[jazz music]
♪ ♪
[cheers and applause]
- From the Penn &
at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas,
here's our host,
♪ ♪
- Welcome to "Fool Us,"
the world's best magicians.
We've had acts from Germany,
Australia, India, China,
and even as far away as Reno.
We're just like the Olympics,
So let the games began
our gold medalists of magic,
[cheers and applause]
♪ ♪
Don't forget
to stump Penn and Teller
and a spot
And here's tonight's
- Magic is my second career.
which is also about
In those days,
Then I got an internship
and I became fascinated
can build a world.
So I went back to school
It was very expensive, so
and a funny thing happened.
My magic got bigger
Personal appearances
I realized I could combine
graphics, cinema,
And when I put
I finally knew
I love being a magician
around play.
As a kid, I would put on shows
and charge
My dad passed away
so all he ever saw was
When I perform,
using skills
I like to imagine
Who knows?
[cheers and applause]
- All the way from Germany,
say, "bitte willkommen"
[cheers and applause]
- Hi, Penn.
Magicians are often accused
to make their magic happen.
Well, I admit.
What you are about to see
because it is a trick...
with a camera.
Outside of the magical world,
there's nothing that comes
You press the shutter button...
[soft upbeat music]
And a complete blank picture
Then if you wait a minute,
Before the smartphone,
were captured instantly.
For example...
♪ ♪
[chuckles]
This is me as a kid
with a lot of bubbles.
Okay. Way too much bubbles.
[audience exclaims]
[applause]
I've got lots
like this one.
My money shot.
If I ever needed,
I can get cash back
[applause]
♪ ♪
[chuckles] And these are
I know it sounds crazy,
with both of them together
Maybe we can fix that.
♪ ♪
[audience exclaims]
I brought some
and I want to share them
Please, come on stage.
Hi. Please take a seat.
- Magam.
And we've said nothing
- Correct.
Please reach into the basket
Look through
and you'll see, they're all
- Mm-hmm.
that is facedown
so I can't see which moment
♪ ♪
- Okay.
Secretly,
take a look at the picture
and try to remember
- Mm-hmm.
- Then hold it close
Magam, imagine an invisible,
right in front of us.
Try to project the picture
clearly onto the blank photo
and let's see if I take
♪ ♪
Here's the picture that just
I'll hold it out here
So out of that basket
would you please show us which
♪ ♪
[chuckles]
My first day of school.
I think we had enough time
and amazingly,
it is the exact same picture
[audience exclaims]
[applause]
This is the magic of Polaroids.
Every time you take a look
it's like having a glimpse
right in the moment
Definitely, no camera tricks
Just a lot of imagination
♪ ♪
[audience exclaims]
♪ ♪
[cheers and applause]
- Whoa.
[applause]
Hi.
Why do they call you Mellow?
- Um, I think it describes
and my style of magic.
- Cool. So you started
- Yeah. I started magic
Before this, I was in a circus
And later, I find out
to impress and amaze people
- Oh, cool.
What kind of obstacles did you
- I was a very shy person
so it was very hard for me
to perform
but magic helped me
and make me more confident.
- How is the magic community
- The magic community
but the audience is
- Oh.
- They are less enthusiastic
and it's, well, very difficult
and visible reactions
- So you don't really
if a German audience
- Yeah, yeah.
They sit and watch the act
And after the show,
"The best I ever seen."
- Okay.
Let's see if the memory you
- Hey, Mellow.
Really good. You know...
- Thank you.
- Polaroid cameras, instant
you know, in a strange way,
so much more magical
we all carry around.
Just that thing being spit out
and developing in front of us
And you've taken that and used
You've taken something
and really gotten
And those transformations
They just really look
- Thank you.
- And they really follow
and you just have
And then the thing at the end
And I know you'd like to know
And so would we.
This was right--it's
We are going to go
and they're going to decide
and whatever they say
So Alyson, it's to you.
- All right, I'm talking
They said this was really
But at the end of the day,
- It was so good.
- But it was close.
- You didn't fool 'em,
- Bye.
- Thank you for having me.
- Bye.
