How did the Orlando Magic’s mascot pull off this magic trick?

The job of a mascot is to entertain and delight, but I had no idea the Orlando Magic had a real-life magician on their staff to don their suit.

It’s blowing everyone’s mind. The internet is struggling to comprehend this trick, and with good cause — it’s a crowd pleaser that challenges our perception and expectations. Now, for anyone who knows magic you’ll know the basics of the ‘multiplying bottles,’ but that doesn’t make this any less impressive.

The real beauty of how this trick is done comes from the environment and difficulty pulling it off when you’re a mascot. Firstly, Stuff (that’s the mascot’s name FYI), is at center court, rather than on a stage. There are people able to see the illusion from every angle, so his technique needs to be on point. Then you have the actual sleight of hand, which has to be performed with clumsy, fat mascot fingers. That in itself is tremendously difficult. Finally you have the pressure of the moment. Thousands are watching you at the arena, millions are going to see this on the internet if you screw up — but Stuff nails it.

I’m in awe.

I think what I appreciate most is the adherence to team name and purpose. This is the Orlando Magic, obviously it’s good to have some magic. I think every team should be required to have at least one example a season of their mascot embodying the team name. I need to see Jazz Bear break out a Miles Davis trumpet solo. Rocky the Mountain Lion should pan for gold at halftime to find a nugget. Benny the Bull should run through a china shop. You get the picture here.

For now we can just give maximum credit to Stuff for doing great magic during a Magic game.

You’ve been warned. Okay ... ready?

So the trick hinges on there being multiple nested bottles inside the tube. They might look like ordinary wine bottles, but they’re very carefully engineered duplicates that have almost no thickness. This ensures they neatly compress together.

Then, when the magician is lifting the tube they simply slide their finger up and down the neck of the bottle with different depths and pressure to control how many of the bottles are revealed to the audience, while the rest are lifted up with the tube.

Now, it should be noted that this is a very easy illusion if you’re a magician who’s barehanded or wearing thin cloth gloves, but this would have been near-impossible to pull off in mascot hands without a tremendous amount of practice. That’s where the beauty in this is.