07x19 - Penn & Teller Go for a Spin

[bunniefuu]

From the Penn & Teller Theater

at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada,

here's our host, Alyson Hannigan.

Welcome to "Fool Us," where each week

we find new ways to mess with the stars of our show.

Sure we showcase amazing magic from around the world,

but our main goal is to make two of magic's

all-time greats sweat a little bit

as they try to figure out how each trick is done.

So let's turn up the heat

and bring out the currently calm, cool,

and collected minds of our dynamic duo, Penn and Teller.

When Penn and Teller are fooled by a magician,

they award them our grand prize,

a spot in their Las Vegas show

and the coveted "Fool Us" trophy.

Let's meet our first contender.

I grew up in Venezuela in a small town

with just one magician.

I became his assistant,

but he wouldn't teach me any magic,

so I had to learn on my own.

For three years I studied his every move

from the side, from the back,

and finally I knew I can do that.

And I started doing my own shows and gaining confidence.

But in some parts of Latin America,

it is difficult to make a living doing magic.

I remember saying to my family that if I leave,

I will be able to help you better.

I saved what little I made and bought a ticket to Spain,

and now it finally feels that my career is taking off.

But I never forget my family is still in Venezuela,

and we have a bond that cannot be broken.

Believe me when I say love ties us together.

You will see.

Let's take a trip to Spain

and enjoy the magic of Dania Diaz.

Hello, Las Vegas.

I believe every person has a soul mate,

that one person out of millions and millions in the whole world

who the moment you lock eyes with them

makes your heart beat faster,

that one person who fills you with wonder and desire,

one eternal love with which you find that deep

and unforgettable connection.

But how do you know for sure

that you have found that person?

There's a legend that says that all of us are born

with a red thread tied to our finger,

and on the other end of this thread

you will find your true and only soul mate.

Tonight I would love to put this legend to the test.

So I have the help of a couple that they feel

they are true life partners.

Hi, welcome. Please, take a seat.

Thanks for participating.

What's your name?

- Cynthia.
- Cynthia. And yours?

- Enyeki.
- Enyeki.

Cynthia and Enyeki, are you in love?

- Yes.
- Yes.

Aw. And how long have you been together?

- For a year.
- For a year now.

Hmm, interesting.

Now we will see if you are truly soul mates

or if you actually be with someone else.

Okay.

I can sense you're getting a little nervous.

Please relax.

Coming out of this box are many threads,

but only one of them connects from one side to the other,

and this, my friends, is the red thread of destiny.

The rest of the threads do not connect.

So if you were to take this one and do this one,

this will mean that you're not meant to be together.

Now, Cynthia, I want you to close your eyes.

Let your mind go blank, and when I say so,

you will open your eyes and you will pick a thread,

not just any thread.

You will pick the one you feel belongs to you.

Open your eyes. Please pick a thread.

- That one?
- Yes.

- Are you sure?
- Yes.

You have chosen, or perhaps it has chosen you.

Lift your hand; I will tie it to your finger.

Just like that.

Perfect.

Perfect. Now your turn.

The pressure, right? I know. I know.

Please close your eyes.

Take a deep breath.

Now open your eyes and choose a thread

that calls to you.

- That one?
- Yes.

- Are you sure?
- Yes.

I'll tie it to your finger as the legend says so,

but also to keep you from running

from the stage.

Perfect.

Now, the legend says that the red thread of destiny

can be worn down,

can be tangled,

can be weakened, but if you are true soul mates,

what it will never,

ever do is break.

Cynthia, Enyeki, do you believe in soul mates?

- Yes.
- Yes.

I think everyone

is starting to believe.

Dania Diaz.

Hi.

That was so wonderful.

Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

- Yes.
- Well, there.

- I mean, here. You know?
- Virtually here.

And that couple had no idea what the trick was, correct?

They had no idea. No, no, no.

It was a surprise.

Wow. I've never seen a trick like this before.

Oh, well, it's, like, an original idea.

In my country, in weddings, the wedding cake,

you bake it with a lot of strings coming out of them.

Only one of those strings has a ring.

