[jazz music]
- Hi, I'm Penn,
and this is Teller.
We're about to play
an April Fool Us Day prank
on our audience.
About half an hour ago,
when only a small portion
of the crowd
was in their seats,
I went on stage
and asked them to help us
play a trick
on all the audience members
who hadn't arrived yet.
I told that small group
of early arrivals
that I was gonna say
four random words,
count to three,
snap my fingers,
and tell everyone in the theater
to say whatever word
happens to be in their heads.
And when that happens,
I told
my newly recruited pranksters
to yell out, "Snow tire."
If this works,
it'll blow the minds
of the rest of the audience.
And if you want to pause
or record this show
starting now
and play it back
for an unsuspecting friend,
if you blurt out "snow tire"
at the appropriate moment,
you'll April-fool them too.
Okay, here we go.
Thanks, Rob.
From the Penn & Teller Theater
at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas,
it's the "Penn & Teller:
April Fool Us Day Special,"
starring me, Penn Jillette,
and Teller!
[cheers and applause]
[jazz music]
♪ ♪
[cheers and applause]
Good evening.
Oh, my goodness gracious.
Welcome to our
"April Fool Us Day Special."
Tonight we're gonna look back
at some of our favorite moments
and favorite foolers
from the first four seasons
of the show.
You'll see acts
that amused us, amazed us,
and fooled our asses good.
Along the way, we'll let you in
on some tricks of the trade
and even show you
the inside workings
of how a few magicians pulled
the wool over our eyes.
But don't think this is just
a "best of" special,
'cause you're gonna get
to see us do a couple of tricks
that have never been seen
on TV before,
along with some other surprises.
So let's get started!
[cheers and applause]
You know...
Several years ago,
Nobel laureate
Dr. Daniel Kahneman
wrote a book called
"Thinking, Fast and Slow."
It's a great book,
and it's the first place
that I heard about
the psychological principle
called priming.
Now, priming is used
all the time
in advertisements
and restaurant menus and so on,
but the experiment
that interested me so much
was this prediction
that scientists could make.
They found words,
like four words,
that seemed totally random,
totally unconnected,
but you could say
those four words
and predict what word
most people would say
when you counted to three
after that
and snapped your fingers.
Now, we're gonna try it here.
Now, we've got a prediction.
Teller, bring out
the prediction.
Here's the prediction.
We can't change it now,
and I've got four words
I'm gonna say.
Now, listen to them carefully,
but don't react to them.
Just let them wash over you.
Just kind of relax
and just feel them.
And then I'm gonna count
to three, snap my fingers,
and say the first word
that happens to pop
into your head.
Now, don't try to outsmart me,
because you'll be successful.
Just--just let it wash over you,
and then just say the first word
that pops into your head.
Don't try to think what I'm
trying to get you to say.
Just let it work for you.
[clears throat]
Here's the four words.
Fortitude!
Donut!
Low wire.
Vermont.
One, two, three.
audience: Snow tire!
- Now, I don't want
to force this on you.
I heard maybe not a majority
but a plurality.
It sounded like a bunch
of you said, "Snow tire."
Is that right?
Did you say--
A few of you said, "Snow tire."
And here's our prediction.
[thud!]
[laughter and applause]
Snow tire!
[cheers and applause]
And now some of you know
a little bit more
about how magic works.
Now, theoretically,
what I just did
was use mentalism
and psychology
to influence your minds,
to get you all to think
of one thing
that we were ready to drop
from the ceiling.
It's very unlikely
that we also had a--
you know, a garbage truck
and a unicorn up there,
waiting to drop.
So getting people
to say "snow tire"
was really some kind
of miracle.
Or was it?
Now, here's a little
behind-the-scenes info.
It's very hard for mentalists
to appear on "Fool Us,"
because our rules prohibit
two things
that make a lot
of mentalism work.
One technique is something
called preshow.
That's when a magician
does research
or talks with members of
the audience before the show,
gets information
that he or she uses later
to pull off a trick.
Another technique
is called stooging or plants.
That's when you use people
in the audience
who appear to be innocent
but who are actually in cahoots
with the magician.
To be clear, preshow work
and stooging
are not allowed on "Fool Us."
Fortitude, donut,
low wire, Vermont.
