Teller seems to like it when magicians try to fool him, though.
Love this thread.
I want to go back to the first show of this season, when it wasn’t as active. The tiny plunger.
I’m still stumped on this. I’ve read any deck works, so there are no holes needed, along with one card being rotated to essentially seal the hole at that point.
I have also read the cards are crimped to stop the normal friction based "suction"between cards. But that would mean the magician would still have to crimp a card X spots down on the fly, and wouldn’t be very reliable.
There must be a very obvious gimmick to this that I just can’t see, because asking for a number, and them plunging off that number of cards seems impossible, and I consider myself quite well versed at magic.
-j
He blows on the cards, I believe, which breaks the suction.
I think this trick was one designed specifically for Penn and Teller. You see, Teller has been doing a torn and restored paper trick for decades. Old hat. So the first time Jack did the trick, he used Teller’s method. Then he did the grapler bit for laughs, totally irrelevant. Then, and this is the clever bit, he did the restore and very deliberately used a wholly different method than Teller’s, and not only that, he topped him by improving it. That’s what the part about being able to show different pieces in each hand was all about.
So yeah, to you or I it looked like the same trick twice. But it wasn’t, and that’s what got him the win.
That doesn’t even begin to explain it! How did he lift the whole deck?
When he had Ross pick a number, he did zero manipluation of the deck after Ross said 15. He literally just set the deck down and used the plunger.
I just watched the whole routine several times, and I’m stumped how breathing can have a damn thing to do with it. He does touch the deck briefly before each plunge, just a quick squaring up motion, but that’s all. And it can’t be manipulating the plunger itself, since Teller does the trick too!
As I understand it: a light X-shaped groove along the top of a single card will keep it, and any cards below it, from being suctioned. That’s the theory.
Don’t know about the plunger, and how breath plays a role in the answer.
This week:
The first kid, Austin Janik, was not particularly fooling, but very smooth and comfortable for a 16 year old. Though he did flub one line at the end. Shhhh.
Amazing Allison, attractive, entertaining. I assume the number square is a memorization game - know all the combinations for all the numbers in the selection set. Or is there some pattern that helps? As far as how she got the sketch, I don’t know, but I know there are ways to appear like you aren’t looking and get the info. I did see Teller thumb through the note pad, I assume looking for tells.
I did notice something unusual. When Penn gets up to walk back to his seat and Teller is sitting there, the notepad has a white page up. We cut to a distance shot of Penn walking, and when zoom in again, the black cover of the notepad is up. The spiral binding swaps from away from Teller to towards Teller, and the notepad seems about half as thick. I don’t see a move between, but the camera does cut away from the table. Something happened there. (Yes, this is all virtue of rewind and replay.)
Mac King was very amusing. His suit is obviously oversized and kinda bulgy. Multiple balls and a rigged oatmeal tub. The hut has a trapdoor in the top you can see in some closeups. But his swap with the cotton candy is so fluid it’s seamless even replaying numerous times. Beautiful execution. Then there’s the spare guinea pig in his trousers. Beautiful, but busted.
Norman Ng, bending the fork on paper. If you look closely, he has very careful hand placement/thumb placement right at the bottom of the fork drawing. He’s always covering that one line. Look along the edge of the fork drawing, I think you can see how he does it. It’s not a coincidence that the fork prong touches the clip at the top.
I had to look up the term “out to lunch”, but it’s basically what I said, with Penn’s remarks about the creative masking.
Penn and Teller’s act isn’t really magic, but it is showmanship. I suppose one could argue it’s a magic trick with everyone in the audience in on the trick except for the one volunteer.
My problem with Handsome Jack was that he borrowed a bit too much from Harry Anderson. Harry Anderson's The Grappler Routine - YouTube
Wow, I had no idea. That’s just shameful to take your whole bit from someone else. I’m disappointed because I thought his grappler bit was pretty amusing.
As for this week, I tried to do some preliminary research but I couldn’t find an answer. Is there always such a magic square for every number 26-99 that is so perfect that it allows all of those permutations to add up or did she just “get lucky” that Penn picked 26 rather than some other number that would only allow for rows and columns?
As for the other half, the image-copying has been done for a long time (In a Uri Gellar debunking video posted elsewhere on this thread, it shows part of him doing the trick. In both cases, while the subject matter is duplicated (a flower), it’s not a carbon copy of the original - so it’s as if someone is signalling to them what the image is of, verbally (“a flower”) and they are drawing based off that suggestion… hard to say though. If it’s Uri Gellar old, I’m sure it’s been revealed already.
Bumping this thread a bit because that’s actually what I want to know.
