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Peeking Behind The Curtain: How You Think The Tricks Were Done


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I was thinking about several "flashes" (I think they called) that P&T noticed that convinced them how a trick was done -- and once they noticed, it may have been hard for them to see something else.  Since magic is, as Penn said "knowing your audience" and the audience for Fool Us is P&T, rather than the audience, you have to misdirect them.  Why not show them something they'd be expecting to see (a clumsy shuffle, a possible deck switch, a hidden card in a box) that had nothing to do with your trick, while doing the trick some other way?  It would make it somewhat easier for the magicians, I think.

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In theory it might be possible to fool Penn & Teller that way, but I would lose a lot of respect for any magician who won that way. I really think of this show as a magic talent showcase that happens to have a competitive gimmick. The contestants here have already gotten their reward which is to perform on TV before a national audience and have two of the best magicians in the business tell them how good they are. A trip to Vegas to perform a couple times isn't really that great of a reward if you think about it.

 

As for Einhorn, I'm thinking the cards might have said, "<insert your name here>" but otherwise got the food right so that the guys would have still thought it was an amazing trick that he got the food in the right places and only afterwards might have realized that they had inadvertently made it look even more impressive by reading their names. As for how he got the food in the right places...I have no idea.

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The only observation I had for Einhorn's trick was that he got the names of all the male participants while they were in the audience, then had them come up on stage to get mic'd and name tagged.  Plenty of time for an off-stage assistant to add names to the "predictions".

 

Plus there aren't as many possibilities for how the trick could shake down as Einhorn suggested.  He was saying "thousands" or "millions" (which is an obvious exaggeration).  But if my math is correct, there are only 216 possible combinations of tables, food, men, and envelopes.  Getting 1 possibility out of 216 is still impressive.

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If Einhorn had some way to force the meal to the correct table, then he only really has to get the three men to sit at the correct tables. That's still an incredible trick, but it's not quite as hard as he makes it seem.

 

I don't know the exact details of how the Power of Polyester act worked, but I could see that Teller was carefully folding the cloth and that the parts he was offering up to be cut weren't actually from the middle of the cloth. Moreover, he wasn't actually tying knots in the cloth but was basically wrinkling it up into bunches. It's basically a good act, but I didn't think it was quite as good as the other ones they've presented on the show.

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I don't know the exact details of how the Power of Polyester act worked, but I could see that Teller was carefully folding the cloth and that the parts he was offering up to be cut weren't actually from the middle of the cloth. Moreover, he wasn't actually tying knots in the cloth but was basically wrinkling it up into bunches. It's basically a good act, but I didn't think it was quite as good as the other ones they've presented on the show.

 

The "cloth-cutting" trick is a pretty old one.  I'm not sure how it works, but it was far less impressive than most of their other tricks.

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If there is an independent judge on this show to verify that P&T do know how a particular trick was performed, I hope that judge took the win away from M&W. Since this show was filmed at least 3 years ago, does anyone know if M&W went to Las Vegas.

Penn elaborated in his podcast a bit. (He was of course going from memory a few years ago, but it holds together.)

 

The judge (their long-time friend Johnny Thompson) is the reason M&W did win. When Penn said "false shuffle" instead of the more accurate "retained top stock", the judge (through earpiece) said "You don't have it".  P&T both felt they did, and had merely meant "false shuffle" as in "not fully shuffled", not "false shuffle" as in the specific technique(s) of pretending to move cards.  However, with Morgan and West not giving in and the judge having explicitly said "you don't have it", they felt compelled to give the win.  In particular because the UK has laws regarding prizes and the judge had made his statement.

 

So they didn't feel fooled, and I certainly agree with you guys that it was a weak trick. But for all technicalities, they did win.  For what it's worth, "winning" is not actually as valuable as having P&T really like you, and Piff - despite not actually winning - has received a lot of support from them and has performed numerous times in Vegas and other US cities.

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With M&W, P&T guessed deck switch and were told they were wrong, because it wasn't a deck switch it was a top stock retain, or so I understand it. "All the cards Jonathan shuffled were there in the order he shuffled them" or some such being M&W's refutation to the deck switch suggestion.

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The food trick I've rewatched a hundred times and Xantar's guess is as close as I can get.

 

As for Einhorn, I'm thinking the cards might have said, "<insert your name here>" but otherwise got the food right so that the guys would have still thought it was an amazing trick that he got the food in the right places and only afterwards might have realized that they had inadvertently made it look even more impressive by reading their names. As for how he got the food in the right places...I have no idea.

