Amarsir

The Shark Tank Podcast (Youtube link) did an interview with Travis with some interesting information. @ae2 is probably correct about why they expanded: they had lines out the door when they first re-opened. And Travis sees being on the show as good advertising because he thinks some people stopped coming since they feared lines. Sweet Pete's makes the Farrell's-labeled candy. Mike the boss was 100% open to how The Profit works. He told the employees "Just be honest and if the show makes me look like the bad guy that's OK." I found that a really nice contrast to so many of the other bosses we've seen. Shauna (the marketing daughter) really has stepped into the role and in doing so has even made his (Travis's) job easier.

The mentalist couple: I rather suspect most of it is practiced code. E.g. If he starts the sentence with "I'm holding" it's eyeglasses. If he starts with "What do" it's a watch. You can build on that over years, planning for most stuff that might come up and just having the husband not pick anyone with something they don't have a code for. What I don't get is her knowing something that he didn't seem to have known, e.g. Names. Clearly there's something unseen to that.

I enjoyed all of these acts. Normally there's at least one that feels like they're on via generosity, but all were well done both in terms of effect and presentation.

Marcus needs a zero-tolerance policy on partners who lie to him. He said Grace wasn't an employee anymore, then it turns out she was. That should have been the only sign he needed to get out. We've seen other owners lie to him on this show, and I can't think of any examples where everything turned out OK in the end. That said, a digital menu board makes a lot of sense when your offerings change day-to-day. Using fresh vegetables as a display sounds horribly impractical. And pretzels are an interesting choice but not an across-the-board replacement for bread. I'm with him on adding lighter options, though "add some fiber to the African Nut Soup" doesn't sound like the most logical approach. Did Marcus say they sold 56 new The Simple Greek franchises in 4 months? That's impressive. I wouldn't mind another follow-up on that. (Probably featuring the asshat owner of that business being bought out finally.) In fact, isn't it odd that we're so far into the season without a followup episode? Normally it's the second (and last) thing they do every half-season, but now we're setting up for 4 new businesses in a row.

Glarkware has a personal connection to these forums. I suspect that's why it was brought up, not the total point-for-point comparison. Although, DiLascia isn't much of a "clothing line" either. Certainly not before Marcus came in.

My theory - and I haven't rewatched since forming this to verify it - is that there's a bar coming from stage right that he can either fit through the rope handle before attaching, or just grab in one hand with the jumprope handle. The trick to "jumping" the rope becomes to rotate his grip on that right side so the handle of the rope is going around as the whole rope does. Hold two markers in your hand and manipulate them to go around each other and you have a sense of what I'm talking about. And then his left hand can be the driving force and just move normally. I think so, yes. That part of the deck would be a force deck, where multiple cards are the 3 of spades. (Such was Penn's guess.) If it took too long, I imagine he has another out for that. For the reveal, all he has to do is pop a dozen or so cards on top of the deck after he does the riffle shuffle. They're all set up with the counts, reveals, and instructions for Alyson to just do the rest. The dynamite does seem like a time sink. But no, I don't think the card was printed. Here's what I think. (And I apologize for the cultural insensitivity of what I'm about to say, but it makes the point.) The magician (Wayne Hoffman) has 4 pockets, each with a wallet, a license, and a letter. One letter says "Carlos". Another says "Rahul". Another says "Tyrone" and the fourth says "Dylan". Each license has the same name, and a photo of the kind of person you're picturing when you heard that name because you're all as racist as I am. He gets Penn to pick a male from the audience. As that person comes up, Hoffman reaches into the appropriate pocket. He takes the license and slight-of-hands it to reveal the fake one. Then he asks the volunteer to read the letter with the fake name at the top. Then the volunteer goes to sit down. Hoffman stalls. (Maybe to make it seem like the card is being printed. Or just to make us forget exactly what the volunteer looked like.) Then he invites P&T on stage. He pulls out the appropriate wallet from that same pocket. Or on second thought, maybe he just has one wallet with many cards. Penn gets the embossed card from the wallet. Teller gets the fake license. They compare, and of course there's a match. Great trick. For fooling P&T, there's a chance Teller will realize that the photo he's holding doesn't match the volunteer. But Teller didn't pick the guy, Penn did. And neither has seen him up close. Fair chance they don't realize, because all the trickery was done up front. And even if they do, it's still a great trick for the rest of us. Just a little bit of "instant stooge" which anyone would play along with.