One, two, three.
audience: Snow tire!
[laughter]
We can do this all night.
[applause]
So...
So to appear on "Fool Us"
doing mentalism,
you've got to have
something unique.
You've got to be creative.
And this act
we're about to show you
was about as creative
as it comes.
It's from that hotbed of magic,
Belgium.
A guy named Jo
and his mind-reading chicken,
named Curry.
- Now, Alyson,
before we start
this mind-reading experiment,
can you please confirm
that Curry wears
no electronical devices?
Okay, so nothing
under this wing.
- [laughs]
- Right?
Nothing under this wing?
Nothing on this side?
- Whoo, yeah.
- Nothing on this side.
- Okay, I've--
- Okay, that's enough.
That's enough.
- I believe you.
- We all have dreams
in our life.
My big dream
is to fool Penn and Teller.
Now, I can imagine
you also have big dreams,
maybe something that's still
on your bucket list.
Can you think about one dream?
Don't tell us.
Then I'd like you
to write it down
on this piece of paper,
and when you're finished,
just turn it over, okay?
Go ahead.
Wait.
Curry, Curry, Curry?
Don't look.
Don't look, okay?
It's mentalism.
[laughter]
- Okay.
- Okay, perfect.
Now, I'd like you to think
about three other dreams
that are not your dream,
okay?
So make it very confusing
for us.
Choose believable dreams
that are not yours.
Afterwards, you can hang up
the fake dreams
together with the real dream,
and you can hang them
anywhere you want
facing the audience.
- Oh.
- Go ahead.
- Okay.
- Now, reading
someone's mind
is very hard for chicken Curry.
Therefore, she first needs
to warm up
her psychic powers.
[exhales]
Curry, focus.
Focus on the feather.
Focus.
Good.
She's warmed up.
Alyson?
- Yes.
- Let's have a look
at your dreams.
- All right.
- To host a craft show,
write a kids book,
go to Japan,
or get a pig.
Great dreams.
Now, for the real work--
thank you--
Curry is gonna read
your mind.
- Okay.
- Think about
your dream come true,
and look into her eyes,
and live the dream.
[eerie warbling music]
[laughter]
I think she got it.
Now, please stand
over here.
Face the audience.
Don't move anymore,
and whatever happens,
don't look back.
Curry, what is her dream?
- Now, at this point,
we think we've got
the trick figured out.
We think the page
Jo gave Alyson
to write her real dream on
was treated with
a pheromone smell
or a bit of food,
something this chicken likes.
So it doesn't matter
where Alyson puts it.
It's the only piece of paper
that smells like food
to a chicken.
- We're from Belgium.
She has a little trouble
reading the English, Curry.
[laughter]
Curry has made a decision.
We cannot go back.
Alyson, if this is gonna be
her dream,
I'd like everybody
in the audience
to go completely crazy.
Go absolutely bananas.
It will mean that Curry
is gonna live another day.
[laughter]
Alyson,
for the very first time,
what is your dream?
- Well, whatever it says
so she can live.
[laughter]
- [laughs]
No, what is your real dream?
- The craft show.
- The craft show.
Curry!
- Now, we're thinking,
"We got this."
No way we are getting fooled
by a chicken."
- Penn and Teller,
I'd like to give these papers
to you guys
just as a souvenir.
There is nothing remarkable
about them.
No funny smells,
no hidden candies.
They are all yours.
Thank you very much.
- And then Jo hands us
the papers.
Now, often you can bust
a magician
the moment you inspect
their props.
When a magician hands you
the props
before you even ask,
well, we know
we're in deep trouble.
When Jo handed those over,
those perfectly
innocent-looking
sheets of paper,
it blew our first theory
to shreds.
So we had to quickly come up
with a new solution on the spot.
In case you needed
any more proof
that this is the greatest show
that has ever existed on TV,
two grown men
have been sitting here,
deliberating about how a chicken
pecked a certain piece of paper.
We think that although
there's this homey
farm/barnyard quality
to the setup over there,
that that conceals
a little bit more
sophistication,
and we believe that from that,
you were able to get
the information.
We think it was--
we think we know
how it's transmitted to you,
but we'd rather not
give that up.
