No comments on Henry the Car? How did he stop? That one stumped me.
I could hear the sound even though I’m in my 30s. I wonder if the difference is in what audio system you use, or would some adults hear it easier live too?
Apparently the thread for the earlier season is locked for some reason, or I would post there, but I was just rewatching Shawn Farquhar’s original fooling (the one where he put a card into a sealed deck) and I believe that I have finally figured out what the method was.
So if you are interested, here is my theory:
[spoiler]The card was never in the sealed box. That is where we are all getting fooled. It is stuffed into the pack just after opening the box and dumping into Penn’s hands. There is a “stuffing” motion at that point that is easy to miss.
The pack is a pre-prepared second deck, missing the cards that are meant to be missing, and also missing the 7 of diamonds. It probably has some folded, translucent plastic scraps that have been wedged into the appropriate place in the deck to act as a guide/funnel for the signed 7 of diamonds. These will simply fall away unnoticed when he dumps the cards or, maybe, he pulls them out as part of loading the deck.
How he forced the 7 of diamonds is, of course, unclear but I
do note that Penn isn’t allowed to freely choose a card while they’re in his hands and he’s looking at them. He shuffles, hands them to Farquhar’s, and then Farquhar’s fans them out face down and Penn has to choose from that. Conceivably, he performed a deck switch that went completely unseen when Penn handed him the shuffled deck, but I assume that there are a variety of forces that could have been done given that they were in Farquhar’s hands and their contents were not public at that moment.
I will note that it was never clear why Farquhar removed the cards that he did (i.e. one joker, the company card, etc.). He could have removed any one card and that would be sufficient to sell the idea that it was the same deck as the original. If my theory is correct, he removes the cards that he does because it provides the right amount of room inside a normal card box for him to wedge something in quickly. That was the ideal number to remove, in testing, to get the moves down fast enough.[/spoiler]
Obviously, we’ll never know unless he reveals the trick or starts selling it.
I’m late to the party. I got distracted up in Canada where we don’t get the show broadcast, but I’m binging it out now and appreciating everyone’s comments - good sleuthing this season.
Just thought I’d add a few things to the discussion for archive readers.
Ep1: Matt Marcey: The reference to UMD substituting for the ID is not the Ultimate Marked Deck. It’s the Ultra-Mental Deck. My understanding is the “invisible deck” is technically the name for a certain routine around the deck that involves the magician (miming) taking out an ‘invisible deck’; but the product is called the ultra-mental deck. Both names have become used interchangeably. I guess Penn was perhaps suggesting he didn’t do the invisible performance element.
Ep2: Grosso: Grosso clearly tilts the box towards his body right before the selection of the Gorilla, so it seems easy for him to have loaded gorillas to be chosen. Grosso confirmed on Reddit that the Gorilla wasn’t hidden in the box. That leaves a load. He also said the TV edit hid a bit of the trick with the force. I initially assumed that Gilbert leaving the shot and coming back after the volunteer was chosen and announced his name was relevant, but Grosso also said “We could do it without hesitation from finding the volunteer, we can also do it Gilbert on screen the entire time and we did it without any live editing like chroma key.” He also confirmed that the TV edit did not conceal or cut anything relevant to the prediction. His name was really Mark and really selected at random. However, he also conceded on this video that he had the person who caught Teller’s ball, throw to another random person because “The trick wouldn’t have worked” with the first guy. Not sure what that would mean. Someone here asked if Gilbert could be performing live, but Grosso also said in the video that Gilbert referred to Sigfried and Roy as Nazi’s in the original video, and there was discussion how to handle it and he had them cut the audio and he talked over it - so that certainly suggests pre-recorded video.
