My Kingdom for a Burger! Mike Randall-secrets of a Marvelous Magical Burger King! It's the universal rule for an actor. Audition for everything. The ad in the classifieds read "actor to learn magic, travel and perform" or something like that. The "actor" part sounded good and the "learn magic" part was something I had always wanted to do, so I went to the audition. It wasn't a stage or studio or even a rehearsal hall. It was the local corporate office of Burger King. I was introduced to Harrison Woodruff -a "suit" in charge of local marketing. His job up until this point had been to decide what kind of toys the local Burger Kings would pass out with the Kid's Meals. Later, when he was functioning as my "agent" I was to discover that Harrison was knocking down 28 GRAND a year plus a company car and all the free "gulp and gag" (the affectionate way we folks in the fast food biz refer to the product) he could handle! That's when 28 Big Ones-was a "King's Ransom" to me. At that stage of my career I'd have easily swapped my crown for his car! Harrison introduced me to Tony Hassini. Tony had dark exotic features, wild black hair, a thick mysterious accent and a quiet self confidence. Tony was a REAL magician! He had performed in Vegas, won magician awards and his best trick was he had turned his love of magic into a special effects company. His client was J. Walter Thompson and he had created all of that magic and special effects that were used in the Burger King commercials. Tony worked with the "real" Marvelous Magical Burger King in New York City-and sometimes when you saw the Burger King doing a trick in a commercial it was actually Tony's hands pulling off the difficult prestidigitation. 
Tony's mission was to select 10 kings from 10 different cities to train and turn lose to perform at Burger King restaurants all across the Eastern States. Audiences of course were to believe that the King Clones were the "genuine article" from television. If I were chosen I'd represent Western and Central New York and Northern Pennsylvania. 10 other Kings had already been trained and sent out on the West Coast. The new Burger King commercials had been playing nationwide for several months. The Corporation had begun to put a dent in the kid's market of burgers that had been owned for years by THE CLOWN. Creating serious competition for THE CLOWN was the true but secret mission of the "Marvelous Magical Burger King"! He made French fries vanish and musical instruments play them selves, he could sing to children while at the same time performing minor miracles to rival Copperfield's repertoire! And best of all, he wasn't just a clown! The marketing strategy was to jump on this new recognition with the "King Program", a way to take their new TV Star on the road, making as many as 75 LIVE appearances in week. That would be an impossible task for one King, even a magical one, but for 20 kings working both sides of the country, not only was it not impossible, it was a way to turn the MMBK into the next America Idol! Tony explained that there were dozens of amateur magicians around (I think he was wrong about that-I think there are actually billions) but he felt he'd rather work with an actor, a "clean slate" and teach the magic, the moves and staging to someone who could learn quickly. There would be no "bad habits" to break and eventually he'd have ten Kings who were performing the exact same show according to the script. For the audition, I think I did some character voices for him, a little Mark Twain and some singing. Then he pulled out two scarves and performed one of the coolest tricks I had ever seen up close. It's a trick called "20th Century Silks", a trick that I would go on to learn, master and perform thousands of times. Watching him the first time and listening to the dialogue (magician's call it patter) I knew right away I was going to get this job. I knew from the way Tony carefully revealed the secret of the trick, that he wanted me to be his Buffalo Burger King. From the moment I met Tony, I felt that he was rooting for me. After the demo, his explanation of the trick and a few extra pointers he passed me the handkerchiefs. It was my turn. I mimicked him move for move and as a little added twist I did the patter in his Turkish accent. I floored him. He said no one had ever picked up the trick that fast, or been able to perform it as smoothly without spoiling the secret the first time out. Tony Hassini said I was "a natural". Tony and I would go on to be fast friends. Teacher and student. He took me under his wing, into his home and shared his stories and his knowledge of magic. Harrison Woodruff didn't want me, but he didn't have much to say about it. In retrospect, I probably wasn't as humble and quiet or pimply as the typical Burger King hire, or maybe Harrison had a friend who did cards tricks and was banking on his buddy for this "cake job". He didn't like me, I didn't like him but Tony had found his King, Harrison had to live with it, and I proceeded to take on one of the most challenging and fun acting assignments of my life. "Actors aren't supposed to be concerned about money". "Actor's act because they have no other choice". "Actors who want to make money should go be car dealers or sell insurance". Those are the lies that actors learn in college. It's easy for college theatre professors to perpetuate those lies because they never have to feed themselves or their families with their ability to dazzle an audience. Those who can..... The