Did anyone else think that Roth had some sort of tremor thing going on?
That would really put a damper on the career of a coin magic specialist. Perhaps the accolades were for doing the act “well enough” in the state he is in.
Yes. I doubt he was nervous. He may have some kind of tremor developing.
Yes, I noticed a lot of shaking that looked nondeliberate. Some of it could be used to cover moves, but a lot of it looked unintentional.
I noticed a lot of shaking around the third coin transfer.
I still can’t figure when he loads his hand for the second coin transfer. For the third, the trembling does help make it hard to follow the palm of the coin, though watching him transfer back and forth, it looks like it might have interfered with his move.
Okay, studying the second one over and over online, either he palms it when he touches his hand, or one gets into his hand when he touches his sleeve up his arm, because he’s palming it after that, and there’s even a flash of coin in the hand before the drop.
[QUOTE=MaxTheVool]
he was dropping one (from his fingers) in the mug, and simultaneously dropping one (palmed) in the little sack that was conveniently open on the table right behind the mug. In fact, he dropped one coin in totally plain sight and it bounced on the table!
[/QUOTE]
I was looking and you’re talking about when he’s doing the coin vanishes at the end, but I don’t see a coin drop for the bag that hits the table.
He drops a coin around 27:30 (on the CW video) when he is putting the 3rd coin in the cup. He drops the one the has palmed. At least I think that’s what they are talking about, it’s the only really bad mistake I remember.
That’s where he drops the palmed coin into the cup with the one he’s showing (round 2). I don’t see it hit the table. He does move the cup for some reason, but there’s no coin on the table afterwards.
I don’t see a mistake.
He drops one just at the end of his ‘hush money’ line. P&T may not have seen it. He does quite a bit more in that routine than just palm and drop coins. The guy is a master, and I assume P&T said they were fooled because they could not catch all of his moves. The camera angle was low and we saw things that the guys couldn’t. Roth does appear to have a real tremor although some of his shaking might help cover up or misdirect.
On MaxTheVool’s point, I think the knowledgeable are looking at the performance in a different way than the casual observer. For the casual observer they are either entertained or they are not. I’ll still be watching the magician’s moves, looking for misdirection and gimmicks even if the act seems dull otherwise.
No, that’s not actually acurate, and I know you’re going from memory so I’ll quote you the scene (P = Penn, J = Johnathan, M = magician guy)
P: I would say that if we were able to find the one person in the USA that’s still wearing a regular analog watch, I don’t think you would have been able to do that trick.
M: Yes…Yes and no [1]… It’s…
P: It’s the “and no” we’re interested in
J: (to M) What kind of an answer is that?
M: Well it’s…
P: There’s a style of watch, the bezel can be turned and you can set it up beforehand like that - you pull it out without changing the time, and you can push it back in. That’s what we’re saying.[2]
M (thinking deeply): That…
P: I mean, I don’t want to say this but, it is a gimmicked watch.
M: I… that’s… and I really truley am not trying to be argumentative and push this…
J: Well you’re doing a pretty bad job
M: No! I truely… I mean yes, yes
J: It’s within your right to do that
M: Yes, yes, the hands, obviously the hands vanish, so I mean… you certainly could inspect the watch, but I… um…
commentary:
[1]: Complete BS unless he is semantically twisting Penn’s words to argue he could use his own prop watch to do the trick with a volunteer who just happens to be wearing an analog watch.
[2]: Although Penn might be thinking more along the lines of a traditional watch with hands that the bezel or hands simply aren’t connected to each other, with a drawn on watch face, this explanation is literally correct.
It’s comment #1 that makes him disingenuous - he could NOT do this with any old watch.
If his issue was “that doesn’t explain how I made the hand vanish”, He could have said that, but he sounded like he was arguing that Penn was wrong in saying “when you turn the bezel, the time doesn’t change and you preset the time before the trick” which seems to be exactly what happened.
I’m not sure if you’ve read elsewhere in this thread where it seems very clear that the guy used a commercial product on which the hands are ink preset to fixed time (not even mechanical hands) and the ink disappears based on applied heat (hence holding the watch between one’s hands for 3 minutes).
So yes, the watch was preset to 4:50 (by ink hands), which is how he just happens to have $4.50 in his pocket, and turning the bezel did nothing (which is why he can’t show us the face of the watch at all until the bezel has been turned), therefore Penn is completely right.
See my comment right before this one. The transcript is clear. Penn clearly said “you preset the time, and turning the bezel did nothing - that’s the gimmick”. He tries to suggest “yes and no”. How it is ‘no’? We have seen it’s a commercial product and indeed, turning the bezel does nothing because he preset the time. Penn was fully accurate. The fact that he didn’t say “you preset the time because the hands are ink” is not relevant to how the effect is achieved.
The guy never makes any indication he wants more specifics. He never says “but you haven’t explained how I made the hands disappear”… He never gets around to explaining what detail Penn hasn’t explained clear enough. He just says “yes and no” to what clearly should have been answered “yes” and then he just waffles without explaning what his beef is with Penn’s response.
I just have not a lot of respect for his act or how he handled P&T’s response. Most magicians with an act that basic (and ones far more impressive and innovative) on this show have responded to fairly vague innuendos from Penn without pushing him to explain fully. Most people respect P&T enough not to make them spell everything out or pinpoint every precise detail to consider them “fooled”. This guy wanted to win on a technicality.
No, I do believe it was literally the store-bought deck just like this watch. You can buy it here: Amazon.com
The only thing I haven’t researched is whether the guy who did the trick is the creator of the product (which has happened before on this show, but usually only a bit after the trick becomes famed for being on TV - this card trick was already for sale).