By coincidence (or not) I chose the number 26 as well, but talking with Ms. Cups, she said her number was 45. I am not going to pretend to attempt any math, but, hypothtically, what if biker babe chose her instead of Penn/me? I am always interested as to how mentalism works because the magic is out of your hands…or am I wrong and just don’t understand it.
(For the record I would have drawn a dolphin instead of a flower, so whatever influences she tried there didn’t work)
The Magic Square trick is simple mathematics. You do have to know the person’s number, though. Allison can be seen glancing at Penn’s number as she is tearing up his paper.
Here is a link showing how the grid is filled in once the number is known.
mmm
Wow, I knew it was a math trick, but that’s a whole lot simple than I guessed. Makes sense, though. Only have to adjust 4 numbers by a simple algorithm.
Totally agree.
There are a variety of ways to do it, I’m just not sure which she used. She could have glimpsed a flower and not been able to reproduce exactly.
Since making this post, I have read on a magic website that the Grappler prop Handsome Jack used was once Harry Anderson’s. This raises the possibility that Handsome Jack bought the prop and the rights to this presentation. I don’t know, but in fairness I thought I’d mention it.
Indeed. It becomes more and more obvious though, the higher the chosen number. Those four variable blocks would be so much higher than the others that it would be glaring if a number in the 80’s or 90’s is chosen. Even though it’s more limiting, it may be a better idea to have them pick from 25-50. I have to wonder if Penn (already knowing the concept) deliberately chose 26 to make it a better effect for TV.
Also, are we all in agreement that none of us have the slightest idea how the plunger trick works? Specifically the part where Penn chooses a number 15 and with no deck manipulation, the plunger pulls off exactly 15 cards? X-shaped grooves and blowing on the cards do not begin to explain how that is possible. (Unless he totally lucked out and had alternate plans for a number other than 15).
You can buy the Tiny Plunger trick online. According to the instructions, the secret lies in the fact that you have to make tiny grooves in the top of a single card. In magic parlance, this card is called a ‘breather.’ Physics - and the ability to maneuver the breather card to wherever you want it in the deck - apparently does the rest. The plunger is a non-gimmick item.
It sounds like less of a magic trick and more of a science demonstration.
That makes perfect sense for most of the routine. He did sleight of hand to get the ‘breather’ into position and the plunger does the rest, pulling all cards above it. But unless I’m missing something (I don’t have the episode on DVR anymore), wasn’t there a bit where the deck was flat on the table, and he asked Penn to pick any number of cards (he named 15 if I recall). And then without touching the deck, the plunger pulled off exactly 15 cards. If Penn named 15, and* then* the magician had an opportunity to sleight the breather into the 16th position, it would make sense, but I didn’t think he touched the deck. Am I mis-remembering?
The breather is just a crimp in a card, so he could do it at any time. When he asks Jonathan for a number between 10 and 20, he has the cards in his hand. He has the opportunity to do a very quick manipulation before putting the cards down on the table. Enough to crimp the necessary card.
I don’t have it on the DVR anymore but I recall he clearly left a crimp mark on the card at one point.
As Penn remarked, just because you buy a magic trick online, doesn’t mean you can perform a magic trick. The skill is in the practice to make the handling and presentation smooth and clean. This guy was very smooth and clean.
You can watch it online here. His act starts at 3:00.
As you can see, he has the deck in his hands when he gets the number from Jonathan.
If you take a new deck, it is smooth and the cards tend to cling. A little pressure will easily give enough suction to hold together. The trick is having one card that you rough up the surface or otherwise crimp to allow the breather.
Watch the first part, he puts two cards down, and accidentally picks up the lower card when he’s trying to demonstrate picking up one card. He quickly puts it down and crimps the card, then repeats and it picks up only the top card. Then he places the two cards together, it looks like he swaps order, and applies pressure. Bingo.
Looking at all the other separations, if you look at the deck you can see a line in the deck that is the liftoff point each time. That’s where he’s placed arranged the breather. Just flex the card a hair.
The magic is in his handling to set up those crimps in just the right places so effortlessly.
The mentalist with the magic square definitely was peeking at the number and the picture, maybe even with assistance offstage. Her long hair covers up any earpiece she’s wearing. Mentalism doesn’t impress me much in general, it usually relies on knowing the answer to start with from some obvious means, if not from the use of confederates, and this one wasn’t all that entertaining anyway. She was a good performer in general terms though, she could do well with a better act.
Obviously Mac King wasn’t going to fool anyone, but he’s very entertaining, his goldfish routine is fantastic, and I loved the interaction between him and Penn.
Even though I think the format of fooling P&T doesn’t work all that well it’s still a great show just for the magic performances.