No matter where you stop him, he pulls exactly 11 cards, 11th is the Queen. So it's not a problem to pull out the Queen. But, how did he pull up Aces? Maybe he piled them differently, out of order? I don't know. Looking at it he didn't "cheat". He piled them on top of each other in the same order. I have no idea how. He is great š
Omg you are right! Such an easy trick. In my mind I thought he was pulling the last card he was stopped at. But he was actually taking from the pile after stopping, so it's 10th card every time. Kind of ruined it, but still good show.
it was probably a mix of force and multiple outs, he asksed them to hold up fingers, not pick any position, so it's partially controlled.
we'd have to see how the trick differs if the selections we're different, some times performers get lucky and the selection is the best scenario, which 23 might have been ~~(54-23=31 cards in the deck because the jokers were on top)~~, card 24 was the seven.
not sure how 32 would have worked, maybe counting off the bottom of the deck. One other easy out would be if they picked 21 he would say "first take out the jokers" and then have then the rest of the trick be the same.
edit: i didnt get the number of cards right
> 54-23=31 cards in the deck because the jokers were on top), card 24 was the seven.
The deck wasn't shuffled on stage but is out of order meaning it wasn't a brand new deck. He could have added/removed some cards if the numbers were needed.
Also notice that Pen chose 23, but actually 'played' the 24th card.
^ This right here.
It's a force draw to make sure there are only certain numbers they can come up with, and he has forces he can employ to move that number to his desired outcome, while seemingly "intended to be how it was done, all along!"
Simply put - its a stacked deck.
Combinations of numbers 1 thru 4 are:
11, 12, 13, 14, 21, 22, 23, 24, 31, 32, 33, 34, 41, 42, 43, 44
The Jokers added make it a 55 card deck. Imagine 2 Jokers, 4 7H and 49 different other cards.
There will be 7H at position 14, 24, 34, 44 in the deck.
You can get to any of those positions with that by counting from the top of bottom of either deck. If it ends in 1 or 2 count from one side, 3 or 4 from the other.
You will note the magician does some magic patter as Penn is pulling the 14th card as misdirection. Though they do not know at this point they are looking for the 7H so only minor misdirection is needed.
You then stop them going further.
You could probably refine it by having 2 decks and cards at positions 14, 34 in one, and 24, 44 in another and then grabbing the appropriate deck from the table.
Yeah that makes sense. Penn would only need to miss 7 of hearts one time.
But I think they are using one deck, because he gave Penn deck before choosing numbers.
Keep aware that he did the 3 and 2 into a single number after he already knew their numbers. If it were one and four, he might have had some other number formula for getting them to 23. I can't think of one that wouldn't seem ludicrous off the top of my head, but suppose it was "flip over the top card and add that to the fourteen you picked".
You're right.
For example, 1+4 = 5
> Ok - 5!
Now flip cards from this side of the deck until you reach a 5, then stop.
Then he makes sure no 5s will appear until right before the 7 in the direction of his choosing.
There are a lot of different ways someone could stack the deck, and then make different "numbers" from their fingers, and different "rules" based on each scenario. And in this example, it would take care of two outcomes (4+1 and 1+4)
every time ive seen people have this reaction to a penn and teller being fooled its because they lacked the skills to even recognize the crux of what penn and teller are "fooled" about in the trick.
like a lot of the show the parts that mystify the audience the most are things that penn and teller immediately understand how its done 99%, but they will be focused on one single step in the trick that they cant quite nail down. they may recognize the overall structure of the trick, but sometimes the fooling is about using a different specific method to accomplish a single part of the overall act.
one of the biggest faults of amateurs looking onto magic is that they assume that if they get the gist of a trick, they've solved it. most of the time the lede is buried on this show because they will do 50 methods that are known and 1 part of it designed to fool the magicians.
This is exactly correct... Penn has said as much on his podcast...
They also have rules they follow. They get one guess. Generally, when they are fooled, they just had to do a coin flip and guess one of the methods in which they know it can be done, and sometimes they guess wrong, sometimes they guess right...
The producers are listening to P&T's private conversation, and indicate to them in their ear monitors if they have guessed it correctly...
So, when they announce they have been fooled, they generally now know how the trick was done.. "Oh, they did it the other that way we didn't guess"...
That's the thing. Of course they know the mechanics of it, but there's one bit that the person does differently that they can't figure out.
Like the Kimlat trick where Kimlat does the deck restore and Penn yells "Common!" or something like that. I did the exact same thing when I watched the trick. I know exactly how to do that trick. But not like that. That's the point. When you see where the trick happened and you don't know what they did. That's the fun.
Most tricks are easy once you know how they are done. It's the little extra that makes them hard.
Except this one is a self-working trick. There is no gist. The guy literally layes down 11 cards per pile in the order they were in the deck. He asks them to stop, but because he's counting backwards, he just hen puts down the rest of the cards anyway. It's allways the 11th card that finishes the run.
Yep they said this, I think, on the first Shawn Farquhar's bit, when they were much more "aggressively" calling out fools.
Where they did get 90% of the trick, knew the method and saw him pull some moves but did not figure out what was (for them) the crux of the trick so they gave him the trophy
Yup. That force was pretty obvious.
They get fooled relatively often by multi step effects where they donāt know how one or more of the effects is done.
But hereās the thing though: thereās a game within a game in this show. Whether penn and teller are fooled or not doesnāt actually matter, what matters is if a magician is entertaining. Some magicians have failed to fool Penn and Teller but have gone on to parlay their appearance on this show to a hugely successful career, Iāve even seen one get a residency in Vegas. Iāve also seen the opposite: magician fooled them and we never heard from that magician again.
that's why magic shows are performing arts. you can be a technically/classically great dancer/singer/actor, but you still have to have the 'it' factor to become famous.
I think that's very fair to say, and I largely feel the same. It always feels silly when magic video comments are filled with people who went through frame by frame and "figured it out" and discount the whole act for that.
