S05.E13: Let's Hear It for the Kids

[The Crazed Spruce]

Season finale!

Quote

Featured magicians include Kiko Pastur, Jason Palter, Michael Gee and Bryan Saint.

[Amarsir]

Alyson in Wonderland was cute in an artistic way, even if I found the mechanics to be fairly obvious.

By contrast, I wasn't sure how the tape measure was done until Penn spoke up. But fooled or not, measuring a distance on stage just isn't that exciting to me. It needed more pizazz.

I have a guess on the card trick but I don't know it for sure. A little googling into what Penn said suggests to me it's not a new trick though.

Like Penn, I think changing the classic rope trick to use a phone charger is just great. But I assumed the plug at the base was actually a battery dressed up to look like a plug. Since he handed that over to them and they were fooled, I guess not?

And an FYI for the last trick: apparently the audio on the digital streaming version of the show is different from what went out on the air. So if you were an adult watching on CW.com today and wondering how it counts as a trick, that's why.

[rmontro]

On 10/2/2018 at 4:25 PM, Amarsir said:

Like Penn, I think changing the classic rope trick to use a phone charger is just great. But I assumed the plug at the base was actually a battery dressed up to look like a plug. Since he handed that over to them and they were fooled, I guess not?

I was thinking it had to be a battery dressed up to look like a plug, what else could it be?  But now I'm thinking he was hiding the battery portion in his hand and feeding the power to the plug somehow.

I did check out the episode on the CW site and you're right, the audio was much more enlightening than on the television.  Clever title for the show:  Let's "hear" it for the kids.

[lynxfx]

20 hours ago, rmontro said:

I was thinking it had to be a battery dressed up to look like a plug, what else could it be?  But now I'm thinking he was hiding the battery portion in his hand and feeding the power to the plug somehow.

I think it most definitely was a battery inside the plug. No reason to complicate it more. Being in the plug and properly sealed also means they can hand it over to P&T and still keep them fooled. Touching the plug to your hand completes the circuit allowing just enough energy to power on the phone. It is basically the same concept as lighting a light bulb when you touch it, just modernized. 

The kids trick was odd because for the broadcast, the audio kept dipping and it was hard to hear Penn. For that I didn't hear the high frequency tone, but on the stream the audio wasn't dipping and you could hear Penn and the tone. Probably best viewed as an audience member. 

[rmontro]

8 hours ago, lynxfx said:

I think it most definitely was a battery inside the plug. No reason to complicate it more. Being in the plug and properly sealed also means they can hand it over to P&T and still keep them fooled. Touching the plug to your hand completes the circuit allowing just enough energy to power on the phone. It is basically the same concept as lighting a light bulb when you touch it, just modernized. 

You may be right.  I was thinking that when he left the charger with Penn and Teller to examine, they couldn't get it to work.  But thinking back on it, they didn't show us if it was working for them or not.  If it WAS working for them, obviously it would be the battery inside the plug.  But if that is the case, I don't know why P&T didn't guess that, since it seems the obvious answer.

If the charger WASN'T working for P&T, then he must have had a hidden power source feeding the plug.  Look at the way he held the plug, he could have easily been concealing something in his hand.  I even thought he gave a little shake move afterward to ditch it up his sleeve with an elastic pull.  But admittedly, that could be a coincidence.  Without knowing whether the device worked for P&T after the trick was over, it's difficult to draw any conclusions.

[lynxfx]

That's true, they didn't show if it worked or not once in their hands. They have been fooled by simple technology before. 

Best part of the trick was using the power cord as a cut and restored rope. Really surprised I haven't seen anyone else do that before. 

[theatremouse]

When he first did the cut and restore I thought "gee why bother, they know that's done!" but then he did...other stuff. I was still a bit surprised he was a fooler.

[Amarsir]

4 hours ago, theatremouse said:

When he first did the cut and restore I thought "gee why bother, they know that's done!" but then he did...other stuff. I was still a bit surprised he was a fooler.

I think it's best if an act comes down to one specific "OK how did they do that?" question. The Shin Lims and others who do 5 minutes of cards disappearing and reappearing - it's great, but how much of an answer would you have to give? I don't think an answer like "we counted 6 palms, two double lifts, and a false shuffle" makes anyone happy.