So all the single ladies in the wedding pull out the string,

and the one that gets the ring

is the one that's going to get married.

So I got inspired by that.

- That's so cool.
- Thank you.

What would it mean if you fooled these guys?

Well, I mean, I've never imagined that,

not even in my wildest dreams.

Oh, I think maybe the boys are ready.

Oh, my God. I'm so nervous.

Let's see if Penn and Teller

have been able to unravel the mysteries of your trick.

Well, you know, Dania, boy, that was good.

That was really good.

And whether you fooled us or not--we don't know yet.

We don't know ourselves.

But whether you fooled us or not,

coming up with a plot of a trick, you know,

a lot of times people at home will think,

well, figure out how to do the trick,

that's the hard part, and that is.

But also figuring out what trick you want to do

is really hard, and the idea of a match

and being able to test that is a beautiful, wonderful,

sweet, and most important, very, very clear idea.

Now, Teller and I, to try to figure out how you did this,

we have sketches all over our notebooks

of how you could take

four or five different strands

and have them woven together in the middle,

and then you pull it out, and then that one comes undone.

And we finally figured that we couldn't figure out

how to do that, so we had another idea,

and I'm going to have to trust you,

because you're in Spain now, right?

- So it's wick easy--
- Yes, I am.

It's wicked easy to lie to us,

because you could get a trophy right now just by lying to us.

But I'm hoping you're going to tell me the truth.

Will you tell me the truth on this?

- I will be totally honest.
- You had a table

in front of you

that was draped to the floor.

You have a little,

presumably, Spanish person hiding

in that table that's weaving together the ropes?

- No.
- Then, you, my newest friend,

have fooled us.

Yay.

And there's the trophy coming down that you can't see.

Congratulations, Dania.

- Amazing trick.
- Thank you so much.

Sorry you couldn't be here to hold it in person,

but Penn and Teller will keep your trophy cozy

until you can get here.

Stay safe. What a wonderful trick, Dania; we loved it.

- Congratulations.
- Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Dania Diaz.

Penn and Teller just added another act

to their Vegas show.

Stick around and find out if they get fooled again.

Welcome back. Let's see if this next act

can pull one over on Penn and Teller.

When I was 12 years old, I would go to a magic shop

and see these great tricks on the shelf,

but there was no way I could afford them.

So I ended up trying to figure out

how I could build them myself at home.



and building my own props.

If I can build an illusion to produce

a full-sized helicopter,

I must be a pretty good builder now.

Since that time, I've done magic in 108 countries.

I've been on over 600 cruises.

I've headlined at three casinos in Las Vegas.

I've done ten national tours,

and I still love every minute of it.

Now I have a warehouse full of illusions

that I've built and accumulated

over the last 30 years.

And tonight I'm leaving all that magic and illusions

in the warehouse.

Penn, Teller, tonight I'm going back to my routes

with a sleight of hand,

and I'm going to blow your minds.

From Penn and Teller's backyard,

here's Las Vegas' own Greg Gleason.

Thank you. Thank you. And hello, Penn. Hello, Teller.

I'm want to show you something special with four cards,

the king of hearts, the king of spades,

the king of diamonds and the king of clubs.

Have you ever heard the old saying that every cloud

has a silver lining?

Well, sometimes cards have a silver lining.

In fact, sometimes they're lined on both sides.

In fact, sometimes it seems like every time

you turn over that card,

it's lined with another half dollar.

Now, look, there's one,

there's two, there's three, and there's four.

Four half dollars, four cards, four coins.

One card for each coin.

One coin for each card.

But watch as I magically take this coin

and set it right underneath there.

Did you see it vanish from there and reappear over there?

Watch, I'll do it again.

Coin number two goes just like that.

You see, coin number two's vanished

and reappeared right over there.

Coin number three, it's the toughest,

it's the trickiest, and it goes just like that.

You see, coin number three is gone,

and there they are, one, two, three, four.

Now, I'd never come on Penn and Teller

and do a regular matrix like that.

No, I'd want to do a special matrix.

