Every year, a variety of school-wide events are held for the Walpole High School students.  Mr. WHS, the Pep Rally, and the Date Auction have emerged as favorites over the years, but one that most students look forward to is the annual hypnotist show.  On December 5, Hypnotist Jim Spinnato returned to WHS for another year of hypnotizing seniors and providing the audience with plenty of laughs.

Spinnato began the night by inviting any senior boy or girl volunteers up to the front of the auditorium and tested their ability to be hypnotized.  Spinnato chose 20 seniors to participate; however, only 14 were ultimately able to become hypnotized: Jon Kelland, Garrett Barry, Mike Fortin, Casey White, Brooke Stampfl, Wesley Doolan, Katie LeBlanc, Erin LeBlanc, Maria Earabino, Anna Orfanidis, Pat Connell, Devon Cormier, Robbie Lederman, and Colton Mitchel.

After choosing the students, Spinnato began the show in his traditional fashion by telling the hypnotized volunteers that whenever he said the word “microphone” they would think the person next to them smelled extremely good.  Then, he told them that the people sitting next to them smelled extremely bad, resulting in students such as Earabino moving their seats to the edge of the stage and as far away from their neighbors as possible.  After he told them that the smell was gone, Spinnato introduced two new acts that he has not used in recent years at WHS: having all the students think their noses felt like gummy bears when they touched them, which entertained all the volunteers as well as the audience. Then, Spinnato had White and Stampfl as well as Cormier and Connell give eachother “eskimo kisses” to make their noses feel even funnier.

One of the best acts of the night, a favorite that Spinnato uses almost every year, was when each of the students was assigned different tasks to perform when they heard certain words. One of the funniest portions of this act was when Barry was told that he had to search for a dog named Fluffy which someone in the audience lost, and he proceeded to run around the audience screaming “Fluffy” at the top of his lungs while climbing onto the seats around the auditorium frantically searching for the lost dog.  Stampfl was named the “Laugh Police” and she angrily yelled at the audience to stop laughing, which only made the students laugh more.  As this was happening, Kelland began howling each time Spinnato said the word “moon” and every time Connell heard this, he approached Kelland and said to him, “You are the most attractive girl I’ve ever seen.”

Spinnato then moved on to his next act of the night, when he told the volunteers that they saw their celebrity crush in the audience and that if they were lucky, he could introduce them to the stars.  In reality, their crush was really just one of their classmates, but the hypnotized students believed Spinnato anyways.  Stamplf got to meet Dave Franco in the form of senior Matt Brownsword and Lederman got to meet Jennifer Lawrence in the form of senior Hannah McLaughlin.  The funniest response came from Fortin, who said he saw Stevie Nicks in the audience.  He then raced out into the audience to senior Kara McLellan, who Fortin believed was Nicks.  McLellan said to Fortin, “Hello Michael”, which caused Fortin’s knees to buckle and the audience to erupt with laughter.

For his final portion of the night, Spinnato assigned songs to some of the students who then performed individual dances when their song began to play.  Earabino strutted around the stage believing she was a model and Erin LeBlanc showed her best moves as she auditioned to be Britney Spears’ back-up dancer.  They were followed by Orfanidis in a body building contest and Lederman leaping and twirling around the stage to classical music, believing he was a ballerina.  Barry then took the stage as a belly dancer and Kelland danced to PSY’s “Gangnam Style”, and was even joined by two voluntary back-up dancers from the crowd who got up from their seats to dance around the auditorium with him.  A definite crowd favorite was Doolan, who was handed the microphone for his performance as he proudly sang along to every lyric of Taylor Swift’s “You Belong with Me”.  Connell then ran around the auditorium yelling, “Who’s your daddy?” and was followed by Cormier, who closed out the show with his attempt at Michael Jackson’s famous moonwalk.

After the show ended, Kelland said, “The experience was very unique, I was doing things I didn’t think I would ever do in front of so many people.”  Not only was the show exciting for the seniors that were hypnotized, but it was also successful in entertaining all the students who weren’t hypnotized. Senior Sara Murtagh said, “The show was really funny like it is every year.  You could definitely tell that some people faked being hypnotized, but it was still entertaining.”  Despite the skepticism over whether or not all the seniors on stage were truly hypnotized, the show once again proved to be a hit and is sure to be brought back again next year for another laughter-filled night at WHS.