I believe what you're talking about is known generally as "Dual Reality".  It's a risky trick for small audiences because they'll talk and everyone will know. It's risky for a TV audience because you're betting on some random guys not to misread and screw it up.  But to me it sounds like a great method when your goal is to fool Penn & Teller.  Provided you're willing to do such a huge gamble.

 

Part of why it's so difficult is revealed by jumping to the end, this sentence:  "Which leaves Jack sitting at table number 3 where he'll enjoy a pizza."  In addition to the name and food, the sentence itself is crafted for the position.  So I think if Einhorn went for this technique it would have to go like this:

 

1) Each of the platters is labeled in a way that's clearly visible to the person sitting there, but not to the audience.  This is already difficult because of the very casual way he handled the platters - picked up with his left hand facing the audience but placed down with left in back. 

 

2) The cards have ALL THREE messages written on each.  There are blanks for <your name> and <name of food>.  They'd look like this:

 

TABLE 1: A man by the name of <your name> will be asked to sit at table number 1 where he'll be served <name of food>.

 

TABLE 2: <your name> will be instructed to sit at table number 2 where he'll be served <name of food>.

 

TABLE 3: Which leaves <your name> sitting at table number 3 where he'll enjoy <name of food>.

 

 

3) These are the instructions Einhorn recites to the volunteers:

Gentlemen could I ask you to open your envelopes please. Inside your envelopes there'll be a message, a message for each of you. I'm going to start off at table number 1 and ask you, please, Daniel, slowly and clearly to read your message.

...

Sir you're at table number two, would you please slowly and clearly read your message.

...

Which leaves you at table number three, would you please slowly and clearly read your message.

 

 

So he's telling them to read the message for them, at which point they insert their name and read "chicken tikka masala and pilau rice" or "a pizza" off the serving cover.

 

That's my best guess.  It's so risky because A) the guys would have no reason to be impressed at all, B) you're chancing them reading the wrong line, not seeing the food label, or getting creative, C) spotting the card or the label gives the trick away.  But it would certainly work and no doubt fool them.

Edited by Amarsir
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I think you're referring to Ben Earl, who did the top stock retain in his ace-cutting trick. With M&W it was a deck switch.

Yeah, I might be misremembering the podcast, or crossing wires as to which trick he was talking about. (Penn didn't use names when talking.)  My bad, I'll clarify later if I figure it out at some point.

I agree that's basically the way it was done, but (and I might be recalling it wrong) I thought he had them read, then lifted the cloche. So it can't have said <name of food> because he only showed the food after they'd named it.

My premise is that the cloche was labeled in some way they could see and we couldn't.

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I believe what you're talking about is known generally as "Dual Reality".  It's a risky trick for small audiences because they'll talk and everyone will know. It's risky for a TV audience because you're betting on some random guys not to misread and screw it up.  But to me it sounds like a great method when your goal is to fool Penn & Teller.  Provided you're willing to do such a huge gamble.

 

Just to clarify, Dual Reality is any time the volunteer perceives the trick differently than the audience. That is always the case with an instant stooge (and so would certainly be the case here), but there are ways to do Dual Reality that do not involve what would be called an instant stooge. In fact, in the best cases of Dual Reality, the volunteer is still fooled, they're just fooled in a different way than the audience as a whole is fooled.

 

Good catch on the different phrasings. Honestly, that makes the instant stooging even more difficult to pull off if they've got three different messages on there, and kind of makes me think he must have had a different method, even though I've got absolutely no clue what that could possibly be.

 

With M&W, P&T guessed deck switch and were told they were wrong, because it wasn't a deck switch it was a top stock retain, or so I understand it. "All the cards Jonathan shuffled were there in the order he shuffled them" or some such being M&W's refutation to the deck switch suggestion.

 

A top stock retain is keeping the top packet of cards unchanged during a shuffle/cut (which is what Ben Earl did), and since Jonathan was doing the shuffle, that's clearly not what they were doing. They just did a packet addition instead of a full deck switch, which is how they cheated their way to a win on a technicality. 

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My premise is that the cloche was labeled in some way they could see and we couldn't.

I don't think that was necessary.  Remember the order of the trick.  Plates to tables, then volunteers selected, then brought on stage.  At which point the 3 colored envelopes are introduced.

 

Ample time for an off-stage confederate, that knew which plate was which from the setup, to note what food had ended up at each table and write it into each message.  Much less chance of anything being revealed that way.

 

Or, the easier solution that doesn't involve a confederate: there are 18 envelopes. 

 

Looking at the math of just the plates and tables, there are only 6 possible endpoints from the initial set-up: plate A to any of 3 tables, plate B to either of 2 tables, and plate C to the remaining 1.  Even including switching after the fact, that's only 3 x 2 x 1 = 6 variations at the end. 

