I had to look up who Hans Moretti was. The illusion isn’t quite the same. The guys on P&T seemed to be doing the traditional version, just using a cardboard box and dowels.
Uh, I thought Penn and Teller specifically said that the two guys were using a Hans Moretti box. If they just did that traditional thing, it’s even lamer.
I kept saying to my wife, "There is no way they would come on here and just do “swords through a box” trick. We all know how that traditional trick is done.
I’d have to look more into it. There is the ‘secret’ pocket with the pizza in it, nothing special about that, and it was pretty obvious. There are several Moretti videos online, I only looked at one, I’ll check out some others. But other than using cardboard and dowels instead of a special box and swords I’m not seeing anything different about the illusion on P&T. Didn’t even look like they penetrated as much space as Moretti did in the video I watched.
I agree and yet, they chose this for their second attempt on the show. Obviously, they just wanted advertising of their act. There is zero chance Penn, Teller, or most intelligent people would not know how this trick is done.
Season 4 Ep 1
Nice to see thin-Penn has finally been added to the graphics. No offence Allyson, and I know that men don’t get these kinds of comments, but men don’t usually wear creative clothing as much as women; but Allyson’s very wide pants were a little odd to me. Her delivery of those tacky jokes at the top of the show remains painful. Also, did Penn do something to his hair (enhancement?)
**Richard Turner **
He may have been embellishing with his ‘thirteen’ methods comment, but I wouldn’t doubt that he wasn’t. I don’t even plan to try to break this one down. Card manipulation includes hundreds of techniques that are super fast and hard to track and he did them pretty damn flawlessly so I mean… we all know that he manipulated the cards into order. If there’s one grant overall technique he used to get from “out of order” to “in order”, I’d love to know, but all the little tricks in between, it doesn’t matter to me what they are, as he did them so well.
The only thing I noticed is that when he did his “casino” riffle/cuts, he did seem to obscure and shuffle very deliberately, and I’m sure there was more than met the eye there. My only other comment is that while being blind might seem like an impediment, I feel as though master card guys can (and must to avoid giving moves away) do this stuff without looking, so his blindness is more of an impediment to his learning the technique than ultimately performing it. Kudos to him though. Very nice.
My only two very minor criticisms are:
Asking “how many people come to the table” and then offering only a range of 5, 6 or 7 is a very limiting choice. I’d rather see it more open to something like “2 to 7”
Given his demo of dealing from NOT the top card, he could easily stack the deck for 5 hands, then if Penn chose 6 or 7, he could deal those extra 2 hands from elsewhere in the deck and the top of the deck would remain in the order he intended. Being 4 of a kind Kings means whatever cards he deals everyone else is meaningless. Can’t beat 4K with the common cards he dealt.
In fact, the only cards he really needs to control are the community cards, and the final hand that is Teller’s. Which leads to the second slight criticism - the trick would be more astounding if he didn’t assign Teller’s hand. If he asked Teller to pick a hand (even before he dealt - Teller, from 1-6, pick which hand is yours). It would seem less “forced”. The manipulation itself was still wonderful.
Young and Strange
This season continues the trend towards dismay of tricks we’ve all seen many times over being performed as if they have any hope of beating P&T. This wasn’t even one with multiple possible secrets as has been the trend, but I go back to my thesis that this show SHOULD be about unique and invented tricks that P&T can’t figure out a way to do - not tweaks on existing tricks that fool P&T because they don’t know which of 4 possible ways you did it.
Agreed with Penn, that the cardboard and spikes was a nice touch to simplify the trick; the stage patter and likability was very good. I liked the surprise addition of a second bundle of spears - until that time, I noticed the bottom-left corner was noticeably un-speared and the extra ones were a nice touch. Definitely very aggressive puncturing made for a great entertaining version of the trick, but come on - you know you aren’t going to fool P&T with a classic textbook trick (that they do themselves).
I will note that while in replay (and these days, with TV, replay is relevant), it’s obvious the pizza was hiding in the box when it was shown as “empty”, I myself didn’t notice it until 2nd viewing when someone here pointed it out, as I didn’t expect to be looking for something hidden in the box lining. Maybe others noticed it right away. I did notice that even at the end, the BACK of the box, the spears were a very tight grouping in a line up the midline of the box.