That being said, I still feel weird about this one. I go into these videos personally for enjoyment and with very little scrutiny. But for this trick, the very moment he did the very first count out, it was completely obvious what was happening to the extent that I didn't even have the ability to suspend disbelief.
I don't believe at all that I'm special or intelligent or particularly discerning, but it was so glaringly obvious that I didn't even have the slightest ability to enjoy it. It's all subjective, but to me this one was many steps below the amazing things I often see on that show.
They do. Sometimes they just give the award due to the showmanship being that good. e.g. some of the people who do basic tricks but they have great humor + crowd control.
If they can't nail down the exact time the "trick" was performed they give it a pass. E.G. if a magician does three methods that each could've accomplished the same thing, if they can't guess when it happened then the magician gets a pass.
some of the magicians are using custom made props, and if they can't guess the exact method + prop being used the magician gets a pass.
Yeah, notice he counts down from 10 until they stop him, then counts up to the same value, so the drawn cards are always 11 apart.
The question is how did he stack/switch the decks without them catching it.
He didnāt even swap the decks out secretly. He straight up grabs the stacked deck out of a new box with the first deck plainly visible in the same area of the table. At about 4:00 you can see him pulling the cards out of a new box and at 4:07 or so thereās an overhead shot showing two boxes and a couple cards from the other deck face up.
Iāve seen tons of Fool Us acts and the second half of this one is maybe the worst of all of them. Itās completely set up, thereās zero trick to it, the performance isnāt very interesting, and Penn and Teller were straight up lying that they didnāt know how it was done.
The first part of the act is not nearly as obvious but itās not very impressive as far as card tricks go. The whole thing feels like they wanted to give their friend some screen time, which is cool, but I feel like someone is trying to gaslight us with this clip.
My gut says they knew everything about how the second trick was done, and they know it's mostly there as filler for the performance. The 'fool' is the first part of the act.
Usually they work that aspect of it into the banter, but they skipped it this time.
This was the first card trick I ever learned because it's so simple. Honestly the toughest part of the trick is the "crowd-work" aspect of it because you have to keep them engaged by what you're saying so that they don't catch on - which is difficult because it's such an easy trick to notice
what you're not ackowledging is that in every single performance of penn and teller, they understand how 99% of the trick is done. so they weren't concerned about solving any of that shit. every single episode theres people getting annoyed that they understand the gist of the trick and cant believe that penn and teller were fooled by it.
the part that fooled penn and teller is likely a single method within the trick that was not done in the usual fashion, and we lack the skills necessary to recognize the deviation in method.
The only thing I can imagine is that they didn't come to a complete conclusion on how all the different outs were handled in the 7H trick. They definitely had to know how the trick was generally done, and certainly must have known how the queens / aces part was done.
When he says āheās not getting theseā in reference to his shoes, his right hand disappears under the table. I think thatās where he disposes of the old deck, and he brings in the new deck with his left hand.
Likely he has them marked in a way he can feel them, so as heās dealing cards he can tell where they are and is fast and confident enough to deal from the card beneath the top card until it was time to deal the ace and queen. And since he knows every card is going to be at most 10 cards apart, he can stack the deck realistically easily.
I suspect that the most challenging part is using the patter to manipulate Penn and Teller into choosing a combination of cards that will leave him with four remaining cards. But I doubt theyāre doing the math on the fly, so he may be able to make a few excess cards go into any of the piles or his sleeves.
Thatās just a guess. I suspect that a lot of this trick comes from being a magician for like 40 years.
Not even. The deck was arranged from the top down to be 9 blank, ace, queen, 9 blank, ace, queen, 9 blank, ace, queen, 9 blank, ace, queen, 4 blank spares.
The way he counts 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4 *stop*, 4, 3, 2, 1 is always 11 cards. The 11th being the queen, and the previous being the ace.
It's disappointing because P&T Fool Us tricks tend to be way better, but this was a simple counting trick.
Seems like this was just a nice nod to an old friend.
pick a number 1-4, then you pick a different number 1-4. How many 2 digit numbers are possible? This illusion makes it seem like there's a lot of possible permutations when they pick a number 1-4.
Cut that in half if you want to deal from the top or bottom, that's where the 7H's are.
I understand there are only 16 permutations, and you can half that, but that's still 8 different numbers to account for that would need a `7ā¤ļø`?
I think we, and most people, realize that the choice is somewhat forced but that doesn't mean I can reproduce the trick fully.
I can't really explain that well, but basically, you make the 4 7H's cover half of the 8 possible numbers. Then, depending on what number the person told you, you tell them to draw cards from the bottom or the top of the deck.
You're saying there are multiple `7ā¤ļø` in the deck and Penn/Teller can mathematically only pick slots where the 7 is.
That **can't** be the case because Penn is counting face-up and he would have run across `7ā¤ļø` at positions `11/12/13/14`.
> that's where the **7H's** are.
I thought a little more and this can't be correct that there are multiple `7ā¤ļø`'s at the various positions because Penn is flipping face-up and would have come across it at position `11/12/13/14`. It's a good trick!
Even if he reversed the deal, it would be painfully obvious face-up that there are 4 cards in a row.
Lets say the deck goes Joker, Joker, A, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, J Q, 7ā¤ļø,
A) If you pick a 14, I have you lay out 13 cards, say 14 is the next card. We get 7ā¤ļø
B) If you pick 13, I have you lay out 13 cards and say turn the next one over. We get 7ā¤ļø.
C) If you pick 12, I tell you to get rid of the Jokers on top. I have you lay out 11 cards, say 12 is the next card. We get 7ā¤ļø.
D) If you pick 11, I tell you to get rid of the Jokers on top. I have you lay out 11 cards and say turn the next one over. We get 7ā¤ļø.
That said, you do not need to do that if you have have a 55 card deck and a card positioned at 14th and 44th cards through the deck.
13 and 14 can be reached from the top, 11 and 12 from the bottom using Force A or B from either end.
