- In the days of King Arthur, they lived in Camelot, A source who entertained the royal court with miraculous feet south, magic high.

Above the castle walls, the ancient ne meets with members of the magic round table.

Come with us now to the secret room of, - Oh, - That's terrible.

Gee whiz.

Well, welcome to the secret room.

Nice to see you.

Wait a minute.

What?

I, I I'm the one who says, welcome to the, to the secret room.

Oh, sorry.

After all, say Nerland.

Hey.

Hey, Nerland.

Hey.

What, what?

You don't look so good.

You, you, you, you look kind of, you look sick.

I look sick.

Yeah, you don't look good.

Let's see your tongue.

All right.

What's a minute?

That, look, that looks awful.

You, you, you should, you should really, really go to a doctor and, and do something about that.

Yes.

You look dead.

Well, I did go to a doctor.

I went to a doctor quite recently, as a matter of fact.

You did?

Really?

What did he say?

Well, he had me take some iron pills.

I'm taking iron.

What?

I'm taking iron.

Well, gee whiz.

No wonder you look like that.

What do you mean you look kinda rusty?

Oh, come on now.

Oh, that, that, that's a little joke.

A little joke.

You get it.

Iron rusty.

I get it.

I get it.

Now I'm gonna do a little trick over here.

So I want you to pay very, very close attention.

Okay?

You watch what I'm doing?

I said I'd look at it.

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

Do your old trick.

Alright, I'm going over here.

See you later.

Alright.

We have something that you'll find around every house, I'm sure.

Namely this item.

You know what that is, right?

It's a safety pin and your baby brother or sister undoubtedly have them.

But this is an exceptionally large safety pin.

And today I'd like to show you that you can use items around the house.

Not that I want you to play with pins, but there are many items around the house that can, you can use for magic.

You don't have to go out and buy real expensive equipment.

Now, I'm also going to use my 20th century glasses because these items are very small and old.

Merlin, well, he, he just can't see too well anymore.

Now, you can do tricks with coins, cards, rope, hankies, handkerchiefs around the house.

You don't have to go out and buy expensive things.

If you go to your local library, you can look up tricks with, oh, every type of object imaginable.

Now you've seen me do the Chinese linking rings.

I'm going to do the same thing with these horse blankets, safety pins.

This is one pin, open and close.

And this is a second pin, which I shall open and close.

And this is the third pin.

Are you paying attention, Jack?

Just as I suspect that he's sound asleep.

Well, we'll let him sleep and you'll watch me.

I know you'll pay attention.

You, you'll watch me do this trick.

And we have the third safety pin.

Now, if you've seen the Chinese linking rings, you know we link 12 inch rings, foot diameter rings made of solid steel by magic.

I'm going to try to do the same thing.

Link and unlink these safety pins by magic.

We'll start by by linking them together first.

Now we have two linked right here.

Alright?

And now we shall link the third one.

Now, it'd be very easy to take them apart by, by opening the hasp right here.

But I'm not going to do that.

I'm gonna try to do it magically, which is just a little different.

If I would just rub them and heat them a little, perhaps they'll come undone.

You see, I didn't open it.

It came undone without me opening it.

Now we have these two that are tightly fastened, right?

Tightly fastened.

I wonder if I can just rub them apart also, do you suppose still fastened?

And this one fastened?

Well, certainly if we can take the rings apart, magically, we can put them together magically by rubbing them.

Oh, these two are fastened together, solidly linked.

I wonder if I can make one more.

These two are linked.

Now let's try the third.

And sure enough, that is fastened also, three rings linked together by magic.

Now I did it fast this time, I'm going to do it slow here.

You see, it's solidly linked.

Now it's only gonna take a split second, I'll say fiddly die fiddly.

D magic ring on link for me.

Actually, it's a safety pin.

We're pretending to use the Chinese linking rings.

I'll just snap it and you'll see it melt through there before your very eyes.

1, 2, 3.

And it came unlinked.

We didn't unfasten it, but it came unlinked, right?

Do you suppose that can happen again?

Oh my, I hope this trick works.

Two more rings, solidly linked together.

See if we can unlink it by magic.

1, 2, 3, Philly die.

Philly D magic pins.

Come unlinked for me.

And there you have it.

The linking safety pins, ordinary items that you find around the house.

And only if you're old enough should you use large safety pins.

They're not toys, no sharp objects.

Our toys, from time to time we'll do tricks with domestic items, handkerchiefs, sugar cubes, Popsicle sticks, anything you might find.

And I, I hope you enjoy this type of magic.

We're long overdue to make ize, so I'd better get right to it.

Will you help me?

Alright, here we go.

