S05.E03: Penn & Teller Get Loopy

[The Crazed Spruce]

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Featured magicians include Ryan Chandler, Ryan Hayashi, Dirk Losander, and Ed Ripley.

[Taeolas]

Some fun tricks tonight. 

The first one was a lot of work to get to the ecrofed reveal at the end, but it was a fun trip to get there. :) 

The second one was the standard matrix, but he was very slick. I think I saw or heard a few of the moves, but I couldn't begin to follow where everything went. I think P&T were just really impressed by him and his patter in general, and just threw in the towel and enjoyed the show by the end, hence the FU award. :) 

The third was a fun trick and P&T seemed really impressed by the prop, but they clearly knew how the trick worked.

The table levitating was lots of fun and a sweet trick to watch. Sadly the feed glitched at the changeover so I missed a bit of it. P&T seemed really impressed by the trick nonetheless, and didn't want to give anything away beyond the basics. I have no idea how that works nor where the table went; it must be flattened somehow I think, but otherwise, it was a sweet trick to see. 

The Penn and Teller and Teller and Teller trick was neat. Not sure if the trap door reveal was a clue or a misdirection for how the trick was done. I suspect it's a clue and the other Tellers were hiding in the bottom of the stage waiting for the queues, but I'm still impressed they can pull those types of tricks off. (Especially Taller :) )

[Amarsir]

17 hours ago, Taeolas said:

The first one was a lot of work to get to the ecrofed reveal at the end, but it was a fun trip to get there. :) 

I liked the way the reveal was done, but all the stuff in-between didn't seem tied in well enough. We got to watch him whispering it in backwards, so playing that same track reversed is underwhelming. Make it appear the sound was recorded inadvertently and that trick becomes 10x better.

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The second one was the standard matrix, but he was very slick. I think I saw or heard a few of the moves, but I couldn't begin to follow where everything went. I think P&T were just really impressed by him and his patter in general, and just threw in the towel and enjoyed the show by the end, hence the FU award. :) 

Matrix is matrix at this point. He was good, but I agree P&T just don't want to try to debunk it and would rather give an honorary win.

However, I felt the patter didn't quite work. False bravado as comedy is fine - the first performer used it as well. But I felt there was too much of it, and it was infected by his genuine excitement to be there. (Which should be a good thing - I want to be happy for the magician and am. But I can't buy him getting into character as an egomaniac when the true fanboy is so evident.)

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The third was a fun trick and P&T seemed really impressed by the prop, but they clearly knew how the trick worked.

I was distracted by how huge the sleeves on his coat were. Also I felt his "pick any size currency" was less impressive than it should have been since we don't know if it's accurate. (In fact I'm not even sure the size that came out matched what went in.) But that's not a heavy criticism. I'm saying the trick is probably even better than it came off.

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The table levitating was lots of fun and a sweet trick to watch. Sadly the feed glitched at the changeover so I missed a bit of it. P&T seemed really impressed by the trick nonetheless, and didn't want to give anything away beyond the basics. I have no idea how that works nor where the table went; it must be flattened somehow I think, but otherwise, it was a sweet trick to see. 

An old-school big stage trick has very little chance of fooling them. However, I really liked it. Nothing obvious in the performance. And although she might have been acting, Allison seemed genuinely impressed for being so close up.

Edited July 11, 2018 by Amarsir

[SomethingClever]

10 hours ago, Amarsir said:

Matrix is matrix at this point. He was good, but I agree P&T just don't want to try to debunk it and would rather give an honorary win.

However, I felt the patter didn't quite work. False bravado as comedy is fine - the first performer used it as well. But I felt there was too much of it, and it was infected by his genuine excitement to be there. (Which should be a good thing - I want to be happy for the magician and am. But I can't buy him getting into character as an egomaniac when the true fanboy is so evident.)

