Does anyone have any idea how the Rubik’s Cube sticker trick was done? Penn used the word “bows” three times, so I presume that was some kind of code, but I can’t possibly figure out what.
I understand how he did the first part of the trick but am stumped at the paper bag part. I do know how he dumped the stickers when he tore up the paper bag (he probably put them into a inner pocket of the bag that he tore off in one section) but how did the black cube change? Some kind of shell?
How did he do both tricks?
For the first part, he’s not really mixing the cube randomly. He’s never more than one vertical twist and one horizontal twist away from a solved cube. Watch in slow motion and look at the colours under the face and on the face and each row always has two colours already there. He only needs to do two twists to line everything up. It’s very well down and takes a lot of skill to remember the moves, but it’s not a huge mystery.
The paper bag, on the other hand …
There’s no need for technology to guess the amount; they can use the same sort of code words you already described. Remember that the magicians can hear each other, and use a lot of patter. All they need to do is memorize a list of thirty words or short phrases (one for each of the ten possible digits in the ones, tenths, and hundredths position of the cash total) that make sense in the context of the act. The magician who examines the change can then work in three of these phrases, in the correct order, into his dialogue. To the audience it just sounds like part of the patter, but the other magician picks up on them and learns the amount. The same basic principle can be used to convey the state and birthdate on the driver’s licence.
I’m not so sure—you can see that Penn’s lips move ever so slightly when the skull says, “Hi there, how are you?” It could have been either one of them. I don’t think Teller is normally mic’ed up for the show, though I guess there’s no reason why they couldn’t have done it for this act.
Without reviewing the video, I assume the stickers went into a hidden pocket in the bag, then the blank cube was outside the bag in the back hidden from view. It either passed through a hole in the bag (where he ripped it open later) or never went in. Notice that he doesn’t completely tear the bag apart, there’s room to hide the blank cube behind it on the table. I’m not sure what the ‘bows’ reference was about but maybe they caught him ditching the blank cube during the applause. But maybe they meant something else in particular.
I guess there’s some possibility that black stickers were removed from a regular cube inside the bag so there was only one cube, but that seems more complex than necessary to get them off and hide them.
OK, so I watched the Rubik’s Cube transformation almost frame-by-frame. I noticed at the end of the trick, when the magician says “Thank you guys so very much” there’s an brief overhead crane shot where his left hand seems to go for his lapel as he “bows” slightly. If he used some sort of gimmicked black cube, this is when he changed it for a regular cube he was then able to give to Penn.
Penn’s line “We were watching you all the way through” was his way of conveying they spotted the switch.
I’ve started to assume that any non-necessary switch of camera angle to a wide shot is to hide a move that the camera caught.
I found this screenshot on Reddit. It looks like the camera picked up the edge of the glass giving away the illusion
Latest episode (5) wasn’t that good.
Patrick Folkerts’ puzzle was nice. I think the camera picked up on him collapsing one of the boxes into itself to make them fit. I was fooled as to what the trick was meant to be as it was going on.
I’m guessing Migz forced the 8 of clubs.
Seth Gabriel’s car trick had far too many camera cuts to keep me interested. Nice big screens either side of the robot for him to sneak around.
Hard to believe P&T missed Emily Victoria’s watch which probably showed whatever track Alison would have listened to. It also seemed silly that she only had one of the earbuds in. Not a great performance and even she seemed surprised to have fooled them. She was nice but I hate these “I’ll read your body language and reaction to me saying words” tricks. It got old years ago.
Since Emily Victoria was an amateur I was ready for a wide range of possibilities. Either something that would fool P&T because it was truly original, or something really underwhelming. Turns out it was a bit of both. Like them I was thinking earbud (since her hair was covering her ears) or glasses at first. Good catch on noticing the watch (I didn’t think of it since I haven’t worn a watch for years now). Looking at the replay you can see it’s covered up by her sleeves at first but when she’s “reading” Alyson and holding the notepad it’s easily visible with the face turned up.
Migz was obviously an 8 of Clubs force. I guess the card technology is sorta cool but tricks like that never do anything for me.
Seth Gabriel’s trick might well have been the cheesiest thing this show has had. And for P&T that’s saying a lot.