And then you were able
to then signal the chicken
what to do.
So the chicken was not
the mentalist.
You were the mentalist.
- I, um--
I know what you see.
They got an impression
that I did something.
But the impression is wrong.
[people gasp]
- Wait, so the chicken
did all the work?
- She did all the work.
I had no idea
what was your dream.
- [gasps]
So the chicken--
- You really didn't? You had
no idea what the dream was.
- I had no idea.
- So wait.
The chicken fooled
Penn and Teller.
- I think we were fooled
by a chicken, yeah.
- Fooled by a chicken!
Yay!
- Jo de Rijck's psychic chicken
is a fascinating example
of us being fooled
by a method
that's so specialized,
it was impossible to guess at.
And we learned later
he essentially had a way
for the chicken actually
to do the trick for real.
It's the last thing
we'd have guessed.
Time for a quick break.
When we come back,
some lucky viewer
is gonna get a chance to
win a little over $4 million.
[cheers and applause]
Or it could be April Fools.
Come back and find out.
♪ ♪
[jazz music]
[applause]
- Welcome back to our
"April Fool Us Day Special."
There's a whole category
of magic
known as danger magic
that's near and dear
to our twisted hearts,
and we've done a lot of it.
We've drowned Teller...
Caught his arm
in a bear trap...
[audience exclaims]
And stuck his head
in a cage full of rats.
Right here.
We just pour them in
like that.
Is this your card?
And I've put myself
in harm's way
for the cause too.
Now you go.
Now you go.
Now you're set.
Pick it up. Pick it up.
And is that your card?
The queen of hearts,
is that your card?
No.
It really isn't?
[laughs]
You've got to remember
your card--
[screaming]
One of the reasons
to use danger and violence
and everything
that comes with it,
like blood and guts
and shock and fear,
isn't that it helps
fool people.
Even a bloody trick
has got to be bloody good.
The reason
magicians use danger,
it's the same reason
Shakespeare used violence:
it's exciting,
and it celebrates life.
[dramatic music]
[cheers and applause]
There's another
important point to make.
Good danger magic
shouldn't actually be dangerous.
We believe doing something
that could truly injure somebody
would be immoral.
If you're stupid enough to
really put yourself in danger,
you're not a magician.
You're a troubled adolescent.
We think the real magic
is making something safe
look dangerous.
That's where the fun
and challenge is.
Nothing done on our show
will ever be more dangerous
than knitting.
But we make it look
as scary as we can.
audience: Aw!
[wood chipper whirring]
[laughter]
It's not easy to be funny,
and it's not easy to be
a professional magician.
If you're both,
that's two times not easy,
which equals pretty damn good.
One of the best guys at this
is Handsome Jack.
He came on our show,
took an old trick
that he knew we knew.
We figured he had no intention
of fooling us;
he just wanted to be funny.
But he had a different method
from the one we were expecting,
and it's harder to focus
when we're laughing.
So he made us laugh
and took us down.
- Hello, Las Vegas!
[cheers and applause]
Prepare yourselves for
the Handsome Jack experience.
Anybody who does not want to get
his mind blown out of his a*s
should leave the room now.
- [laughs]
- So since we're
a little pressed for time
tonight,
I will just have to tell you
about the things you won't be
seeing me do tonight.
Oh...
- Now, you're probably thinking
the same thing we were
at the time:
"This is the oldest trick
in the book,
"tearing a sheet of paper
into a bunch of pieces
and then restoring it
to its original form."
But just wait.
[applause]
- One of my mottos
has always been,
"Magic is fun
once you know how it's done,"
so I'm just gonna show everybody
how I did that.
To do this, I needed
a special magician's device
called a grappler.
I've got a grappler
up my sleeve here.
I'll show it to you.
Now, I had an extra one
of those handbills
hidden inside the grappler.
The grappler's
a mechanical device.
It shot the handbill
out of my sleeve into my hand,
and then it grabbed
all those torn pieces
and yanked them
back up my sleeve.
Now, it's mechanical,
but it's not entirely
self-working.
It still requires
what we magicians call
misdirection.
I'll show you the misdirection
I was using.
In fact, I tell you what.
I will get up on the chair
so you can all see
the misdirection I was using.