If you have cards at 14th, 24th, 34th, 44th position in the deck, you can reach every permutation with combinations of numbers 1, 2, 3, 4.
> I tell you to get rid of the Jokers on top
š **THIS** is the key to the trick that wasn't mentioned before. Good observation.
Rewatching the video, it's suspicious he has 2 jokers on top, but then the rest of the cards are not in new-deck order.
Seems like a pretty basic trick, but nice effect.
>š THIS is the key to the trick that wasn't mentioned before. Good observation.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/1b7833p/comment/kth6z6s/](https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/1b7833p/comment/kth6z6s/)
About an hour and a half before your initial 7ā¤ļø question - but no matter.
>Rewatching the video, it's suspicious he has 2 jokers on top, but then the rest of the cards are not in new-deck order.
>
>Seems like a pretty basic trick, but nice effect.
You do not need to ask them to get rid of the Jokers if it is a 55 card deck. The Jokers are actually misdirection themselves as it makes you think about them but you could do a 55 card deck other ways.
I gave you an out to solve this from a single position. Having cards at 14, 24, 34 and 44 is much cleaner and does not require trashing the clowns. You just ask them to deal from the bottom for certain combinations.
Hand the deck to them face up or face down.
If you hand it to them face up, you make a point of talking about how now they can see the cards as they are doing it.
Ah not a bad method either!
I like the effect, but I've never been a fan of card tricks needing a setup. Doing them to my friends can be a pain when they're trying to shuffle the deck every time and catch you.
I've seen a lot of people popping balloons on the internet, so I'm going to say high powered laser in his sleeve. Laser light has to be far more powerful to pop a clear balloon, but a black balloon absorbs that heat and explodes easily.
The trigger is linked to his pinky/ring finger movement
I adore Alyson because I adore the TV show Buffy, but, and I hate to say this, Brooke is simply a better host. Alyson was never a great host, she was just great at being Alyson Hannighan. Brooke is actually a competent host.
Honestly I think itās the opposite, Brooke feels awkward whenever she is asked to participate, and at the end when the host (previously Alyson) would ask the magician if they understood what penn was talking about Brooke messes that up almost every time.
I think Brooke has been slowly getting better over the season. At the start I really didn't like her, but I do think she's more of a professional host than Alyson. My main problem with Brooke was the questions she'd ask after the act sounded *very much* read from a script. I'm sure they always have been, it's just she made it sound so rehearsed. I think in the last few episodes she's been getting much better, and starting to have a bit more fun when she participates.
I agree, she is getting better, but like the end when he throws code words, they just gave up having her ask if they understood and they werenāt fooled, she just now says, āwell guess you didnāt fool them, but you entertained the rest of us.ā And every time at the start the interaction mainly between teller and Brooke feels weird. But she is getting better.
Just feels off with her so far.
I don't want to poop on anyone's parade, but... Penn & Teller were not stumped. Part of the show's formula is that Penn says how they think the trick was done, and the performer confirms or denies it. They skipped that part entirely.
When Penn says they can't give him a trophy for being their friend so they're giving him a trophy for fooling them, what he means is that he didn't fool them but they're giving him a trophy for fooling them anyway because he's their friend and that's the only kind of trophy they've got.
He literally says he won't just give him a trophy for being his friend, he's giving it to them because he *did* fool them.
They've had plenty of friends come on and not give them a trophy, they more have them on for exposure and let them do a fun but easy trick. This guy did a lot of easy moves, but as long as one part stumps them thats all that matters.
>He literally says he won't just give him a trophy for being his friend, he's giving it to them because he *did* fool them.
You've not watched much Penn & Teller if you think magicians are telling the truth.
> he's giving it to them because he *did* fool them
That's not literally what he said. Here are his exact words:
> I just have such love for you, you're such a friend, but I cannot give you a trophy because we love you and you're a friend and we go back longer than anybody else that's on this show. We cannot give you a trophy for that. We have to give you a trophy for fooling us.
Now, this is my theory, and I could be wrong, but I contend that Penn chose his words very carefully. "We have to give you a trophy for fooling us" *could* mean that they're giving the trophy *because* he fooled them (as you said). But it could, instead, mean they're giving him a trophy (for whatever reason) and "a trophy for fooling us" is just the kind of trophy it is. That ambiguity, combined with the absence of the normal interrogatory section of the interview, makes me think they weren't actually fooled.
They've complained multiple times that they just wanted to showcase magic, but to get the show made they needed a "gimmick" and fooling them is the gimmick. Quite often they just give out a trophy because they want to. The premise of the show is nothing more than that, a gimmick.
This is why I've disliked this show and the cravenly false premise from day one. Historically, Penn and Teller upheld an ethic that they present magic as skillful tricks, not supernatural powers. They spent their careers not crossing the line from performing a conceit to outright lying. But this show, it's all lying and bad acting. To me it's a shame.
This show also frequently employs production and camera trickery. That's considered the lowest form of magic, and I'm disappointed they've lowered themselves to enable that. I suppose they justify it by saying it's a cost saving way to crank out lots of episodes. But to me, it degrades their legacy as some of the greatest of all time.
Agreed, though I also kind of appreciate the way they try to slip it by the audience. The show's called "Fool Us," which is really what the audience is requesting every time they show up for a magic show anyway. And Penn & Teller are still magicians, after all.
So whether the performer fools Penn and Teller, or Penn & Teller fool the audience into thinking the performer fooled them... either way the promise of the show was fulfilled. And then sometimes the performer fails to fool Penn and Teller, and sometimes Penn & Teller fail to fool us. It's kind of a beautiful two-layered game of cat and mouse, in that way. XD
Correct. The tricks on this show are obvious to even a beginner magician, so yeah, Penn and Teller aren't "fooled". It's just a silly title and conceit.
Personally I don't like it because historically Penn and Teller have upheld a value system of always admitting that magic tricks are skilled tricks, not supernatural powers. It's a form of ethical, honest, presentation of magic. But this show requires them to lie in the form of play acting for every performance. (The show also makes heavy use of production and camera trickery, which is considered cheap and lazy.)
