In anticipation of the new Fool Us series, Penn discussed an up-coming trick they will be doing on the new season of Fool Us. Also other random bits and bobs about the upcoming show as well. Episode 272 of Penn’s Sunday School starting at about 25.00 minutes in. Here is the video of the trick they talk about.
Sorry I’m so late getting back to this. I had a lightning strike take out my TV and my DVR, so I’m just getting to seeing these.
For Shawn Farquhar’s trick, I think SeniorBeef is right. He’s got some kind of cheat card. The stage angle element is to make sure the audience can’t see the card when he’s reading it. On review, I still am not sure when he loses the lenses. I did confirm lenses at least through the second page read. It looks to me he has lenses for the third page read, but then when he turns and faces Alyson, after that he doesn’t have lenses. I don’t see where the swap/change occurs. I think that Penn & Teller knew he was too tricky to use a simple book swap somewhere, and were right to make that call, but didn’t catch he had a different gimmick.
For the second one, Matt Franco did a very similar act with the same bottle stack. I did like this guy’s routine for being so quick and so smooth. Definitely very skilled to pull off.
For Nathan Burton, not particularly tricky to anyone who has studied these kinds of acts at all. The table with the “box” on it is far thicker than it is shown to appear. Notice how the front panel folds down at the same height as the top of the “ladder” - the platform is actually that thick. Also, you can see a bit of extra space in the ladder part of the table. It was done smoothly, but not tricky. As for the second act, it was immediately obvious the hands were not Stacey’s. They didn’t even make any effort to look like the hands were actually locked in - the assistant just wrapped the chain loop around her wrists. If you look at the box, the right side has “brickwork” that sticks out giving the room for the hidden assistant for the hands. Note the timing was off with her hand extraction just a hair later than the paper was torn free. Also, if you look at the tall stairs on the left, it is a metal frame that is see through while the little stairs have some black boxing in them. But during all the falderol with the chaining and whatnot, the male on the left moves in front of the staircase, and he secures a screen. When he steps back to remove the stairs, suddenly that side is completely blacked out, no see through. Stares indeed.
The fourth guy wasn’t deceptive at all. Notice how he handles the pink box, careful to keep the top of the box to the audience even when he turns to walk up the stairs. He’s hiding the backside of the box. He does a passthrough with the empty. Also, the ditch on the chair is obvious. There’s a cloth over the back of the chair, and from our angle the camera actually shows the move with the ditch. Plus, he picks up the cloth and wads it up and carries back to throw behind the table. I do think the guy could have made a technical point on the golf ball in the bottle since they said they didn’t have a clue, but he was honorable and let that go. I think if you cut the bottom off a jar right through the edge of the bottom, and fit a matching bottom to glue back in place, it will seal up and be virtually undetectable.
For P&T’s card trick, I went through it and confirmed how it works. The first element is having two matching sets of 4 cards, the set up has you move 1, then 2 cards to the bottom, leaving the forth card as the top card. Then you take 3 cards and move them to the middle. That puts the seventh card on top and the third (matching) card on bottom. That seventh card goes in your pocket. All the other juggling of cards doesn’t change the bottom card in your hand. Move some to the middle, throw some away, trade one with another person - meaningless.
That gives you 6, 5, or 4 cards in your hand. Count 7 cards to the bottom, and your bottom card is now primed. The winning card is either in the 1, 3, or 5 slot – all “loves me” slots. Because of the placement, as you rotate through you will keep that card. If you have 6 cards (you discarded 1), your sequence will be ditch 2, 4, 6, 3, 1 and the 5th card is your winner. If you have 5 cards (discard 2), your sequence will be ditch 2, 4, 1, 5 and the 3rd card is the winner. If you have 4 cards (discard 3), you sequence is ditch 2, 4, 3 and the winner is 1.
It’s all math, even though I can’t write it out mathematically.
I’m surprised it was only 1 or 2 that didn’t work. Yes, all it means is they messed up the handling somewhere. Maybe one of the “move to the middle” steps they moved one to the end, maybe they didn’t count correctly somewhere. Maybe they messed up the order when they tore the cards and stacked them.
Also, it’s possible Alyson’s was scripted, for the humor.
Well, I don’t miss “the two and only” or “Penn and Tethah”. And Alyson not knowing magic (which I don’t think Jonathan did either) makes her the perfect host. She plays the naïve audience member to P&T’s expert status. Can you imagine if she was doing the post interview and said, “Well, I think I know how you did it, but let’s see if Penn and Teller do, too,”?
Yeah, tearing the cards is just showmanship.
I didn’t understand what you meant at first. All the audience members were given a paper cup to put their discards in, rather than throwing them up in the air like P&T said.
It seemed like a real glass jar.
And the CW website Flashplayer is horrible for studying the tricks.
Bumpelstiltskin.
The premier date for Season 4 has been announced for July 10, 2017. Rumor is Shin Lim will be back again. He still has one of the best acts ever on the show.
We saw them at the Rio a couple of weeks ago. The stage looked so different that I wasn’t sure that FU was actually filmed there. It looks much older in person.
Teller asked my son up on stage for one of their tricks. He was to write down his “porn name” - a pet’s name and the street you grew up on. His turned out to be “Bo Cottonwood”. Penn got quite a kick out of that and asked us to never call him anything else.
If you get the chance to see them, you should.
I’ve seen them live thrice! Once when I was a kid on Broadway, and twice in Vegas a few years apart. I might even see them again at some point.
Well it’s time for another season!
Richard Turner: no idea. fancy card trickery obviously
Young & Strange: it kinda annoys me that you can clearly see there is a giant bulge in the inner part of the box when they show it at the beginning which is hiding the pizza box. Penn has talked a lot about the barrel trick on his podcast (specifically the ones after he visited England a month ago) and how tight it is in there.
Kayla Drescher: loved this bit, even though the magic is relatively well known as P&T say. Still it really worked and is a really nice implementation of that bit
Mike Super: thought this was a meh trick honestly. the way he removes the lid from the box was kinda a big give away.
P&T: a classic from Penn and Teller’s Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it.
We have a new thread now for season 4. I think it was time.
[Moderating]
Closed in favor of the new thread