 

So assuming that each of the 3 envelopes contains the same message with the name gaps and the Instant Stooge effect (which we are), then all Einhorn needed to do for the trick to work was to cover each the 6 possible plate/table combinations.  Simple enough to write the message in all 6 ways, print up 3 copies of each, and thus make up 6 sets of identically colored envelopes, one set for each of the 6 possible endpoints.  Then, all he would have to do is remember which endpoint was selected and get out just the set of envelopes that matched.  Given that he also got name-tags for the men, he had plenty of opportunity to do just that.

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The problem with that, (and I may be misremembering something), after the envelopes were handed out, the Audience member had two of the envelopes switched, and it was done entirely without the Magician handling the envelopes. He never got near the envelopes again once they were switched.

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I don't think that was necessary.  Remember the order of the trick.  Plates to tables, then volunteers selected, then brought on stage.  At which point the 3 colored envelopes are introduced. Ample time for an off-stage confederate, that knew which plate was which from the setup, to note what food had ended up at each table and write it into each message.  Much less chance of anything being revealed that way.

 

Or, the easier solution that doesn't involve a confederate: there are 18 envelopes. 

Yes, that would work.  Good thinking.  The only issue is that he asks her if she wanted to switch anyone at the end.  The implication is that he means switch where the guys are seated. (Which would be fine since they all have the same envelope.)  But she could easily take that opening to say "yes, switch the meals on 2 and 3".  That would be disastrous.  But otherwise I guess it's pretty clean.

The problem with that, (and I may be misremembering something), after the envelopes were handed out, the Audience member had two of the envelopes switched, and it was done entirely without the Magician handling the envelopes. He never got near the envelopes again once they were switched.

We're working with the theory that all 3 envelopes are exactly the same and each has all 3 messages for all 3 tables.  So you can switch them all you want and it won't matter.

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Switching performers, does anyone know how Etienne Pradier fooled them? If it wasn't pencil reading and wasn't a stack, my best guess is that the envelope had 2 backs, the second one took an impression and he lifted it off when taking the deck.  And then he had to peek and locate the card which is difficult but at least he had time.  But that's a shot in the dark, I really don't know.

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(edited)

In the episode that aired on July 20, 2015, Teller drew a correct explanation for Kyle and Misti's ring escape act.   Here's my thought how Misti escaped the rings:

 

The rings were scrutinized by the audience members.  Well, most of the rings were examined.  One ring was in Kyle's hand on stage at the beginning.  That ring was placed in the bottom most position.  I believe that specific ring may have been able to be opened by Misti.  Then she dropped down and slipped out the bottom. 

 

Or maybe the bottom ring could bend up far enough to allow Misti slip out.  Then she pushed it back into place as she exited.  

 

Even if the bottom ring was legitimate, then a flexible short person would be able to contort through the bottom ring.

 

I also noticed Misti's hair was slightly out of place right after the act.  Possibly due to squeezing through a narrow escape opening.

Edited by K-9
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What impressed me about Shin Lim's card magic - and this isn't so much a spoiler for him as about Magic in general - is that he was performing against an animated red background. And a red vest too (although black shirt under it). A black, poorly-lit background is just so helpful for making things vanish that I expect it to be standard, and to not use that is just added difficulty.

 

Now once you know in advance what's coming, and realize that the second signed card had to have been duplicated*, a lot of it can be detected. He's very good with angles, but you can see when hands aren't quite turning - or in one case between his fingers. Although my first suspicion - that he was ditching to the wide, rolled-up sleeves, was not correct.  And really anything I could point out would feel like nit-picking, since the whole act was really beautiful.

 

* The main trick was the second signed card moving around, and while there were plenty of great slights the jump from back to front hand could only have been done via duplicate. And pausing to compare the two, I think the signatures are very slightly different. Which would be an easy mechanic to get away with if you only ask her to verify on the original and flash the duplicate to the audience.  Now I don't really know how he did that, but one possible way would be a skilled assistant under the table. That would also help with some ditches and with initiating the smoke effect from the table. But again, just a guess.

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In the episode that aired on July 20, 2015, Teller drew a correct explanation for Kyle and Misti's ring escape act.   Here's my thought how Misti escaped the rings:

 

The rings were scrutinized by the audience members.  Well, most of the rings were examined.  One ring was in Kyle's hand on stage at the beginning.  That ring was placed in the bottom most position.  I believe that specific ring may have been able to be opened by Misti.  Then she dropped down and slipped out the bottom. 

 

Or maybe the bottom ring could bend up far enough to allow Misti slip out.  Then she pushed it back into place as she exited.  

 

Even if the bottom ring was legitimate, then a flexible short person would be able to contort through the bottom ring.