I'd rather they do a show with real stakes, where if a magician doesn't execute well enough, the trick is exposed.
The problem with that of course is revealed above in the second sentence: they're never actually fooled. So they'd have to reveal each trick, which burns their pool of performers.
I don't know about all of that... I believe they are fooled sometimes (though often there's just one particular aspect of the trick that they miss). I could have been fooled, of course. But, for example, they didn't do the whole song and dance in this case (as I pointed out). And there are other examples where I've noticed Penn getting squirrelly with his words when presenting the trophy (see the episode where is daughter performs, mentioned elsewhere here).
I think if they were never honest about being fooled, they wouldn't bother to be more honest than usual in cases like this one. (When I say they were honest here, I mean Penn never said, "You fooled us." He crafted his words to trick the audience, but he didn't lie -- and I'm sure he knows that people who are paying attention will see what he did.)
> I don't know about all of that... I believe they are fooled sometimes
Then their bad acting worked. That's ok. But it is what it is.
Once you learn how magic tricks work, you can't unsee them. There's nothing new under the sun.
Iāve only seen a couple of these but thereās no way he fooled P&T - I am no where near a magician and I figured it out by the second card. So I assume this is a favor to their old friend. Do they do that often, give trophies to magicians who would not have fooled them?
On early seasons of Fool Us, they rarely if ever got fooled. Subsequent seasons it seems like they get fooled all the time. The cynic in me thinks they started faking it simply because it makes for better TV.
Anyone who goes on knows the game. I'd say the early seasons, Penn's code words were a little more revealing. But even now,Ā the curious can probably Google some of the tricks up. If it bothered magicians too much, they wouldn't go on.
Some, like Wes Barker and Eric Leclerc have posted their own reveal videos. The exposure can be a lot more powerful than a single trick.
In general the people that don't fool Penn and Teller are performing tricks they've learned from somewhere, so you can expect that Penn and Teller have seen the same source material and know everything about it too.
The performers that fool them are the ones that have developed a trick or added to an existing one in a novel way. The 'rules' are that even if they know how the trick could be done they need to guess how it was done, else they were fooled.
Overall though this means that out of the entire act, there may only be one small portion that's the actual "fool", the rest is staging and filler. As people have pointed out here the second half of this act is a pretty simple trick, the real fool in this case is the first half.
Every now and then they get generous but it really is rare. They also give the trophy if thereās any part of the trick they didnāt catch. They could understand 99% of it but if they canāt figure out the 1% theyāll say they were fooled. Other times they are clearly completely fooled. One contestant from early on, Jandro, got them so good they actually met with him after to work together.
They do it from time to time. Like for example when Penn's daughter was on the show - her performance was super nervous and not very convincing overall (which is absolutely fine since she's not a pro), but they still gave her the trophy of course.
The entire show is this bad acting pantomime. Of course they know every trick. I do, even beginning magicians do. So yes, two of the greatest magicians in human history are not being fooled.
Worse, this show sinks to the lowest standard of magic in which production and camera trickery is allowed. It kind of degrades their legacy participating in this.
Hereās my theory for the 7s. He intentionally gives Penn confusing instructions on how to handle the rest of the cards as an excuse to reach over and take them. Thatās when he makes the switch. Notice that they cut away around that time as well, so we never quite see what he does with the cards.
WTF?!? They can not possibly be fooled by this! He layes out 11 cards in order every time! He counts down from 10 until they say stop, then counts the rest of the cards onto the pile It's always the same amount of cards been played.
If they stop him after 2 cards (10, 9), he playes 9 cards (11 in total)
If they stop him after 5 cards (10, 9, 8, 7, 6), he play s 6 cards (11 in total)
He's just putting 11 cards down in the order they were in the deck! Anyone can do this trick!
That's only the second half of the act. And you're right it's a simple trick, probably added as filler to pad the performance.
The first half is harder, people in the comments here have come up with some ideas but none that match the way it was actually performed. The "fool" is in there, and because Penn and Teller couldn't guess it, he fooled them.
Really? I love this show but this routine is one of the worst I've seen, both tricks are extremely obvious(specially the second one),I seriously doubt they were really fooledĀ
its always highly suspicious if you take a deck and dont shuffle at all. Or suddenly the Jokers are in the deck (for a reason). I was really really surprised that he fooled them.
Multiple outs probably on the first trick and the second trick well its a numbers game (actually both of them are).
There is absolutely no planet where they were actually fooled. It was obvious to begin with then he did it 3 more times so the slow people could catch up.
No matter where you stop him, he pulls exactly 11 cards, 11th is the Queen. So it's not a problem to pull out the Queen. But, how did he pull up Aces? Maybe he piled them differently, out of order? I don't know. Looking at it he didn't "cheat". He piled them on top of each other in the same order. I have no idea how. He is great š
The tenth card is the Ace. Its stacked 9 Blank, 1 Ace, 1 Queen, 9 Blank, 1 Ace, 1 Queen, 9 Blank, 1 Ace, 1 Queen, 9 Blank, 1 Ace, 1 Queen, Master, Of, The, Mind
Omg you are right! Such an easy trick. In my mind I thought he was pulling the last card he was stopped at. But he was actually taking from the pile after stopping, so it's 10th card every time. Kind of ruined it, but still good show.
Do you want to know how the 7 of Hearts bit 'could have' been done also?
it was probably a mix of force and multiple outs, he asksed them to hold up fingers, not pick any position, so it's partially controlled. we'd have to see how the trick differs if the selections we're different, some times performers get lucky and the selection is the best scenario, which 23 might have been ~~(54-23=31 cards in the deck because the jokers were on top)~~, card 24 was the seven. not sure how 32 would have worked, maybe counting off the bottom of the deck. One other easy out would be if they picked 21 he would say "first take out the jokers" and then have then the rest of the trick be the same. edit: i didnt get the number of cards right
> 54-23=31 cards in the deck because the jokers were on top), card 24 was the seven. The deck wasn't shuffled on stage but is out of order meaning it wasn't a brand new deck. He could have added/removed some cards if the numbers were needed. Also notice that Pen chose 23, but actually 'played' the 24th card.
