Eventually I discovered Penn & Teller. And I hated them.<\/p>\n
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<\/div>See, Penn & Teller got a reputation for “spoiling” tricks by showing how they were done, and for using lots of ridiculous gore in their act. If a trick calls for the performer to skewer themselves with something sharp or remove a digit, they would take the fiction of that trick to its logical extreme and add spurting blood. The problem was, these two gags – spoiling tricks and gore – sort of came to define them. So when they made a short appearance on a late night show<\/a> or a guest appearance on a sitcom, this is all anyone wanted them to do. The problem is that these things were usually part of a much longer bit. Cutting right to the spoiling or the gore is like having a comedian come out and tell all their punchlines. It’s great for people already familiar with the act, but for someone in my position it was just confusing and obnoxious. It made it seem like this was all there was to them.<\/p>\n Fast forward to the age of YouTube. Someone uploaded classic Penn & Teller tricks and I got to see their act properly for the first time. I fell in love. Yes, they spoil tricks, but usually only as a set-up for doing something even more amazing, and often they’re doing it to make a point about charlatans and encouraging skepticism. (And even then, they’re usually only spoiling really old material.) Yes, they sometimes have gore, but usually as the punchline to a larger gag and it’s usually exaggerated to seem more absurd than visceral. Also, the gore makes more sense when you include the lead-up patter where they talk about old vaudeville acts and the bloodlust of those old-timey audiences. The blood takes on a satirical tone when you get just how much the duo is opposed to the idea of “real violence and danger as entertainment”. In short, Penn & Teller are best when you consider their work in a holistic sense and it tends to unravel when excerpted.<\/p>\n Penn & Teller: Fool Us<\/em> is part game show, part reality show, part magic showSo, the OPPOSITE of a reality show.<\/span>, and a tiny little bit of magic education. Penn & Teller watch other acts and try to figure out how their tricks are done. After a trick, Penn talks about the performance, comments on what he thought was good, and uses the names of famous magicians and magic books to explain how they think the trick was pulled off without giving anything away to the audience. If the act stumps the duo, then the guest gets a very pointy trophy and a spot in the P&T Las Vegas show. <\/p>\n The show is now in its fourth season, and each one has been better than the previous. The early seasons really leaned into the reality TV \/ game show angle and set up an adversarial dynamic between P&T and the guests. In the newer seasons this is dialed way down. It’s mostly a straightforward magic show now, with the trophy going to particularly inventive or novel acts. <\/p>\n
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