Reminds me of the magician Shin Lim, who won AGT a few seasons ago. He said that they literally WOULD NOT let him go on the show without a sob story, so he went with his carpal tunnel syndrome.
Fool Us is great. Background isn't a sympathetic sob story for pity. It is how they worked their ass off to get this good. Also the premise is misleading. You don't have to do something they don't know how to do. These guys know slight of hand like no one's business. You need to do the trick so well they don't catch you, and not use a gimmick they see as lazy cheating of a difficult trick. I have seen several where they give the award knowing full well how it is done because they didn't see it.
Which only works because they're so well known in the community for their integrity that all they have to say is "Yeah, we definitely caught you" and most performers are like "Damn." Half the time the "codes" they use to prove they caught it are just mumbo jumbo to fill time when they only need to say "faro."
Hell, at least some of the performers come in and know they're going to be caught out, they just want a chance to show a cool trick they invented on tv. At least one of those was so cool that P&T were like "there's no way we're letting you leave without that trophy." I wish I could remember which one it was...
To be fair, the producer (who knows how all the tricks are done ahead of time) listens to their private deliberation while the magician talks to Alison. So even if they can't say it out loud, the producer knows if they know or don't. He's the final one who gets to drop the trophy or not.
Edit: there's been a few where language barriers hinder P&Ts code talk and the magician is like nah i fooled you but the producer tells Alison "nope the boys know"
Half the time the "codes" they use to prove they caught it are just mumbo jumbo to fill time when they only need to say "faro."
there was one where a guy did a trick and the code they used was "say... you had an orchestra" and his response was "no, one of three" and so they gave him the trophy
youtube comments described the trick technique, wikipedia explained that it is traditionally done with invisible strings, thus "orchestra." performer explained that he does use strings but they were one of three techniques used in the illusion
most of the time i have no idea what's going on with the "code" but i like that example
First one I would think of was Ryan Hayashi.
Where Penn said "For the last few things we don't know how you did them because we were enjoying you too much"
The trick itself was just with some cards and coins. And in the end looking at it, you can see the sleight of hand quite clearly. But I have to agree with them, It was just too entertaining.
That sounds familiar. I think Shin Lim was one where they were like "so, we know exactly how you did it but we didn't see it at all," which is crazy high praise to know that even someone who was looking exactly where they needed to look to see something.... Didn't.
Sometimes they miss pretty obvious ones, too. Shawn Farquhar had a glaringly obvious switch, and you can even see his nervousness when it comes up and see it fade away as he realizes he wasn't caught. Super cool trick, so maybe it was the same thing where they saw something but not enough to suss it out.
Rubic cube guy? Maybe not. But I disagree on the clues. I can usually figure out what they are getting at, though I still don't know how they did it most of the time.
Heck, if I was a magician and Penn would tell me that he knows how the trick is performed, I wouldn't even doubt it for a second.
He's one of the best, and most well known magicians on stage at the moment, if he knows a trick, he knows. No need to debate that.
2k
u/gnarlsalt 27d ago
Reminds me of the magician Shin Lim, who won AGT a few seasons ago. He said that they literally WOULD NOT let him go on the show without a sob story, so he went with his carpal tunnel syndrome.