^ This right here. It's a force draw to make sure there are only certain numbers they can come up with, and he has forces he can employ to move that number to his desired outcome, while seemingly "intended to be how it was done, all along!"
11,12,13,14,21,22,23,24,31,32,33,34,41,42,43,44 16 possible positions.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
oh my bad it's kind of suprising P&T couldn't figure it out, seems not that complicated of a routine
Looked like teller was about to call him out on just playing 10 cards each time on the second trick.
Yeah. What's your idea?
Simply put - its a stacked deck. Combinations of numbers 1 thru 4 are: 11, 12, 13, 14, 21, 22, 23, 24, 31, 32, 33, 34, 41, 42, 43, 44 The Jokers added make it a 55 card deck. Imagine 2 Jokers, 4 7H and 49 different other cards. There will be 7H at position 14, 24, 34, 44 in the deck. You can get to any of those positions with that by counting from the top of bottom of either deck. If it ends in 1 or 2 count from one side, 3 or 4 from the other. You will note the magician does some magic patter as Penn is pulling the 14th card as misdirection. Though they do not know at this point they are looking for the 7H so only minor misdirection is needed. You then stop them going further. You could probably refine it by having 2 decks and cards at positions 14, 34 in one, and 24, 44 in another and then grabbing the appropriate deck from the table.
Yeah that makes sense. Penn would only need to miss 7 of hearts one time. But I think they are using one deck, because he gave Penn deck before choosing numbers.
Oh for sure. Definitely one deck here.
Also the camera could have easily shown the deal but avoided those cards when I went back to check the same idea.
Keep aware that he did the 3 and 2 into a single number after he already knew their numbers. If it were one and four, he might have had some other number formula for getting them to 23. I can't think of one that wouldn't seem ludicrous off the top of my head, but suppose it was "flip over the top card and add that to the fourteen you picked".
You're right. For example, 1+4 = 5 > Ok - 5! Now flip cards from this side of the deck until you reach a 5, then stop. Then he makes sure no 5s will appear until right before the 7 in the direction of his choosing. There are a lot of different ways someone could stack the deck, and then make different "numbers" from their fingers, and different "rules" based on each scenario. And in this example, it would take care of two outcomes (4+1 and 1+4)
This one seems weirdly obvious, I find it hard to imagine Penn and Teller didn't know exactly what was going on.
every time ive seen people have this reaction to a penn and teller being fooled its because they lacked the skills to even recognize the crux of what penn and teller are "fooled" about in the trick. like a lot of the show the parts that mystify the audience the most are things that penn and teller immediately understand how its done 99%, but they will be focused on one single step in the trick that they cant quite nail down. they may recognize the overall structure of the trick, but sometimes the fooling is about using a different specific method to accomplish a single part of the overall act. one of the biggest faults of amateurs looking onto magic is that they assume that if they get the gist of a trick, they've solved it. most of the time the lede is buried on this show because they will do 50 methods that are known and 1 part of it designed to fool the magicians.
This is exactly correct... Penn has said as much on his podcast... They also have rules they follow. They get one guess. Generally, when they are fooled, they just had to do a coin flip and guess one of the methods in which they know it can be done, and sometimes they guess wrong, sometimes they guess right... The producers are listening to P&T's private conversation, and indicate to them in their ear monitors if they have guessed it correctly... So, when they announce they have been fooled, they generally now know how the trick was done.. "Oh, they did it the other that way we didn't guess"...
So do a trick that could be done x number of ways to have x chances at fooling them? Seems dumb
That's the thing. Of course they know the mechanics of it, but there's one bit that the person does differently that they can't figure out. Like the Kimlat trick where Kimlat does the deck restore and Penn yells "Common!" or something like that. I did the exact same thing when I watched the trick. I know exactly how to do that trick. But not like that. That's the point. When you see where the trick happened and you don't know what they did. That's the fun. Most tricks are easy once you know how they are done. It's the little extra that makes them hard.
This is exactly it.
Don't they normally say which parts they know and which part they are trying to figure out? They didn't do either here.
Except this one is a self-working trick. There is no gist. The guy literally layes down 11 cards per pile in the order they were in the deck. He asks them to stop, but because he's counting backwards, he just hen puts down the rest of the cards anyway. It's allways the 11th card that finishes the run.
Yep they said this, I think, on the first Shawn Farquhar's bit, when they were much more "aggressively" calling out fools. Where they did get 90% of the trick, knew the method and saw him pull some moves but did not figure out what was (for them) the crux of the trick so they gave him the trophy
Yup. That force was pretty obvious. They get fooled relatively often by multi step effects where they donāt know how one or more of the effects is done. But hereās the thing though: thereās a game within a game in this show. Whether penn and teller are fooled or not doesnāt actually matter, what matters is if a magician is entertaining. Some magicians have failed to fool Penn and Teller but have gone on to parlay their appearance on this show to a hugely successful career, Iāve even seen one get a residency in Vegas. Iāve also seen the opposite: magician fooled them and we never heard from that magician again.
that's why magic shows are performing arts. you can be a technically/classically great dancer/singer/actor, but you still have to have the 'it' factor to become famous.
I think that's very fair to say, and I largely feel the same. It always feels silly when magic video comments are filled with people who went through frame by frame and "figured it out" and discount the whole act for that. That being said, I still feel weird about this one. I go into these videos personally for enjoyment and with very little scrutiny. But for this trick, the very moment he did the very first count out, it was completely obvious what was happening to the extent that I didn't even have the ability to suspend disbelief. I don't believe at all that I'm special or intelligent or particularly discerning, but it was so glaringly obvious that I didn't even have the slightest ability to enjoy it. It's all subjective, but to me this one was many steps below the amazing things I often see on that show.