[applause]
- Before Penn and Teller
one of their signature tricks,
they have to try and bust
right after the break.
[cheers and applause]
- Welcome back.
Well, drink in
- Kids really need
My parents weren't there
but I was so lucky
She helped me pursue magic
She printed my business cards,
and even booked me
I came from a very small town.
It was 30 minutes
and there was
So when I first came to Vegas,
my mind was blown
and the crazy production value
[upbeat music]
When a female tells people
too often I'm asked,
"Oh, who do you work with?
But obviously,
because girls can do magic,
I am truly obsessed
My most relaxing thing to do
and pick up a deck of cards.
To calm down
I even watch a game
So hopefully tonight,
a curve ball
[cheers and applause]
- Get ready for some twisted
[cheers and applause]
- Hello. I need to begin
when you're a female
a lot of people assume
you're a witch.
Now, the upside to this
is you get some
A lot like this pentagram.
Yes, I know
and you are completely wrong.
Hollywood and serial killers
have really given these
They're actually intended
especially this one,
a Penntagram.
Yes.
to test the powers
to save me from a very slow
right here on this stage
because I have brought
a bottle of nitric acid,
the key ingredient
Now, you're going to know
if I'm foregoing fashion
Okay. Drinking just
will cause you to vomit blood,
which will slowly
until you suffocate and die.
Super fun.
I have also brought
a liquid that is
from the nitric acid.
We all know water
gives fishies a little place
and well, reproduce.
A little nasty,
Okay, time now
to test the powers of
to protect me
because we have here
and one full of danger.
Now, not much of a test if we
This is why I have brought
Now, Penn, I want to make this
Please gaze in to my eyes
so nobody knows
where the acid goes.
Great. And Penn,
you're going to help me first.
I need you to name two of these
that you feel are safe
We have one, two, three, four.
- Two and four.
You sounded confident,
you really believe that
'cause you don't know me?
So if I'm flopping around,
[laughter]
- All of those.
- I'm guessing,
[laughter]
Oh, boy.
[soft suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
Mm.
Refreshing. Okay.
Do you want to change your mind
- Yes, I do.
- I wanna go to one.
We're gonna swap-a-roo here.
[inhales deeply]
♪ ♪
Hoo.
♪ ♪
Okay.
♪ ♪
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
So far, so good-ish.
Terrified, but good-ish.
Okay, Teller,
Two remain.
The other,
it's really going to make me
my interview with Alyson.
So tell her with my safety
please tell me which one you
We have one or two.
Two?
You are so positive.
Okay.
Well, I will thank you both now
for letting me share
Just in case
my throat is
Okay.
♪ ♪
[audience exclaiming]
Wrong pipe.
The acid remains. Great.
I know you don't look, like,
because
"Oh, she could have
No. I am not here
which is why I brought along
because metal reacts crazily
You see it
start to bubble ferociously.
And not only that,
through the lining
and through your teeth,
but also right through
just like that.
Whoo! My name is Paige Thompson
[laughs]
- Paige Thompson!
Do you always incorporate like,
things that could kill you
- I've actually found
you know,
you hang upside down,
you know, all that
- Right. Uh-huh.
[laughter]
So how do you prepare for
- Focus but not over-rehearse.
And then do something I enjoy
or basketball or hockey or--
- All right.
Do you ever incorporate sports
- Oh, yes. I have a full
- Do you?
- Have all the men in magic
- I didn't realize
there wasn't females in magic.
All my friends were guys
and they didn't act like
They just acted like,
"Oh, here's our friend, Paige,
And so I never felt excluded,
which I think has
because I've always felt like
I've had the support
- Yeah.
Let's see if you earned
- Okay.
- Hello, Paige.
- Boy, we're worried about you
but then at the end,
Plop, plop, fizz, fizz,
That you
You came through fine.
You know,
- Yeah.
We did rodent roulette
- Yes.
- But you did
with danger magic,
You know, we don't allow
that's actually doing something
that would actually
And you had that line between
but also letting us know
You also did one of the really
which is using a prop
in another purpose, you know,
and it was
I also loved the Penntagram
and I think I'm going
Teller's drawn
and said, "it's a Tell-a-gram."
