Let's talk about Sneaky Pete's Magic Show, a Remco toy that was among the favored Christmas/Hanukkah (we celebrated everything) gifts of my youth. I'm guessing I was eight the year I got mine and I loved it, though I can't recall ever using it to put on a show for anyone. It was just knowing how to do the tricks — knowing I could do them — that mattered, though I was never quite able to master the cups-and-balls. There was no gimmick to the cups-and-balls, apart from the fact that you actually had one more ball than an onlooker might think. The cups-and-balls required practice and dexterity and at that age, I was looking for more immediate gratification and easier answers to the mysteries of the world.
There was also the disappointment of the sawing-a-lady-in-half trick promised on the box and in the commercials. The set came with a little plastic harem girl, a rack on which you'd place her, and a special sword. The figure was made with some kind of internal wheel that allowed the sword to actually pass through the stomach seam without damaging the doll. It was surely the greatest feat of engineering managed by the Remco folks (the other tricks were pretty basic ones) but it was the least satisfying to me. It didn't relate to the way I saw Mark Wilson sawing women in half on his TV show, The Magic Land of Allakazam, didn't show me how he bisected his wife/assistant, Nani Darnell. She didn't have one of those little wheels inside her.
Believe it or not, that's just about my most painful Christmas memory. I had it pretty good. I wish the same for you.