You see, this matrix actually uses an extra coin,

and I keep it right there. Actually,

I cheated a little bit more and I keep an extra coin there.

Actually, I'm a pretty big cheater

and I keep a coin there and a coin there.

You know what, actually, I didn't take any chances.

You see, I keep another coin there, another coin there.

I keep another coin right there.

I keep another coin right there.

That makes 12. That makes 13. That makes 14.

That makes 15, and that makes 16.

But I would never come on "Penn & Teller"

and just do a matrix like that.

I want to come and do the best matrix ever.

So this time, I'm going to do a matrix with no cards.

I'm just going to use my two hands

and these four coins in the center.

Watch the four coins. I could cover these two

or I could cover these two or I could cover these two,

but watch what happens when I cover those two.

That one jumps right over there.

So I have two on one side and one on the other,

but if I wave now,

I now have two on that side and one on this side.

Now I have one in the front, one in the back.

One in the front and one in the back,

but that one in the back jumps

right over to the one in the front,

which leaves me with two on each side.

But if I just wave, now I have three on this side

and one on that side.

A simple wave, now I have four on one.

Now, that's a matrix with no cards.

But it's a lot like the one with cards.

I actually cheated and used an extra coin

and I kept it right there.

Actually, I cheated a little bit more

and I kept a coin there. You know what?

Actually, I cheated, and I kept a coin there.

I kept a coin there. I'm a really big cheater,

and I keep a coin there and a coin there.

You know what? I didn't take any chances.

I kept a coin there. I kept a coin there.

I keep one more there. One more there.

Oh, look, that makes 27, and that makes 28,

and that's how you do a matrix for Penn and Teller.

Wow, Greg Gleason.

- Thank you, Alyson, thank you.
- Hi.

Hi there.

- That was very impressive.
- Thank you very much.

Can you make money appear all day long?

Uh, you know what? I wish I could.

I wouldn't have to do magic full-time

if I could do that, so...

I bet you still would, though.

You know, this isn't the kind of magic I'm known for.

I'm usually doing illusions.

I make girls float and appear and disappear

and make helicopters appear and vanish

in midair on motorcycles.

More of the illusion type stuff.

That's why I wanted to come on "Penn & Teller"

to do some close-up magic.

Wow. So you don't perform this trick very often?

I'll be honest, this is the first time

I've ever done this trick.

I've been working on it for about 40 years.

And then you just decided,

"Oh, I'll just do it in front of these guys."

Yeah, that's kind of crazy, isn't it?

Yeah, a little bit.

I was a little nervous. I was--

I bet. All right. Well, that was an amazing...

- Thank you, Alyson.
- Original coin routine.

Let's see if you fooled the guys.

Okay, we'll see.

Wow, Greg, that's amazing stuff.

Thank you very much.

As you said, you know, it's the matrix, right?

- Yes.
- Matrix.

And the matrix is something that all magicians know,

but like Keanu Reeves,

you took the matrix into a whole different dimension.

That was just insane stuff.

Laypeople have these words that they know.

- Okay.
- Like, it's done with mirrors,

it's done with palming, it's done with smoke,

it's done with this, and often they're right.

- Yes.
- But the level of thing

you can do with something like mirrors, you know?

They say the word "mirrors," have no idea what it means.

You can do many, many more things possible with a mirror

than you possibly could.

You say, "Oh, you can do one thing with a mirror,

but you've actually got six things in each mirror."

It's an amazing thing.

And then it has to be done naturally and comfortably.

The chops were just amazing.

- Thank you very much.
- Amazing.

And I think when you-- I want to mention a--

- he's departed now...
- Yes.

But a friend of us all, Dean Dill.

Yes, very.

And just seeing someone do a standard trick--

well, that's not fair to you-- start with a standard trick

and then do a whole new trick on top of it

and use methods that

although we think we're aware of,

never seen them done that well.

- Well, thank you.
- So I do not think

that you fooled us, but you k*lled us.

- I don't think I did either.
- Well, you didn't fool them,

but it was a wonderful performance.

Thank you so much.

- Thank you.
- Greg Gleason.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

We are just getting started here on "Fool Us".

