Penn and Teller - Fool Us

[weekender]

Can someone tell me how they did the trick at the end?  I know it should be obvious with a basic understanding of sawing in half tricks (which I've got), but I'd like to know where they stored the entrails etc and made it look like something had actually been cut in half, and I can't fully work it out.

Sorry, I'm a bit crap when it comes to this sort of thing.  PM me if it's some sort of Magic Circle secret, ta.

[biggytitbo]

I think they did it the same way as they revealed, just with an extra layer of hidden compartment.

[Steven]

or their stunning bullet catch which nobody knows the method to

Not even Steve Shaw?

It's the old cliché, magicians guard an empty box

I think Jim Steinmeyer actually came up with that old cliché!

The show was pretty good for what it was but I'm not convinced the premise really works. Having to completely fool two headlining magicians is very difficult but as with biggy's concerns - it sort of leaves a gray area of interest between people who know magic and a lay-audience. It should be more about whether they put on an entertaining/original act that impressed P&T rather than deceived them as for a lay-audience a total magician brain buster and something incredibly simple can have very much the opposite effect presentationally. Most real magician fooler material is incredibly boring from a presentational point of view and only interesting for a magician to watch because of the conditions the trick is performed under, handling etc.

This makes things unfair for example the guy with the 10 of Hearts trick I found tedious because he'd obviously bought some gimmicky deck and strung it out for ages by trying to copy Derren Brown with not an original thought put into it. Because of the obviousness of the working I can see why Penn & Teller would say NO, but I wouldn't go as far to say the material wouldn't have gone down well for a lay-crowd. In contrast Ali Cook took a trick that I imagine most lay-audiences would not be completely fooled by, nevermind magicians, but made it very entertaining to both parties yet gets given a NO as well, which just didn't seem right to me.

Got to agree with biggy though that I lost a lot of respect for P&T after their Bullshit show, full of blaggard ambush journalism and poor research. They get away with it because like Myth Buters it's classed as entertainment and not a real journalistic show.

[biggytitbo]

I don't mind Mythbusters too much, because it never strays from fun titbits into anything particularly important or controversial. Bullshit represented a certain school of low grade debunking that lacks any kind of ethics or professional standards, and doesnt even bother to properly study the thing its seeking to debunk in its over eagerness to crudely disprove the sillier end of the spectrum of claims some people make. Quite how two intellegent, logical, left wing liberals like P&T found themselves seriously advocating pseduscience on national telly would make a rather fascinating insight into the pyscology of the idelogical debunker, the kind of person you see on the Randi forums continually throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

[Artemis]

Great show. I really enjoyed this, despite the irritating 'mentalist' guy who was quite deservedly revealed to be 'bullshit' by P&T, and the cocky aces guy who didn't really do anything terribly special, I didn't feel. That said, it did remind me how much I love to be fooled, and especially by sleight of hand. I hope there are more of these.

It also reminded me that Derren Brown still hasn't realised that 'a friend of mine' uploaded a clip from his magicians-only trick-and-reveal video he made before he was properly famous. Here's a routine:

"3 Card Routine"

[chand]

Quite how two intellegent, logical, left wing liberals like P&T found themselves seriously advocating pseduscience

I wouldn't say they were left-wing liberals. Jillette is a self-professed libertarian. He's a fellow at the Cato Institute! And into Ayn Rand.

[Marvin]

Great show. I really enjoyed this, despite the irritating 'mentalist' guy who was quite deservedly revealed to be 'bullshit' by P&T, and the cocky aces guy who didn't really do anything terribly special, I didn't feel.

This does tie in with what Steven said above, because on a technical level he did something very special - it just didn't automatically make it very entertaining or seem the most impressive - he was trying to impress P&T more than the audience by his own admission. (Incidentally Ben Earl is great at sleight of hand, but isn't liked by some magicians for not crediting people whose tricks he's 'borrowed' and then used on his instructional dvd, he's particularly hated by Jerry Sadowitz who thinks he ripped off a couple of his card tricks)

[Marvin]

Yes Penn is certainly not left-wing at all. Bullshit is quite often just that, if sometimes alright.

Doesn't detract from their magic act for me though at all.

[Steven]

Penn and Teller were introduced to eachother by Randi, and nourished from his gnarled teet viz a viz ideological outlook so it's not really a surprise Bullshit shows this on its sleeve. Randi's organisation does breed a certain type of vehement cliquey smug self-righteousness that makes it very difficult to argue against regarding gray-areas of science/psychology.

