with David Letterman, and magicians and audiences alike were stumped as to how he pulled it off. He even made a fake X-ray of his stomach showing it full of cigarettes and tissues, which he displayed at the Tomfoolery to throw people off more.
In 1980, Mullica’ s childhood hero Red Skelton stayed in Atlanta, and Mullica called his hotel to confirm that he was actually there. He was mistakenly put through to Skelton’ s room, and ended up inviting him to come and see a show at the Tom-foolery.
To everyone’ s surprise, Red Skelton showed up and enjoyed the performance, and Mullica became good friends with his idol. Skelton’ s advice was a huge influence on Mullica. Mullica said:“ He told me‘ You’ re a very talented man but you’ re doing some blue material. You’ re very clever, you don’ t need that dirty stuff. Who’ s going to pay money to hear something that you can read for free on a bathroom wall? The people that have longevity are the ones who keep their acts clean.’ My style of humor changed that very night.”
Mullica came to view Red Skelton as a father figure, since he was never very close to his real dad. He took all of Skelton’ s advice to heart, so when the Tom-foolery eventually closed in 1987, Mullica followed the advice of Skelton and trained to perform his act to pantomime music, so that he could break down any language barriers audiences may have.
He moved to Paris, France and worked at The Crazy Horse Saloon for four years using his new act, before moving back to America to restart the Tom-foolery. Mullica grew tired of doing the same work, though, and he was finding it hard to compete with the new trend of comedy clubs in Atlanta. His rent, which was only $ 800 a month in the 80s, was about to skyrocket to $ 3000 a month. His career was waning, so when Red Skelton died in 1997, he decided he had to carry on that style of performing.
He spent eight months writing his own material and building his own props for his tribute act – RED( A Performance Tribute). The one-man show sold well throughout the US and Canada, and eventually Red Skelton’ s widow licensed Mullica so that he was the only legally certified Red Skelton tribute artist.
His show received critical acclaim, with audience reviews saying things like“ I was crying from laughing so hard! This was simply a wonderful hilarious show!” He performed RED for over 17 years, but in 2015 he felt the show had run its course, and formulated plans to possibly start up a new Tom-foolery. He also focused on pickpocketing tricks, and performed these at several magic conventions.
Unfortunately, after being diagnosed with leukemia in 2010, his health deteriorated, and he died on February 18, 2016 following complications from a routine hernia operation.
His gravestone displays a verse from the song Make Someone Happy by Jimmy Durante. He felt it summed up his career, and his life in general.“ Make someone happy, make just one someone happy, and YOU will be happy too.”
Tom Mullica definitely made more than just one someone happy.
Throughout his long career as a comedy magician, he discovered the great relationship humor could have with magic. He made audiences laugh until they cried, and puzzled even the greatest magicians with his famous tricks. A true showman, Tom Mullica lived an incredible life, and his name is sure to be famous within the magic community for years to come.
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