Dear Alyson. I know forgetting their names isn't a great joke (which I don't blame you for). But you can help it a lot by selling it with a an extra iota of acting. You were in teleprompter mode and it showed. (But you did fine in the post-performance chats so it's OK.) I loved the simplicity of Xavier Mortimer flying around with a jump rope. Clean and beautiful. But I did feel the stage was overly darkened. It actually looked better in one of the side angles where we could see his hand moving against a side-stage background. The audience didn't get that view. Now obviously they can't have all bright lights on him or it shows too much, but too dark undermines the accomplishment. Fielding West (with the bird) seems like your typical workday magician. Which I hope doesn't come off too harshly, but he seems more at home doing children's events than on a Vegas stage. And that's less about the trick and more about the patter, IMHO. I'm with you @theatremouse in that Caleb's trick was really great, with that obvious flaw. If he could either come up with a reason to take the cards more compelling than "just because", or better yet rig up an auto-shuffler or something, it would be even better. Even when he didn't have to, he was hands-on with pointing like he couldn't help himself. Magic Maniac was funny. Reminded me of The Amazing Johnathan, a Vegas legend in his own right.

I think P&T don't have a good sense of what technology can accomplish. This makes them both under and over-estimate how it's being used. Last year we had Simon Pierro who almost fooled them with a selfie. ("3 weeks earlier" he had.) While I don't know for sure how that was accomplished, it seems seems clear it was printed from the stand and fed into the picture frame, then revealed on cue. So if I'm right, P&T didn't think printer, but were told printer. So this time they did guess printer for Wayne Hoffman. But really I think the method is much simpler: the volunteer's name isn't Carlos. In fact his grin kind of gave it away as soon as he saw the letter. Hoffman insisted on having a man be chosen as the volunteer, so all he had to do was swap the license. And remember that Penn chose the guy, but Teller was the one reading information off "his" license. There's a risk Teller might have realized it's a different guy, but nothing that would ruin the trick. Clear method on that for me. But they guessed printer. So how about Vitaly Beckman fooling them the prior week with a photo? Remember that Penn ruled out both "multiple outs" and (seemingly) a force. (Vitaly did respond to "Any of 52?" with "It was a free choice" - which is not quite answering the question, but given his selection method it'd be impossible force without multiple outs.) This one I'm less certain about. As performed, I think he had several photo albums behind the stand. (Which doesn't count as multiple outs since it's always the same reveal.) However I've also seen him do the same trick here and that method wouldn't have worked. (Though a force might.) He also has other tricks that I think could only be done with impressive printing technology. Maybe not relevant if he used a more mundane approach, but given that it involves photos I'm including it. So basically I think that the guys are old school enough that while they're certainly not clueless about technology, it's sufficiently out of their comfort zone to mess with their guesses.

It's real. It's his wife's name.

I like how the Camp Cutthroat theme has taken a different twist this year. Last year was "fun time at summer camp". This time it's more "wilderness survival". It's different inspiration and definitely keeps things from feeling redundant. I also appreciate that they're making at least some use of the lake, although less than last year. A lot of these sabotages could be done in the studio and the water is too unique of a resource not to use. If I recall correctly, Chef Greg (the first one eliminated) also lost his first appearance for making a good dish that didn't quite match the task. It seems a comprehension problem where he's just not getting the importance of meeting expectations. I don't mind the Bobs thing. (I also like the pineapple as a recurring joke. Reminds me of Psych.) But I do think it can get overused in a single episode and probably was in this one. Having to do "Bob Calls" is enough of a presence that we don't need much attention on them for the rest of the show.

Well that explains it. Not his trick! Moxie is adorable and she looked so thrilled to have been involved. Matthew Laslow: I like the t-shirt cannon. I'm less a fan of using every Millennial cliche in the book. If you're going to use selfie sticks and hoverboards, do it with a wink. Zabrecky basically did the same effect as Disero did two weeks ago, but so so much better. His character-based deadpan humor was so much funnier and he had a much better ending. Wayne Hoffman constructed his magic trick the way the writers of Lost created their series. Lots of stuff going in different directions that would be awesome if it all came together, but only half of it really did. I won't discuss his method here, but I think he fooled them for the exact same reason I said Penn had a weakness last week.

Penn's daughter appearing in a trick? I'm surprised he never teased this sooner. (Or if he did, I don't recall it.)

Good point, though we also see it happen in stuff like Tonnie's Minis. I think a lot of people have heard of Economy of Scale without really understanding it, so they figure they can expand their way into profits. Your anecdote reminds me of something similar which I was already tempted to bring up due to the nostalgia conversation. People on the East Coast may remember Roy Rogers, and after the brand changed hands recently they just opened up a new one near me. It has been packed every day since it opened about 3 months ago. They sell fried chicken and roast beef, and while I believe they do it well Arby's shut down the only 2 restaurants anywhere near here in the last few years and fried chicken is everywhere. Credit to those owners and all because I think they're doing a good job, but there's no way that much traffic will last.