 

I also noticed Misti's hair was slightly out of place right after the act.  Possibly due to squeezing through a narrow escape opening.

I think it's simpler than that. They were all attached in the back on a single bolt. Pick two rings toward the middle. Rotate one clockwise, so the side audience-left is high. Rotate the one below it counterclockwise. Now the right sides of those two rings are touching or crossing, but the left side has a wide gap equivalent to three of the spacings we saw. That's enough for her to get through quickly without major contortions. Go through then move them back and you're done.

 

It wouldn't even need any mechanical rigging, since Jonathan was rushing through the bolting and magician Kyle was positioning them so we'd never question that they could rotate. But it wouldn't be that hard anyway to put stoppers or something that ensured it would rotate easily.  

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Anyone have any clues about how the bullet catch was done?

Not really.

If you knew that the laser sights were aimed well to the side of the barrel, and the glass was positioned off to the side as well, it's possible to line up precisely so the laser points at your partner and the gun shoots in a different direction, through the glass. But that's legitimately dangerous so I doubt P&T would do that. And it still would require duplicate bullets.

Here are the components that need to be answered:

1. How do they get the bullet out of the casing?

2. How does the signed bullet leave the "shooter"?

3. How does the bullet get scoring as if fired?

4. How does the gun (with signed shell) fire?

5. How does the bullet get to the "catcher"?

6. How does the glass break?

#5 is the easiest, since the carts come on stage with safety gear. The rest I don't know. Maybe the bullet slides out of the casing in a way the volunteers don't notice? But still leaves the shell to fire blank?

I know it was their show's final trick for many years and they conferenced a bunch of experts to devise the method, so I'm not surprised I can't figure it out. It's just that good.

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Just watched the trick. I have no clue how it is really done but I have some suspicions. Now, I have no idea how guns work (well I know the basics but not the fine details on bullet structure) so I could be completely wrong. 

 

Assumption 1: The glass is a distraction, a way to buy time. They're broken some way but how is irrelevant really. It could be someone shooting BB's at it from off stage for all we know. 

 

My theory:

Set up: I think all the bullets offered have already been prefired, into ballistic gel or something so the head isn't deformed, but the rear gets the striations from firing.

 

The fired bullets are loaded up into extra large casings that cover the fire markings. Penn explicitly points that out.

 

The audience members can pick any bullet, and mark them as we see. No tricks there. 

 

The gun loading is the key part. The guns are loaded, but somehow (maybe the chamber?) is such that the bullet part can be knocked out of the casing. Penn and Teller palm the bullets as they close the guns up, leaving blanks in the chamber with the casings. 

 

The big challenge now is to get the bullets to the other side of the lines. I suspect it is the movement of the audience members to the base of the stairs. Notice there are two workers waiting there for them. P&T ditch the bullets on them (notice the shoulder squeezes) and the workers pluck the bullets off at the bottom of the stairs. Maybe they're under the shirt collars, if they pick volunteers with collars normally. 

 

Penn and Teller then take their time setting up the rest of the scene, moving the panels and killing times. The workers have time to swap bullets and plant them on the bullet proof gear they are putting on. P&T  can then pluck the planted bullets while putting on the gear and stash them in their mouths. 

 

P&T aim the guns, the sights probably off center for extra safety, do the fire and plant the bullets in their teeth, and the trick wraps up as we saw.

 

The bullets will have the 'firing' markings, and the fact they aren't hot can be dismissed from being in their mouths or something. (and the gunfire from the blanks should give enough of a gunpowder scent to pass)

 

Now, that is all just pure guesswork on my part. I don't know anything about firearms or bullets so maybe I'm missing some elements. But that does make sense to me based off of what we saw. 

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Just watched the trick. I have no clue how it is really done but I have some suspicions. Now, I have no idea how guns work (well I know the basics but not the fine details on bullet structure) so I could be completely wrong. 

 

Assumption 1: The glass is a distraction, a way to buy time. They're broken some way but how is irrelevant really. It could be someone shooting BB's at it from off stage for all we know. 

 

My theory:

Set up: I think all the bullets offered have already been prefired, into ballistic gel or something so the head isn't deformed, but the rear gets the striations from firing.

 

The fired bullets are loaded up into extra large casings that cover the fire markings. Penn explicitly points that out.

 

The audience members can pick any bullet, and mark them as we see. No tricks there. 

 

The gun loading is the key part. The guns are loaded, but somehow (maybe the chamber?) is such that the bullet part can be knocked out of the casing. Penn and Teller palm the bullets as they close the guns up, leaving blanks in the chamber with the casings. 