Chris Angel is another Randi student who pulled a stunt on a similar type of show in the States where he circumvented a mentalist's act by introducing his own envelope from his pocket and demanding to be told what was written inside. The show was just about mentalist acts being entertaining but Angel couldn't cope with an act trying to keep his presentation ambiguous as to whether he was really contacting spirits or not and had to go out of his way to ridicule him. This kind of behaviour seems common for Randi's lot, not that I disagree with the need to expose a lot of these frauds but there is a gray-area between people who present spiritualism as entertainment and people who use it to emotionally wrangle money from the bereaved. The fact Angel was presenting the show with co-host Uri Geller shows what compromises they're prepared to make for self-benefit though.

This does tie in with what Steven said above, because on a technical level he did something very special - it just didn't automatically make it very entertaining or seem the most impressive - he was trying to impress P&T more than the audience by his own admission. (Incidentally Ben Earl is great at sleight of hand, but isn't liked by some magicians for not crediting people whose tricks he's 'borrowed' and then used on his instructional dvd, he's particularly hated by Jerry Sadowitz who thinks he ripped off a couple of his card tricks)

This goes on all the time though, there is very rarely any invention in magic and most of it is a matter of alternative presentation. Which I why I think acts should be marked on this rather than how deceptive they are to other magicians. In fact one of the biggest foolers for magicians is wordplay, when discussing the method for something - discovery of what's really happening can be completely hidden by very precise and careful wording. Which is why Ben Earl and John Archer could have gotten away with fooling P&T because they'd kept the wording reasonably ambiguous so as to avoid detection.

Earl's trick claimed to use no false-shuffling and this could be technically true but there's so much ambiguity in that phrase it difficult to pick at - though the consultant of the show told Ross this was the case. The consultant was Johnny Thompson who is a student of Dai Vernon and a well respected Vegas magician P&T must have brought over with them so fair enough if he agrees with that classification. Either way visually the trick would look exactly the same to a lay-audience if it was just rudimentary false-shuffles, cuts and aces being pulled from the top of the deck - so the show is totally compromised by the fooling top magicians aspect.

[thugler]

Chris Angel is another Randi student who pulled a stunt on a similar type of show in the States where he circumvented a mentalist's act by introducing his own envelope from his pocket and demanding to be told what was written inside. The show was just about mentalist acts being entertaining but Angel couldn't cope with an act trying to keep his presentation ambiguous as to whether he was really contacting spirits or not and had to go out of his way to ridicule him.

That guy wasn't be ambiguous at all. And was clearly a terrible douchebag. For Angel to challenge them (AFTER their act had finished) didn't seem like ridicule to me.

[Pseudopath]

I think they did it the same way as they revealed, just with an extra layer of hidden compartment.

But they pulled the boxes completely apart and span them round, so there couldn't have been a compartment below the fake body:



I reckon the assistant was curled up in the left-hand box with her knees up to her chest and the feet coming out of the right-hand box were animatronic. The illustration of the woman along the length of box gives the impression that there's no space above her, but she's probably a lot thinner and nimbler than this suggests.

Penn & Teller also point out that the table is bevelled, then take the front off the table to show a sizeable gap. However, we don't know how far back the space at the left-hand side of the table goes - I reckon it actually only goes back to the front wall of the box itself and the assistant is using the space behind it. However, by this point we've been distracted by the fake body hanging down between the two cabinets.



The big steel blades they insert into the box not only hide the assistant from view when the box is rotated, but probably give her something to rest her legs against if she starts getting cramp.

[Steven]

That guy wasn't be ambiguous at all. And was clearly a terrible douchebag. For Angel to challenge them (AFTER their act had finished) didn't seem like ridicule to me.

I wouldn't disagree with the douchebag line, but Jim Callahan as far as I'm aware is a magician and use to post on the same magic boards I use to use, hangs around with magicians etc. I'd have to get the exact wording he used on the show to agree or disagree as this was a while ago, but he was a very hammy guy who put on a show and tried to keep the presentation ambiguous for the audience. If he came out and out and said he was talking to spirits and this was the only way he was doing his act then fair enough I may be wrong.

Again, I would label Angel a douchebag too and he pulled the shit as a publicity stunt for himself to offer a million dollars or whatever it was to know what he had written on an envelope in his pocket during a live show simply to fuck with another performer. When he didn't mind shacking up with Uri Geller who has completely presented himself as the real deal for 30 years, I know he turned the challenge to Uri after Callahan but when he's prepared to be a co-judge with Uri shows he's prepared to bend his apparent morality when it suits him. The fact that he had written 911 inside the envelope and then used that as a line to bolster his self-righteousness that a real psychic might have prevented the 9/11 disaster just compounds that, even if he'd gotten it right he'd probably show it upside down and said it was 116.

