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Thursday, February 27, 2025

Michael C. Anthony Humiliates Hypnotized Volunteers, Entertains Crowd

Molnar Auditorium in Wygal Hall was abuzz Friday night as students hurried in to see the hypnotic stylings of Michael C. Anthony.

After a quick sales pitch, he moved right into his hilarious show with a card trick that left the volunteer from the audience stunned, and the rest of the audience in hysterics.

But that was just the beginning, after a quick warning about how everything he was doing was completely safe and only for the enjoyment of the audience and himself, Anthony launched into a hilarious story about one of his past shows.

The story was about how, as he told everyone onstage to get comfortable and stretch out for a nice nap, much to his surprise, one of the girls reached up her sweatshirt sleeve and pulled out her bra.

On that note, he opened the stage up for volunteers, and students practically stampeded onstage to get their chance to be hypnotized.

It didn’t take long for the volunteers to get deep into Anthony’s trance, and less than five minutes into the show, a girl had already fallen out of her chair.

It only got better from there, though. Before you knew it, all 30 volunteers were slumped on the ground in a deep sleep. Well, almost all of them were on the floor, a few girls at the edge of the stage had somehow fallen asleep on top of each other. And while they were asleep, Anthony convinced them that every time he said the word “ouch,” they were to believe the person beside them had pinched their butt. This would later lead to some heated arguments onstage.

But first, Anthony was determined to prove to the audience that the hypnotized volunteers were incredibly gullible. One guy gave up his belt, and with a few explanations and sound effects, the volunteers were convinced that it was a snake. In fact, every time he made a hissing noise, the volunteers onstage ran away in terror, and one girl was even brought to tears.

Let’s not forget the classic renaming of one of the volunteers. Anthony had one man onstage convinced that his name was “Cha- Cha” and not only that, but so was his father’s and grandfather’s. So of course, Anthony messed with him throughout the remainder of the show by pretending to mess up his name, which highly offended “Cha- Cha.

Another volunteer was completely convinced that the number six didn’t exist. So when she tried to count to 10 using all of her fingers, she was completely befuddled and after a few more tries, she was almost in tears.

Anthony didn’t stop there, though. He then convinced one of the girls that every time he said the word “safety,” everyone onstage was in danger, and it was her job to jump across them and act like a human seatbelt.

These strange instances continued throughout the rest of the show with a few more aspects added in for his own pleasure.

For example, the auditorium was filled with music, and the volunteers were convinced that they were competing for one million dollars in a dance competition. At one point, Anthony also had everyone convinced that he was completely naked. This didn’t go over very well with a few of the female volunteers, and they even gave him their hoodies and forced him to sit down to cover himself.

Finally, for his last little trick, Anthony convinced all of the volunteers that the hypnosis had not worked on them at all, and that he had completely wasted their time. But as soon as they stepped offstage, everything that had happened in the past hour would come back to them.

This proved to be incredibly hilarious for the audience members as they watched the expressions of each volunteer go from angry to downright horrified in the blink of an eye as they realized everything that had happened. Many volunteers’ eyes became huge as they took one look at the expectant faces in the audience and then a look back at Anthony.

Volunteer Mary Beith described the occurrences of her time on stage by saying, “I felt like I was in some kind of trance, like I was sleepwalking, but I couldn’t do anything about it. It was really weird, and when I came offstage, I felt completely rested, like I’d just gotten an amazing night’s sleep.”

So it was a win-win night for everyone involved. The volunteers got a great night’s sleep, and the audience got a great ab workout from all the laughing they did.