 

The big challenge now is to get the bullets to the other side of the lines. I suspect it is the movement of the audience members to the base of the stairs. Notice there are two workers waiting there for them. P&T ditch the bullets on them (notice the shoulder squeezes) and the workers pluck the bullets off at the bottom of the stairs. Maybe they're under the shirt collars, if they pick volunteers with collars normally. 

 

Penn and Teller then take their time setting up the rest of the scene, moving the panels and killing times. The workers have time to swap bullets and plant them on the bullet proof gear they are putting on. P&T  can then pluck the planted bullets while putting on the gear and stash them in their mouths. 

 

P&T aim the guns, the sights probably off center for extra safety, do the fire and plant the bullets in their teeth, and the trick wraps up as we saw.

 

The bullets will have the 'firing' markings, and the fact they aren't hot can be dismissed from being in their mouths or something. (and the gunfire from the blanks should give enough of a gunpowder scent to pass)

 

Now, that is all just pure guesswork on my part. I don't know anything about firearms or bullets so maybe I'm missing some elements. But that does make sense to me based off of what we saw.

That was pretty much in line with my theory. (Though I figured the workers fired the bullets into a water tank or something backstage using guns with silencers before switching them.)

(BTW, the entire thread is under a spoiler tag, so you don't need the spoiler within your post. :) )

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I spoilered it in case anyone wanted to avoid a theory details. Though it is a spoiler thread.

 

In any case, if they fire backstage, then the assistants have to get 2 pieces away and 4 pieces back in time, and even with a silencer it may still be heard. It's a plausible idea I'll give you that, jsut feels more complicated. Then again, my theory of getting the head out of the sleeve unnoticed might be even more complicated.

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I think the two "audience members" may be accomplices -- if they're really that familiar with guns, they'd know that the bullet (and the casing, I think is HOT!  But neither said a thing about it.  The "art" on the casings looked a little too good, as well.

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(edited)

Silencers aren't "silent", despite what Hollywood implies. It sounds like a car door being slammed. I suppose you could do it in a sound-proof room (it is their theatre) but there just isn't that much time to actually do that. Plus the issue with getting the casing back to the shooter and into the gun.

I doubt they use plants. They do the show every night, people see it repeatedly, and occasionally volunteers have social media'd about their experience. It is a more plausible idea for this trick than for most, since the choice isn't random. But I don't think so.

Edited by Amarsir
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We were talking about the trick with the kid and the torn card seemingly reassembling itself (partly backwards) in that episode thread.

 

To me it was odd that the kid let someone keep the card--even if it was a cooperative someone unlikely to really blab. I mean at the very least you could tell a few things from the card.  If it had been MANUFACTURED that way, for example.  Which is important information, because if it clearly had, then you know it's likely that either the trick was about forcing someone to pick a particular card that had been prepped that way, or having a whole deck prepared that way and successfully disguising that fact.

 

Also you might also be able to tell if the card has some kind of residue on it. Certainly the tricks where one card (usually signed) turns into another utilize that kind of thing (Piff's trick, for example, where you make them sign on the border, then peel off a sticker making one card "change" into another).

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See, that's an interesting reaction to that trick. If you could actually do magic to restore a card (which is what we're trying to simulate), wouldn't you expect it to look like a manufactured card? Would it be more "convincing" if it was restored, but had some evidence of a tear? Also, remember that Jonathan tore up the card, and Jonathan gets to hold and examine both the torn piece and the card with the corner torn out of it right before it restores. Also, if the trick is done properly then even if you were right on top of him like Jonathan was, you would swear up and down that the torn card and piece never leave your sight. If you're watching it on video and can rewind it a bunch of times and reconstruct it, then sure, you can maybe backtrack from the card to how he might have been able to do it, but that's not most people's experience of magic. If you're holding a torn card and torn piece in your own hands, and then all of a sudden I restore it backwards and hand it back to you, you don't really have anywhere to go. You may go "this card must have been specially made up", but the moment you start to backtrack (without the aid of video), you go "but wait, I was holding the torn card". Given all that, you absolutely give the card away. It's a terrific souvenir. There's nothing to find on it (there certainly won't be any sticky residue), and it will look and feel just like a normal playing card, only with the torn corner reversed. To me, it's much more of a red flag if you can't give the card away at the end. Then the spectator's brain can just jump to "oh, he just stuck it on there somehow," whether that's the actual method or not.

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I noticed a lot of chat about the torn & restored card. As P&T said, it is a "commercial" trick - not just a purchased method. I also don't see any reason not to give the prop away since (as SomethingClever said) it looks about as good as a magically restored card should look.