Do you remember I took
all those torn pieces
and I fanned them out
like this?
I knew if I was doing
very careful, deliberate action
like that,
you'd all be staring
right up here.
And while you were all staring
right up here,
probably none of you noticed
when I went ahead
and I dropped my pants.
[laughter]
Now, once my pants were down,
I was able to get my knees
hooked together.
And once my knees
were hooked together,
because of this cable
that runs up my arm
and down my leg,
I was able to get
this action going on.
Watch; it starts down here
and ends up over here.
Watch.
[laughter]
So you can see
it's not the hands that are
quicker than the eye.
It's the knees
that are quicker than the eye.
So this just proves my motto
that magic is fun
once you know how it's done.
Am I right, people?
[cheers and applause]
There is still a problem
sometimes you can encounter
when you're using the grappler,
and that is,
sometimes the people up close,
they can see up your sleeve
and they can see
all the torn pieces
up your sleeve.
And if that happens, well,
then you have to resort
to plan B,
and plan B is what we call
taking care of business
Handsome Jack style.
[cheers and applause]
That is for you.
- Remember
what we told you before,
that we know we're in trouble
when the magician hands us
their prop to inspect?
[chuckles] This was
another one of those times.
If that final one
out of the grappler
had stayed in his hands,
there would have been
no problem,
because when you do
a torn and restored
newspaper or a paper
or anything like that,
you end up dirty.
Or it's possible
that you had some way
at the end
to show us what we thought
was individual pieces
but actually wasn't.
If your hands actually
came apart
and you showed us
separate pieces,
then you, sir, fooled us.
- Jack?
- Well, if you ever watch
the tape again,
you will see I absolutely have
individual pieces
that I separate.
They absolutely were
individual pieces.
- Wow.
[cheers and applause]
Wow.
- We'll be back with more
of our first annual
"Penn & Teller:
April Fool Us Day Special."
Once we've said that
in the network, in public,
they have to give us
another one, right?
It's mind control!
[cheers and applause]
♪ ♪
[cheers and applause]
- Welcome back.
In honor of tonight's
"April Fool Us Day Special,"
we're focusing on acts
that got the better of us.
But to be fair,
we're kind of hard to fool.
In fact, nearly 200 acts
have tried,
and we've been fooled
less than 25% of the time.
And out of those acts
that fooled us,
over half of them
have been card tricks.
And you can't talk about magic
without talking about cards.
There are a million
card tricks out there.
That's because it's easier
for magicians
to get a deck of cards
than it is to build
an elaborate box
that allows someone
to float in the air
while they're getting
sawed in half.
That said, card tricks
probably take
the most time and dedication
to master.
Big tricks just take
big money.
If you're
a loyal "Fool Us" fan,
you've heard us bust
a card trick
by talking about a force.
And you probably know a force
is when you think you have
a free choice
but a magician actually
makes you pick the card
they want you to pick.
For example, Teller wants me
to select the three of clubs,
and I selected
the three of clubs.
No matter what I pick,
it's gonna be
the three of clubs.
[laughter]
Now, that's a pretty expensive
way to do a card force.
You got to buy 52 decks,
pick out
each of the card you want,
put them all back together.
But there's cheaper ways
to do a force.
Here's a force
that you can learn, okay?
This is a regular deck
of cards.
I'm gonna show it
to my friend like this.
Here you go.
Cards are all--
they're all mixed up,
and they're all different.
You can see that, right?
I'm gonna turn my back,
and just cut off any amount
of cards you want.
Just cut them off there.
Now, do you have any idea
which card--
how many cards you cut off?
Okay, then take the card
you cut to,
and take a look at that.
And you picked
the three of clubs.
Yeah.
That's a card force
you can do real easily.
Just take your deck of cards,
and put the three of clubs
on the bottom.
And then you tell them
behind your back
to cut off a few like this.
Now, you don't care
how many they cut off.
When you ask them
how many they cut off,
that's just misdirection,
'cause while I'm asking him
to cut off,
I'm taking the bottom card,
the three of clubs,
and moving it to the top,
right?
That's all I got to do.
Then I move across and say,
"Well, take that one.
Look at it.
Focus on it."
Wha--just concentrate on it.
It's a--it's a red.
Oh, it's a black.
