Yes you have it spot on , how you have described it is absolutely how it is done.
He gets it from the table/box and there is somebody inside that must push it up…
I had to watch it back a second time to spot it and only did so when he told Penn & Teller that it wasnt him that wrote it.
If you watch it again , watch the bit when Penn & Teller play stone , paper , scissors…but dont watch them just keep your eye on him.
When they start to play he is standing right beside them…they both have stone at first and he does a brilliant bit of acting and it gives him the opportunity to walk away…the audience are all laughing…
As he walks away he signals to the host(Jonathan Ross) in a comical way to go over to Penn & Teller…at this point he walks over to the box and puts his hand on top of it(which is when i believe he gets the piece of paper with the predictions on).
I think he must have 2 pieces of paper(one saying ‘Teller wins’ and one saying ‘Penn wins’) and just use the one that is correct.
Penn or Teller dont see him go over to the box because they are distracted by playing stone , paper , scissors.
If you watch him when he goes over to the box he looks as if he acknowledges someone…he seems to nod his head and say something…i think he was just telling the person in the box that he has the paper.
I did wonder at first what would have happened if Penn & Teller hadnt both gone stone on the first play and how he would have been able to get over to the box without them seeing…but i think he would have just done it when they both walked back to their chairs and turned their backs…the fact they both went stone just made it easier for him.
I also believe he did get it down his trouser leg and into his shoe…when asked by Penn & Teller all he said was he never used his pocket.
He jokes to undo his trousers(and starts to undo his belt) when Jonathan Ross gets the gloves…and i believe that may be when he slips the paper into his trousers and allows him to get it down his leg to his shoe.
I may be completely wrong but thats how i think he did it.
I’m proposing that at the point where the envelopes are produced, all three envelopes contain the exact same text. It thus makes absolutely no difference who sits where holding what envelope.
Anyone have any thoughts about the first trick of the most recent episode, done by the French trio? How was the girl (as it seemed to me) keeping her lower body unseen while working inside the box - does it have something to do with the lamp?
Well the way I see it, she’s manipulating the box - lifting it, rotating it, poking her arms/head from within it, doing the stuff with the balls and scarves and whatnot - but you can’t see her legs/lower body behind/under the box…she’s barefoot and looks like a gymnast, FWIW my thinking is she’s at times somehow supporting herself with her legs with the help of the lamp (though it doesn’t seem to be sturdy enough) and, at one point, the body of the magician standing behind the box (Jonathan Ross comments “that’s filthy” looking at Teller’s sketch).
That last trick with the silhouette cards … I don’t understand why P&T didn’t go for the more obvious explanations, such as a marked deck (yes, the magician said it wasn’t marked, but no one really checked), or some clever signaling between the magicians, or even an off-stage person signaling. It seemed that Penn was annoyed that the magicians made a move that clearly looked like deck-switching, but that was denied. IMO this trick was the most boring of all those that have fooled P&T.
It sure looked like he did something with the deck when JR passed in front of him to sit down…but I suppose whatever it was, he must have been able to truthfully answer in the negative when Penn asked him about either switching the deck or deliberately making it look like he switched the deck.
Latest episode is up on pikespeak12’s YouTube channel.
I thought the cups and balls guy was decent, but I have seen a very similar routine before, and the method for how he achieved the final reveal is fairly obvious when you watch it all back.
The “mind reader” guy had me fooled when I first watched it, but after listening to Penn and Teller give their thoughts on it, it’s fairly obvious that the guy plucked from the audience was shown a list of words to choose from, with the list being concealed from the audience.
The Swedish duo were, in my opinion, a good example of magicians attempting to “game the game”. Just before the final reveal, the move pulled by the magician when he puts his magic wand away looked like an absolutely flagrant card switch. There is no doubt in my mind that the move was executed as a deliberate red herring to throw Penn and Teller off the scent.
I feel this type of strategy being employed on a show like this detracts somewhat from what the “spirit” of the show is supposed to be about.
I would have liked the Swedish guys a lot if they hadn’t done the fake card switch at the end. I still thought it was a good trick, but not nearly as good as it could have been if he had just handed the card to Teller. I don’t like the whole “I was doing a very complicated thing, but fooled you into thinking it was a really simple and easy trick.” I agree that it’s gaming the system a little bit, and it detracts from the audience enjoyment of the trick.
I found this screenshot from episode 5 on another forum. It’s from the meals and letters trick. It seems it’s confirmed that each card had 3 messages with fill your name here blanks. It was a fraction of a second where you can see the bottom of the card the person in table 1 is reading, but enough for a clear screencap. The wonders of HD television, huh?
