audience to give one word that sums up why they love Ocean City. The four words that were given were “Ocean, Food, Summer, and Boardwalk.” Sure enough Dorenbos did not disappoint, showing that he had already predicted the crowd would give those words when he wrote them on his note before the show. The crowd loved that trick and gave a round of applause. Dorenbos moved onto the next set of tricks and stories. Tricks were classic card tricks with a Dorenbos twist, and he even told the audience of his childhood and how he got involved in magic.
After a couple of slides and Dorenbos’s very own “Coolness Pyramid,” Dorenbos involved the crowd a little bit more than usual, by involving an audience member’s dollar bill. The magic starts out with an audience member writing their name on a dollar bill so we know he didn’t switch the note with a different one for the trick. With his credibility established Dorenbos moves iconic symbols on the dollar, and even passes a pencil completely through the bill without so much as a scratch or pinhole in the dollar. When he was finished, the man who volunteered his dollar got a pretty sweet souvenir in return!
More slides followed the tricks and Dorenbos told the audience of a young boy who he brought onto the field during his early professional football days. He goes on to tell about how he was a little confused when the father and son ran onto the field and played a pretend game of catch, but that he was happy at the end of the day. The little boy’s father told him that his son (Joey) was given 6 months to live, and that he has always dreamed of being one of the Buffalo Bills. Dorenbos told the mesmerized crowd that he knew what he needed to do. He went up to the boy and “signed” him on the spot to be a part of the team.
Later that same year Dorenbos showed up at the Joey’s house and brought him to a game, he even let the little guy drive his car! Getting pulled over was a little hiccup in the plan, but when Dorenbos told the officers the boy’s story, the officers helped the car down the highway and into the player lot at the stadium where the Bills played. Having the time of his life, Joey asked Dorenbos if he would like to go to the Super Bowl and told Dorenbos that he had the tickets already. The Football player was glad to go to the Super Bowl and the boy pulled out two sheets of green construction paper that he had drawn Super Bowl tickets on.
Dorenbos kept the tickets until months later, when the father asked him to be at the hospital for his son. The football player obliged and when he arrived, was greeted with an energetic Joey, telling him that it was Super Bowl day. Dorenbos was honest with the boy and explained that the Super Bowl was in February, but Joey corrected him saying that it has been 6 months and 1 day since the doctors told him he had 6 months to live.
The story touched everyone in the audience and Dorenbos lightened the mood a little bit with another card trick before telling another story about learning to fly a plane. He goes on to tell listeners that his Aunt sang a song at his mother’s funeral. That song was “Wind Beneath My Wings,” released by Bette Midler. Dorenbos tells the crowd that one line of the song stuck with him in particular. That line goes “I can fly higher than an eagle, for you are the wind beneath my wings.” This meant a great deal to Dorenbos, enough that one day he needed to fly higher than an eagle for his mother.
He did the research and learned that eagles flew at 10,000 feet, so he went to flight school and told them he needed to fly at 11,000 feet. With years of training under his belt, and plenty of hours logged flying a plane, he finally met a cruising altitude of 11,000 feet. He played the Bette Midler song, and had a picture of his mother ready for the moment that he flew higher than an eagle.
After he touched the heart of every single person in the room for the second time in an hour, he moved onto his final tricks. He started with his finale trick for America’s Got Talent, but not without making a few changes to fit the Ocean City crowd. Instead of judges signing cards, he used the four kings to represent finding yourself, no matter what happens in life.
He moved onto the next trick and asked members of the audience to participate by snapping a football onto a map of The United States. Each state was recorded and when all was done, an envelope that was sealed before the trick was taken from the map. Inside the envelope was four quarters, each one had a different state on the back and corresponded with a state that was hit by each of the four audience member’s snaps.
For his last trick, Dorenbos asked a mother and daughter to the stage to pick a card. The card chosen was an ace of spades. The daughter held the card while the mother used spray paint to follow directions written in four sealed envelopes on the table. After all of the directions were followed, Dorenbos asked the audience members to reach under their seat and pull out the finished product. The innermost seat of each row had enough envelopes for the whole row, and when passed out the envelopes revealed a picture of the finished product that was painted on stage.
To say the night was mesmerizing is an understatement. Fans of Dorenbos had a blast, and anyone who wasn’t a fan going into the show definitely walked out a fan. The football player and magician sure proved that the title of magician comes with some pretty spectacular abilities. Dorenbos and Sasso put on a fantastic show and it was one of the most magical nights of the summer so far! It has only just started but I think this night will be a hard one to beat this summer.