It's a black card.
No, it's--
It's a spade, a cl--
No, it's a club.
It's a low club.
Two.
No, three!
The three of clubs,
like it always is.
[applause]
Once a force is complete,
the rest of the trick
is just performance.
You've already been had.
The dirty work is done.
Now just walk it home.
And speaking of dirty work,
no one does dirty work cleaner
than "Fool Us" alumnus
Richard Turner.
Turner calls himself
a card mechanic,
and it's easy to see why.
- Well, howdy.
audience: Howdy!
- He moves cards
like a finely tuned machine.
And he's legally blind,
and he still fooled us.
- I'm gonna show you
a few moves.
Hand me the card face up.
- Face up.
- Face up.
Tell the audience
what you picked.
- Seven of hearts.
- Watch face up.
This is called dealing seconds,
but you have to deal the cards
as neatly
as if you're dealing
from the top.
- Check him out
in slow motion,
and you can see how
unbelievable his moves are.
Here he is doing a couple of
what's called false shuffles.
To the average person,
it really looks like
he's shuffling cards,
but watch closely.
He pushes half the deck through
to the other side
and then puts it back on top,
exactly where it started.
He's one of the best
card handlers in the world.
And while we're
slowing things down,
here's a look at us
getting fooled in slow motion.
We know what to look for,
but we still can't see it.
Richard is also the master
of the bottom deal.
That means he can deal
the bottom cards off the deck
and it looks like
he's dealing from the top.
It's also called cheating.
That's how he finished
his "Fool Us" routine.
His partner in this
demonstration was Teller,
who gets four kings
and beats every other hand
at the table.
- Here's some more.
- Thank you.
- No problem.
- And now you and I--
- Did you miss us?
- Yeah.
- We've got nothing to say.
He fooled us.
- Oh, my goodness.
- Dead to rights.
[cheers and applause]
One of the reasons
we created this show
was to have the opportunity
to feel that sense of wonder
we felt about magic as children,
before we became the jaded,
overinformed liars
you see before you today.
Once in a very long while,
a performer comes along
who makes us gasp
in slack-jawed wonder again.
Shin Lim
is one of those magicians,
and all he needs
is a deck of cards.
[soft string music]
♪ ♪
[cheers and applause]
Shin isn't embarrassed
about being serious.
He doesn't make jokes.
He knows what he's doing
is beautiful,
and he doesn't ever dismiss it.
That takes guts
and painstaking choreography,
a visual palette
of unembarrassed smoke
and mystery,
and a seriousness and audacity
so pretty
that reason shuts down.
♪ ♪
[cheers and applause]
We had become spectators again
and happily so.
♪ ♪
[cheers and applause]
♪ ♪
[cheers and applause]
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[cheers and applause]
♪ ♪
- He makes what he does
so entrancing to the eye and ear
that you get carried away.
You see the forest
but not the trees.
When it comes time
to give a solution,
there's only one thing to say.
I felt it was perfect.
And as Teller said...
[applause]
We didn't even know
how you vanished
the [bleep] marker.
[laughter]
So you, sir, fooled us.
And he's only one
of the two people
who fooled us twice.
We watched you closely
the first time you were on.
We watched you even closer
the second time.
I mean, you're just
so wonderful and so beautiful,
every move you make.
But we've been watching
carefully,
and I think I can demonstrate
a little something
about the routine,
if you'll allow me.
[dramatic music]
♪ Om, dom, dom ♪
♪ ♪
- Oh, yup.
[laughs]
- He fooled us.
- Thank you so much.
Thank you so--
- Congratulations!
[cheers and applause]
- Up next, a few more secrets
of "Fool Us" revealed,
and I'm gonna turn Teller
into a pony!
It could happen.
[cheers and applause]
[cheers and applause]
- Welcome back.
It's still April Fool Us Day,
and we're still Penn and Teller.
A question we get asked,
especially by people
who want to try and piss us off,
is, "How did that trick
fool you guys?
"When I watched the video
a couple times,
I saw what he was doing,
and I'm not even a magician."
Truth is, there are a lot
of different ways to fool us,
including some
you might not expect.
For example, one way
is to do the magic
right under our noses.
We use this technique
ourselves.