Billy, die Philly D, magic sword.

Rise for me.

All that is such a long word.

Communications.

Communications.

You know what that means to communicate.

It means to give a message or a thought or an idea to another person to make him understand what you're saying or thinking.

Communications, usually.

Now I communicate with the with the magic sketch pad, but I don't see it.

You have any idea where it is?

Jack?

The jester's asleep.

I don't think he took the, oh, there's a sketch pad way at the other end of the room.

Will you please come over here?

Come on.

That's very good indeed.

I couldn't get along without the magic sketch pad.

Now I'm gonna draw on the paper right over that isn't paper, that's chalk.

Turn around.

You refuse to turn around.

Oh, what's that?

I forgot to say.

Please, will you please turn around?

Please, is a magic word, isn't it?

It certainly is.

Say it often.

And when you say please really mean it, you know, early man didn't communicate too well.

He just used grunts and sign language.

But finally he became proud of the things he did, the hunt.

And he wanted to brag a little.

So he learned to write up upon the, the cave wall and a drawing such as this was found on a cave wall in France, very crudely drawn animal of some kind.

And in the side of that animal was found, believe it or not, was found a spear.

So we gathered that this particular early man, this caveman, killed this animal and reflected that or showed that by the spear that was sticking in its side.

Well, that is called a picture drawing.

And that's how he communicated.

But later on, he wanted to send drawings faster.

So he made quick short symbols.

And the American Indians from your America did a very good job of that.

And I'm gonna show you some of their symbols.

Perhaps you can guess how they communicated in writing.

You know what this might be.

Well, that's a sun.

So it meant a day.

DAY is day.

And this is a crescent for the moon.

And that mint night, N-I-G-H-T-I bet you know what this is.

Wavy lines mean water.

Either a river or a lake.

And if you had the letter A turned upside down, that meant a cow.

One of the Indian's cows, if he was talking about several cows, he'd draw vertical lines that meant four cows.

Okay, I'm gonna tear this piece of paper off and see if you can guess at this one.

What do you think this meant?

Well, that was a tree.

If he wanted to talk about a forest, he usually drew a lot of trees, three or more.

So it was pretty easy to understand his symbol drawing or his sign language.

Now, since that, of course, the alphabet has come into being, you know, the alphabet, your ABCs and man can phonetically speak by sounds A is an A or an A sound.

B is a B sound.

So now man can sound out his words.

And it's much, much easier to talk that way with our phonetic alphabet.

But believe it or not, you know, there's still, there still are symbols today in your America.

And they're used just in the manner that the early Indians use them.

Perhaps you'd know what this means, this symbol.

What if you saw a round pole hole with red and white stripes on it?

What would that mean to you?

Well, that would mean a barbershop, right?

What if you saw this?

A glass bottle shaped like that.

That would be the name of a certain soft drink, wouldn't it?

See, you read symbols every day and don't, don't realize it.

They've come way down from early times, from early man.

What if you're out driving in your car and you see this symbol on a sign?

What does that mean?

That means an intersection or a crossroad.

How about this one?

A sign with eight sides?

That would be called octagonal, wouldn't it?

That's a stop sign.

That means to stop.

And what if you saw a sign with a wavy line going down like that?

What would that mean?

That would mean a curved road.

And you know, there are even more interesting symbols that you find in your textbook.

How about this?

That's a period that means the end of a sentence.

How about this?

That's a question, a question mark.

And what does this mean?

Well, some of you who are older know that is a divide sign that means to divide.

This is a plus symbol it means to add.

And this is a minus symbol it means to subtract.

There are a lot of symbols in year 20th century America.

And I hope that you realize every time you look at one, the great progress that man has made since the early, since the early caveman, and the fellow who wrote those complicated pictures on the cave wall, we progressed.

What's, what's this young man?

This is Mike.

The page?

Yes, Mike, I can't hear you.

Hmm hmm.

Sounds like a caveman talking.

Yes, you.

I guess he means you.

You want something to drink water?

Who's gonna get you the water?

I am gonna get you the water.

Where?

Over here.

Well drink it in good health, Mike.

Thank you, Mike.

The page.

Believe it or not, that is how the early caveman would've communicated if he wanted something to drink with symbols by grunts and giggles and signs.

We've improved a lot now and we have books, and we have good teachers and good instructors.

And I hope you avail yourself and use both very, very diligently.

Use your books, study hard, and make your mother and dad real proud of you.

Will you do that for me?

See you soon.

Bye now I'm going to talk to Jack.

He sound asleep, but I'm gonna talk to him.

Goodbye now, Jack I Merlin was produced in the studios of Ohio University Television, Athens, Ohio.