I'm not sticking up for Callahan as I don't like him myself, but Angel is similarly despicable and it seems these guys that think like Randi assume it's fair game to expose and to not expose when it suits their own agenda. Derren Brown also used an ambiguous presentation when he first started - saying that it wasn't magic at all then began to include other avenues of explanation later on.  Then when it became convenient for him to do so - he started to expose psychic routines he use to use himself.. all very self-seeking.

[Marvin]

Angel's a bit of a dick in fairness but that Jim Callahan moment was something that made him more likable. Callahan was openly claiming to be supernatural and Uri Gellar was praising him for his supernatural powers, so Angel challenged either of them to guess his envelopes (after the act and at the point where he was meant to give his opinion on the act), to which Callahan reacts quite violently calling Angel a an ideological bigot for not believing in the paranormal.

[Steven]

Hrmm I'm a bit torn on this now. I just found Callahan's act and yes he does present it as spiritualism. The problem is he is a third party on an entertainment show that would have the small print that it's all an act. Someone like Derren Brown obviously comes out at the beginning and speaks the small print but these American shows like to keep that information in small print and flash it up at the end. So it's difficult for me to say if Callahan was acting within these legal constraints or genuinely trying to deceive the public. Needless to say I think he's a fucking ham and don't like his act but I think he does say RIGHT after his performance "I am also a sceptic, this is America and people should make up their own minds.." which shows he was giving an ambiguous entertainment explanation as a wrap up. I don't like Angel, and I don't see how his beligerance made you warm to him, it was an easy-shot and bare self-promotion.

[Marvin]

I don't like Criss Angel at all, and I think he's quite hyprocritical, but as a judge who was meant to give feedback, I have no problem with what he did there, particularly as he said in advance of the series he would do it to anyone who claimed to be genuinely psychic.

However in general I don't like him, and I find the stooge/editing heavy style of his shows a bit shit.

[Steven]

I don't like Criss Angel at all, and I think he's quite hyprocritical, but as a judge who was meant to give feedback, I have no problem with what he did there, particularly as he said in advance of the series he would do it to anyone who claimed to be genuinely psychic.

However in general I don't like him, and I find the stooge/editing heavy style of his shows a bit shit.

Well there you go then, at least Callahan came out and said I'm a sceptic it's up to the audience to decide whether I'm talking to spirits or not. As far as I can see saying he's a sceptic means he is debunking the spiritual aspect totally for anybody paying attention, though I would agree the majority of the audience would not notice this. Chris Angel never had any spoken proviso saying whether he uses stooges or not, which he obviously does. Which shows his total compromise as he was discovered by Randi and given his name by him etc, yet totally preaches that ideology only when it suits him.

[Marvin]

Jim Callahan is a complete twat though, who does claim regularly to have genuine psychic powers, here's his own take on that appearance: http://www.jimclass.com/he_really_did_it.htm

I never said I liked Criss Angel very much, I think we pretty much agree on him, and I don't like the style of Mindfreak at all, the tricks are either ones I've seen other performers do better, or pretty much of the 'they moved the camera' variety, with one or two exceptions that show that if he reigned it in a bit he could be ok.

One of the reasons I like Penn and Teller is the way that they come out, tell you they're liars and cheats and everything you see is faked, and yet still blow audiences away.

[Benjie Trufflesnort]

It's a fine line when it comes to mentalism. DB was the wrong side of it certainly to start off, be then found a perfect way of framing it "I'm dishonest, but I'm honest about my dishonesty..." which is nice.

Banachek (Steven Shaw) has a really good line too, which is along the lines of "You have to ask yourself, 'Does he genuinely have a sixth sense, or is he using a combination of his other five sense to give that impression...'" which is a perfect description and at the same time does what magic should do, which is frame it entirely within the mind of the audience.

I can't stand Criss Angel, simply because his use of stooges renders most of his work unwatchable for me and sets unrealistic expectations for magic audiences who are then even more suspicious of much cleverer work which doesn't use stooges.