That's an empty coffee cup.
It's clean and dry there.
I want you to know that,
'cause we're gonna put
your phone inside it.
And when you're
watching this back, Stephanie,
at this point, you'll still hear
all the audio,
but it's gonna go all white,
of course,
'cause it's on the inside
of the cup.
Then it's gonna go dark,
'cause I'm putting this on.
There's one little sip hole.
I'll put this
right on here, Stephanie
and make sure your phone
is safely--
Oh, sorry, Stephanie.
- Ah!
- And I'm a juggler too.
That's the weird part.
Stand right over here,
Stephanie.
Back up. We're gonna
put this right down here.
[laughter]
And then just focus
right on that, Stephanie.
focus on your phone
that you saw in there.
Focus on it.
Think about it.
And...
Mazel tov!
While it might seem
like someone on stage
is the mostly likely person to
catch you doing funny business,
quite often,
the opposite is true.
You're too close to see
what's going on,
which is exactly
what happened to Teller
when Chris Rose came
on the show.
- Hi, guys.
I'm Chris.
And I need some help.
Teller, would you please
join me on stage?
Penn, honestly,
you scare me.
I would like to invite Alyson
instead.
Would you please join me?
So here's the game.
It's similar to Simon Says.
If you do what I do exactly,
you win $100.
If you don't do what I do
exactly,
you lose.
[laughter]
Ready?
- Ready.
[laughter]
- [chuckles]
- [chuckles]
Aw.
- I'm sorry.
You just lost.
[applause]
- Well, I already lost.
[gasps]
Okay.
You can have the money.
No, thanks.
I'm fine.
- Perhaps the smartest thing
Chris did
was exploit our weaknesses
as observers.
Teller was too close
and too busy
following Chris's instructions.
He missed the key magic moment
when Chris loaded the cookie
into his mouth.
And I was so far away
from the action
that I missed it too.
So we're going down
a rabbit hole,
trying to figure out
if he could have kept
the cookie inside his mouth
the entire time.
And now you're about
to watch us
go down hard.
But I'm going go
out on a limb,
'cause I'm not sure.
I think that what you did there
was not sleight of hand.
I think it was not a gimmick.
I think it was not
a fake prop.
I think what you did
there on that stage
was something I am naming
right now "sleight of mouth."
I think you did that
with sleight of mouth.
I think you did it.
I don't think you loaded
another cookie in.
I don't think
you palmed one off.
I don't think you stole one
anywhere.
I think you did
sleight of mouth.
[laughter]
Was--are you skilled enough
with your mouth...
- [laughs]
- Wow.
- How skilled are you
with your mouth?
- Well, now
you're getting personal.
- I am getting personal.
I'm getting very personal.
How skilled are you
with your mouth, Chris Rose?
How skilled are you
with your mouth?
- I am very skilled
with my mouth,
but it was not
sleight of mouth.
- Wait.
[audience exclaims]
- It was not.
- No.
- It was not
sleight of mouth.
- You actually snuck that cookie
in another way.
- Oh, boy.
[laughter]
- You actually did.
We ran experiments.
We looked.
We think you almost
should be able
to hold that in your mouth
while drinking.
And you say you didn't?
- Correct.
- Okay, then you fooled us, man.
[cheers and applause]
Easy as that.
You fooled us with a cookie!
With a cookie!
He fooled us with a cookie!
- Thank you.
- Fooled by a chicken.
Fooled by a cookie.
We also got fooled
by a sugar packet,
but we don't want
to talk about that.
Maybe the way to fool us
is by doing tricks with food.
We never conceived of this show
as a forum
to prove how smart we are.
I think that last trick
demonstrates it.
We just really wanted
to showcase great magic.
One of the cool things
we discovered
when we looked back
at tricks
on this "April Fool Us Special"
is that some acts
were even better
than we thought
when we saw them the first time.
Check out this great bit
of sleight of hand
by a magician
named Simon Coronel.
What Simon performed
was his variation
of a classic coin routine
called Three Fly,
where three coins
magically fly
from one hand to the other.
- I'm gonna create
the illusion for you tonight
of these poker chips traveling,
apparently impossibly,
from one hand, my right hand,
over to my left hand
one at the time.
