Penn and Teller: Fool Us

[Greg]

Am I the only watching this show? Probably. I really enjoy it. Some of the illusions are amazing. And since Penn and Teller do a bit at the end of the show I will eventually see their entire act. Maybe that will make up for me never having seen their Vegas show.

[Drunk Monk]

I've watched a few eps. It's entertaining. I'm amused by how they code talk with the magicians, letting them know they know how it was done but not revealing it to the audience.  That culture of magicians fascinates me; kind of like the Wulin, it has its own language.  Check out the American Masters documentary on Ricky Jay - that goes deep into that.

I've seen their show at the Warfield.  They did a trick that no one on staff could figure out, knowing the stage and watching it from backstage.  It was one of those bits where someone appeared in an empty cabinet, but staff saw it from the side and there was no way anyone could have gotten there, and there's no trapdoor on that stage.  They played there a few nights and we watched from different non-audience angles and still couldn't figure it out.

Maybe LCF will chime in.  If memory serves, she has a P&T tale.

[cranefly]

Maybe LCF will chime in.  If memory serves, she has a P&T tale.

I've notified her that DOOM beckons.

[cranefly]

Well, neither LCF or I remember the specifics, or when exactly.  I think it was a Vegas show?  Penn and Teller needed an audience member, and LCF made it clear she'd be willing.  So they brought her up on stage and gave her a dart.  She threw it at a dartboard to randomly select a number or color or something.  This then worked its way into a card-trick, or some other demonstration of prescience.

Like I say, neither of us can recall the details.

Sorry.  Wish I could say they cut her in half with a sawzall.

Well, maybe they did, since neither us can remember well enough to say they didn't.

[Drunk Monk]

It was at that Warfield run, on a night that I wasn't there.

I remember the trick.  The audience member had to throw a dart at an image of a woman, like a magician's assistant or a circus knife thrower assistant.  One of the shows I saw, some little kid did the throw and hit her right in the crotch.  It was a hysterical moment, played to the hilt by P&T.

How is it I remember that story better than you two?

[Greg]

That is a puzzlement.

[Drunk Monk]

Puzzlement indeed.

So on a whim, I checked out this old Voyager episode - Flashback.  It was recommended as one of the best of the series by some web article and has a guest appearance of Sulu.  Tuvok freaks out and has a flashback to when he served under Captain Sulu and was on the mission where they rescue Kirk and McCoy from the Klingon home world (ST:VI).  It is a stand-out episode for sure.  And according to Netflix, I already watched it. But I didn't remember a thing from it.  Not one goddamn thing.  I yet I remember hearing the story from the cfs.  The P&T Warfield shows were in 1990 (didn't remember that - had to goog it).  

Memory is a puzzlement, especially as it fades.

[cranefly]

Yeah, I doubted it was Vegas, recalling a smaller venue than that.  Also, I remember how, in the middle of one of their acts, a stage prop fell over and made a loud noise.  They were both shocked and set it back up, then resumed the act.  Of course, as it turned out, the fall was intentional and served as misdirection, which they demonstrated by redoing the trick in slow motion.

That, by the way, is why LCF and I don't remember the show better.  Penn and Teller whacked us with some other other form of misdirection -- at no additional cost!