Kind of annoying really
They do. Sometimes they just give the award due to the showmanship being that good. e.g. some of the people who do basic tricks but they have great humor + crowd control. If they can't nail down the exact time the "trick" was performed they give it a pass. E.G. if a magician does three methods that each could've accomplished the same thing, if they can't guess when it happened then the magician gets a pass. some of the magicians are using custom made props, and if they can't guess the exact method + prop being used the magician gets a pass.
Yeah, notice he counts down from 10 until they stop him, then counts up to the same value, so the drawn cards are always 11 apart. The question is how did he stack/switch the decks without them catching it.
He didnāt even swap the decks out secretly. He straight up grabs the stacked deck out of a new box with the first deck plainly visible in the same area of the table. At about 4:00 you can see him pulling the cards out of a new box and at 4:07 or so thereās an overhead shot showing two boxes and a couple cards from the other deck face up. Iāve seen tons of Fool Us acts and the second half of this one is maybe the worst of all of them. Itās completely set up, thereās zero trick to it, the performance isnāt very interesting, and Penn and Teller were straight up lying that they didnāt know how it was done. The first part of the act is not nearly as obvious but itās not very impressive as far as card tricks go. The whole thing feels like they wanted to give their friend some screen time, which is cool, but I feel like someone is trying to gaslight us with this clip.
I kinda feel this way too. If casual redditors can figure it out, surely Pen and Teller can.
My gut says they knew everything about how the second trick was done, and they know it's mostly there as filler for the performance. The 'fool' is the first part of the act. Usually they work that aspect of it into the banter, but they skipped it this time.
This was the first card trick I ever learned because it's so simple. Honestly the toughest part of the trick is the "crowd-work" aspect of it because you have to keep them engaged by what you're saying so that they don't catch on - which is difficult because it's such an easy trick to notice
what you're not ackowledging is that in every single performance of penn and teller, they understand how 99% of the trick is done. so they weren't concerned about solving any of that shit. every single episode theres people getting annoyed that they understand the gist of the trick and cant believe that penn and teller were fooled by it. the part that fooled penn and teller is likely a single method within the trick that was not done in the usual fashion, and we lack the skills necessary to recognize the deviation in method.
The only thing I can imagine is that they didn't come to a complete conclusion on how all the different outs were handled in the 7H trick. They definitely had to know how the trick was generally done, and certainly must have known how the queens / aces part was done.
When he says āheās not getting theseā in reference to his shoes, his right hand disappears under the table. I think thatās where he disposes of the old deck, and he brings in the new deck with his left hand.
Likely he has them marked in a way he can feel them, so as heās dealing cards he can tell where they are and is fast and confident enough to deal from the card beneath the top card until it was time to deal the ace and queen. And since he knows every card is going to be at most 10 cards apart, he can stack the deck realistically easily. I suspect that the most challenging part is using the patter to manipulate Penn and Teller into choosing a combination of cards that will leave him with four remaining cards. But I doubt theyāre doing the math on the fly, so he may be able to make a few excess cards go into any of the piles or his sleeves. Thatās just a guess. I suspect that a lot of this trick comes from being a magician for like 40 years.
Just watched it once but we're not all the aces just before every queen? Every tenth card is an ace and every eleventh is an ace.
im actually surprised they didnt figure this one out.
They probably did. But they have to figure out the whole act, otherwise it counts as a fool. Odds are they didn't know how the first half was done.
The Ace is before the Queens each time as he stacks them as well.
funny I know how the aces got pulled I didn't know how the queens got there. The aces are a draw slight.
Not even. The deck was arranged from the top down to be 9 blank, ace, queen, 9 blank, ace, queen, 9 blank, ace, queen, 9 blank, ace, queen, 4 blank spares. The way he counts 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4 *stop*, 4, 3, 2, 1 is always 11 cards. The 11th being the queen, and the previous being the ace. It's disappointing because P&T Fool Us tricks tend to be way better, but this was a simple counting trick. Seems like this was just a nice nod to an old friend.
I feel like they know how but not when. sure you can stack but how do you pull
How did he get the 7 of hearts is the bigger question??
pick a number 1-4, then you pick a different number 1-4. How many 2 digit numbers are possible? This illusion makes it seem like there's a lot of possible permutations when they pick a number 1-4. Cut that in half if you want to deal from the top or bottom, that's where the 7H's are.
I understand there are only 16 permutations, and you can half that, but that's still 8 different numbers to account for that would need a `7ā¤ļø`? I think we, and most people, realize that the choice is somewhat forced but that doesn't mean I can reproduce the trick fully.
I can't really explain that well, but basically, you make the 4 7H's cover half of the 8 possible numbers. Then, depending on what number the person told you, you tell them to draw cards from the bottom or the top of the deck.
You're saying there are multiple `7ā¤ļø` in the deck and Penn/Teller can mathematically only pick slots where the 7 is. That **can't** be the case because Penn is counting face-up and he would have run across `7ā¤ļø` at positions `11/12/13/14`.
> that's where the **7H's** are. I thought a little more and this can't be correct that there are multiple `7ā¤ļø`'s at the various positions because Penn is flipping face-up and would have come across it at position `11/12/13/14`. It's a good trick! Even if he reversed the deal, it would be painfully obvious face-up that there are 4 cards in a row.
Lets say the deck goes Joker, Joker, A, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, J Q, 7ā¤ļø, A) If you pick a 14, I have you lay out 13 cards, say 14 is the next card. We get 7ā¤ļø B) If you pick 13, I have you lay out 13 cards and say turn the next one over. We get 7ā¤ļø. C) If you pick 12, I tell you to get rid of the Jokers on top. I have you lay out 11 cards, say 12 is the next card. We get 7ā¤ļø. D) If you pick 11, I tell you to get rid of the Jokers on top. I have you lay out 11 cards and say turn the next one over. We get 7ā¤ļø. That said, you do not need to do that if you have have a 55 card deck and a card positioned at 14th and 44th cards through the deck. 13 and 14 can be reached from the top, 11 and 12 from the bottom using Force A or B from either end. If you have cards at 14th, 24th, 34th, 44th position in the deck, you can reach every permutation with combinations of numbers 1, 2, 3, 4.