I think there’s a point where you can just make out that the mentalist has a piece of paper palmed, presumably with the word “Brick” on it, which Penn and Teller alluded to him showing the guy from the audience…I wonder if it says anything else to instruct/convince the volunteer to play along?
I enjoyed the quick change routine…even though you basically know they’re wearing layers of easily removed clothes attached with velcro or something, some of the changes still seem impossibly quick.
I agree that it’s pretty lame that acts like the Swedish pair can “win” by adding a deliberate fake move to what comes down to a so-so trick…the idea of seeing who can fool P&T is a great premise for a show, but I think I’d rather see them be able to award the Vegas trips to some of the acts that really impressed them, like the French trio from the last show, or the black guy who expertly does the classic card tricks (so will probably never “fool” them).
You nailed it. Tricks like the balls and cups and quick change don’t really belong on the show unless they have really new twists. The methods are well known and there was no way that professionals like P&T wouldn’t know how they’re done. After all, the premise of the show is to fool P&T, not to impress them with artistry. I thought those two acts were excellent. They had great artistry and entertainment, but nothing any magic expert wouldn’t figure out. Shoot, I’m just a magic fan and I knew how they were done! It seems that the producers must be having a hard time finding fool-worthy acts.
And the point about the Swedish duo was dead on. If a magician wants to “win” and make it to Las Vegas, it appears that the best way is to fake some move that looks like the secret (as Jonas Ljung faked the card switch) and then let P&T guess wrong. In their act Peter Brynolf had ample opportunity to handle the cards and somehow smuggle the marked card into his mouth. It was a good trick, but the real trick was the fake switch.
Maybe they should rename the show to P&T Fool or Amaze Us.
That fake card switch at the end totally got me. The second he put the tongs back in his jacket pocket I was yelling “HE SWITCHED THE CARD!!!11”
It was almost too obvious. Seems kind of dickish, but I guess it was a legit fool.
Jonathan Woss kinda gets on my nerves for some reason. Probably because I don’t get any of his mandatory show-opening British pop culture jokes.
Some good magic in this one. Blowed if I have much of an idea how the magicians who fooled Penn and Teller pulled their tricks off. Thoroughly enjoyed the series, I hope they do another.
The numbers-in-the-bowl thing was obvious from the first second, but I was not expecting Leroy McSunglasses to Mission-Impossible the crowd at the end! That was a cool bit, though I think it would have been even better if he didn’t reveal his identity. Once he did that, it was obvious how the whole thing was done.
The first card guy with the deck switch to Penn’s hands was amazing.
I thought this last episode was the best of the series. Maybe it’s because P&T has revised their judging process for this last show. During the show they revealed that they’ve discussed at length with the producers the criteria for deciding if they were fooled by a trick. In this last show it seemed that they were more willing to give away the secret of several of the tricks. I thought they really demolished Manuel Martinez (the faux-Cuban) when they gave away his secret. I was kind of surprised that Penn said as much as he did. The last act with Chris Dugdale was entertaining, but I saw through that trick from the start when the “randomly selected” audience member acted and spoke kind of oddly during the act. And the “surprise” ending to the act clinched for me how everything was done. But I was still taken aback by how much Penn revealed about the trick. Both Martinez and Dugdale appeared to be holding back their strong displeasure at the reveals. The other two acts involving card sleights were superb. If you watch slowly you can definitely catch when the card moves were made, but still the artistry was incredible and the ultimate effects of the tricks were very impressive. Those two guys deserved their Vegas trips.
The series showcased some of the best magicians around the world that are normally not seen in the U.S. For that reason alone I hope that P&T will do a lot more of these shows.
Since the series is over for at least the next several months, tonight to get my fix I watched the first episode of “The Unpleasant World of Penn & Teller”, a show they did for British TV way back in 1994.
While some tricks were the same or similar as those they performed on the “Fool Us” shows - the card trick where Teller “stabs” Penn through the hand with a knife (done with the exact same patter), and a trick where they retrieve guest Stephen Fry’s watch from inside a fish (as they did an audience member’s iPhone on an earlier “Fool Us” episode) - they did a couple of other routines that I thought were a lot of fun - worth seeking out for P&T fans.
If the cards were “fill-in-the-blank” instructions, as suggested, then the more likely scenario is something as simple as notes on the back of the serving dish lids, stating the names of the meals underneath, for the guys to insert at the appropriate place.