You liked that joke
Good. Very good.
- But it was a great routine.
We love seeing women in magic
Very funny.
And we don't think
- No, I don't think so.
- So you're convinced
- Oh, yes, no.
Paige Thompson.
- Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
- Something impossible awaits
Stick around.
[cheers and applause]
- Welcome back.
Let's meet out next
- My name is Stanley Zhou.
I grew up in China,
my mom brought me and my
I was always
And now on top of that,
so I couldn't talk to anyone.
So I taught myself English
In some ways,
Eventually, I discovered magic
because now I can suddenly
and make friends
I'll admit it,
My two biggest passions
When I started fencing,
I always wanted to go to the
And when I started doing magic,
And now three years later,
Penn, Teller,
you guys have been doing magic
so I'll find another way
[cheers and applause]
- Put your hands together
for a 16-year-old magician,
[cheers and applause]
- Hi, Penn. Hi, Teller.
I can't believe
two of the greatest minds
- Oh, thank you.
- It'd be crazy for me to try
So I won't. Instead,
I'm going to try and fool you
Now, this physics experiment
and three black cards.
You two will be
to validate the results.
I want you to notice
is well-mixed.
Yes?
- Perfect.
This deck will be
I'll set it aside for now
Now, my research has shown
more than red ink.
To demonstrate this,
three blacks, three reds.
And I'll mix them up
Black, red,
If I pick them up
the heavier black ink
to pass through the red cards.
And then they end up
Let me show you.
I think that did it.
If we take a look now,
the first card,
The second card,
but since we dropped them,
And the third card,
Thank you.
And if you're wondering,
are the three black cards.
Thank you.
but that seemed
However, I still sense
which is fine because science,
So I'll demonstrate this again.
And this time you'll know
Penn, what color
- Black.
So that means that Teller
If you don't trust me, you can
He doesn't trust me.
Here, help me mix the red cards
just like this.
First one.
Good.
And perfect.
Now, once again,
and the black cards are going
I saw it.
- I didn't.
- I didn't
You're my independent observer.
- I didn't see them
It just looked like
- Well, who knows?
Let's check it out.
First card is red.
Red.
And red. Thank you.
And over here.
Thank you.
- Very nice.
- I'll admit that
appears to have been perfectly
I did handle the cards
And as a magician physicist
[laughter]
I might have used
So for those of you
that this is a card trick
and to put all doubt to rest,
I'm going to create a condition
I have invented a sleight
The first part
Penn, you can check that out.
And the second part
- Okay.
- Teller,
Now to prevent sleight of hand,
in each one of my fingers.
Just kidding.
What we're actually going to do
There we go. That's good.
And we're going to use
To make sure that
to make the cards move,
Now, if you take a look,
alternating red, black,
And you can see
we can change
no matter
And if you think about it,
the paper fastener
But this isn't a card trick,
♪ ♪
I think that did it.
♪ ♪
Look.
red, and red.
And black, black, and black.
But that's not all.
You see,
the real physical evidence
The stack of cards.
Remember,
before I set it down
If black ink truly is heavier
♪ ♪
And if you take a look,
you'll see that all the red
and all the black cards
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Penn.
- Can we take these with us?
- Stanley Zhou. Hi.
- So nice to meet you.
- You're so incredible.
- How long have you been
- Doing magic?
- Only about three years.
- Wow.
- Three years and you're
doing close-up magic
- Yes.
- And is your family
- Yes, of course.
- I wouldn't be here
- [chuckling]
It's so brave to do these
sitting right in front of you.
- Well, of course,
but once I got out,
- And so are you actually good
- Yeah.
- I feel like you're good
It's just a hunch.
- I don't know, actually.
What other goals do you have
- I really,
- Ooh.
combination of mental
- All right, Stanley.
Let's see if Penn and Teller
- All right.
- Stanley.
- [chuckles]
- I want to apologize to you
'cause I think I cheated
I asked you at the end,
if I could take this prop
and I'm really not
I mean, during this section,
but I'm not supposed to
ask to grab something
And when I did it,
because I said, here's
You've been in the country.