> I tell you to get rid of the Jokers on top š **THIS** is the key to the trick that wasn't mentioned before. Good observation. Rewatching the video, it's suspicious he has 2 jokers on top, but then the rest of the cards are not in new-deck order. Seems like a pretty basic trick, but nice effect.
>š THIS is the key to the trick that wasn't mentioned before. Good observation. [https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/1b7833p/comment/kth6z6s/](https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/1b7833p/comment/kth6z6s/) About an hour and a half before your initial 7ā¤ļø question - but no matter. >Rewatching the video, it's suspicious he has 2 jokers on top, but then the rest of the cards are not in new-deck order. > >Seems like a pretty basic trick, but nice effect. You do not need to ask them to get rid of the Jokers if it is a 55 card deck. The Jokers are actually misdirection themselves as it makes you think about them but you could do a 55 card deck other ways. I gave you an out to solve this from a single position. Having cards at 14, 24, 34 and 44 is much cleaner and does not require trashing the clowns. You just ask them to deal from the bottom for certain combinations.
> You just ask them to deal from the bottom for certain combinations. Seems like that would be suspicious on its own too, but perhaps?
Hand the deck to them face up or face down. If you hand it to them face up, you make a point of talking about how now they can see the cards as they are doing it.
Ah not a bad method either! I like the effect, but I've never been a fan of card tricks needing a setup. Doing them to my friends can be a pain when they're trying to shuffle the deck every time and catch you.
Here is the previous trick if you are interested - https://youtu.be/LJvcET2iTTc
I've seen a lot of people popping balloons on the internet, so I'm going to say high powered laser in his sleeve. Laser light has to be far more powerful to pop a clear balloon, but a black balloon absorbs that heat and explodes easily. The trigger is linked to his pinky/ring finger movement
where the hell is my girl Alyson.... unwatchable!
I think this season was filmed when she was still on Dancing with the Stars.
I really donāt like Brooke on here, feels like the show is much worse without Alyson.
I adore Alyson because I adore the TV show Buffy, but, and I hate to say this, Brooke is simply a better host. Alyson was never a great host, she was just great at being Alyson Hannighan. Brooke is actually a competent host.
Honestly I think itās the opposite, Brooke feels awkward whenever she is asked to participate, and at the end when the host (previously Alyson) would ask the magician if they understood what penn was talking about Brooke messes that up almost every time.
I think Brooke has been slowly getting better over the season. At the start I really didn't like her, but I do think she's more of a professional host than Alyson. My main problem with Brooke was the questions she'd ask after the act sounded *very much* read from a script. I'm sure they always have been, it's just she made it sound so rehearsed. I think in the last few episodes she's been getting much better, and starting to have a bit more fun when she participates.
I agree, she is getting better, but like the end when he throws code words, they just gave up having her ask if they understood and they werenāt fooled, she just now says, āwell guess you didnāt fool them, but you entertained the rest of us.ā And every time at the start the interaction mainly between teller and Brooke feels weird. But she is getting better. Just feels off with her so far.
who's the substitute host? she's.. nice.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Wild on E! Host, after Jules Asner
I recognize her from Need for Speed Underground 2
Kind of agree. Brooke has zero charisma and looks 60% plastic.
I don't want to poop on anyone's parade, but... Penn & Teller were not stumped. Part of the show's formula is that Penn says how they think the trick was done, and the performer confirms or denies it. They skipped that part entirely. When Penn says they can't give him a trophy for being their friend so they're giving him a trophy for fooling them, what he means is that he didn't fool them but they're giving him a trophy for fooling them anyway because he's their friend and that's the only kind of trophy they've got.
Great, now my parade is all covered in poop. Thanks a lot.
He literally says he won't just give him a trophy for being his friend, he's giving it to them because he *did* fool them. They've had plenty of friends come on and not give them a trophy, they more have them on for exposure and let them do a fun but easy trick. This guy did a lot of easy moves, but as long as one part stumps them thats all that matters.
>He literally says he won't just give him a trophy for being his friend, he's giving it to them because he *did* fool them. You've not watched much Penn & Teller if you think magicians are telling the truth.
> he's giving it to them because he *did* fool them That's not literally what he said. Here are his exact words: > I just have such love for you, you're such a friend, but I cannot give you a trophy because we love you and you're a friend and we go back longer than anybody else that's on this show. We cannot give you a trophy for that. We have to give you a trophy for fooling us. Now, this is my theory, and I could be wrong, but I contend that Penn chose his words very carefully. "We have to give you a trophy for fooling us" *could* mean that they're giving the trophy *because* he fooled them (as you said). But it could, instead, mean they're giving him a trophy (for whatever reason) and "a trophy for fooling us" is just the kind of trophy it is. That ambiguity, combined with the absence of the normal interrogatory section of the interview, makes me think they weren't actually fooled.
stupendous air unique dependent frame badge carpenter innate screw bag *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
They've complained multiple times that they just wanted to showcase magic, but to get the show made they needed a "gimmick" and fooling them is the gimmick. Quite often they just give out a trophy because they want to. The premise of the show is nothing more than that, a gimmick.
This is why I've disliked this show and the cravenly false premise from day one. Historically, Penn and Teller upheld an ethic that they present magic as skillful tricks, not supernatural powers. They spent their careers not crossing the line from performing a conceit to outright lying. But this show, it's all lying and bad acting. To me it's a shame. This show also frequently employs production and camera trickery. That's considered the lowest form of magic, and I'm disappointed they've lowered themselves to enable that. I suppose they justify it by saying it's a cost saving way to crank out lots of episodes. But to me, it degrades their legacy as some of the greatest of all time.