More world-class magicians will perform,

including Penn and Teller, when "Fool Us" returns.

Welcome back to "Fool Us".

Your timing is perfect,

because I really want you to meet this next act.

Hi, I'm Cameron Braxton from Houston, Texas.

When other boys were out chasing girls and having fun,

I was working on magic tricks and trying to book gigs.

I might only be 23,

but I consider myself to have an old-school charm.

When I was a child, my mentors were 60-year-old magicians,

and they quickly became my best friends

in everything I know,

not just in magic, from how to walk properly,

how to dress, how to enter a room.

One of them even took 20 minutes

to teach me good posture when I sit down.

So thanks to them, I am one of the best-dressed men in Texas.

Unfortunately, I've had to come to terms

with my best friends passing,

but I think they'd be proud of me

making my first national appearance on TV

in front of my magic heroes, Penn and Teller.

Wish me luck, guys.

Don't mess with Texas,

so don't mess with Cameron Braxton.

All right, so here we are in fabulous Las Vegas.

It's a place where dreams are often made, sometimes broken.

That being said, it draws to kinds of players.

Now, you have the card sharks and also the suckers.

Card sharks will spend their entire lives

figuring out ways to cheat at cards with cold decks

and double discards.

I'm not one of those people.

I'm a magician, and tonight I'm going to show you

how a magician would cheat at cards.

First you want to start by showing that the cards have

been fairly shuffled and cut.

Then we also need a card at random to work our magic with.

In this case, the queen of spades will serve

as a nice high card for us to work with,

especially when paired with a queen of clubs.

Oh, look what I found there.

Now, those two cards by themselves

aren't going to win any hands, so three cards.

Now, those ladies right there, you can rake in a lot of cash.

But when I say "those ladies," I truly mean...

those one, two, three, four queens.

So the question becomes, how do you these skills

to win at cards?

So let's set a scene.

It's a pretty big table.

Let's say that there's six players.

That's going to be big money.

In poker, you bet cash on the quality of these cards.

Not all at once, but bit by bit.

But no one else is going to be betting

unless you give them a reason to.

So we're going to bait the hook.

If I deal these queens to myself,

well, I was the one who was shuffling and dealing,

so all the suspicion is going to fall on me.

Instead, I'm going to deal the queens

to player number two.

Let's take a look.

Going to lose the queens back into the deck,

give them a few shuffles, and a few cuts,

and then with any luck we'll be able to magic those queens

right over to our good friend here.

And now for the magic move.

Faster than the human eye can see,

and we're done.

There's one, two, three, four, five, six,

just like I promised. And can you imagine

the look of surprise on player number two's face

when she realizes that she has not just one

but two of those queens.

Is it luck, is it skill, or is it magic?

Well, truth be told, I'd say it's just the beginning.

Now, a card shark would tell you

that this is enough to win almost any card game,

but I'm not a card shark,

I'm a conjurer with emphasis on the con.

And right here is the magical way

of getting player number two

to bet everything that she has.

And I must admit, this is my favorite part.

You see, while she's betting heavily,

what she doesn't realize is that she's actually the sucker.

So once all the money is on the table,

all the betting has been exhausted,

now we get to the showdown.

If you were to take a look at my hands,

surely you'd see that coming in just above

with the kings would be enough to win,

but if I cheat to give myself the winning hand,

well, that's the way to get my real hands broken.

So you need to be able to magic the cards

so smoothly that player number two gets a good hand,

I get a slightly better one,

but the best hand goes over here

to your secret accomplice,

ol' one, two, three, four aces.

Cameron Braxton.

Wow.

Are you a card player?

Believe it or not, no.

I prefer to shuffle more than I play.

So you clearly have a lot of style,

but you're a self-confessed nerd?

To an extent.

I've got a rather large library and a very good memory.

So quite oftentimes, I'll have my friends always

calling me up, mostly with magic questions.

Greek philosophy is also a very big topic with me.

I love it.

So, Cameron, what is magic to you?

Magic is a expression

of the idea of an impossibility.

