The A-Archives Mission

  • Home
  • I
  • The A-Archives Mission

"The Mission is to Preserve this Magic History from the Analog Age into the Digital Age and beyond!"

Greg Wilson, Founder/Curator

Locked away in a warehouse in Southern California sit hundreds of cans of film, racks of video tapes, and boxes and boxes of photos and ephemera. This unique collection contains the magic history of Mark Wilson and Nani Darnell. Everything from their first magic television series in Dallas Texas, thier TV series, The Magic Land of Allakazam, their presentations for the World's Fair, all their travels around the world, the resources that went into making the "Mark Wilson Complete Course in Magic", their amusement park productions, and all the other television productions they created in their very prolific career.  Really - Everything, even their most recent work in the new Millinenum is still in one place.  It's an amazing collection that needs to be made available to everyone, while it's still together.  And the Wilson family can tell you that it's a difficult thing to maintain a collection like this. 

Unfortunately, the history on these films, paper, fabric, and video is being lost to time and decay.

Sample of the hundreds of cans of film

Sample of the many boxes of letters and documents

In addition to the still and moving images stored in the warehouse, are hundreds of boxes filled with documents, newspaper clippings and letters, props large and small, costumes, all the ephemera that captures the magic career of Mark and Nani.

One of the many newspapers featuring Mark and Nani (not Nami)

1961 newspaper clipping

Greg Wilson (Mark and Nani's son) is leading the first step of this immense project to preserve the analog data of his parents magic career. This requires hundreds of hours of sorting, filling, cataloging and then transferring everything into a digital format.  That's the main Mission of the Allakazam Archives.  

Greg plans to include the magical careers of his parents' contemporaries that are equally subject to being lost in history, especially if they do not make the transition from analog to digital.

This is a labor of love, and Greg appreciates everything and anything that is done to help make this project possible.  Contributions of time, money, and expertise are all needed and gladly welcomed.

​Greg wants you to know that if you sign up to become a contributing member of the Allakazam Archives, your thoughtfulness will help to support this huge project to preserve this magic for generations to come!  He's also making many unique and rare original artifacts and collectables available for you to have... so you too can be part of this incredible adventure.  Please visit the Treasure Store to see what new things Greg has discovered and wants you to have!

​Thank you for visiting and reading this brief insight into the world of the Allakazam Archives.

(From left to right) Greg Wilson, Nickle Van Wormer, Mark Wilson, and Bob Sheehan. The Preservation Team.

Greg and Nani with a magic prop from The Magic Land of Allakazam

>