Doesn't seem like a big deal,
but if there was a way
to do that
without you seeing them
go across,
then that would be something
to write home about.
So here we go.
One at a time
from hand A to hand B.
Okay, I should explain
before we do this
that it happens when you're not
actually expecting it to.
[murmurs and applause]
[cheers and applause]
Now, the reason that's possible
is because
even if you're focusing
really, really closely
on the chips,
you can't split your attention
and look what my wrists
are doing
or what's happening
down on my elbows
or up at my face.
You get distracted
for just a second
and miss the moment
as it apparently goes across.
[applause]
The problem is, you guys are now
the most attentive I think
you might have been all day
at this point,
and there is no force on Earth
that is gonna make you look away
from that poker chip.
So I have to do something
different and more elaborate:
hide it so that even though
you know where it is,
you can't be 100% certain
anymore;
change the position
to try and confuse
your motion tracking;
even bluff as to where
it actually gets to
and make it
completely disappear.
- Oh!
- Okay, no, really,
make it completely disappear,
but it's still traveled back
to the hand.
- Wow.
Now, we do have judges
in the booth
watching and listening,
but "Fool Us" is also run
on the honor system.
We try and give the magicians
enough information
to understand how we think
they did their trick
but without giving it
totally away.
Then it's up to the act
to let us know
if they've heard enough detail.
- They know it.
- Aw.
- That's okay.
- But so good!
- But it was really good.
[cheers and applause]
- Thank you all.
- But looking back,
we've got some questions.
We asked Simon to come here.
Simon, are you here?
We had some of the "Fool Us"
guys in the audience.
I believe Simon--
come up here,
would you, please, Simon?
Come up here, yeah.
There's Simon.
[cheers and applause]
You saw him do it, man.
That was amazing.
Even seeing that again
is mind-blowing.
- How you doing?
- Now, we have a question
for you.
Do you have the chips
that you used?
- I do, actually.
- 'Cause we thought
this trick is normally that--
Could we see them?
- Sure.
- This trick is normally done
with gimmicked coins.
They're a gimmick.
They're trick coins.
But you never gave these
to us...
- I didn't.
- To look at.
So these are the actual chips.
- Yup, these are them.
I've been using them,
in shows ever since.
- No gimmicks,
no nothing.
So when you--when people ask you
about being on the show...
- Yeah.
- What do you tell them?
Um, that it was
a great experience.
It was an honor.
That, you know,
I didn't fool them
but, you know,
didn't really--
- You say you didn't fool us?
- No.
- So we have
another question, Simon,
which is why the hell
were you willing to walk away
when you actually fooled us?
We were wrong.
You fooled us.
He fooled us.
We just didn't know it.
Bring down the trophy.
- [laughing]
[cheers and applause]
- There you go.
Take your trophy.
Sorry it took us so long.
Sorry it took us so long.
That's Simon Coronel!
Simon Coronel.
Thanks, man.
- Thank you.
- Took us a while.
We figured it out.
We've got a little more
"April Fool Us" magic
left in us.
We'll be back
with a brand-new trick
and a surprise guest
right after this.
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
- Welcome back
to Penn and Teller's
"April Fool Us Day Special."
If you think we've left out
some great magicians tonight,
you are correct.
We have lots of favorites
that deserve a mention.
The nude audacity
of Vinny Grosso,
who gambled there were just
some things
you wouldn't have the ba*ls
to check.
He was right.
Shawn Farquhar
and his brilliant comedy magic.
Bring it down!
- Yay!
- Our first-ever fooler,
the UK's John Archer.
The macabre insanity
of Rob Zabrecky.
And the list goes on and on.
- [gobbling]
[applause]
'Cause he's finger-licking good.
[laughter]
- To end the show,
we'd like to bring out a guest
who's not only fooled us;
he's willing to come out and,
for the first time ever,
reveal his method.
You saw a clip of him
with his pants down
earlier in the show.
Here's our good friend
Handsome Jack!
[cheers and applause]
Come on out here,
Handsome Jack.
[applause]
How are you, man?
- Hello, sir.
- Good to see you.
- Hello, Teller.
- Now, why don't you tell
the people
how you managed to fool us?