[Steven]

I think I took the whole thing off-topic with the Cwiss Angel/Callahan debate but just to close that - on the actual show he did give an ambiguous presentation however on the website linked further up he claims he wanted to put a cash prize to prove it wasn't paranormal. While this gives the impression he was claiming to be the real thing, I think it was just more of a publicity stunt that he was so confident in his methods that other magicians wouldn't be able to bust him. And Angel obviously took this bait and got annoyed he couldn't do it and therefore had to come up with his own stunt himself. Fuck, I mean who knows, they both might have devised the thing together to get the show noticed and publicise both their own careers.

Angel himself is about as unoriginal as they come - I'll dress up like Slash and do magic - Jerry Sadowitz has already done that dude! Angel just has a big roster of magicians in the background who get paid a lot to revamp stuff for him, the guy has no ethics at all which I why him getting so high and mighty on fraud is a bit sickening.

As Marvin said about Penn & Teller, they are two sleazy Carney guys who will make you laugh at being deceived. Most of their magic is incredibly rudimentary and would not fool most magicians but they had a great way of presenting old stuff in a very new way and making it entertaining again. Which is why I find the `Fool Us' show a bit silly, they themselves would not have gotten anywhere via a competition run in that manner.

And like Benjie was saying about the framing magicians need to use - it's sort of like when photography became commonplace and painters had to learn surrealism or impressionism. Now everyone who's an adult knows magicians aren't really doing magic and are constantly looking for alternative explanations - magicians need to feed them other avenues to go down. Brown came up with the cleverest, even though 'influence' is an old idea, he never told the audience directly what to think but let them think they came up with the explanation themselves.

[Tiny Poster]

Magicians use stooges? Why o why would they choose to deceive us in such a fashion?

[Father O`Blivion]

[thugler]

I wouldn't disagree with the douchebag line, but Jim Callahan as far as I'm aware is a magician and use to post on the same magic boards I use to use, hangs around with magicians etc. I'd have to get the exact wording he used on the show to agree or disagree as this was a while ago, but he was a very hammy guy who put on a show and tried to keep the presentation ambiguous for the audience. If he came out and out and said he was talking to spirits and this was the only way he was doing his act then fair enough I may be wrong.

Again, I would label Angel a douchebag too and he pulled the shit as a publicity stunt for himself to offer a million dollars or whatever it was to know what he had written on an envelope in his pocket during a live show simply to fuck with another performer. When he didn't mind shacking up with Uri Geller who has completely presented himself as the real deal for 30 years, I know he turned the challenge to Uri after Callahan but when he's prepared to be a co-judge with Uri shows he's prepared to bend his apparent morality when it suits him. The fact that he had written 911 inside the envelope and then used that as a line to bolster his self-righteousness that a real psychic might have prevented the 9/11 disaster just compounds that, even if he'd gotten it right he'd probably show it upside down and said it was 116.

I'm not sticking up for Callahan as I don't like him myself, but Angel is similarly despicable and it seems these guys that think like Randi assume it's fair game to expose and to not expose when it suits their own agenda. Derren Brown also used an ambiguous presentation when he first started - saying that it wasn't magic at all then began to include other avenues of explanation later on.  Then when it became convenient for him to do so - he started to expose psychic routines he use to use himself.. all very self-seeking.

I didn't see the whole series, but the problem I had with it was that there was no magic to his performance, he just claimed he was contacting a dead author, my impression was that he was being serious. Personally I think he's fair game at that point. Plus it was Callahan who got all riled up and tried to fight Angel. I think he wanted to be on the show to provide balance to Gellar's woo. Angel openly admits that all his tricks are tricks.

[thugler]

Angel is similarly despicable

I don't see how he's remotely similar, he openly said:

"No one has the ability, that I'm aware of, to do anything supernatural, psychic, talk to the dead. And that was what I said I was going to do with Phenomenon. If somebody goes on that show and claims to have supernatural psychic ability, I'm going to bust them live and on television."

Obviously he includes himself in that, and admits that his stuff is all tricks. Using camera tricks is just another method surely.

[Benjie Trufflesnort]

Also, despite not liking Angel, I think it's wrong to call him unethical. He's very open about his consultants, Banachek included, and very generous with his praise of the inventors of many of his tricks. His very, very over-priced* magic DVDs are full of him crediting people and quite often having the inventor of the method in and chatting in detail about how the method arose and different performance handling.

The American magic industry is a lot more like that - Blaine is always performing other people's tricks - Paul Harris's card effects in particular - and they are paid handsomely for their work, or more often, given permission to sell the effect "As performed by...." to boost sales.