Is he? I guess that's my underlying question. A lot of the shirts he designed didn't sell, and the tryout at Courage.b didn't seem to go so well either. Marcus told us he's a talented designer, and we saw him do well in the Bloomingdale's sale pitch. But I'm not 100% convinced that the final designs were entirely his, nor that they will necessarily sell. (I personally am not that impressed by an outline of a plane and two airport codes, but I do believe it sells for them.) For what it's worth, Bloomingdale's isn't showing DiLascia on their website list of almost 2000 designers. Though that could easily just be that it's too early.

Well that's another one where Marcus changes so much it's not the same business. A printed t-shirt company selling predominantly to men is now focusing on women to sell a variety of unprinted items. And Marcus seemed to be strong-arming a bit on the fabric choices when they walked through the factory, but it did seem like Patrick was the actual designer at least.

I'd like to suggest a new game, or possibly a whole spin-off show: Ryan acting out movies he's never seen. By the way, Lea Thompson looks great and I loved her enthusiasm for getting into the games.

"Private Chef". Which is not much of a credential, but sounds better than "Doing goofy schtick so I'll be cast on the next season of Food Network Star."

After rewatching, the weird cuts happened every time they said "3 gallon tub". Not just the wholesaler saying it, but the conversation outside too. I suspect the conversation was more complex about different sizes and they chopped it up to simplify. They do a lot of cuts, though. When Mike said "I trusted but I didn't verify" there was a cut such that I'm not even sure he was talking about Paul at the time, despite that being the implication. We generally have to trust that the story being told is accurate, but there's definitely enough room in the footage to adjust a narrative if they want.

Conehead Sundae(TM) all the way. :) Jahn's! That's who I was thinking of. As soon as Wikipedia mentioned the "Kitchen Sink" it all came back to me.

Thanks for the map, NewDigs. I've been trying to remember if I've been to one in NJ or if that was a different deluxe ice cream parlor. I would have been pretty young, which seems to match their timeline. My mother might know. Friendly's I know. I hadn't realized they hit on harder times but now that you mention it, most I knew are now closed. (There's still one open pretty close to me, but not having kids I won't be headed there soon. My impression from this show though is that Farrell's is more of a destination whereas Friendly's always seemed like more of a kid-friendly restaurant.

If memory serves, the last time a trick had a photo as the reveal they just barely got it. (Saying they'd just learned about it a week earlier.) I don't know what the method is but I wonder if there's an aspect of modern stuff that they just have a weakness for. Always great to see Mac King, and Alyson was the perfect assistant for him. I also like Penn's broken bottle juggling. There's a lot of talk to it, but it's an important explanation. Of course broken bottles are uneven and dangerous, but it's the kind of thing I wouldn't think about unless he goes through all that.

Marcus: "Whose responsibility is the food costs?" Mike: "Paul would be in charge of that." Talking Head Marcus: "I can't believe he was so anxious to blame someone." I don't think the net effect of Marcus's feedback is wrong. CEO Mike should take more responsibility on himself. But sometimes it is stirred up a little. Wrong side of the country for Mr. Green Tea, but I'm also surprised about Sweet Pete's. I bet a followup will introduce that. $5 wholesale for a half-gallon was surprisingly high for me. (Of course so was $3 for Thrifty's.) Sometimes food cost is the most important thing to Marcus, and then there are times like now he'll increase it for something unique. I get that there's virtue in both points of view, but it would be nice to see how he makes that determination.

It's right on the cusp. I'd suspect 1.4m is enough to warrant another season, but it depends on what else CW wants to do.

Rachel Bloom had a little more control of the song than she probably should have, but I'll take that over someone who just completely drops the ball. Since they're gonna keep having guests I can't blame the guests for wanting to do a little improv. In fact, during Helping Hands she had some nice setups like "This is why I had that affair - oops!" which Ryan just missed/ignored, because he's accepted that it's just a stupid gag about getting food shoved in his mouth. This is the problem with that game - when they get someone who actually can contribute, it's even more obvious how much that repetition wastes everyone's time.

He also made a couple claims about how seeing "unshuffled" 4 times means the deck was separated into 4 suits and 2 times was red/black. But didn't prove either time and it wouldn't work if one more Faro actually put them back in new deck order. So it's safe to say that your Force deduction is correct, and an unproven claim about "find any card" is not to be taken at face value.