I’d assume it’s just a play on the traditional assistant weaving around the spears, knowing where they are coming, but perhaps the Moretti version has a twist. Not certain. Someone with more time perhaps will research the point 
Minor nitpick: I would have used the water bottle joke with some light patter - something like “Allyson, I don’t think there’s any way they are going to figure out how he avoided getting punctured by all those spears…” [drink… water comes out ‘holes’]
Kayla Drescher
Cute routine that played nicely to including Teller, but there was a pretty obvious moment where she put her purse to the side with some deliberate motion and appeared to palm something (i.e. the two folded reveal hearts). The way she was holding the purse before moving it was a bit to unnatural, and it was a bit obvious from her grip she was palming something in her right hand for the rest of the trick.
As others have said, this is just a play on one of the most common amateur magician tricks that P&T would absolutely be familiar with (any trick you can learn on youtube is not going to fool P&T)
Mike Super
Very nice presentation (if he does this trick a lot, I don’t envy his ball budget…). He does pretty well not handle the box much (certainly not enough to influence the contents) and using a printed lottery ticket, and not a handwritten prediction takes away from the feeling in those other versions that the magician somehow jotted the numbers down afterwards.
Penn’s implication is that the trick has to do with the lid of the box, but he also mentions there are no “outs”. He mentions “flipping lids”. The implication is that the lid of the box is involved (he is careful to remove the box face-down - a printer in the box lid remotely controlled by an off-stage assistant?) the lack of outs may suggest that the ticket was printer afterwards rather than a prepared prop?
P&T
Not much to say. A nice demo of one of the simplest card forces. They’ve done this one on TV in the past with other sitcoms (was drew carey one of them long ago?) I’ve always wondered what a convincing way would be to segue into startup up your dvr, going to a show and starting to watch from halfway through the show…
Anyway; I do find that after all these years, Penn is almost presenting this segment in an exaggerated way as if even he thinks it’s a pretty silly. I feel like they used to present it with an air of it being a serious trick you could use.
I think it was respect plus him legitimately doing so many things to control the cards that they didn’t even want to sit there and try to pull apart 13 different tricks (if you believe his own claimed number, which I kind of do)
Perhaps because they are two very personable young guys, who are content to add a nice flare and spin to presenting existing tricks, but they aren’t the guys who innovate their own novel illusions. I believe from reading magic message boards (especially researching after watching this show) that there are lots of magicians out there who make their living “perfecting” their own presentation of famous existing tricks - often purchasing props for existing tricks and modifying them or just inventing their own presentations for them.
Not necessarily; I’ve seen a couple of tricks on this show and otherwise where the audience member is directed non-verbally to perform certain actions via mime or whatnot and it usually goes well. Enough times performing the trick and you perfect how you direct audience members such that you get the result you’re looking for. In early attempts, perhaps you get mishaps, so you adjust your mannerisms to be clearer and eventually you develop a routine that is clear to follow. I think the papers had outlines of a heart on them so Teller knew the shape to cut (it also ensures the one Teller cuts is roughly the same shape as the prepared one she swaps out for).
I had this same thought. I have been teaching myself to shuffle poker chips recently, and I surprised myself when I realized that I do much better when I am *not *looking at them.
mmm
I’d agree that it was nothing special (by a magnitude or two), from a magic standpoint, but I really liked the presentation.
At this point in my life, I’ve probably seen enough magic acts that there’s something to be said for the presentation of the act over the technical skill involved. Particularly for a working magician, where most people in your average audience aren’t magic fans or brainiacs that want to take everything apart, it’s less about what you do than how fun it is to watch. On that basis, I think she had one of the better bits in the show.
The only downside to it was that it was at least largely helped by the fact that she had a professional entertainer as a partner to work with. Other performances of the routine, with a random person from the audience, probably wouldn’t be as good.
One of the things I was more impressed by with Turner, actually, was his mannerisms. A lot of blind people that I have seen have some odd ticks (because they can’t see people looking at them) and do a poor job of making the standard body gestures that one usually would, like looking at someone when you talk to them.
As someone noted, he had to develop his tricks, keeping the dirty work secret, without being able to do any footage tests or whatever else. I suspect that he has an awesome ability to visualize the world and how people act and move and see within it. He’s got a great 3D spacial sense, the geometries involved, and how things would “look” from other perspectives.