I’ll post more after the next few
Ep2: Ryan Chandler: he has a youtube video confirming that the looper can’t pre-record and he apparently handed P&T both the instructions that say that, and the deck he used. He indicates in the video that you’d see a different card every night in his show - so while I agree that there seems to be a force (or ecrof as penn said), and he has simply learned to say the card name backwards, he appears to have learned multiple cards, so he can do the trick believably with different cards. Hayashi: Mostly very nice slight of hand, but also a few instances of not as nice - his hands were shakey a bit on a few moves - nerves I’m sure, but not something we see that much on Fool Us. I found this trick very reminiscent of the classic cups and balls - with a lot of steals and strategic loads. Many of his moves involved swiping coins off the back of the table, as well as pinching coins under the card while picking the card up. The one-handed bit was a nice ‘I’m awesome’ moment, but I also felt it was some of the weaker slight with more obvious moves made necessary by only having one hand. I felt the routine was a bit too long because by the time it was over, it was easier to see the moves (the old ‘don’t do the same trick twice adage’). Still, not trying to take anything away from him - an impressive routine that I think he could improve even more and more over time. I think he just did too much too fast for them to specifically call out every element of the trick other than the say “slight of hand” - there isn’t a single element for them to bust, which is why I don’t like “routines” on the show for the purpose of ‘fooling’ rather than single tricks - though I love watching them. Money Roller: The biggest weakness of the trick was how he held the machine at the end while disassembling it- there was a very suspicious and unnatural way he held his hand flat against one part of the machine as if masking something which is probably where the pocketing occurred. I too am a bit stumped but how the random papers were changed into specific items - assuming they were actually correlated. A nice touch. Also, he was very good at aligning all of the papers - one of the weaknesses with money changers is if you don’t align the bills’ angle or height or starting point perfectly, it’s not a seamless pass-through. I query whether his over-sized lab coat was relevant or just bad tailoring
Ep 4: Danny Cole: Without having read anyone else’s theories, I am completely and utterly stumped. As Penn said - I’ve never seen anything remotely comparable to have any idea what just happened. Like… those closeup = they are floating. Stuff can’t float. That’s not possible. But there is no visual clue of anything holding them up from any side. Just wow. Beautifully done. The only thing I can say is that using the pencil to unseat the first few blocks, he seems to actually apply force to the blocks. So either there’s some stick substance that he had to do a bit of prying on, or perhaps there really are super powerful magnets hiding in the blocks (other than the two P&T inspected) which required some force to detach - it does kind of look magnetic on those top blocks. His hands are a bit shaky so I wonder if the whole setup is a bit precarious or fragile. I also wonder is there’s any reason the middle three blocks had to be red - or if he was trying to impart the word “lie” for some reason. Wonderful effect. - NOW I’m going to see what people have said about it. The glass makes the most sense, though how could you possibly ensure there would never be a reflection off your glass that would give the trick away? On the closeup angled shot at the end, there is a vertical white line alone the far black lamp stand that could be indicative of the edge of glass. And he does push the blocks other than the bottom ones a bit forward. A wonderful idea. Kosta - one tidbit in the trick: He said he was going to lie. I find that a magician who says they are going to lie, they end up telling the truth.
They’re giving away tickets for the filming of the next season for the next week or so, if anyone is in Vegas. I’m going to hit up a taping next week.
For the French woman, it could have been a red herring, but the time she took in the bag clearly suggests she physically rearranged the deck and needed time to do it, and thus had patter ready. It seems self-evident that there was something sufficiently physical about the 5 cards.She tells Penn to mix them in the bag, but not TOO much (then jokingly chastises him when he’s too vigorous and a few fly out). I suspect there might be a worry that he might feel something about the relevant cards? But remember, she doesn’t just have to find the 5 subject cards, she also has to be able to put EVERY OTHER card in the right direction. So they must all be marked in some way as to be able to a) quickly put all cards face down and b) identify the special 5 and put them face up. The latter could be accomplished simply by the same method as the former, with whatever mechanism identifies the ‘face’ of the card being placed on the back of those five instead. We don’t see enough cards in the final deck to know for sure, but the few cards we do see that have non-symmetrical faces all seem to be ‘upside down’ at the end of the trick (i.e. the centre symbol or row of symbols is upside down, like the Ace of spaces). This might suggest what others here have mentioned - first a method like a stripper deck to ensure all cards are rotated the same way, and then something like a shorter corner on one side to indicate which cards are right side up and which cards are upside down (the short corner will be on opposite sides)
But she said it’s been performed for other magicians before and they haven’t gotten it, so that’s surprising if it’s that simple.
