Penn Jillette of the magic duo Penn and Teller joins PIX11 to talk about his series “Penn and Teller: Fool Us,” the magic tricks that have stumped a pro like him, and the live show “Stalker.”
My favorite part of Fool Us, is that they let the magicians post the full clips of their performance on their own social media channels, thats absolutely awesome a show will let people self promote like that and full credit to Penn and Teller for letting them.
Well as Penn once said the purpose of the show is not to see if they can get fooled, it's to showcase good magicians. Letting them post their clips without having them behind a paywall does exactly that.
These guys are fantastic showmen. 10 years ago I reached out to Penn's social media because I was going to Vegas one week after their last show of the season and wanted to know if they were going to add any more dates. Penn reached out personally with a link to the updated dates and I got front row seats with my brother. After the show they both hung out for over an hour signing autographs, selling merch, and talking to every fan who wanted to.
I love the positivity and genunine appreciation that flows out of P&T. It's great to see him on stage encouraging new and lifelong comedians and it's great here to see him display the same attitude toward magic and life in general. What fantastic standards of the craft and, indeed, of humanity.
I was called onstage to assist with a trick, and remain impressed to this day by the skill exhibited by teller. I knew the trick from going to the public library , so knew exactly where to look , and they saw me looking, but the hand is quicker than the eye. The guy did a complex double move that was flawless, completely invisible, undoubtedly the result of much practice.
I used to run a tiny 60 seat theatre. Many moons ago, a magician performed his first show on my stage. 7 years later, Vitaly Beckman fooled Penn and Teller with a routine I first saw in this littler room.
I agree. "Penn Jillette on getting fooled" would have been accurate, just as goon IMO, and might not have been clicked on by the three most brainless RU-vid addicts.
Penn and Teller are as great people as they are magicians. They always know the real work that has to go into presenting even what looks to be even a simple trick cleanly.
I still love the show after all these years. It‘s such an entertaining format and Penn and Teller still seem to genuinely enjoy it. It somehow doesn’t get old. Greetings from Germany.
I just discovered this show through a few RU-vid clips that popped up in my feed. I'd heard of it, but never bothered watching it. Penn & Teller deserve so much credit. It's a delight to watch. Even when they aren't fooled, they're so damn positive and supportive and, as Penn said, kind that it just leaves you with a great feeling. So lovely that they're so encouraging of these burgeoning talents.
So wonderful when a guy who has more money than he'll ever need, and more fame than most, engages with the interviewers like they're old friends, never talking down, and being "present" in the interview, instead of "too cool for the room." THIS is what a true showman (and a really nice guy, by all accounts) looks like.
They've been like since the start. I saw their Westside Arts show 40 years ago and was struck by how approachable and sociable they are with their audience. They hang around and chat with fans during intermission and afterwards.
I took my family to see Penn and Teller in Vegas a few years back. They're incredible and after the show, they were extremely amiable, posed for pics with us, etc.
He and Teller are great. His books go into the meet and greets a little. They love their fans. Pen met his wife after one of his shows which is pretty awesome.
Before Penn and Teller, Magic(illusion) was either high end Vegas stuff like Copperfield or Sigfried and Roy, or it was low end, 'the great PRESTO!' types. Then these two came on in the 80s, and they were young, edgy, and started bringing 'street magic' to the tv. Now they're at an age where they can help boost up new magicians and give them a stage to ply their trade, get exposure, and show off what they're capable of.
I wonder if he still drives his Pink Volkswagen Bug? I was driving in Vegas and saw this Pink Volts and thought that’s an interesting Bug. The license plate said PENN na dit didn’t dawn on me it was Penn. as I pass him he pulled over to the curb. I knew there was something not right so I turned around to see if he needed help. He said yes he’s on his way to rehearsal and ran out of gas. I helped him out and he retired the favor with a couple of tickets to their show. It was pretty cool and during the showed he acknowledged me helping him. Nice guy 👍
Like most anyone who goes to one of their shows, I got to meet him in person and I told him that I adored Fool Us because I thought, going into it, that them explaining everything with their guesses would make tricks less magical to watch, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it made it more magical; after even just a season of episodes you've seen so much of the same basic moves that you get a kind of comfort like you know the basics/mechanics of most types of tricks, so that means if you know a little bit and people can still fool you, they must have done a good job!
I'm such a fan I've flown to Vegas to see them I don't really believe that anyone can fool them. I think they are too good, and teller is a life long scholar of magic. I think they just say folks fooled em about once a show to keep engagement up.
My favorite part of Fool Us is that I can so easily find comments of people saying the same "I love that they let the magicians post their clips on their own channels!" on nearly every single one of them, it's that consistent predictable at this point
Penn just lied. I never thought id see the day. "we dont know whose on the show." i remember an act a few years ago, the guy who got them to keep shuffling and mixing the cards up, only to find the card Penn had selected. Penn even went to smack him after the act. He sat with Teller and said "I want to make this clear, i HATE you. I'm not playing around, the moment I saw your name on tonight's show, i told Teller, he's going to trick me. No. No. Shut up! NO! Lift that trophy back up. You fooled ME, most of the acts fool the big dumb guy. But Teller saw how you handled the cards up close, he saw every play you did.... and HE didnt catch it either. NOW you can lower that trophy." The key part being "WHEN I SAW YOUR NAME" So either Penn lied to him that night, or he lied in this interview. Why's it a big deal? Because Penn and Teller's whole gimmick is, they dont lie. They say that multiple times in their own routines, like the nail gun one, the water box one, the cup and balls.
