Meet Mr. Twisty
Hi, I'm Chad.
On stage I'm
Mr. Twisty.
Clean magician for 47 years — performing since I was 10 years old. Created Mr. Twisty in 1997. 10,000+ shows later, this is still the best job in the world. The laugh is the greatest paycheck. The other kind's also welcome.
10,000+ shows. Same job: this.
How I Became Mr. Twisty.
I've been a magician since I was a little kid. I was trying desperately to be like the famous magicians of the day — David Copperfield, Doug Henning, Siegfried & Roy. But it wasn't me. At all.
What I always loved was telling stories, doing comedy, getting kids involved. Sometimes for the kids, sometimes for the adults — but always SUPER CLEAN.
One day at a talent showcase I was one of three magicians. Each of the others had a big animal in their show — a real show stopper. I couldn't compete with that. I was basically doing stand-up comedy dressed like a magician, using magic props as comedy props. A skilled illusionist I am not.
So I grabbed a silly hat from a friend, put on mismatched sneakers, and went on stage that night as me. Genuinely me. Mr. Twisty was born that night. Part magician. Part comedian. Part clown — no makeup. No one can really classify me. I'm just Mr. Twisty.
Bill Hart taught me the comedy.
My dear friend and mentor Bill Hart — better known as Snappy the Clown — taught me the comedy balloon bit. The first time I made a basic three-twist balloon dog for a child assistant on stage, her eyes lit up like real magic had just happened. I was hooked.
I started getting hired to make balloons at events. My repertoire was small — very small. My wife still reminds me that whatever I made looked like a dog. But it kept growing. The dressing-like-a-magician thing drifted into a costume. The comedy got sharper. Mr. Twisty took off in the early 2000s.
I've been working my comedy craft every hour of every day since. I'm born to perform. I just love an audience.
Three Things I Believe About Kids.
Because you can tell a lot about an entertainer by what they think the audience deserves.
Kids are smart.
My comedy sees them for who they are. It doesn't play down to them. They notice the difference instantly, and they reward you for it.
Kids get to be kids.
They make noise. They wiggle. They shout the right answer, the wrong answer, and things they invented on the spot. They heckle me — I count on it. The audience IS the show, and that's half of why kids remember it. (For audiences that prefer a quieter version, just ask. I adjust.)
I genuinely enjoy their company.
I like performing for kids and I like hanging out with them. They see I'm happy to be there. That's half the show right there.
And then there's Penny.
Penny is a dachshund and a star. She's the second performing sidekick of my career — Izzy graced the stage with me for sixteen years. Penny loves to perform too. Mr. Twisty, on brand, tries to make a rabbit appear and makes Penny appear instead.
She does a bunch of funny tricks and then a meet-and-greet. She is, candidly, the star of the show. I just show up because she can't drive.
Big men with facial hair come up to me after shows and baby-talk Penny. Skeptical teens who hid their laughter through the magic lose it for the dog. Little kids treat her like a magical superhero from a TV show they already know.
The night I introduced the Jonas Brothers.
During my seven years on Radio Disney I was the first person to introduce the Jonas Brothers live on stage. I made the team mascot appear in front of 15,000 fans at the Knickerbocker Arena (now MVP Arena) for the season opener after the Albany Firebirds had won the championship the year before.
I performed for the Royal Family of Saudi Arabia at an amusement park they owned in Nice, France. I was the pre-show hype man for Nickelodeon's Slime Time Live. Festivals on stage in front of hundreds or thousands of laughing people is the best feeling I know.
But honestly? I'm a performer. I just need an audience. Twenty kids in a backyard counts. A cafeteria of second-graders counts. 10,000+ shows in, that hasn't changed.
Mr. Twisty backstage on production shoots — in the studio and on location.
And One Story That Did Not Go Well.
I was 16 years old. Performing in a night club where you had to be 21 to get in but I was allowed because I was the entertainment. I had NO IDEA what a night club crowd wanted. I took the stage as a polished sixteen-year-old, but a sixteen-year-old, and NO ONE — and I mean no one — wanted to see magic.
I borrowed a $20 bill from a really big guy in the front row. I made it vanish. It was supposed to reappear in an envelope. The envelope accidentally caught fire with the bill still in it. What was supposed to happen over the next 15 minutes got compressed into about 30 seconds when the guy rushed the stage.
I didn't try a night club again for a long time. Today I work festivals, libraries, corporate family days, school assemblies, and birthday parties. I do not work night clubs. There is wisdom in that.
I built a place called Twisty Town.
A free digital playground for kids Pre-K through 5th grade. Eight zones — a library, a treehouse for read-aloud stories, a story generator, a comedy clubhouse, a book bindery, and more. The YouTube show in the Treehouse zone, Storytime Adventures, has 45K subscribers and 1M+ views. The whole thing wraps a real mission: I want kids to see reading as fun. Adventure on call. Not as homework.
I'm a published author of 9 books. My mom was an elementary school librarian and I literally grew up in her library. That's been the through-line for everything I do.