Folkerts’ trick fooled me in how it worked, I wasn’t thinking one of the boxes collapsed but that he switched out the frame or that the frame itself expanded. Especially since, like you I was confused as to what his trick was going to end up being in the end. (Kept thinking whenever the audience started applauding him for just re-arranging the shapes into a new rectangle STOP CLAPPING THAT’S NOT A MAGIC TRICK)
I didn’t see exactly how he forced that, but the rest of his trick didn’t impress me. When he claimed that he had stolen the image off the 8 of clubs into the mirror, he was just spinning the card but showing the same (blank) side of it each time. Then he obviously had an 8 of clubs made of some material that was semi-translucent; from the back it looked like nothing, from the front (and with the light shining on it) it was the 8 of clubs. Pass that in front of the mirror and it looks pretty good.
I don’t know exactly what Penn said to him in the debrief, but I assume it was a reference to the material that card was made from, or to some magician known to use it.
I was distinctly unimpressed by this trick. The only thing that I’d consider legitimate magic was sleight of hand to give the volunteer the ‘other’ stuffed animal, which isn’t really much of a fooling trick. The presentation of the trick was muddled, it wasn’t really clear what was being predicted or what was happening to the prediction. And the prediction part falls flat to me because it’s all done in a remote location with a camera, and I don’t count camera tricks as magic - it’s too easy to swap the prediction paper, or switch video to show another name, or a host of other things that I wouldn’t count as magic. If P&T liked it then good on them, but I found the trick poorly done and lacking in a feeling of magic.
I hate mentalism acts so much.
This latest episode was a bit of a dud. Dinosaur guy was entertaining enough (and I had always wondered if Fool Us would be willing to do an outdoor stunt) but it was immediately obvious that he went out the bottom of the car the second the doors were shut. Would have been more entertaining if they at least put him in handcuffs or something before getting in the car. Also would have been better if the rubble had actually been on fire when he came out with the extinguisher.
Patrick Folkerts: The first part of this routine is based on the age-old missing square puzzle. The second part is adding another piece to make the rectangle bigger. I’m pretty sure the frame just has a sliding mechanism to make it bigger, which was used immediately the first time it was removed (notice that he hangs it diagonally to obscure its proportions.)
Yeah, the Seth Gabriel trick was lame (he obviously was hidden in the welding tank when it was removed) but you know what? It was flashy and visual so the producers probably included it to grab channel-surfers.
Also, this show might have been the first time P&T’s trick was the best one of the night - any idea how they did that?
The actress examined the egg at the beginning of the trick, then with all of the trickery of Teller palming the egg and such, I wouldn’t be surprised if he switched it for some kind of collapsible trick egg. There was also something I noticed at the beginning of the trick. Penn asks her to examine the bag for hidden compartments, look inside it, and turn it inside-out; so what had been the outside is now the inside, and she hadn’t really examined the outside.
I loved the Emily Victoria act, at least her reaction at the results. When Teller was writing down his response, I knew it would be “fooled us”. When she said “that’s not right”, I actually teared up. Either her trick was so good (and if it was just a watch, that explains a lot), or P&T loved the idea of her getting a leg up in her career that they gave her the award. Her personality was so calm and relaxed, that I’m glad they let her fool them.
I don’t think this was even necessary. Once he escaped from the car, all he had to do was hide behind the screen to the left of the dinosaur, change into the costume and wait. I think that’s what Penn was getting at: all those screens had his name, so they served a purpose in addition to providing the cover for his escape and reappearance.
There was also a large road case behind the screen: he may have hidden from the camera inside. It got crushed by the falling car at the end, but he would have exited by that point.
But what was ever shown to prevent him from simply slipping out the door on the other side of the car? The windows were blacked out, so we couldn’t see when him inside the vehicle. That was my first reaction. While the car was being welded, he made his escape.
He was handcuffed by an actor dressed as a police officer, but they could have been toy handcuffs for all we know.
Re Patrick Folkerts:The frame is definitely larger after the magician lets it “slide” through his fingers. That hid the move. I was wondering why it was hanging from the easel on an angle. As Penn has said many times, every single thing a magician does is for a reason.
Did anyone pick up on the code words Penn used in relation to the mirror trick? My closed captioning merely said “speaks foreign language.” The magician responded with “hai” (“yes” or “I agree” in Japanese). It was a run-of-the-mill sleight of hand “disappearing pips”-style card trick with the added twist of the mirror. I couldn’t find any Google references to Japanese magicians who use mirrors (although I did stumble on some porn sites that match my search fields!)
I fast-forwarded through the mentalism act. As another poster stated, I also hate mentalism acts. Seeing how she fooled them, maybe I’ll will make a point to see it.
Sure, the Seth Gabriel trick was extremely lame - but it was also big and complicated and expensive to pull off - my question the whole time watching was “Who spent the money to build this?”
Is he a well known magician?