- Three, four years.
- Four years.
learning English,
I'm here on our show
and it was kind
[laughter]
To say, "Can I take this?"
You don't have a choice.
because that shows
So you have to say yes,
And we bust the trick.
I don't feel like
or I did the right thing.
I feel like I cheated
and then I looked at this prop
- Yeah.
- [snorting chuckle]
- [gasps] You did it!
- Thank you.
- I'm kind of exonerated
because you fooled us anyway.
- Thank you so much.
Thank you, Teller.
- Thank you.
- I shouldn't have done that
- Stanley Zhou!
[cheers and applause]
- [chuckles]
There goes one fine Fooler
Can another magician fool
Come back and find out.
[cheers and applause]
- Welcome back.
Penn and Teller gave up
They might give away another
Let's meet them.
- I'm a Michigan magician.
Try to say
I met my girlfriend, Jasmine,
at a magic convention
called the
where we were both performing.
She really put a spell on me.
Fast forward a year,
and we have a little girl
And that's so we remember
We do a lot of county fairs,
traveling around Michigan
I have a 30-foot trailer
and my very own
[laughter]
People ask me if I ever want
And I tell them, no, I'll
'cause that's my home.
Tonight, I'll be
that's taken me five years
Since Battle Creek, Michigan
is the cereal center
it takes a Michigan magician
Penn, Teller, prepare for the
[cheers and applause]
- Give it up for Michigan's own
[cheers and applause]
- When I was a kid, to me,
nothing said magic more
And I'm not even talking
I mean, on the inside
there was a prize
pour out some sugary,
get a toy. Magic.
Yeah, I know this was just a
but guess what?
Penn and Teller,
Would you please open it?
Inside, you'll find a list
containing the top 20 common
things like baseball cards,
and my personal favorite,
because who doesn't like
as a side order for cereal?
If you both could settle on
- No, no, they don't do that.
- Okay. We got one.
- X-ray specs.
- Thank you.
So now that we have the prize,
And Alyson,
at the breakfast table?
- Gladly.
- So I have a bag with six mini
And can you verify
- Yes.
And let's see
We have Huffle Puffs.
Okay.
And we have Presto Pops...
- Mysteerios...
Hocus Oatus...
and lastly, Abra-cadapples.
Okay. Alyson, if you could
so we can make
Okay, keep shaking it up.
You good? Okay, great.
Now that you've mixed up
Reach inside and grab one box.
- Yay, Presto Pops.
And here's what
And Alyson, you want to know
I knew that you were
and that's because
- Oh.
- It gets better. Watch.
If we open up the box here
Presto Pops.
- Wow.
- Now--but there's more, okay?
If we fold up the box here--
and we have to use
and I think you actually have
Just like that.
And take the bowl
and wave the spoon
and say,
[laughter]
- And watch this.
- Just like that,
inside--inside the box
we have Presto Pops,
Penn, what was the prize
- X-ray specs.
- You had a free choice
- We did.
[audience exclaims]
X-ray specs.
We have 98% of the trick.
We have the bowl,
we have the spoon,
The only thing we need now
You know what?
Do you see anything
- No.
That's because--oh.
Well, I guess there's one thing
And when, I mean,
I'm talking about the other 2%.
And that's a magical breakfast
[applause]
[cheers and applause]
So your mom never told you
- No. Well, that was
I used to take my grubby
all the way at the bottom
- Yes, or you could just
and open it from the bottom.
- Yeah.
- Right. So is this the trick
- So this is actually a trick
that I've been working on
- Wow.
I really wanted to do
- It's pretty awesome.
- Have you done lots
- I did.
I did a show for like
all over the world.
- So how else did you spend
- I became a firefighter.
- What!
- That's amazing.
- Yeah. I like to do stuff
in the public
And with magic, I've done a lot
and so it was just kind of
that I wanted to do.
- All right, Jonathan,
can see through
- Awesome.
- Hey John, I'll tell you,
- Yeah?
- We have not seen
- Awesome.
You own that whole area.