I'm not actually doing the impossible,

but I'm able to use things in the tangible world

to express the idea that exists within my head.

Okay. What's the best magic advice

you ever got from one of your mentors?

So the best magic advice was buy a tuxedo.

Aw. All right, Cameron, let's go to Penn and Teller

and see if you earned yourself a trophy.

All right.

Penn, Teller.

Hey, Cameron, really nice. Boy, you have a nice style.

That advice to buy a tuxedo is very, very good.

Oh.

Just that nice coolness under fire.

You know, you say something there where you said,

"This is not the way a card cheat cheats.

This is the way a magician cheats."

And a lot of the moves you're doing

are what a card cheat cheats,

and the way your carry yourself,

that very unflappable style, is the way a card cheat cheats.

So maybe we don't completely believe you, but we'll go on.

Teller and I do not gamble. We don't play cards.

We're not particularly good with cards,

but our mentor was Johnny Thompson,

who was here when Vegas started.

And there is not a card move that we did not see Johnny do.

And although he often denied it,

like some of the best,

said he never cheated in a real game.

He only did magic. But Johnny sometimes lied.

But even though we don't play cards ourselves

and we don't gamble, we do live in Las Vegas.

We are students of Johnny Thompson,

and we think that,

although you do did a great routine,

as cool as you were, I think we followed you.

I think we have a pretty good idea what you did.

Is that right, Cameron?

I think they've got it.

All right. Well, Cameron Braxton.

All right. Thank you so much.

- Thank you so much.
- Thank you.

More moments of impossibility when we come back.

Stick around.

Welcome back to "Fool Us", where we showcase magicians

from all over the world, like this amazing next act.

Lea Kyle.

From our studio in Bordeaux, France,

here's Florian Sainvet.

Florian Sainvet.

- Thank you.
- Wow. Welcome.

Thank you.

That was very, very impressive.

What inspired that work of art?

Many movies. I really like science fiction movies,

so I watch every type movies.

And I put some ideas that I saw in movie in what I've done.

Are you sending a message about technology?

Maybe.

In the future, technology can be stronger than us.

And you won the world championship with this?

Yes, in Manipulation, yes, I did.

What dreams could you possibly dream after that?

Maybe fool Penn and Teller.

Good answer, good answer. Okay, Florian, let's see

if Penn and Teller know how you did your trick.

- Hey, Florian.
- Hi.

Boy, we have never seen somebody that good,

who breaks that many rules of magic.

And your whole costume lights up all over, floats in the air,

does all this stuff.

If you'd showed us this act on paper,

we would have told you there was no chance of it

being deceptive in any way,

because when you've got those mechanical movements,

you've got nothing to hide.

You've got nothing natural, nothing to do.

When you go... how can that misdirect?

And yet it does completely.

It made it just wonderful

and very, very exciting all the way through.

And this is what is called in the business

a manipulation act.

And the standard thing we say about a manip act

is if you've seen one, you've seen them all.

Well if you've seen one, you certainly haven't seen Florian,

that's for sure.

I mean, the suit lighting up

gives you a black art principle.

There's all sorts of wonderful stuff going on all over that.

You've justified the suit

that can do miraculous things

both above board and below,

and I just thought the whole act was great

but all built on stuff that we could kind of follow through.

And I've got to tell you, I've never been more thrilled

to follow through, because it was working in ways

that I would have thought impossible

if you'd explain this act to me,

but I don't think you fooled us.

- Thank you.
- Florian, do you agree

they know how you did your trick?

You talk about black out, but black out

is just 10% of my act of how I do it, so...

If you want, we can go to the judges.

They've heard everything we've said.

They know how you're doing it, and they can make a decision,

because I really don't want to--

- I've already said...
- Yeah, yeah.

A little more than I want to say,

because the act is so, so good.

So let's go to the judges, have them decide.

Okay. We're going to go to the judges.

And they're telling me...

I'm sorry, Florian,

it wasn't a fool, but it was a wonderful trick.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

Florian Sainvet.

Penn and Teller created this next trick

specifically for "Fool Us."

Check out a magical world premiere right after the break.

