Hooligan assists the magician /

From Edison films catalog: This is a new adventure in which our friend, Mr. Hooligan, appears in an entirely new capacity. On a stage a professor of magic is performing some wonderful experiments, and when he requests some assistance Happy Hooligan immediately volunteers his services and climbs upon the platform. As he does so, the professor vanishes through the floor and the amateur assistant is left alone with nothing but a couple of barrels, which, however, immediately begin to cut up some remarkable capers. They absolutely refuse to be tampered with, and as fast as Mr. Hooligan knocks them over they regain their balance, and during their evolutions, clowns, ghosts, demons and goblin appear and disappear in an alarming manner, not, however; without each of them having a crack at the unfortunate Hooligan. Finally he captures two of them, only to find when he yanks them out of the barrels they have changed to immense masses of white muslin, which the professor, who now appears again, divides into two portions, one of which he causes to change into thousands of fluttering bits of paper, while the other at his magic touch forms into a huge and grotesque looking goblin; the whole forming a series of most startling and laughable effects entirely new to animated photography. 100 feet. $15.00.
D21658 U.S. Copyright Office
Copyright: Thomas A. Edison; 16Nov1900; D21658.
J. Stuart Blackton.
Camera, Albert E. Smith.
Duration: 1:39 at 16 fps.
Filmed ca. September to early November 1900, on Vitagraph's roof-top studio in New York, New York.
Available also through the Library of Congress Web site as digital files.
Sources used: Copyright catalog, motion pictures, 1894-1912; Musser, C. Edison motion pictures 1890-1900, 1997, p. 640-41; Niver, K.R. Early motion pictures, 1985; Edison films catalog, no. 105, July 1901, p. 60 [MI].