I 100% agree with you. A well done classic beats a terribly presented trick I can’t figure out - but this show is about a game - is your trick so original and creative that it can fool P&T? It’s not about finding the most entertaining magician. It’s about finding the best tricks.
I agree. For a little bit, I was wondering if the ‘blindness’ he mentioned in the intro was just a joke or part of his character, as he seemed to make eye contact and generally look where a sighted person would look; and he dealt cards into piles very nicely.
So you’re saying he’s Daredevil…
Eh, I’m sure that Penn & Teller are delighted whenever they are fooled, but they got to the top at least in large part because of their abilities as showmen. I’m pretty sure they recognize that the audience cares a lot less about whether P&T were fooled as having a nice magic show. They are, after all, allowing the producers to bring on challengers that clearly aren’t going to win and they’re very nice about providing feedback on an act as they are about commenting on the method. It’s only when both sucked that Penn looks like he’s really staining to say something.
I’d say the show is ostensibly about fooling P&T, about “winning” a contest. But it’s pretty clear that it is also about showcasing talented magicians who have no hope of fooling P&T. In other words, helping the careers of good magicians, with only the slightest pretense of performing an original trick that won’t fool P&T.
FWIW, I enjoy watching all of the performances, even ones that are clearly variations of tricks that P&T must know.
[Moderating]
I added “Penn and Teller” to the thread title. Betcha can’t figure out how I did it!
RE: the Psychic Chicken. Could the secret have had something to do with the pen? It seemed odd that he insisted on taking it back and putting it in his pocket.
Jonathan Burns: I just so happened to be watching Mac King’s version earlier today . I like Mac King’s version better. Although the cheese is kinda funny.
Jo De Rijck: huh. I was going with smell but he claimed it wasn’t. However perhaps there is another secret about the papers. He said no funny smells or hidden candies but that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be something else. Maybe something hidden that we humans can’t see but chickens can?
David Caserta: hmm… well a principle of magic is that objects that appear small aren’t actually. See P&Ts version of the trick. Maybe he somehow is spread his legs out to the side of the device? It looks like there is plenty of room there. Also Penn mentions the blood hit but we barely see it. Hiding a move with an edit? Another minor annoying editing point, the discussion at the end clearly cuts out time and it makes what Penn says a little awkward. I wonder what the disagreement was about.
Jimmy Ichihana: on first watch I assume that he is doing some form of top and bottom dealing to get the patterns right. However Penn just straight up tells us it is “Call to the Colour” and googling that leads to a lot of performances of it. My suspicions are correct and you can read the details here.
P&T: another classic that they’ve done many times on many shows.
That was my immediate thought. My overall impression (based on nothing much) is that birds are not known for having particularly acute senses of smell. On the other hand, some birds have extraordinary eyesight, like raptors spotting field mice scurrying about hundreds of feet below them.
And it’s well-known that bees see a different range of light than humans do, so that many ‘plain white’ flowers to human eyes are anything but to a bee.
It was known ahead of time which piece of paper would be used for the real dream. Perhaps it has some mark on in it in infra-red ink that a chicken can distinguish from the plain white ones used for the fake dreams? Or it could be the ink in the pen she used for the first card was different from the ink she used for the other. Different to the eyes of a chicken, I mean.
Should have googled first:
How Chickens See
Chickens see the same way we do. Light comes in through the cornea and iris and then stimulates nerve endings in the retina at the back of the eyeball. One of the big differences, however, is that chickens have tetra-chromatic vision, while we have tri-chromatic. Chickens have four wavelengths (blue, red, green and ultraviolet light) while we can only have three (blue, red and green.)
Chickens’ color vision is different from ours because they have colored filters mixed with nerve cells. They are like little drops of oil filtering out different wavelengths and act similarly to wearing yellow goggles when skiing.
The fact that chickens see an extra sector of the light spectrum means that everything they see looks different from what we see. We have no description or idea for how much ultraviolet light is reflected from any substance.
I think the chicken peeked when she was writing on the first sheet of paper. Chickens are well know for cheating. That’s why people rarely play poker with chickens.
Took too long to get the cite in. That quote is from Information on Chicken Eyesight | BackYard Chickens - Learn How to Raise Chickens
I knew Teller was going to have the 3C because of the force. But I didn’t need to see those contacts right before bed.
Behold! The Power of Cheese!