If you understand the addictive, almost therapeutic qualities of popping bubble wrap, you’ll likely answer “yes” to this question posed by a SoCal magician whose creation lets you pop hundreds of bubbles at once:
“Jealous, much?” Eric Buss asks the camera before pedaling – and popping – away on his bubble wrap bike.
The creative – and surely envy-inspiring – contraption is actually the second bubble wrap bike incarnation. The first was created shortly after Buss’ son was born.
“It was my escape out to the garage to have fun and be silly,” Buss said. “It was my lack of sleep that got me thinking so weird.”
That first version of the bike was “not as good,” according to Buss. It could only go straight, but with a few tweaks, Buss’ bike is a popping, fully functioning machine that can steer.
A now-viral video (embedded below) of the bike in action was recorded outside Buss’ Burbank home a few months ago, “just for fun.” It was being shared only among Buss’ friends and family, until the magician made it public July 26.
“Within hours, it had 900 hits,” Buss said.
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Its popularity exploded overnight – garnering 24,000 more hits. By Tuesday, Buss’ “Bubble Wrap Bike” had more than 522,000 views.
A magician who often mails props to other performers, Buss had the contraption’s most important pieces just lying around in his garage. So, he rigged the 300-foot roll of bubble wrap to his bike – and voila.
And there’s good news for the dozens of commenters who are concerned the fun experiment is wasteful: the strip isn’t spent.
“I only popped the middle row of bubbles,” Buss said.
The bubble wrap was rolled up and is again sitting in Buss’ garage, ready to “protect something, if I ship it.”
“I have a lot of weird, quirky gadgets in my garage and I like the idea of combining two things that wouldn’t normally go together into one fun contraption,” Buss said.
Among those “weird, quirky gadgets” is Buss’ Spring Snake Symphony, which he’s shown off on Late Show With David Letterman and America’s Got Talent.
The piece incorporates 300 “spring snakes” – the classical gag toy in which spongy, snake-like tubes pop out of peanut cans. Opening the cans in meticulous choreography, Buss orchestrates his “symphony” to the Blue Danube Waltz.
