Stab You in the Back
kiwifarms.net
Penn and Teller's Fool Us is a long-running program in which magicians perform a trick in front of Penn and Teller in an attempt to fool them. If the magician successfully fools them, he will get the right to perform on stage in Vegas at one of P&T's shows. The prize is pretty lacklustre, but most magicians do it for the national exposure and don't really care about fooling Penn and Teller.
The show original premiered on ITV back in 2011 and was hosted by Jonathan Ross. Alyson Hannigan took over in season 3. Her run starts off rocky, but she gets more comfortable with the role around season 5.
So what's the appeal of Fool Us when you can watch professional magicians perform on youtube?
After every trick, Penn explains how it was done using code language. Huge communities of autists have been built around deciphering Penn's code language and then smugly patting themselves on the back for not being deceived by such a pathetically obvious trick. This is ultimately the appeal of Fool Us: the smug satisfaction of outwitting a stage magician who spent years and even decades honing his craft.
Controversies
Fool Us is not without its little dramas. Most controversies revolve around whether the person "deserved" to fool Penn and Teller. You'll hear this a lot when it comes to mentalism acts in which one of several methods can be used to do the trick. If P&T guess the wrong method, the person technically "fooled" them even though they weren't actually fooled. Female magiciennes also get extra scrutiny from fans because Penn spends five minutes talking about how there needs to be more female magicians before claiming to be fooled by a lame trick. For example:
Here, Penn and Teller were fooled because they don't know how an apple watch works.
Here, Penn and Teller were fooled by a trick invented by the magicienne's father.
The other common complaint is the prevalence of out-of-the-box tricks (ie tricks that you can buy in a magic shop), and repetitive card tricks. Out-of-the-box tricks are a waste of everybody's time because once you've seen it once, you know how it'll play out every time. In these cases, Penn will usually give a "you didn't fool us, but I really liked the performance." Yawn. Fool Us is very heavy on card tricks. Sadly, there's very little variety in the card tricks on the show. You as a viewer will be trained pretty early on to detect deck fuckery, and by season 4 you'll be shouting at the tv at some magician's clumsy deck swap.
Fool Us airs on the CW, but every trick from every episode is available on youtube (usually within a few hours of airing). Check it out and come huff farts with me.
The show original premiered on ITV back in 2011 and was hosted by Jonathan Ross. Alyson Hannigan took over in season 3. Her run starts off rocky, but she gets more comfortable with the role around season 5.
So what's the appeal of Fool Us when you can watch professional magicians perform on youtube?
After every trick, Penn explains how it was done using code language. Huge communities of autists have been built around deciphering Penn's code language and then smugly patting themselves on the back for not being deceived by such a pathetically obvious trick. This is ultimately the appeal of Fool Us: the smug satisfaction of outwitting a stage magician who spent years and even decades honing his craft.
Controversies
Fool Us is not without its little dramas. Most controversies revolve around whether the person "deserved" to fool Penn and Teller. You'll hear this a lot when it comes to mentalism acts in which one of several methods can be used to do the trick. If P&T guess the wrong method, the person technically "fooled" them even though they weren't actually fooled. Female magiciennes also get extra scrutiny from fans because Penn spends five minutes talking about how there needs to be more female magicians before claiming to be fooled by a lame trick. For example:
Here, Penn and Teller were fooled because they don't know how an apple watch works.
Here, Penn and Teller were fooled by a trick invented by the magicienne's father.
The other common complaint is the prevalence of out-of-the-box tricks (ie tricks that you can buy in a magic shop), and repetitive card tricks. Out-of-the-box tricks are a waste of everybody's time because once you've seen it once, you know how it'll play out every time. In these cases, Penn will usually give a "you didn't fool us, but I really liked the performance." Yawn. Fool Us is very heavy on card tricks. Sadly, there's very little variety in the card tricks on the show. You as a viewer will be trained pretty early on to detect deck fuckery, and by season 4 you'll be shouting at the tv at some magician's clumsy deck swap.
Fool Us airs on the CW, but every trick from every episode is available on youtube (usually within a few hours of airing). Check it out and come huff farts with me.