I've started to notice in recent years, Teller doesn't join Penn when doing interviews anymore. I guess he decided there was no point him going to these interviews to only sit there and say nothing.
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As a magician, I have to wonder why I should care if I can fool Penn and Teller; I think it is only important that I fool a lay audience. Of course it's more difficult to deceive other magicians - regardless of whether they are Penn and Teller. By emphasizing the "fooling" aspect of a performance, they diminish its magical aspects and reduce it to a puzzle. The show has been great for THEM, of course, but I consider them just slightly better than the masked magician; They are exposers!
Penn and Teller are icons I love and respect despite our possible political differences, but if you think every "fooler" actually fooled them i dissagree.. Ive seen at least four that were ridicously easy to figure out. They both have incredible bills to pay and the show is their BUSINESS that provides the income that keeps that happening. EVERY appearance and interview is projected through that lens.. Bassically every time they're on camera for public consumtion it's an ad promoting what they sell... Love them, but just remember, you dont know them and public consumption stuff is really about as trustworthy as an ad for a product... I say this with all due respect..
I don't completely disagree, after all showbiz is showbiz. However, when tricks seem easy there may be a couple of different ways to do them and it's likely P&T guess one way and they are wrong. For example you do a trick and make it seem like you did it the hard way but actually did it the easy way, they guess you did it the hard way, you win.
@@oliverhughes610 I agree with you completely, if there's anything about magic its that nothing is what it seems and in the best way possible. I love magic always have always will. What I said came across way more trolling and aggressive than I meant, still mean it, but not dissing them for being businessmen.. I'm 55 and they have been a beloved staple of magic and magical entertainment as far back as I can remember it seems so I truly meant also when I said with all due respect,, more than I can express.. I'm just hating seeing authenticity die in the name of brand maintenance.. I was in the entertainment business for 30 years and I understand the facade we keep up.. Any one of us can tell horror stories about the industry not necessarily the entertainers themselves though there are plenty of those also.. I was a musician and what happened there is a travesty, we were all hurt and it is what it is today.. Doesn't matter if its magic or music, acting or modeling, sports figure or youtuber, its everywhere now.. Just something I'm going through right now.. Nothing personal towards Mr Gillette, as far as celebrities go he's pretty honest.. BUT.. If you or I were his personal friend we would know things about his obligations that he maintains while holding his nose so to speak.. As far as thinking I figured it out but didn't, that could be true but I went down the rabbit hole for a few years and learned an admittedly very little about the greats and those who modified and utilized and I know that I know...and if I know Penn and Teller knew.. Whatever though, wasn't about them, its what's happening in general.. Like I said just something I'm going through.. Anyways, just wanted to take a minute to agree with you and let you know where I'm coming from might have came out wrong.. Cheers
@@Hotmedal Yep, right with you on that. No harm in making a living doing what you love, especially when you innovate and make it your own AND manage to pull it off. Love the show and the spirit of keeping the art alive and all that goes with it. Not criticizing the artist because I know how he did it, and not criticising Mr. Jillette, just an observation..
They have specific rules that are upheld by a judge that both knows how the trick is done and what Penn and Teller are saying to each other when they're figuring it out. They don't just give trophies away. Also the best way to fool them is with misdirection that leads them in the opposite direction of the sometimes very obvious answer when seen on camera. That's why a lot of "obvious" acts fool them. They still work very hard to audition and to make it to Las Vegas where they only get one chance to perform. Sometimes they mess up, sometimes they get extremely lucky to where P&T don't notice.
I love P&T FU, so entertaining. I like to decipher Penn's comments as to how they think the tricks are done. Irehman7 helps a lot in filling in the rest. 😁
I met Penn and Teller once. The shocking thing? Teller isn't short. Penn is just that tall. Also did a stage trick with them and Teller had, quite literally, the simplest, but most brutally sly distraction method I'd ever seen. Being someone who does tricks I knew what was happening, but it was such a moment of joy I couldn't look away.
@@r0bw00d point taken. He seemed much taller standing next to him. I'm 6 even and I remember him being about my size. I believe his shoe had a heel, so that'd add like another inch. Point being, Penn is still massive.
Legendary Penn. A lot of judges on talent shows can't judge the true meaning of magic because they don't perform it which is why fool is is so much better to watch because those two know their magic.
I love the fact that younger people are getting in on it, but I don't like these so-called street magicians where a large part of their "magic" comes from the editing room. That is, the shoot part of the trick on the street and then use different audience members/actors to do the actual trick. Three examples I can think of are David Blaine, Cris Angel and the worst one of all time, Dynamo. At least David Blaine has been able to train himself to do some other things which are genuinely impressive like holding his breath for 17 minutes on live TV. Here he is talking about this whole thing (and how he originally was going to fake it but ended up actually training to do it for real): ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XFnGhrC_3Gs.htmlsi=8xqnCue0stMiACGA It's actually quite a fascinating, hilarious and occasionally touching speech.
It's a shame that magic has been downgraded to puzzles to be solved. It's supposed to be about "suspending disbelief" and enjoying the theatre of it. And I'm sorry, but any magician worth his salt is never fooled, and I don't believe for a moment magicians with decades of experience can't see through pretty much any trick, no matter how clever. Once you have a "magician's mind", you see through everything.....
I'm glad to see less people like me in magic. So dumb. Nothing was stopping people from learning magic. Likely still the same ratio but now they don't select the boys.