 

For anyone still wondering, let me walk you through the routine and see if you can't catch it for yourself:

 

  1. The magician (Austin) riffle's the deck in front of Jonathan, cuts the deck, then hands Jonathan the "selected" card - Queen of Spades.
  2. Jonathan tears up the card into pieces. Then hands all the pieces back to Austin.
  3. Austin hands a corner of a Queen of Spades to Jonathan.
  4. The stack of pieces Jonathan tore disappears.
  5. Austin pulls out a card with a corner torn off, which matches the piece he handed Jonathan in #3. Jonathan confirms then gives it back.
  6. Austin puts the ripped card somewhere in the vicinity of the deck, using both hands, while directing Jonathan to look at the corner he's holding.
  7. Austin presents the deck with a Queen of Spades on top with the corner farthest from Jonathan appearing to be missing a corner - since we see blue as we would with the back of another card under it.
  8. Jonathan signs that card that was presented to him on top of the deck.
  9. Austin signs the corner that Jonathan has been holding.
  10. Austin takes that piece and then presents the card from the top of the deck, where the face which had been up had been signed by Jonathan, and the "restored" corner that was "restored" to facing down was signed by the magician.

 

At this point my eye hurts from all the winking I'm doing while typing, but I think I've given enough for most curious minds. To anyone still in the dark on it, may I instead suggest that you would benefit from investing in some valuable real estate in Florida on which I could give you a great deal? :)

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Maybe I'm over-gifted in the spacial perception department, but the first thing I thought when I saw the upside down restored corner was "Waitaminnit, he had to not only restore it but make it a mirror image of itself in order for the tear to match".

Edited by Totale
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I think the phonebook sword routine fooled them only because they overthought it. He absolutely held the break and peeked, and that's all there is to the trick. The rest was Penn not really paying attention, and Teller not catching his big mistake: calling impossible numbers.

 

Jonathan picked a page at random from the fan while the magician was not looking. The back of the phonebook was to the audience, which obscured what he was doing with his other hand. Jonathan wrote down the page number, and the magician slightly folded/dog-eared/otherwise marked the page selected. At this point, he does not know whether Jonathan's eyes were on the left-hand page or right-hand page.

 

He then flipped through the phonebook in his hand, when talking about ripping it in half. Before he handed it to Jonathan, he said 'don't rip it on the spine', and then he flipped the pages open and facing him, and said 'don't cheat and rip it in half this way'. That was his peek at the marked page. He looked at probably the left side page and remembered the number.

 

That's all there was to the trick. The whole rest was immaterial. Jonathan threw the pages and they played around with that for a bit. He pulled out a second phone book and "stabbed" a page... but we never saw what page he actually stabbed. He just had to have half a page up his sleeve and in the rain of pages, he slipped it on the end of the sword. He pulled it off and called out his giveaway tell: "I have 520, and on this side, 521. What did you write down, Jonathan?"

 

That's impossible. Pages in a book are numbered with 1 on the right hand side and 2 on the back of 1. 520 and 521 are not on the same leaf of paper in a book. 519 is on the right hand side, turn it over is 520. 521 is the facing page of 520, and 522 is the opposite side of that leaf. 521 is never on the opposite side of 520. This is how he covered for not knowing, at the start of the trick, which side of the book Jonathan was looking at of the two facing pages.

 

The thing is, he never showed the stabbed page to the audience. He just bluffed. He had a sheet of paper on the sword and just called out two numbers. Penn got tripped up trying to explain how that particular page ended up on the sword when that wasn't part of the trick. First he thought it was a force, then he called out the peek, which the magician owned up to, but then stumbled trying to explain how the peek got the right page out of the second phone book. That was all irrelevant and snagged the explanation. There was no "right page" because he never proved (at least that I saw) that it was actually 520 on the sword. Because, unless Vancouver prints their phone books unlike every other publisher in the western hemisphere, page 520/521 does not exist.

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That's impossible. Pages in a book are numbered with 1 on the right hand side and 2 on the back of 1. 520 and 521 are not on the same leaf of paper in a book. 519 is on the right hand side, turn it over is 520. 521 is the facing page of 520, and 522 is the opposite side of that leaf. 521 is never on the opposite side of 520. This is how he covered for not knowing, at the start of the trick, which side of the book Jonathan was looking at of the two facing pages.

You caught that too, huh?  I loved that. It felt like I was a kid reading an Encyclopedia Brown mystery story and spotting the clue to the crime. (Heck, it probably was used in one.)

 

That said ... I'm not 100% sure it's impossible for a phone book. They often have weird pages for government numbers or a full-page ad or something. It's not completely inconceivable that they went i, ii, iii, and then started 1 on a left-hand page. Unusual, certainly. But I wouldn't say with certainty that no phonebook ever made would ever have an odd number on a left page.