Yeah, it was a really strange performance, the tone was a bit all over the place. The technical skill is really excellent, though certainly this was one of those acts where P&T could've gone either way based on what they felt. There are so many moves that I'm sure P&T missed some of them, but I'm also sure that they saw plenty of them as well, so it just came down to them saying "yeah, he was awesome, we'll give him the win." He's super good, but I was less impressed than I would've been otherwise because I got to see Shoot Ogawa do a similar routine live at a convention I went to last year, and this guy is good, but he's no Shoot Ogawa.

 

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An old-school big stage trick has very little chance of fooling them. However, I really liked it. Nothing obvious in the performance. And although she might have been acting, Allison seemed genuinely impressed for being so close up.

I would bet that she wasn't acting. I mean, he didn't just do that for this show, it's part of the regular floating table routine that you have a spectator hold the other side of it while its levitating, and they never see a thing.  Losander is a legend and the Floating Table has become a classic for a reason. It's a beautiful trick, and the fact that you can do it in a spectator's hands makes it so powerful. 

[Charlesman]

14 hours ago, Amarsir said:

I liked the way the reveal was done, but all the stuff in-between didn't seem tied in well enough. We got to watch him whispering it in backwards, so playing that same track reversed is underwhelming. Make it appear the sound was recorded inadvertently and that trick becomes 10x better.

 

The whole looping trick made little sense to me. He made this whole thing about adding the first three tracks, then added his whisper on the fourth, then reversed it, then took out the first three tracks. So all the stuff with Alison & P&T did nothing but waste time. He literally did nothing more than have her pick a card, then say what it was four minutes later. 

[MsTree]

10 hours ago, Charlesman said:

The whole looping trick made little sense to me. He made this whole thing about adding the first three tracks, then added his whisper on the fourth, then reversed it, then took out the first three tracks. So all the stuff with Alison & P&T did nothing but waste time. He literally did nothing more than have her pick a card, then say what it was four minutes later. 

Exactly! Not only was it a waste of time, (to me) it was extremely irritating.

[lynxfx]

On 7/11/2018 at 2:20 PM, Charlesman said:

The whole looping trick made little sense to me. He made this whole thing about adding the first three tracks, then added his whisper on the fourth, then reversed it, then took out the first three tracks. So all the stuff with Alison & P&T did nothing but waste time. He literally did nothing more than have her pick a card, then say what it was four minutes later. 

The point of the other three tracks was to prove that it was live and not prerecorded. So reversing it you could tell that yes those tracks are being reversed along with his whispering.

Even though that was the point, I agree that it was a waste of time or at least not executed well. Nothing was created with all 4 tracks, just a bunch of noise. Teller even tried to make his track fit with the original beat but the magician wanted him to do more and faster. 

There are some people that can speak backwards at will. I think if he trained enough where he could do any card it would be a better trick. Heck he should just do the very first "beat" track with the backwards whisper so it is playing the whole time and then reveal it at the end.

[rmontro]

On 7/11/2018 at 2:38 AM, Amarsir said:

However, I felt the patter didn't quite work. False bravado as comedy is fine - the first performer used it as well. But I felt there was too much of it, and it was infected by his genuine excitement to be there. (Which should be a good thing - I want to be happy for the magician and am. But I can't buy him getting into character as an egomaniac when the true fanboy is so evident.)

I thought his patter was funny, I laughed several times during the trick.  If he had genuinely come across as an egomaniac (as opposed to simply playing one on TV), I probably would have found him irritating.  As for his F.U., Penn even said "We followed you, and we followed you, and we followed you some more, and then we just gave up".  I'm sure P&T could have deconstructed any part of that trick, but it went on so long and had so many different parts, I don't know how Penn would have even begun to explain it all.

I know it's part of Alyson's role to play the wide eyed innocent, but I found her expressions to be a bit much during the table trick.  Mind you, I like her as host for the most part.  I know she took a lot of flak for her performance early on, but she's improved over time.  And she's more pleasant to look at that Jonathan Ross.