Brown was a bit different over here, usually combining with just a couple of collaborators - Nyman in particular. But still often using age old effects. Out Of This World was used to incredible effect and the Chan Canasta Book Test too - both with unique twists though.

My problem with Angel is purely he cheapens the magic by unimaginative use of editing and stooging - both of which have their place, but use them too often and you run the risk of making audiences too skeptical and willing to jump to the wrong conclusion a lot of the time.

*that's over priced in an already expensive market - you're looking at £35-£45 for a one trick DVD from Angel - and even £150 for his levitation, which is just insane.

[Tiny Poster]

I've never been that impressed with Angel's act - others have cited great reasons - but he always gave great interview whenever he appeared on Penn Radio.

[Steven]

It's hard for me to really argue against editing because it's probably the main technique used by TV magicians these days, even if it's a lot more well hidden. But Angel may as well have a room of paid assistants view all his tricks as they are so staged this is what it amounts to. Despicable is probably an over-exaggeration but I just find his style dispalettable and a total false version of events from what is being displayed. Brown quite obviously re-shoots a lot of his stuff and changes props and things so as not to tip off people in the know, but to the participant a similar effect is achieved.

Angel does give his 'advisors' credit, but he has to really or get screwed/laughed out of the business as he needs them desperately.

Brown was a bit different over here, usually combining with just a couple of collaborators - Nyman in particular. But still often using age old effects. Out Of This World was used to incredible effect and the Chan Canasta Book Test too - both with unique twists though.

When did Derren do the Canasta Book test? I think I've seen most of his stuff but never seen him do the impromptu test.

I really need to get off the subject of Chris Angel though in this thread, he's not worth thinking about. Luke Jermay, a Sadowitz student became one of his advisors and now works over in Vegas. This is a lot more interesting.. and excruciating..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_DtxucfHCM

[Benjie Trufflesnort]

When did Derren do the Canasta Book test? I think I've seen most of his stuff but never seen him do the impromptu test.

I think it was in one of the early specials - perhaps the first one which you can't find complete anywhere for some reason I've never figured out. It's the only one not on 4OD.

Anyway, it's in a library and he ties it up as a demonstration of photo reading. It looks like a version of the Canasta Book test - and certainly the reveal has a homage to Canasta. Whether he used Canasta's method (which annoyingly, I don't know anyway) is perhaps beside the point.

[Marvin]

To be honest the main problem with Criss Angel is similar to my issue with Blaine, for me their patter sucks, and that's a large part of what really matters.

Angel's OTT alternative presentation irritates me, as does Blaine's emotionless and humourless style.

[Johnny Townmouse]

Like most here, I enjoyed this show immensely, though I do wish Ross would stop with the dreadful punny links - I can't figure out if he is trying to be ironic or not. Overall the magicians were very good - the Envelope man was certainly someone you initially balk at because his patter seems so derivative and he doesn't hold the envelopes in a very natural way - he doesn't give the game away but you certainly know something fishy is going on. However, I had to appreciate the way that he used word-play, and the fact that he has to tailor his patter according to the order than the envelopes are chosen. He final spiel with the MINE envelope showed that he has five different ways to wrap up the trick, and that is very worthy. The fact that he fooled P&T was quite a point in his favour, I assumed that they saw right through it.

The SHRINKING man was confusing to me. He claimed to be a contemporary magician and then proceeded to carry out a very old trick done in a 1980s style, albeit with a very minor twist. What did he think was contemporary about it? Rather like the DUCK man, I expected him at some point to ironically self-reference the corny outdated style of his delivery, but no he just proceeded to carry out a dull trick.

The BLANK CARDS man was woeful - as soon as he pulled out the blank deck I groaned. I think P&T were mystified that he was included to be honest. Both close-up magicians were very good indeed, and I definitely think the best of the two got through. The BULLSHIT guy had immensely good hand control, and was able to to do sleight-of-hand as good as anyone I have ever seen, but the trick itself was quite transparent for P&T. The ROUGH shuffle guy was performing something exceptional - I have watched it three times and I cannot see the joins. I am tempted to conclude that he memorises the position of the aces and cards near to them, does some thick shuffles to keep the order fairly stable, and then picks them out using careful shuffling and movement. That seems to be a very risky way to do the trick so he is probably doing something quite different.

[Benjie Trufflesnort]

I don't think it's exposing anything to say that's exactly what he's doing - but his crop (or cull) from a spectator handed and shuffled deck to get the aces in position is as good as I've ever seen - or not seen. I have watched the opening to that trick ten times and cannot spot the moves. Flawless.