Did anyone see this? I’m a real sucker for magic, and seeing the celebs break their teeth on steet magic tricks was pretty impressive. I think Carny Wilson (from Wilson Phillips) was the right one to get the heave-ho, and I really enjoy the enthusiasm Hal Sparks & Kid (from Kid ‘n’ Play) brought to the table. Plus, that one Pussycat Doll was smokin’ (and her beer bottle trick was pretty cool, too).
Here’s the website (which I haven’t investigated yet), but I think I’m going to enjoy this series (especially since there are only 6 contestants yet, so the contest will resolve itself by early June).
I was recently hanging out in Manhattan with some of my magician friends who were involved in the show, including Simon Lovell and the amazing Rocco Silano (usually just known as Rocco). Magic and television is rarely a happy marriage, but on this occasion the magicians involved told me they think the show was well produced, the magic has been shot well and the show should do a lot to stimulate interest in good magic.
Just a note to say that if you like the show and happen to live in the New York or New Jersey area, you might like to visit the Monday Night Magic show in Manhattan. Some of the people involved in the TV show are also involved in producing this live weekly show and/or appearing in it, including terrific performers such as the afore-mentioned Simon Lovell and Todd Robbins.
I was there last week and it was a really excellent magic show, with Rocco performing almost the entire second half. It is truly amazing that Rocco is not even more well-known than he is. His magic is truly astonishing and looks like… well… magic. Before Rocco came along, if a magician wanted, for example, to turn water into ice he would tip the water into a box or chrome-plated tube or similar piece of magical-looking apparatus, wave his hands over it and then show it was now ice. Kind of lame… if you own the box you can do the trick. Not so with Rocco. He shows you that his hands are empty (and they really are). He reaches into the air and cups his hands, and now they are full of real, actual ice. He covers the ice and turns it instantly into a stream of water. Real water, that actually shoots and sprays from his hands on to the stage. His hands are empty again. He produces more genuine ice from somewhere, compresses it and now it’s transformed into an ice cream. A real, genuine ice cream that he can pass out to someone in the front row.
So it goes on. He turns wine into grapes, and a fresh strawberry into a real lipstick that he gives away to a girl in the audience. In fact, he can pretty much transform anything into anything! All the items are real, and his hands really are empty when he shows them empty. And he does this act in bright, clear light, right among the audience (surrounded if necessary). Rocco took this act to FISM (a sort of magic world championships that is only held every three years) and won the prize for the most original act against several hundred other competitors from all over the world.
Yeah, the street magic challenge forced the contestants to work in broad daylight, surrounded by real people in a non-prepped environment, and it was shot to show off the tricks to very convincing (presumably unaltered or manipulated) effect.
Rocco is the teacher of Hal Sparks, who “won” the first challenge–if you didn’t see it, he “transformed” a handful of shredded newspaper into a live mouse right there on the street. The fact that it only took the contestants (supposedly) 1 day to train before having to perform gave me a little itsy-bitsy tiny ray of hope for myself.
Ant is a dick, but he did really well at the trick. Hal did great. Some pretty good chops so early on there for both… I think they are contenders.
I knew Carny should go as soon as I saw her taunting the daughter of the spectator that she perfrormed her card trick upon/with.
She broke out into a petulant sing-song ,“I got your Daddy good, ohhh… I got your Daddy good, I got your Daddy good!”. To me, this demonstrated a basic and comprehensive misunderstanding of magic and performing in general… The fact that her first try failed wouldn’t have been so bad if not for this display of ignorance.
I tend to disagree with you on the production value of this show, Ianzin. It’s pretty sparse and low budget even for a reality show, or at least from a viewing standpoint. I’ve seen a lot of reality shows and this one just seems rather amateurish.
I haven’t seen it and have no opinion either way. I was quoting what I’d been told by two of the magicians who had been involved in the show, as contrbutors or performers.
Well, Ant’s gone and good riddance. I don’t even know who he is or what he’s famous for, but he was a horrid, immature, lazy little toad and I won’t miss him an iota (plus, what kind of “villain” is pathologically afraid of immobile clowns?!? Pathetic).
I’m glad Tommy won–he seemed to have settled into his character and got a welcome second wind of confidence. I was a bit underwhelmed by the tricks overall this time around, but I’m looking forward to next week’s show.
Ant was a “villain” the way I’m a runway model - only in his mind. No way did he give a shit about those clowns. He was just trying for more airtime. Same thing with the cheating accusations. He’s a host on Celebrity Fit Club, and he’s clearly been taking notes from the raging sphincters on that show and tried to do the same here. Thank Og it didn’t work and he’s gone. He’s damned lucky there weren’t a lot more injuries to those kids.