 

I can however say that his didn't, because that description is completely correct.  And as cute as the Luke Skywalker reference was, I'm surprised Penn made a force guess as well.

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You caught that too, huh?  I loved that. It felt like I was a kid reading an Encyclopedia Brown mystery story and spotting the clue to the crime. (Heck, it probably was used in one.)

 

 

Now that you mention it, I'm 99.99% sure it was in at least one Donald J. Sobol story, if not Encyclopedia Brown then in his 2-Minute Mysteries series. I'm almost certain that's where I first learned it and it must have stuck with me ever since, and it was an immediate tell when watching the trick. :)

 

 

Edit: For sure! Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Two-Dollar Bill, in which Encyclopedia states that 157 and 158 are always the same page in a book and nothing could be placed between them. A page from a book is always 'smaller-number odd, bigger-number even' on a single sheet.

Edited by Charlesman
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Edit: For sure! Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Two-Dollar Bill, in which Encyclopedia states that 157 and 158 are always the same page in a book and nothing could be placed between them. A page from a book is always 'smaller-number odd, bigger-number even' on a single sheet.

A nice bit of detective work yourself! :)

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Last episode Penn & Teller demonstrate the cup & ball routine with clear cups showing us how they loaded the cups. Then this week's episode they do the 'rabbit from a hat' trick with a live rabbit the second time. The audience seemed very pleased.

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I noticed a lot of chat about the torn & restored card. As P&T said, it is a "commercial" trick - not just a purchased method. I also don't see any reason not to give the prop away since (as SomethingClever said) it looks about as good as a magically restored card should look.

For anyone still wondering, let me walk you through the routine and see if you can't catch it for yourself:

  • The magician (Austin) riffle's the deck in front of Jonathan, cuts the deck, then hands Jonathan the "selected" card - Queen of Spades.
  • Jonathan tears up the card into pieces. Then hands all the pieces back to Austin.
  • Austin hands a corner of a Queen of Spades to Jonathan.
  • The stack of pieces Jonathan tore disappears.
  • Austin pulls out a card with a corner torn off, which matches the piece he handed Jonathan in #3. Jonathan confirms then gives it back.
  • Austin puts the ripped card somewhere in the vicinity of the deck, using both hands, while directing Jonathan to look at the corner he's holding.
  • Austin presents the deck with a Queen of Spades on top with the corner farthest from Jonathan appearing to be missing a corner - since we see blue as we would with the back of another card under it.
  • Jonathan signs that card that was presented to him on top of the deck.
  • Austin signs the corner that Jonathan has been holding.
  • Austin takes that piece and then presents the card from the top of the deck, where the face which had been up had been signed by Jonathan, and the "restored" corner that was "restored" to facing down was signed by the magician.

At this point my eye hurts from all the winking I'm doing while typing, but I think I've given enough for most curious minds. To anyone still in the dark on it, may I instead suggest that you would benefit from investing in some valuable real estate in Florida on which I could give you a great deal? :)

More confused than ever! Just dumb, I guess. It's like the set of instructions Apple gives me about managing my storage. Eyes glaze over after number two.

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More confused than ever! Just dumb, I guess. It's like the set of instructions Apple gives me about managing my storage. Eyes glaze over after number two.

Not dumb at all. Just maybe a bit too trusting. (Which is exactly what magicians rely on.)

 

Does it help if I tell you there are 3 versions of the Queen of Spades? One starts whole and we see Jonathan tear it up. The second one has a corner torn off. The third one is printed with a backwards corner. If you figure out where he switches them (steps 3 and 6 in my list above) then you can figure out that the second card is signed by the magician during the show (step 9) and the third card was pre-signed by the magician. So the only remaining trickery is A) handing Jonathan a non-random card in step 1 and B) getting Jonathan to sign the third version in step 8 when he thinks he's really signing a ripped card.

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Not dumb at all. Just maybe a bit too trusting. (Which is exactly what magicians rely on.)

Does it help if I tell you there are 3 versions of the Queen of Spades? One starts whole and we see Jonathan tear it up. The second one has a corner torn off. The third one is printed with a backwards corner. If you figure out where he switches them (steps 3 and 6 in my list above) then you can figure out that the second card is signed by the magician during the show (step 9) and the third card was pre-signed by the magician. So the only remaining trickery is A) handing Jonathan a non-random card in step 1 and B) getting Jonathan to sign the third version in step 8 when he thinks he's really signing a ripped card.

That helped! Thanks!