- Well, when I found out
I was gonna be on the show,
I thought, "I don't want
to invent a magic trick
"or build a prop
or practice or rehearse.
That's for chumps."
I wanted to cut
straight to the chase.
- And you were smart.
You knew that with
carney trash like us,
the direct route
is the best.
And by "direct route,"
we mean cash incentives.
- That's right;
I thought,
"Maybe you don't need
to fool Penn and Teller
in order to fool
Penn and Teller."
So a couple days
before my appearance,
I followed these guys
to a coffee shop.
I thought I'd introduce myself,
establish a relationship,
and maybe tip the scales
in my favor a little bit.
Thought I'd start with Teller;
that seemed safer.
And as Matt King explained
on this show,
if you fool Teller,
you fool Penn and Teller.
- Hey, hey, hey,
what--
- It's just a joke,
a joke.
It's not true.
It's not true.
[laughter]
So, Teller, I'm so excited.
My name's Handsome Jack,
and I'm gonna be on your show,
and I just want to tell you
you are my favorite magician.
You too.
- Oh, good.
- And I was wondering,
can I do a magic trick for you?
Do you have any money,
like any bill?
It doesn't matter
the denomination.
A ten?
Great.
Now, I'm gonna take
your money,
and what I'm going to do is,
I'm going to fold it
into a tiny package.
And as your money
gets smaller and smaller,
your interest
and your investment
gets larger and larger.
And as any bank teller
will tell you, Teller,
if your interest increases,
well, so does your money.
And now you can see
it is a $20 bill,
ladies and gentlemen.
- Whoa!
- And that's for you.
You can keep that.
- Well, you--
you doubled his money.
- That's right.
- Yeah.
- I did.
- But you won't get far
with a $20 bribe.
- All right.
Uh, how about
I double your money?
- Yeah,
how about triple it?
- Whatever you want.
- In that case,
let's do $100, shall we?
- Uh...all right.
I'll tell you what.
I've got an idea.
I have a marker here.
Why don't you write your name
on that bill?
- I'll do that right now.
- Yeah.
- And I will add
and make it constitutional.
There we go right there.
And there you have it.
- All right.
So if I triple your money,
that means you will get
a $300 bill.
- $300 bill,
that's what I'm gonna get.
- Let me try something.
Um, all right.
Penn, I--I don't want you
to look away.
I don't even want you
to blink,
because this time,
it's going to happen
on the count of one.
So you can see your money
has tripled.
It is now a $300 bill.
- $300 bill?
Wow!
I tripled my money.
- Now, I was worried
he'd realize
there's no such thing
as the $300 bill,
so I did something.
- I didn't know Bob Dylan
was on the $300 bill!
It's Bob Dylan
on the $300 bill.
- That's what we call
misdirection.
- Wow, I got
a $300 bill.
This is great.
- So at this point,
Penn was happy.
- I'm really happy.
- Everybody watching
at the coffee shop was happy.
- They were happy.
- I was certainly happy.
Teller was the only one
who was not happy.
- And that's okay,
because the needs of the many
outweigh the needs
of the Teller.
[laughter]
- But I figured I'd do
something for him anyway.
Teller, do you still have
that $20 bill I gave you?
Okay, I tell you what.
Here's what I want you to do.
I want you to concentrate.
Wave your hand over the bill,
and think handsome thoughts.
[audience exclaims]
- And now it's a $100 bill.
- Hey, that's my $100 bill.
- That's right.
- But I don't care,
'cause I got a $300 bill.
- Yeah.
- With Bob Dylan on it.
- So you can see it's not just
a great magic trick.
It's not just a token
of admiration.
It's also a redistribution
of wealth.
And that is one way
you can make sure
you fool Penn and Teller.
- Handsome Jack!
Handsome Jack right there.
Nicely done, man.
That's Handsome Jack
right there, Handsome Jack.
[cheers and applause]
Bob Dylan on the $300 bill.
I did okay.
That's it for tonight, folks.
Come back and see us
later this summer.
Good night!
[cheers and applause]
Bob!
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05x00 - April Fool Us Day
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A magic competition television series in which magicians perform tricks in front of American magician-comedian duo Penn & Teller.
A magic competition television series in which magicians perform tricks in front of American magician-comedian duo Penn & Teller.