>f you want to see a visual , in a film , check out "Little Big Man"... Dustin Hoffman at one point becomes the shill for a Snake Oil Salesman. It will give you a some ideas on form. Also of worth - from the whole "con man" angle - examine Ryan O'Neal in "Paper Moon", or Newman & Redford in "The Sting" ( The last two are 20th Century , but still will give you the right frame of mind. )<

Yes I have or have seen all of these.

Another good one is Lucille Ball doing the Vegavitamin routine.

I'd have to look and see, its been many years. The form is: Ballyhoo (making noise/performing to gather a crowd), Introduction (Who you are and what you're selling) Entertainment (to keep the audience) Patter (introducing your medicine, telling us where its from what it does: might use charts and pictures before and after or have assistants with illnesses) Demonstration (getting an audience member---a shill---to come up and have the medicine applied and testify) and Pitch (come buy this stuff, a dollar a bottle!) followed immediately by more Entertainment as audience buy the medicine (functions like the church organ playing during the collection in church, but lively and punchy). This is a basic form, you insert your own style and details; forms vary from performer to performer. Entertainment should be noisy and colorful and fun. I had a friend who performed a medicine show selling an 'ancient and mysterious Indian cure-all' he called 'MAN-U-RE' (man-yoooo-reeee, they all repeated)