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Spy Party -7yr- TV & Movie Spy Music

March 2004

Heidi in Stoneham, MA, USA

Special Mention

I just finished directing a Spy Party for my nephew's 7th birthday. 

The invitations were done on cardstock and delivered in brown manilla envelopes which said Top Secret & Confidetial.  The invitations themselves were printed backwards in a font which looks like cut-out letters (like a ransom note).  The invitation said "Damon Spy Agency is calling you to duty for a top secret mission. If you choose to accept this mission be at headquarters...on...at...They also included a cool black and white picture of a spy in a trench coat (he kind of become "The top agent" for the party).  The invitations ended with "this message will self-destruct..." 

When the guests arrived at the party, they were greeted by me, dressed in black, with a black trench coat, fedora, black glasses and fake mustache, welcoming them to Damon Spy Agency.  They followed black cut out footprints and enlarged fingerprints through the house to the Party room which had a huge banner reading Damon Spy Agency.  The table was decorated with a black tablecloth, which had more enlarged fingerprints all over it, along with silver sparkles, gold & silver chocolate coins, play money, black sunglasses, and mini black balloon "bombs". The centerpiece was an opened briefcase with a fedora, pair of binoculars, a camera, a pair of sunglasses, more play money and chocolate coins.

On the walls, Wanted posters of various cartoon enemies of  the Spy Agency (examples, Old Man Mulligan wanted for being too old to party, Mean Maggie Mae for sneaking birthday cake, etc.) and more fingerprints.  Hanging from the ceiling and chandelier were black and white streamers, and enlarged pictures of the Top Agent, magnifying glasses and black sunglasses.  Black and silver balloons were all around the room.   

As I was welcoming the kids to the party, the doorbell rang. Upon answering the door, no one was there.  But a brown envelope marked Top Secret, addressed to the Damon Spy Agency was on the doorstep.  We brought it inside and opened it, to find a small tape recorder.  Upon listening to the tape, the kids learned that they had recruited to be the next generation of secret agents for the Damon Spy Agency.  If they chose to accept this assignment they would have to complete a number of missions to graduate the Secret Agent Academy. 

They were each given their own plastic fedora, Damon Spy Agency file folder, and plastic briefcase with mini notebook, flashlight, sunglasses, personalized pencil (Damon Spy Agency!), magnifying glass,play money and spy rations (candy!). (All of the missions were on the recorder. The kids would listen to the mission, shut it off, then return to it when completed.) Their first mission was to be photographed and fingerprinted so they could be identified as official agents.  The fingerprints went into their folders and the digital pictures were printed out for later use. 

Their second mission was Spy Ring (like the old telephone game) to test their listening skills - the first agent had to think of a message and whisper it to the next agent who whispered it to the next, etc, until completely around the circle.  If the right sentence came out at the end they passed the mission. 

Mission  #3 was was code creating and breaking.  Using a form with the alphabet in their folders, the kids assigned a letter, number or symbol to each letter of the alphabet. They then wrote their names in their own code.  The next Mission was a Shape Search.  Using their  notebooks and pencils, they had to search for various shape clues as I named them off.  When they found an item of that shape, they had to draw a picture of it in the notebook.  The fifth Mission was Who Am I?  Each boy had a picture of a cartoon character taped to their back.  By asking the other agents questions, they had to figure out who they were. 

Once all of these missions were complete, the kids were informed (by the tape recorder) that they had successfully completed Secret Agent Academy and were now official Secret Agents.  They each received a certificate certifying they had graduated, a pair of gummy handcuffs, and a laminated Spy ID card with the digital pictures taken earlier.  They were then told to celebrate with cake and ice cream!  The cake was a big round Bomb (which I made from a Wilton Baseball cake pan, relatively simple).  Vanilla cake with chocolate frosting and shiny black crystal sprinkles all over it.  It said BOOM in white frosting and had a silver sparkler candle. The plates and napkins were black and silver. 

The kids totally got into this party, and were totally intrigued by the tape recorded messages.  They kept their eyes out for the characters on the WANTED posters, saying they saw them sneaking around the house! They were tossing around the mini balloon bombs before they "exploded" in their hands, and would pop them to make them go off! They followed all the rules and eagerly completely each and every assignment. 

They are still talking about it at school, saying it was the best party ever (even if they are only seven!). Some of them are really carrying around their ID cards in case they get called for a mission (as they were told by the recording)!    And I honestly had a blast leading the whole thing! And believe it or not, the whole thing was really cheap, since we weren't out wasting money on all the themed paper goods, etc.  The only realy expense was the briefcase and gear, everything else was printed out on the computer or basic colored paper goods.  

One more thing we burned a CD various spy music, Get Smart, James Bond, Kim Possible, Mission Impossible, etc. and played it through the party.  It really helped set the "spy mood"!  I think that's it.

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