- That was really,
And there's also, it's such
to have a box of cereal,
and have something
is just this magical idea
you're going to find
when you pour the stuff out.
Now, remember that
you know, I had this little--
I had a little bag
My mom would give me change
I hid the change in the bag.
I'd go to the store,
then hidden in the box
And I'd pull that out
And I don't think
with how you poured the milk
We had a pretty
And I think that as you're
or underlining certain words
I think you have an idea
and I don't think
- I did not.
Oh, well, Jonathan,
but we absolutely loved
Thank you so much.
- Jonathan Lachance.
Penn and Teller
Now they get to walk the walk
when "Fool Us" returns.
[cheers and applause]
- Joined by a randomly-selected
give it up for our headliners,
[cheers and applause]
- Alyson,
we've done a trick for you
We think tonight,
more specifically for Teller.
You'll do all of this.
I'll just kind of
You've seen a lot
You know the basic idea,
First, pull out
Open them up.
- Beautiful. Pull out
You can throw the empty box
and get rid of--beautiful.
Say, "Teller,
- Shuffle. I mean,
[laughter]
- Do a legitimate shuffle.
- I'm trying, but
- Do a legitimate shuffle.
- There you go.
- Really famous magicians.
Beautiful, beautiful.
Want to shuffle some more?
- My daughters always say
I need
- There you go.
- Now, give 'em a cut,
- Okay. Okay. Okay.
- And when you complete
now say, "Teller."
- Teller!
What you are going to do
Turn them over like that.
- Gosh.
that and say,
- Pick a card,
- Get in your head. Okay.
- He has got one.
and turn the deck over,
put it right down there
- Teller!
- "You're going to
- You're going to remember
- "Wait a minute, Teller."
- Wait a minute, Teller.
- You're a slimy, cute weasel.
- "Who has been riding
on the back of Penn."
- [laughing]
- You don't have to say that.
- Just say,
"But I think you might change
- I think you might change
- "So write down the name
- So write down the name
Oh, he--
- "Just write it on your arm.
- On your arm.
- "Write down the name
- Write it down.
- Don't--yeah, that's good.
- Okay, good.
Now say, "I will find
- I will find your card,
- Oh no, no. Watch this.
Show it to Teller.
Now say,
- I will cut
- Now, listen carefully Alyson.
Cut about a third
then turn it over
- A third of the way down.
- Right here.
- Turn it over, turn it over.
- And then, put it back
- And then--oh, right on top.
And say," Five of hearts.
- Five of hearts!
Oh, no.
- Now, you gotta bail out
You say,
- Of course,
- "That would be too easy."
- "Watch this."
- Now you're going to cut
Cut a little deeper, like
- Two-thirds. Okay.
- Now turn it over
Put it right back
"Three of hearts.
- Three of hearts.
Aw. That would be way too easy.
- Way too easy, way too easy.
- "Watch this, Teller."
- I will get this
- Show your hands over there.
And them just spread
Just spread them out.
Now, take all the face-up
You got to throw them down
and say, "none of them!"
- None of them!
- [growling]
- Now, get the card you cut
Slide it over here.
Now take all those cards,
and then throw them down
"None of them!"
- None of them!
- Boy, your disdain--you got
- I'm so excited.
- So there's one card left.
- I guess your energy
- "Don't look at it."
- Just say,
- One--one card left.
then you're gonna do a recap
- Okay.
"First of all,
- First of all,
- "And you picked one card
- You picked one card
- "I had you write it down
- I had you write it down
- "And then I shuffled
- And then I shuffled
- "And there's only
- And there's only
- "And I can't change my mind."
- And I can't change my mind.
- "And you can't
- And you can't change
- "Watch this, Teller.
Alyson is going
- I'm going to blow your mind!
- "Teller, what card
- "What card did you pick?"
- Six of--
Watch this, Teller.
Show both your hands empty
then show Teller
Then reach down,
Take a look at it
so don't freak out.
- [shouts]
- The six of spades!
I did it!
I wanna thank you from all
including Alyson.
Goodnight from Las Vegas.
Tune in next week
and all her shenanigans.
- Yay, it's, like, so easy.
- Easy?
- I loved that.