S05.E09: Teller's Gambling Problem

[The Crazed Spruce]

Quote

Featured magicians include Will Bradshaw, Eric Dittelman, Christian Engblom and Compagnie des Dragonfly.

[Halting Hex]

Isn't Will Bradshaw doing literally the same trick as crossbow guy from two episodes ago?  Which trap will Alyson pick?  Oh, right, it doesn't matter because someone backstage is controlling the traps, just as somebody was controlling the crossbows.  Lame to do a virtual repeat so soon after the original.  (Alyson was practically using the same facial expressions, for that matter.)

Eric Dittelman's "dirty charades" version of mentalism was nice and fresh.  Interesting how it might have been done…I assume that "Menny Teckle" is some sort of card force, but I'm not sure how he could get Brandon to force himself twice and know which force was which.  Unless both stooges were part of the act, of course.

I liked Engblom using the "look at my butt" bit to cover for removing the detachable breast pocket.  (Ironically, knowing the breast pocket detaches makes it easier to understand how the card got there.) The extra "prover" with Walter's shuffle was cute, given that he'd obviously copped the card before that, when he was bringing the cards back to Stacey. But, like P&T, I don't know how he marked/forced the cards for them to choose in the first place.

Dragonfly did a nice version of "segmented ladies", but that's hardly a new trick, of course.

Tom Green is still a thing?  That was funny, with the blatant double-dealing, but of course Tom should have chosen the Jack.  He already had a good hand, he should have been more concerned about playing defense against a better one.  Since he had the Ace of Diamonds and two nines, all he had to be sure of was that the trick wasn't set up so that Teller could jimmy the cards to show a K-9 diamond straight flush, too.  If the cards are actually crafted so that Teller's cards are double-faced that way, then that's really impressive.  But I'm guessing that Tom either fell for the obvious or was in on the bit.  Still, fun.

[Amarsir]

Yeah Tom Green seemed a pretty irrelevant celebrity to use. But at least he wasn’t himself. That could have really gone off the rails.

On that last choice, Penn does say “take the card that makes your hand better” to discourage a defensive play. But you’re right, they must have another out just in case.

[theatremouse]

21 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

Isn't Will Bradshaw doing literally the same trick as crossbow guy from two episodes ago?  Which trap will Alyson pick?  Oh, right, it doesn't matter because someone backstage is controlling the traps, just as somebody was controlling the crossbows.  Lame to do a virtual repeat so soon after the original.  (Alyson was practically using the same facial expressions, for that matter.)

I don't disagree but this is mostly on the editors. My understanding is they film all the shows in bulk, and then edit them together. So this guy didn't necessarily actually perform "two shows" after the other guy. But whoever is in charge of putting together the episodes for air put that one with the bunch in that ep, and this one in the bunch in this one.

[Halting Hex]

Well, I knew there was a compressed shooting schedule, but I thought the acts were scheduled in less-random manner.  I guess not.

Speaking of which, why don't they let Alyson wear a different dress every now and then?  I'm tired of that purple thing.  I mean, Alex Trebek shoots a "week" of JeopardyI in a day, but they let him change his outfit.  Penn & Teller may be locked into their outfits if there's a lot of signage extant (although I'm not certain that switching up the ties every so often would damage the "brand"), but I find it hard to believe that Alyson's purple dress is an essential part of the act.  JMO.

[dsteele]

On 8/27/2018 at 10:01 AM, Halting Hex said:

Speaking of which, why don't they let Alyson wear a different dress every now and then?  I'm tired of that purple thing.

Me too.

As to why it's being done, I'll hazard a guess based on some similarly structured TV shows I've worked on. A show like Jeopardy! is shot mostly in sequence. There are some stops and starts, but mostly what you see is how it went down. But entertainment shows with multiple artists are mostly shot out-of-sequence. That is, the first act may be taped fourth, or the last act may have been taped first. Multiple shows in a season can be taped on a single day, or several days in a row. A lot of it depends on the acts' availability.

A show like Fool Us has to book maybe 50 acts or so over a season. Now suppose one of the acts you really want on the show has to reschedule at the last minute. Or one day you've scheduled five acts (based on availability), and they're all card tricks. So...

By having P&T wear the same outfits for the entire season, the editors can mix and match individual acts from different tapings into individual one-hour shows that maximize the entertainment value. For example, ever wonder why you haven't seen three Foolers in a single show? Or why it's rare to see a show with no Foolers? What if during seven days of tapings there were four Foolers in the first two days, but none in the remaining five? But if you can combine individual acts from different days into the same show, those things aren't problems.

Again, I have no personal knowledge of how they're taping Fool Us but my guess is that it's to give maximum flexibility to the editors.

EDIT: Sorry, just realized theatremouse said essentially the same thing with a lot fewer words. ;-)

Edited August 28, 2018 by dsteele
Didn't read theatremouse's reply.

[Halting Hex]

That makes sense.  Thanks.  (But, poor Aly!  I hope she really likes that dress!)

[Amarsir]

@theatremouse and @dsteele are correct. In addition, I'm pretty sure that Penn has said not everyone who gets filmed actually makes the air. I don't remember the exact number but my sense is something like 10%? Sometimes in magic things go wrong and it's possible a trick just doesn't work. In a live show you make a joke or use another out or just apologize and start over. But that doesn't really work for Fool Us format..

So in addition to performances going completely out of order, they don't even know how many episodes they'll get from X scheduled acts.

[rmontro]

On 8/28/2018 at 1:29 PM, dsteele said:

By having P&T wear the same outfits for the entire season, the editors can mix and match individual acts from different tapings into individual one-hour shows that maximize the entertainment value.

I've seen a lot of comments about how Alyson wears the same dress all season, but they usually only mention P&T as an afterthought.  I guess it just goes to show people don't worry so much about guys changing their clothes.  As for Alyson, I wonder if they threaten her with cookies if she wants to change her dress?

 

On 9/1/2018 at 9:42 PM, Amarsir said:

@theatremouse and @dsteele are correct. In addition, I'm pretty sure that Penn has said not everyone who gets filmed actually makes the air. I don't remember the exact number but my sense is something like 10%?

I'm assuming you mean 10% don't make the air.  Otherwise, that strikes me as a really low percentage.

[Amarsir]

22 hours ago, rmontro said:

I'm assuming you mean 10% don't make the air.  Otherwise, that strikes me as a really low percentage.

That is what I meant, yes. Thank you.

[laireson]

what do you think about it at the end of the final seasons?

Edited January 4, 2022 by laireson