The Elephant Gun is a short vaudeville skit, aka. quick blackout. I first saw it on The Red Skelton Show episode, Red Skelton Scrapbook 66. It goes like this:
Props required:
- 2 toy rifles
- A toy or stuffed duck, rubber chicken, etc.
- A stuffed or inflated toy elephant
- Pith helmet for the explorer (optional)
Skit
An African explorer (clown in pith helmet, etc.) walks across the stage, commenting to his companion about their hunting safari. He stops, puts his hand over his eye as though looking into the distance and says, “Quick! Hand me my elephant gun!” The companion hands him one of the two rifles.
The explorer clown fires in the distance. From off stage, someone throws a toy duck, rubber chick, etc. on stage, as if it’s been shot down.
“No! I said the elephant gun!” Companion hands him the other rifle, he shoots again. This time, a stuffed elephant falls!
Editor’s note
Few of us will have a life-sized elephant prop 🙂 I actually have a large stuffed toy elephant, “Nellie”, that I could use for this.
If you want, you could actually get a fairly large inflatable one … (this one’s available from Amazon, but wherever you can find one …)