The fifth U.S. season of Penn & Teller: Fool Us debuts at 8:00 p.m. Eastern on Monday June 25, 2018 on The CW network. Alyson Hannigan resumes hosting duties. This year a number of previously successful “foolers” will be back to see if they can succeed a second time.
All set to record. I have to say I enjoy the show best when they are fooled. I wonder if they are “really” fooled or just making good TV. I mean these guys are experts.
My understanding is that they basically get one guess, and that’s it. So there are oftentimes situations where they have a few different ideas how it happened, but they have to choose one, and sometimes they choose incorrectly. (I do think there have been a couple times they “let” themselves be fooled to give a trophy to a great act, though). There’s also some leeway with the judges in deciding how close their guess is or is not.
Hey guys! I guess this will be the official “analysis” thread for season 5?
The mentalist trick won the first episode. It doesn’t seem like a particularly difficult or unique trick, but I’m curious what it could’ve been if P&T didn’t guess it. Also, the off-the-cuff “Elvis” prediction was interesting, although I had the same celebrity in mind for some reason.
Also, I really liked when the woman hugged them after she won. You never really see that level of gratitude anymore. She was so thrilled to win and it made me happy.
Looks like it! Welcome to another season.
Matt Marcey: nailed the power point presentation. First little trick is easy, just has two layers so it doesn’t matter what letter is chosen. The main trick is called an Invisible Deck. Here is a youtube video showing the principle. Based on what Penn said, it may be a slight variation of this, but this looks to me to be the main method.
The Sentimentalists: hmm… I’m never good with these mentalism acts since they are many ways to do it. It seems like it isn’t technological and I doubt they did fake cards. Instead, they may have asked the audience to draw regular objects and have the guy in the booth palm a picture of a flower. Then they just bank on the fact someone will have drawn a flower similar to what they produced. As for the Elvis thing, no idea. He clearly sees the answer and he has to communicate it to her somehow, but it’s so fast I’m not sure.
Andrew Evans: he is doing a variation on the standard floating person trick that is a staple of street performers everywhere. Same idea, just done better with fancier engineering. The ladder is attached to the floor (the board blocks the floor) and probably there is a strong electromagnet inside the board, although I am sure other mechanisms work too, as Penn alludes to. Probably the best version of this I’ve seen.
Dom Chambers: lots of sleight of hand here but I enjoyed the whole presentation. As Penn said, better than doves. The bag he starts with is a trick bag. I am not sure about the first beer, but the 2nd is just pulling it out from his coat as the bag has a fake back. Third bottle is an easy to see him grabbing from below his coat. Fourth bottle you can see a hole in his sleeve so just had it in a pocket on his shirt or something. Fifth bottle, notice how he places the bag with the open end on the top of the case, yet pulls it upwards and there is no bottom. For the shoe has does a clear bag switch.
Piff: finally get to see Penn as Pop the Magic Dragon! He’s mentioned it on the podcast over the last year or so and it’s great to see how it turned out. Trick is easy, just bring out the scroll on the pedestal. Teller dressed up was hilarious.
Programming note: The debut program will be repeated on the CW network on Friday June 29th at 9:00 Eastern Time
Really enjoyed Matt Marcey: it was interesting to see a classic “carny spiel” updated into a modern day power point presentation.
I was really surprised that the Sentimentalists were successful foolers. Maybe I was thrown off by their 1930s garb, but I assumed that in the end Penn would explain that this was basically a version of a well-known traditional trick, not that he and Teller could not explain how it was done. I’m also curious how much control they had over the chosen image. When Penn was showing a few drawings at the end, he deemed one to be “inappropriate” (which coming from him is saying something). I wonder if there was ever a chance that this drawing could have been chosen.
The Sentamentalists:
-look at how the woman displays her flower picture. Her thumb is oddly positioned, apparently to cover the bottom half of the drawing. I’m wondering if it also could be a picture of something else if held in a different position.
-I’m fairly certain P&T do not allow plants in the audience, but I’m surprised they didn’t mention that as a possibility, if only to discount it
-the Elvis prediction. There’s a suspicious edit between the time he looks at Alyson’s card and when the woman makes her guess. (The pen vanishes from his hand between edits.) There’s definitely a crucial part of that trick we didn’t see.
Good catch! In that case, there is no way of knowing how they did it then.
There was another 2-person mentalist act a season or two ago, and at that time Penn implied that they had developed a coded language to relay information. I’m thinking he palmed one card while loading them into the box, snuck a peek at it, then used the code word for “flower” somewhere in his spiel. Though I’m surprised they were fooled by this act but not the previous one (the previous mentalist act, not the previous one on this episode).
Pretty sure that was a joke.
One thought - I wonder if she could have drawn her (simple) flower with her thumb (which is hidden behind the card) AFTER he announced it was a flower?
If you watch when she starts drawing, the motions seem consistent with the flower picture - but pantomiming a bunch of curves would possibly be sufficient to cover any drawing.
Much simpler than an electromagnet. P&T allude to it in their explanation. When the guy says he’s centering the board on the ladders at the beginning he shifts it to the left where pins or tabs are sliding into the ladder top to hold it on.
I assume the woman in the Sentimentalists drew the picture with her thumb after being given cues from her partner. Have to check the recording to pick up those details.
Looking at the Sentimentalists again I don’t see anything standing out, but their good friend Dan who collects the cards may be involved in selecting a particular one that the guy produces gets into his hand while in the box.
That is an amazing trick and an extremely clever idea.
But Penn also knowingly mentioned that that Marcey used a “UMD”, which I assume is the Ultimate Marked Deck. When he said this, Marcey grinned because he knew Penn was completely onto him.
What I don’t get is why he would need the UMD. The Invisible Deck, it seems, is all he would need to pull the trick off. Why the need to have the cards marked?
mmm
I figured it was the Invisible Deck but don’t recall how he knew what the card was. Did he need a marked deck to know it?
He asked her what card she was thinking of. She replied, “eight of clubs” (which, believe it or not, is the very card I thought of while playing along).
Once he knew her card was the 8 of clubs, he fanned through the deck looking for the 5 of diamonds, knowing her card would be underneath it (see previously linked video for explanation of how this works).
There is no reason I can see that he needs an Ultimate Marked Deck.
mmm
Just before the edit and change of camera angle, the guy pats his chest twice, his lips move soundlessly and then he says “try the celebrity,” which seems like odd phrasing. His communication may have occurred during the edit, but I bet it had something to do with that peculiar sequence.
I noticed that the Sentimentalists used a utility device that was instrumental in making their effect work on the stage. I won’t mention what it is, but it is something that is marketed to magicians and has been out for the past few years. I was actually surprised that Penn and Teller did not notice or mention this device in their analysis afterwards, because it was rather apparent to me that they were using it.
Just mention it. We don’t even bother with spoilers in the P&T threads anymore.