I have only watched Season 3 of Penn and Teller: Fool us in its entirety and I had a favorable opinion of the show. The magic acts were entertaining and mysterious and Penn and Teller’s tricks at the end of each show were intriguing and humorous. I haven’t had the occasion to watch it as closely as I did last season, but what I have seen of Season 4 seems to be better.
I think he was alluding to this:
Penn mentioned on his podcast that the show has been renewed for Season 5! Here’s to another year of working out magic. Also hopefully the unaired episode airs soon.
Has Penn discussed the “missing” episode? I want to see it.
I think you are making this more complicated than it needs to be.
Closer I think, but instead of a plate supported by wires, Teller has a step which fits into a hole in the stage directly against Penn’s right leg. You will notice Penn never moves his right leg once in position, even when he leans to his right to shake the guys hand. When Teller stands on the floor of the box, it cannot be lifted. When he puts his weight on the step, the box can be lifted. Penn tries to limit the distance the assistants lift the box because there is only a foot or less of travel before the base of the box would hit Teller’s “step”.
They should just put the missing episode up on their web site.
Agreed. First of all I don’t think you could make magnets work without enormous coils and drawing enough power to dim the stage lights. Also I have heard of similar trick using a way of hiding the legs of the guy in the box. I think a careful look at the space under the box when it is lifted will reveal something.
It would have been neat if the trick was as simple as having Teller stand with his legs directly lined up with Penn’s, but I looked pretty closely in slo mo and I didn’t see any sign of his legs, or of a mirror.
I found it online here and checked in slo-mo as well. I think you are right about this, Penn’s right leg is hiding a support that Teller can step on. His right leg doesn’t move, and the pant leg is a bit wider than the left one, possibly a support pole runs up through his pant leg so the volunteers can’t spot it.
I forgot the box was on top of a wheeled platform with space underneath it. No way are electromagnets in use here.
The CW has announced that the final episode will be aired at 9:00 PM Eastern/Pacific time this November 30th: Penn & Teller: Fool Us: CW Reschedules the Season Four Finale.
Reminder that the Season Finale airs at 9:00 Eastern tonight.
Good finale, 4 excellent acts.
The arrow trick was nicely done. Slo-mo clearly reveals that the card was on the arrow when it left the crossbow. Momentum carries it forward on the arrow when it hits the target and until then it is edge on to the audience making it difficult to see.
The Ace of Diamonds trick was well done, as P&T noted they did not spot a thing. I’ve seen simpler versions of this done but he has Allyson expose almost all of the deck making it more impressive. I assume the key words from Penn were ‘smooth’ and ‘rough’, the pre-planted ace is only revealed because it separates easily from the other cards. How he gets it in there without being exposed ahead of time by Allyson flipping most of the cards face up is a mystery to me because it appears to be planted right in the middle of the deck. Perhaps there were more cards left than I thought in the remainder of the deck that he flips over in bulk at the end.
The $100 bill trick was great. Obviously P&T suspected some kind of cutout in the $1 bill he signed or some kind of duplication device inside the case. Obviously neither. I suspect some kind of transfer system though I’m not sure what. If the $100 was folded up inside the $1 bill then Tony would notice that easily. I’m pretty sure he couldn’t give Tony back the $1 bill at the end because it would reveal that wasn’t the bill he signed. I’ve seen that roller device somewhere before, but the real trick was getting the name onto the $100 bill. This guy designs magic tricks, and that’s the best way to fool P&T who will know how almost every existing trick works.
The last guy with the ring and the glasses was good. Obviously P&T already know how it was done. I have no idea what happens to the ring Allyson puts in the glass in her hand though. Sounds like Penn used some form of the ‘penetrate’ in Spanish in his explanation. Still, beautifully done, excellent stage magic.
The final act was fun to watch. P&T did this themselves on SNL way back when. Great fun. Although Amber had her hair braids tacked down to her shoulders both women were wearing low cut shirts that revealed remarkably perky boobs 
It may look easy to do, but it must take a good bit of practice to get all the movements down well. I wonder if they had a mirror or monitor in front of them to check their movements.
The show has been renewed, looking forward to another great season next year.
Good season closer. I enjoyed it all. The perky boobs were the give away for me too, but it took a while for me to notice, so I guess the act was pretty well done.
GaryM
What was interesting is P&T seemed to be completely perplexed. At the end you can hear a puzzled Penn say to Teller something to the effect of “we had two ideas and neither of them was right”.
I believe he takes it with him as soon as he leaves her - not sure how but it looked like he did some sort of quick manipulation of the glass when he last had his hands on it.
The $100 printer is a pretty standard trick AFAIK. I know they had Stephen Fry do it on QI, I guess two years ago (season M, Magic?)
The fooling part is of course the name!
Anyone else catch the April Fool’s special? (It actually aired on 4/2). It was sort of a ‘best of’ special, but they also had some voiceovers from Penn explaining their thought process during the tricks, as well as a new trick by Handsome Jack. I was a little disappointed they didn’t actually explain some of them, but I guess it’d be rude to do that for other magicians’ acts.
The ones they showed:
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Jo De Rijck, mind reading chicken (S4E2): Penn said their first assumption was that the paper had been treated with something the chicken could smell/tase, but when Jo handed them the papers to inspect they figured their first guess was wrong and went with the second guess that Jo was influencing the chicken somehow. So I’m still not sure if they were right that it’s not something the chicken can sense but we can’t (as others here guessed) or if they were too quick to dismiss that.
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Handsome Jack, comedy magician (S2E1)
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Richard Turner, card mechanic (S4E1): They slowed this one down to show how impressive some of his sleight of hand was.
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Shin Lim, close-up magic (S2E3, S4E3)
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Chris Rose, magic uneaten oreo (S3E12): Used as an example of being too close to the trick to see how it was done.
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Simon Coronel, travelling poker chips (S3E7): Actually brought him back on stage and gave him a FU trophy, telling him that he had actually had fooled them in his performance but they didn’t realize it
I watched the special. I was pleased that it wasn’t just a “best of” and they did some commentary.
I watched the Oreo trick a couple of times before I figured out the goddamn obvious trick to it. And it’s pretty funny that that guy was out there trying to pull THAT trick to fool P&T, it’s so simplistic. But he had them on the “too close” thing I guess. He’s probably shocked he fooled them for sure.