For the “instant stooge” “blind man” card trick from a few weeks back, there was a lot of refernece to potential marked cards, either marked on teh backs or marked by being textured in some way. I’ll just point out that at the end of the trick, the magician explicitly says it’s an ordinary deck and the audience member could take it home as a gift. That would suggest it’s neither marked nor textured, unless those two particular cards were removed from play before the handout.
I think that may have been the reason P&T suggested deck switch.
As for the suggestion that P&T were using “4” as a hint to the magician, Penn does say that Teller would show him four things, and the magician does seems to be looking at a list and points “that one is wrong - no deck switch” - so it’s entirely possible P&T did consider this a four-step trick which is just coincidental to the use of the number 4 in the trick itself.
My first thought watching the trick (before the blank cards were revealed) was that this guy simply had concocted a mathematical formula for how to pre-arrange the deck in a way that dealing them out as he tells the person to will wind up having the chosen card at the top or bottom, so he could just strip that card.
However, once the trick went on, given the magician seems to know what the card is while still blindfolded, that would seem to be implausible. Further, it would require a deck switch as P&T suggested. We are doing a lot of hindsight here and re-watching, but I’m wondering if, in the moment, not knowing what was going to be the punchline if P&T had an intial bias that the particular “method” of dealing allowed the guy to figure out from a normal deck of cards which one was chosen and then he would have needed a swap to get the blank deck in play.
I think the “fooler” wasn’t as much “lifetime achievement award” entirely, but more of a “you taught us how to do this trick, we read your book explaining this trick. It wouldn’t be fair to say we know how you did it because you published it.” kind of thing in just an acknowledgement that he is the best of the best of coin magic. But yeah, it certainly had elements of “you fooled us when we first saw you do that trick when we were kids”…
The flag is one of those “cups and balls” tricks that isn’t really designed to fool you but to offer a glimpse into how the trick is done in a P&T kind of way with a hint of a “there’s still a real trick at the end”. I think this trick was written more as a political statement than as a magic trick. I know it was performed on the West Wing over a decade ago, but what I don’t know is whether that was the origin of the trick or if it was an existing trick. The speech certainly fits in well with the dialoge on that show.
The final “True” vanish appears to be accomplished via elastic snapping the flag up Teller’s sleeve - the camera angle they choose was wierd because the flame is clearly far in front of teller from that angle - and doesn’t “conceal” the vanish.
But I have a question. When teller holds the flag for the final vanish, there’s red stripe over the stars. What’s up with that? Maybe this is a stupidly obvious thing that I should know, but the flag shouldn’t have a strip there. Is this part of the elastic rig? I have to assume they’d have noticed that and cut it from broadcast if it were part of the trick setup…
Here’s the video Irishman mentioned during discussion of the blindfold guy’s trick:
Another point about the trick itself:
I see his 4 taps on the guy’s hand, but the moment he says the word “code” he is showing 3 fingers, in an OK gesture:
He could mark the cards for feel with something that peels off as he’s feeling for the card. We do like to guess at the actual techniques used, but there is often more than one way to perform a trick, so often we’ll never know for sure.
Keep in mind that some of these magicians APPEAR (based on the commentary) to be specifically doing things that a NORMAL person wouldn’t notice, but a magician would. There are many false shuffles - for examples - that kinda look real - and in theory you could even grip the cards like that and do a real shuffle.
These people aren’t trying to fool us, they are trying to fool Penn & Teller and some are specifically doing things (note the commentary from the torn and restore handbill for example) to make Penn & Teller think they did one thing - when they found another way to do it.
Some things are obvious and second nature for a magician to figure out. You would always - if you have a legitimate trick that would fool EVERYONE have:
A deck shuffled if it didn’t matter
Turn around COMPLETELY if it didn’t matter (and with something more substantial than a dollar store blindfold)
Have Penn & Teller come on stage if you could fool anyone
And so on, but I think - if the guy - for example did do the stooge thing - he turned around part way, made a motion that looked like a deck switch, or something else - to throw them off their track.
Is it just me or when Penn acts incredulous - I never really believe the magicians? Unless something else happens - like the guy that held up the box with “no” in it - or the time the said something back stage.
As someone else mentioned - some are winning on technicalities - but I think some are winning by doing something a magician would notice to trick P&T when they notice the move (or technique used or not used).
The bezel is different from the stem. The bezel is the face of the watch. So when Penn says the bezel sets the time or turns, that is incorrect. The watch he’s using, apparently the bezel doesn’t turn.
Yes, but he had a tiny sliver of wiggle room, as opposed to zero.
Oh wow, I didn’t see that one.
The flag had a red border on the side mounting to the pole.
[quote=“Arman_Jnsr, post:594, topic:695015”]
Here’s the video Irishman mentioned during discussion of the blindfold guy’s trick:
[/QUOTE]That’s it, thanks.
The guy that showed “no” in the box was Matthew Bich. He did a card trick that he devised himself (which I bought and it’s great. 
)
He thought that Penn + Teller would suspect the box that Bich took his deck out of - so he put the message in there for effect.
I think he honestly fooled Penn and Teller - and they enjoyed the trick.
(see my earlier post in this thread)
The real flag had a red border, but what Teller holds at the end of the routine is just a piece of chemically treated paper with large red line printed over stars. That piece of paper goes up in smoke. I am guessing that P&T wanted to make sure that nobody can accuse them of burning image of the flag.
Actually, the flash paper (help by Penn) and the vanishing flag (held by Teller) are two separate things.