Marvelous Magical Burger King job would pay $100 per appearance with the possibility of 3 or 4 appearances per week and a per diem for hotel costs and reimbursement of mileage. To an actor who was used to getting $125 a week playing 6 shows a week of "Ladies Night In a Turkish Bath" in dinner-theatre, this Burger King gig was like hitting the power ball sweepstakes. This was in "Wheel Of Fortune" speak "BIG MONEY!" Just a few weeks after the audition the newly selected Kings assembled at a hotel in New York City. There were five of us representing Buffalo, Cleveland, New York, Pittsburgh and Boston. Tony and his helpers would train us and send us off on the road and then go on to select his next five Kings. We spent a week learning the tricks and the patter to two 20-minute presentations. At night Tony took us wide-eyed King Kids around to see the sights of the Big Apple. Each King was outfitted with a trunk load of magic and two sets of professionally made costumes and wigs. They brought in a big shot from Max Factor named Bruce to show us how to glue on our fake beard and mustache. He insisted that I shave my real mustache, so the fake one would adhere properly. I explained to him that Max Factor didn't make very good spirit gum and that if I were to use Stein's spirit gum, the fake mustache would stick just fine over my real mustache. Unfortunately the big shot from Max Factor didn't sell Stein's spirit gum and I was sent back to my room to shave my mustache. I like to tell myself that it was for my art, but I know it was for the $100 bucks a show!! When we got home to our prospective markets, our corporate offices had selected, ordered and now had in their possession, our STAGE! Mine was a pop-up trailer, with lots of color, plenty of signage and a built in sound system-it was a modern day equivalent of the medicine show wagon-and the Burger King could have just as easily have been hawking snake oil as onion rings! We were allowed to select our own stage manager. He would get $50 bucks a show plus all the goodies the King got-except that the stage manager would have to set the stage up before each show, run the sound system and music and act as bouncer if any of the kids or parents got too rowdy. I picked my brother David for the job and he's hated me for it ever since. I think it's because he threw his back out moving the stage around, and because that summer he ate enough Whoppers to last him two lifetimes! The actual performance took place in the Burger King parking lot. The appearance would consist of three 20 minute shows, split up by two LONG periods of shaking hands with children, pulling coins out of their ears, posing for pictures and passing out gifts-sort of like a young Santa in the summer with endless lines of children filing up, across and then off the stage. Did I mention that there was no bathroom on the stage? The BK had to put his costume and make-up on in the manager's office or in the stockroom amongst the paper cups and huge cans of ketchup. At the appointed time the King made his way to the stage where he stayed for three hours with no break and no bathroom! Dressed in a flannel outfit with a bushel of stage hair glued on and a heavy cape was more than a little stifling when temperatures hit 85 and 90. The reason we were given two sets of costumes became almost instantaneously clear. It took almost 24 hours for the sweat to evaporate from one of them following a show! Two young female burger flippers from the store were selected before each show to act as The Burger King's lovely assistants. Since the shows were in the parking lot of the restaurants, the audience would have to stand for the entire show. That didn't seem to matter. Parents would get there sometimes hours before the appearance. Some would stay for the entire three-hour event and proceed to drag their kids up (even when they fought it) to meet the BK. In small towns like Tyrone, PA, the company would take out a full-page ad announcing the appearance and in some cases thousands of people would show up. It was like being Bruce Sprinstein , if Bruce Springstein could do magic! I'd learned my lessons well. Very shortly into my new role Tony Hassini called and asked me to come to New York to help him train the next five kings. Come to find out, he'd fired the Max Factor guy with the crappy spirit gum and wanted to teach the new Kings how do their make-up right. I was honored-which means I did it for nothing-although Tony did pick up my expenses. What was really fun was that while I was there training this new batch of Kings, Tony set up a show for me to do at his kid's school and he videotaped it. It was a heady experience being the "teacher's pet". I got to know Tony's wife and kids and was invited back to New York several times to visit. Tony had dozens of wonderful stories, but one of my favorites was how he had come to this country as a teen-ager from Turkey. He got to New York City with nothing but a few bucks and his knowledge of magic. Buying a few supplies, he quickly put together some "dancing matchbox" tricks and sold them by demonstrating them on the street corner. That night he was able to buy a hot meal and spend the night in a hotel. The next day he bought more matchboxes etc. and the rest was history. It was a Real Horatio Alger tale. Knowing Tony there may be even a little bit of truth to it! That first summer I did fairly well with the Burger King set up. I was newly married and the cash came in handy. By the second summer, my