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There's a discussion in the episode thread about whether or not Kostya Kimlat used a gimmicked deck to accomplish his effect where cards mixed face up and face down all straighten out (a class of effect referred to as "Triumph"). In the other thread carruth00 implied that half of the cards were normal (the half he hands to Teller), and that the other half are gimmicked (the ones he and Penn mix face up on the table). I assume that what he's thinking of is that those cards are double facers (DFs), they have a face on both sides of the card. This accomplishes the triumph easily, because even when you mix them, all you have to do is turn the deck over and they're all still face up. There are several things that make this impossible though. First, Kostya immediately follows the first shuffle by mixing the cards again by just dropping them onto the table. This is probably too fast for anyone sitting there to see if the cards flipping over are DFs, but if you slow it down you can clearly see face up cards turning face down. But then he lets P&T handle the cards and flip them themselves. They're almost certainly going to notice gimmicks at this point, particularly DF cards. More importantly, even if this is some sort of incredible, undetectable gimmick, Kimlat no longer knows which are the gimmicked cards and which are the regular ones. It's a true mix that is out of his hands. Lastly, there's the selection and return procedure. P&T can select any card (if there are DF gimmicks, the gig is up if they grab one) and return it either face up or face down. If they return it face down, this is a problem for a DF method, as the card will be oriented the wrong way. He would have to secretly flip the card in that case. On top of all that, the cards are left sitting there at the end, and Teller gets to examine them at length. I can think of no card gimmick that stands up to that kind of scrutiny, and surely not one that accomplishes this trick.

 

The actual explanation is much simpler, if much, much harder to actually do. There's a technique that Kimlat is well-known for, and he simply executes it at an extraordinarily high level. 

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Definitely real deck, just handled really well.

 

Someone on reddit pointed out the video, watch it at about 3:55 at 1/4th speed. You can just barely figure out what he's doing. Mostly because he momentarily catches the Queen of Hearts in the wrong spot and has to flick it back up to the right position.

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I went back and watched the show again and Kostya is working with a clean deck. It was simply a wonderful cull, done in about three parts, very quickly, and performed while he was showing P&T how well the cards were mixed. You can actually see him flip the bottom half face up right before fanning the cards for the final reveal. 

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Someone on reddit pointed out the video, watch it at about 3:55 at 1/4th speed. 

At 3:55 what I mostly see is Kimlat doing some brief business with his left thumb when Teller slides his card in, then he swings around to face Penn and while doing so something happens with his right hand. I can't say more than "something" because well... I dunno. Maybe it's a good thing the cameraman had switched to a three-shot rather than the closeup they had a moment before.

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For Joshua Jay's trick (on "Teller Plays with a Full Deck"), there's a way it could have been done where the blank deck could be examined by an expert after.

 

He simply knows what the selected card is (a number of ways to do this, even if it's a real blindfold*), pulls ONLY THAT CARD out of an indexed deck in a jacket pocket (or somewhere hidden), and palms it in.  He could even use a shaved/marked Chosen Card, and not give that card away.  

 

It's a really cool trick, even if that's how it's done.  It's also possible I'm completely wrong.

 

*  The way I'd do it would be a signal from the audience, because the entire audience saw the number of cards dealt.  There are other ways, like peeking at the stack or measuring the length of time cards are dealt, but that's how I'd do it.

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Yeah, I was confused again by Penn's insistence on a deck switch being part of the secret. It's like two weeks ago when he was baffled by the phone book page being actually the same one Jonathan Ross picked without there being a need as the magician never "proved" it. Same here... Penn correctly stated we never saw the cards at the start of the trick. So, why the need for a deck switch at all? Just add one card to 51 blank ones and no one's the wiser, no need for a deck switch. Thumper and an index would do it.

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So, here's where I am on the Josh Jay trick. I've considered the possibility of palming in a card from an index. That's originally what I assumed it would be. The problem is with how he knows what the card is. Josh has an earlier version of this trick where the card at the end is a blank card, and the whole thing is a completely blank deck. The way the card is found in that trick is by using very subtle pencil markings on a couple cards that are positioned to let him know what card they selected. I'm assuming that he's doing the same thing here, but by feel instead of by sight. So he'll have two cards that are crimped, punched, daubed or something that he can feel to indicate which card was selected. You can see him do this when he breaks the cards into piles. He's left with 8 cards, which is what you would have if you were using the method described above (4 for the value, 4 for the suit). So that's the moment he knows what the card is. From there we have a couple camera cuts, but there don't appear to be any gaps, and his hands never leave the deck.

 

Now, it's possible that he switched up the method and had someone signal him the card, or discerned it in some other way, and then went through the motions of feeling for the cards anyway for the few people familiar with the earlier incarnation of the trick, but that seems unlikely to me. 

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