Welcome back. Between their live show,

podcasts, plays, books and, of course, TV shows,

the stars of our show keep a lot plates spinning.

Here to turn that metaphor into a magic trick

are Penn and Teller.

My dad, Sam, was an easy going, loving guy.

He hated only three things in the world.

He hated accordions, those orange

and black fuzzy caterpillars, and plate spinning.

My dad died over 20 years ago

but he's still with me in my heart and my memory.

So before we worked on this plate spinning trick,

I had to convince myself that my dad

would have been okay with it.

I think my dad's problem

was that there's no focus in plate spinning.

It's just fighting chaos every moment.

That's not entertainment; that's too much like real life.

We're going to do some plate spinning for you,

but we're going to give you some focus to make it a trick,

so it's less like the panic of real life,

school, jobs, family, friends, love,

and everything all falling apart at once.

All of you at home are going to try to see through the chaos

and pick one plate to cheer for.

We want you to predict from your home

which plate will emerge

as the last plate spinning.

Here's what we're going to do.

We've got 12 stands, 12 sticks, and 12 plates.

If you'll look from above,

they're arranged like a clock face.

Now you're going to predict which plate

will be the last plate

spinning after all the others have fallen broken.

If you have a Post-it Note, or a small piece of tape,

you can mark your hero right on the TV screen,

or just keep your finger right on it.

Here's how you'll pick the plate

you can focus on and cheer for.

Think of any number you see here.

Now put your finger on the 12.

Yeah, right on your TV screen or phone.

Now, we're going to make three moves to arrive

at a random number.

The plate that you will predict

will be the last plate spinning.

First, you should spell that number you thought of,



around the circle for each letter.

In other words, if you happen to think of one,

you'd spell O-N-E.

Now, whatever number you land on,

you're going to spell that too.

So if you happen to be on a three,

you'd spell that like this,

T-H-R-E-E,

and so on.

You'd be on the eight, and you'd spell that.

Now you're going to do it starting with your number.

Pick that particular number you thought of and start at 12,

and start spelling with your finger

right there on the screen.

Your finger is now on a new number.

I want you to spell that number,

the number you landed on,

continuing to move around the circle.

Make your first move on the first letter

and keep moving by spelling that letter you landed on.

Fine, you've reached another number.

Now one last time,

spell that number, the one you landed on,

continuing to round the circle again.

You made a random choice and moved twice from there.

Now put a Post-it Note

or a piece of tape right on your screen,

or keep your finger there, or just remember the number.

But make sure you remember that that's your plate.

That's the one you're hoping will be

the last plate spinning.





Which is yours?

Keep it in your head. Let's go, Teller.

There we go.

Aw, come on.

Ehh, ehh.

If you see one falling, Alyson, let us know.

Seven--seven looks like it's in trouble.

- Seven. Seven.
- Seven. Seven.

- Seven, Seven, Teller.
- Seven, Seven.

- Ohh.
- Two? Two. Two. Two.

Oh, oh, seven. Seven. Seven.

Ooh, seven. Bye, seven.

Seven is dying.

You don't care about seven?

Ooh, these too.

Oh. That one.

Definitely nine and eight.

- [bleep] damn it.
- They're all going. Ooh.

[bleep]. [bleep].

N You don't even have them all on.

I'm starting to agree with your father.

Five, five.

Seven.

Ooh, these two. Five and four.

Five and four. Five and four. Aw, that one.

[bleep] me.

Should have listened to your dad.

I don't think six even got a chance.

Want to give six a chance?

- There's six with a chance.
- Two, two.

Oh, boy.

Well, six in one, half a dozen in the another.

[bleep] damn it.

So how did you do?

You at home, you picked a number at random

and cheered for that plate.

Was it this one? Was it one? Was it one? Was it one?

Did you win?

My dad would have liked that.

It's not really plate spinning; it's a trick.

Now we've got to figure out a trick with fuzzy caterpillars

and an accordion for next season.

I knew the boys would stick the landing on that one,

and we hope you stick with us

when we bring you another episode of "Fool Us".

Until then, good night.