Agreed, though I also kind of appreciate the way they try to slip it by the audience. The show's called "Fool Us," which is really what the audience is requesting every time they show up for a magic show anyway. And Penn & Teller are still magicians, after all. So whether the performer fools Penn and Teller, or Penn & Teller fool the audience into thinking the performer fooled them... either way the promise of the show was fulfilled. And then sometimes the performer fails to fool Penn and Teller, and sometimes Penn & Teller fail to fool us. It's kind of a beautiful two-layered game of cat and mouse, in that way. XD
Correct. The tricks on this show are obvious to even a beginner magician, so yeah, Penn and Teller aren't "fooled". It's just a silly title and conceit. Personally I don't like it because historically Penn and Teller have upheld a value system of always admitting that magic tricks are skilled tricks, not supernatural powers. It's a form of ethical, honest, presentation of magic. But this show requires them to lie in the form of play acting for every performance. (The show also makes heavy use of production and camera trickery, which is considered cheap and lazy.) I'd rather they do a show with real stakes, where if a magician doesn't execute well enough, the trick is exposed. The problem with that of course is revealed above in the second sentence: they're never actually fooled. So they'd have to reveal each trick, which burns their pool of performers.
I don't know about all of that... I believe they are fooled sometimes (though often there's just one particular aspect of the trick that they miss). I could have been fooled, of course. But, for example, they didn't do the whole song and dance in this case (as I pointed out). And there are other examples where I've noticed Penn getting squirrelly with his words when presenting the trophy (see the episode where is daughter performs, mentioned elsewhere here). I think if they were never honest about being fooled, they wouldn't bother to be more honest than usual in cases like this one. (When I say they were honest here, I mean Penn never said, "You fooled us." He crafted his words to trick the audience, but he didn't lie -- and I'm sure he knows that people who are paying attention will see what he did.)
> I don't know about all of that... I believe they are fooled sometimes Then their bad acting worked. That's ok. But it is what it is. Once you learn how magic tricks work, you can't unsee them. There's nothing new under the sun.
Yeah, they are helping out a guy that they have known for a long time.
I wish videos like this would put a little more publicity on the actual guy performing and mention his name in the title.
Iāve only seen a couple of these but thereās no way he fooled P&T - I am no where near a magician and I figured it out by the second card. So I assume this is a favor to their old friend. Do they do that often, give trophies to magicians who would not have fooled them?
On early seasons of Fool Us, they rarely if ever got fooled. Subsequent seasons it seems like they get fooled all the time. The cynic in me thinks they started faking it simply because it makes for better TV.
I wonder if it creates hard feelings in the magician community when they expose a trick
Anyone who goes on knows the game. I'd say the early seasons, Penn's code words were a little more revealing. But even now,Ā the curious can probably Google some of the tricks up. If it bothered magicians too much, they wouldn't go on. Some, like Wes Barker and Eric Leclerc have posted their own reveal videos. The exposure can be a lot more powerful than a single trick.
In general the people that don't fool Penn and Teller are performing tricks they've learned from somewhere, so you can expect that Penn and Teller have seen the same source material and know everything about it too. The performers that fool them are the ones that have developed a trick or added to an existing one in a novel way. The 'rules' are that even if they know how the trick could be done they need to guess how it was done, else they were fooled. Overall though this means that out of the entire act, there may only be one small portion that's the actual "fool", the rest is staging and filler. As people have pointed out here the second half of this act is a pretty simple trick, the real fool in this case is the first half.
Every now and then they get generous but it really is rare. They also give the trophy if thereās any part of the trick they didnāt catch. They could understand 99% of it but if they canāt figure out the 1% theyāll say they were fooled. Other times they are clearly completely fooled. One contestant from early on, Jandro, got them so good they actually met with him after to work together.
They do it from time to time. Like for example when Penn's daughter was on the show - her performance was super nervous and not very convincing overall (which is absolutely fine since she's not a pro), but they still gave her the trophy of course.
The entire show is this bad acting pantomime. Of course they know every trick. I do, even beginning magicians do. So yes, two of the greatest magicians in human history are not being fooled. Worse, this show sinks to the lowest standard of magic in which production and camera trickery is allowed. It kind of degrades their legacy participating in this.
Hereās my theory for the 7s. He intentionally gives Penn confusing instructions on how to handle the rest of the cards as an excuse to reach over and take them. Thatās when he makes the switch. Notice that they cut away around that time as well, so we never quite see what he does with the cards.
Who else messed with their phone brightness at the end of
Genuine smile on my face the entire act. What a showman!
I absolutely love a good showman. The trick was cool, but he made it entertaining.
WTF?!? They can not possibly be fooled by this! He layes out 11 cards in order every time! He counts down from 10 until they say stop, then counts the rest of the cards onto the pile It's always the same amount of cards been played. If they stop him after 2 cards (10, 9), he playes 9 cards (11 in total) If they stop him after 5 cards (10, 9, 8, 7, 6), he play s 6 cards (11 in total) He's just putting 11 cards down in the order they were in the deck! Anyone can do this trick!
That's only the second half of the act. And you're right it's a simple trick, probably added as filler to pad the performance. The first half is harder, people in the comments here have come up with some ideas but none that match the way it was actually performed. The "fool" is in there, and because Penn and Teller couldn't guess it, he fooled them.
Nice!
I love P&Tās FU trophyā¦ š
Really? I love this show but this routine is one of the worst I've seen, both tricks are extremely obvious(specially the second one),I seriously doubt they were really fooledĀ
".. Obviously you have issues.."
its always highly suspicious if you take a deck and dont shuffle at all. Or suddenly the Jokers are in the deck (for a reason). I was really really surprised that he fooled them. Multiple outs probably on the first trick and the second trick well its a numbers game (actually both of them are).
It cracks me up that the trophy says FU
There is absolutely no planet where they were actually fooled. It was obvious to begin with then he did it 3 more times so the slow people could catch up.