HARRY Houdini may have a bit of competition for daring acts of contortion.

The Victorian child from Ballarat yesterday narrowly avoided needing to be rescued by the fire brigade after he managed to climb into the vending machine to get at the toys and lollies inside.

Noah Jeffrey, 3, was so determined to grab himself a toy from inside the machine in a Zagames restaurant play area that he climbed through the retrieval gate, up the chute and into the machine proper.

Once inside, he quickly began to establish his generosity, emptying the machine of toys to a crowd of children gathered outside and then starting to eat the lollies in the machine.

For about 10 minutes he was king of the playground as he sat inside the machine at about 4.30pm.

The tot's mother, Louise, found out when his brother came running over laughing.

“I ran over to check and he was passing toys out and eating some of the lollies,” she said.

But with electrical wires and little oxygen inside, Noah was soon sweating as management and his mum worked to get him out.

That proved rather more tricky than getting in for Noah.

The boy had to be coxed to climb back down the chute and sit there while his mum pulled him around a guard panel blocking his escape.

“We had to tell him that he had to come out to get a toy,” she said.

But the experience failed to leave a bad impression on the child, who almost immediately after said he wanted to go back in to finish off the lollies.

“He thought it was funny,” his mum said.

He may find it a little more difficult next time, though; the toy machine company this morning advised Louise they would be installing a bar within the machine to stop children from climbing up into it.