brother David had quit and I hired my neighbor to stage-manage. I got a raise, Harrison was booking more shows and the season lasted about 6 months, from Spring until Fall. Tony called one day and said that he had pulled some strings and got me a New York State lottery commercial. It would pay residuals and be shown all over the North East. I asked him "what kind of strings?" The commercial required some magic. The spokes person would pull burning lottery tickets from his pockets and extinguish them buy putting them in other pockets. Tony had told the ad agency that there were only three people in the world who could do that trick."one lives in England and doesn't like to travel, one is in his eighties and is too old and the other is Mike Randall and he lives in Buffalo, and I think he's available" I still had to fly in and meet all the people, director, producer etc. They decided I could do it and so I flew to New York City and spent the day in a studio shooting the commercial. There had to be 60 people fussing around me all day long. My suit was duct taped in all the right places so there would be no wrinkles and Tony took care of the magic. The suit pockets were lined with asbestos and the lottery tickets themselves were metal facsimiles with silent electric lighters mounted on the backs. Tough trick right? A baby could have done it. The director had me for the day, so we spent all day, reciting the lines, lighting lottery tickets and putting them in my pockets. The commercial ran for two weeks until the State Fire Marshall had it yanked off the air because it was a "bad example" to children. That was it, no residuals. The spot did make it as a news item on the Nightly News with Walter Cronkite! And some other things came out of it. The director told me to give him a buzz if I ever got back to New York, and Tony started acting like my manager trying to hook me up with an agency. We got one interested, so my new wife and I loaded up a u-haul and moved to Belleville, New Jersey. That was about 20 minutes from THE CITY. I started going on "go sees", got a job at the Claremont Dinner and played New York City starving actor for a few months. I hated it. I hated the rejection. I hated the people associated with "the biz" and mostly I hated being poor. Not long after, I was back on the road with my Mark Twain show playing theatres with funny names like the "Barn" "Ike Murray's Playhouse" and "Olde West Dinner Theatre". It was a difficult time. I went to turn in my notice at the Burger King corporate office. Mind you I had worked for these people for two years as an Independent Contractor-no benefits. I'd performed from one end of PA to the other and all across New York State, in tiny towns and villages I can't even remember the names of-hundreds of shows, but I was wanting to move ahead in my career. They got nasty. They told me "you'll never work again". I laughed. I still laugh when I think back on it. Epilogue Magic taught me that there is more to theatre than just scripts and actors. Theatre is an exchange between people. Theatre-can be anywhere, anytime and under any conditions. Playing the Burger King helped me to learn to connect with kids. They are a difficult audience for magic especially, but when you have entertained them-they are so grateful. Many of the children I performed for in those backwater towns in PA had never seen a live performance of anything-and many probably haven't since. It was a rare, humbling and profoundly fulfilling experience to perform for those kids. I will never forget as long as I live. In the few years in the late 1970's that the "King Program" was around there were no more than 20 or so "Kings". The 10 that Tony Hassini trained and then the 10 that were trained by the famous magic icon Mark Wilson. There were a couple Kings who have become "famous" since their Burger Days. Atlanta magician Dan Garrett 
who has become nationallyrecognized for his great talent and his excellent magic products-truth is-he never really had to be "trained" as a King-Dan was born with magic in his blood! Then there is Geoffrey Giuliano who was a King and Ronald McDonald and went on to pen several books about the Beatles and eventually became a radical vegetarian spokesman against burger joints. I guess we need those too! I thank Tony Hassini for his confidence in me and for being the one person in showbiz who really wanted to help me out and didn't want something in return. 
During the Marvelous Magical Burger King hay day they were thinking of replacing Fred Barns-the original TV Burger King and Tony lobbied for me to get the gig. It didn't happen-but it wasn't for Tony's lack of trying for me! Eventually we lost track of each other. A couple times in the decades since, he'd call, I'd call, we'd catch up and then retreat back into our lives such as they were. A couple years ago there was a National Magic Convention in town. In was in the Hotel right across the street from my "day job" and Tony was there selling memberships in the "International Magicians Club". We had dinner together. He hadn't changed. His kids were grown, he was remarried, but he was still making magic. We had a ball reliving the "good old days"-the laughs and remembering how it all began. More than 30 years later I think I can recall every word of the Burger King Magic show and I still love performing for kids of all ages even without wearing the King costume and the red hair!! FALL 2006 |
Mark Twain
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