The ventriloquist, my only comment is that it’s not ‘lenticular’ like one of those crackerjack toys that has to do with angles. It’s one of those illusions of detail where if you are close to the words, you see one thing and far away you see another thing because of the level of detail. Many of us have seen This Example - but it’s been done using words on this show before (and on America’s Got Talent) for the effect that they have something write or remember words they see on a card and the whole audience saw a different word and the person up close is supposedly hypnotized and is super confused that everyone saw something different. I was disappointed by Fool Us this time because they actually show a closeup of the board right after she tells Carrot Top to pick something to draw. Even from my couch 20 feet away, certain of the words were clearly ‘wobbling’ in and out of focus and something was clearly wrong. If you walk up to your TV or move closer to your computer, you can CLEARLY see the effect and read all the words as carrot top saw them. For me, I almost have to move BACK to see them the way the audience is supposed to. Carrot Top even seems to say “It’s hard to read”.
I was also disappointed that this is a pretty lame trick that in THIS version, the volunteer should clearly know something is up because they are instructed to draw something simple to identify and then given a board full of BS words that are undrawable like Sincerity or Success or need or Skill, and then 7 different words for dogs (puppy, beagle, retriever, poodle, pitbull, sheepdog, dog [just one diagonal away from sheepdog too], etc.). As oppose to confusing both audience and volunteer, this makes the volunteer have to be an instant stooge, in effect. Otherwise, if I were the volunteer, I’d would have started trying to draw weakness (big barbell on ground, stick figure trying to lift it but can’t) just to make a point. God I hope she at least has an out for if that happens.
The iPad magician, this being the second one in two or three shows… this is all a pre-recorded syncronized video that is all about timing and relatively common slight of hand, right? It’s lovely for a magic show, but where is the challenge for P&T Fool Us? Not to say that he isn’t good, but I found the pinpoint timing of the previous iPad magician was better than this guy’s. My one question with these is, are these really actual iPads, or do they use look-alikes that are more programmable, or ipads that are specially rooted to run special software - I’m just curious how easy it is to run four stock ipads with syncronized video reliably
Christopher Grace - another mentalist? This is like the season of the mentalists. The one thing that season 5 is proving is that although there are many many possible effects and acts in magic, at the end of the day, a LOT of magic is based on the same few principles and techniques. As much as we’re sometimes seeing new tricks, most of them are based on the same principles. I really enjoyed the hovering toy blocks earlier in the season simply because it was a very original effect and technique (assuming we’ve solved that technique). I wish we could see more original stuff like that.
So back to Grace. I’m always suspicious when the magician handles the phone - especially when he quite ‘secretly’ has to do something to the phone first. One way or another, I suspect it’s much like the instagram prediction guy - while he has the phone, he goes to a website or something that looks like a contacts app, but all the contacts all contain the same phone number. He obviously isn’t getting a real number, or he’d potentially need more than five of each digit on his board - what if the number was 212-223-2182? He knows it won’t be.
Penn’s trick, if I’m not mistaken, is merely a matter of a pre-stacked deck. and then ensuring he splits it exactly in half. He doesn’t care how well the audience mixes the subgroups of cards, as long as he gets the groups back and keeps them split between the first half and second half. Then he has just memorized which half the cards are in (which as he rightfully says, is probably pretty hard) - that’s probably why the diamonds are a ‘mental break’ of going back and forth between the two one at a time other than one crossover card (where the same person has two in a row) so it doesn’t seem TOO staged.
This is exactly what it is. He has a segment of fake tape that is what we actually see him measure with, and then he ‘vanishes’ that piece as Penn suggests.
Always wonder why people do unorthodox things. Why does a magician turn his back to the audience? And in fact, he specifically called attention to it - that seems like a bad decision to call attention to that fact. If positioning wasn’t important, he would have chosen Penn’s other lapel and done the trick from the rear so he could face the audience like any performer knows they should.
For the kid trick, I know how the KIDS knew when to call out, but I wasn’t paying enough attention to how the show caught which balls each adult was holding.