Penn & Teller Fool Us: Behind the Scenes | Part 4

Published July 2, 2016 | By ncmarsh

3 Life Lessons from Performing for my Heroes (and 1.15 to 2.35 million others)

This is Part 4 of a series.Earlier installments: Part One, Part Two, Part Three

Understand what your client really needs (and put their needs ahead of your ego’s needs)

The “Fool Us” hook is a double-edged sword. It is hard for magic on TV to be believable — so much good magic loses its impact if there is an opportunity for the magician to cheat, to use camera tricks, editing, or “stooges” (fake audience members that do what the performer instructed them to do in advance). The Fool Us “competition” aspect of the show means the audience knows there are no chances for the magician to cheat: because there are two smart people in the room, putting their reputations on the line trying to bust the performer — and that allows you to enjoy that what you’re seeing is real (and having gone through the process of shooting the show, I can attest that everything is 100% on the level).

On the other hand: the “fool us” aspect of the show can be a seductive trap for the ego of a magician. It’s right in the title, and every performer knows that whenever they cite that credit, the first question they are going to be asked is “did you fool them?”

That can tempt you to do things that aren’t right for your piece, or that aren’t right for the overall show.

One temptation is to bake into the performance “fake” solutions to the trick. So that you give an observer an explanation that would completely work, but which happens to be wrong.

I understand the temptation but (unless those false solutions are eliminated as possibilities during the performance) that isn’t magic.

When Penn and Teller are talking about the high they are chasing from their early experiences with magic, they aren’t talking about not knowing the solution to a puzzle; or having the wrong solution to the puzzle.

The experience of magic is an emotional experience — it isn’t just the sense that you don’t know how something works (my cellphone gives me that every moment of every day), it’s the sense that something you’ve just witnessed could not be done.
Pop Haydn, a phenomenal magician originally out of North Carolina, talks about the internal experience of magic. When watching great magic you know, intellectually, that it is just a trick. But emotionally, you are convinced — in the marrow of your bones — that what is happening is not possible. That feeling –“I know this isn’t real but holy *%#! does it feel real!” — is not one we get often in our lives. There is no pat script for how to respond, and for that reason it allows the masks we wear to other people to slip just a little, and we respond genuinely and in the moment.

That’s what made David Blaine’s initial “Street Magic” special so powerful — watching other people’s genuine response to a magical experience was addictive.

So faking a secret method to trigger Penn & Teller to make a “wrong” guess had zero appeal to me. If I was going to fool them, they were going to know they had been fooled and not be resigned to it after some back and forth.

The other temptation around fooling involves what happens after Penn & Teller make their guesses.

Unlike traditional “Reality” TV, Penn & Teller: Fool Us is not driven by conflict. The tone is of respectful colleagues discussing their work, and each of the segments has a clear and positive end: either “wow, they fooled Penn & Teller!” or “they didn’t fool Penn & Teller, but that was amazing!” (and they hire the best, in part, so that last sentence is true).

What can muddy up that ending is if there is some unresolved tension. If the act doesn’t want to admit they have been fooled, or wants to aggressively argue that they were not fooled, the ending is a big “meh.”

In my case, the temptation revolved around a small — but apparently impossible — detail in the piece I had created. I fully expected the bulk of my routine to be figured out by Penn & Teller; but this was the aspect of the trick that had an honest-to-goodness chance of fooling them. On the other hand, it was arguably “icing on the cake.”

When talking to the magic staff, I offered to share the secret behind the particular wrinkle should they need it to judge whether Penn & Teller were fooled by it. They weren’t sure whether the wrinkle should be considered a dimension of fooling Penn & Teller and would need to give it some thought (and I understand and respect their thinking).

On stage, during the “bust” segment of the show; Penn & Teller were fairly open that they were baffled by this wrinkle — but also showed they were going to push back against it qualifying as “fooling” them.

I had a decision to make. There was an argument to be made on my side that they had been fooled, and there was a reasonable argument on the other side that it was a minor detail; I could push them on the issue on the chance of possibly prevailing but face the risk of a disjointed or unusable ending.

In that moment I took a look at the big picture: I had been hired on a multi-million dollar production, was being paid to perform for people who are among my heroes, there was a huge team doing everything they could to put my work over in the best light possible. I had given them a performance of an original piece I was proud of and they needed one more thing: a clear, upbeat, usable ending.

I also realized that, when it comes to the meat-and-potatoes of the trick, I had been 100% busted (as I expected to — taking on Penn & Teller is like Rocky having to fight both Apollo Creed and Ivan Drago at the same time…they are the best in the world, and there are two of them); this was icing-on-the-cake (but some fine icing).

So my move was just to say that I would not make them explain that detail; and ended the segment with a smile.

It was reinforcement that, even when there is the possibility of a big reward to your ego (I would have loved to have been able to say that I fooled Penn & Teller); you have a responsibility to first look to what’s in the best interest of your clients, your performance, and your audience; and humbly make sure you deliver that.

I can’t end this without saying what a great experience it was to be a small part of such a phenomenal production. In an era of fake talent contest TV shows that tear people down in service of a story; Penn & Teller: Fool Us is a shining beacon on a hill. It shows that great variety entertainment can still make great TV; and it is a sterling example of successful people “sending the elevator back down” to create opportunities for those still working their way up.

Massive gratitude to all involved!

The Best is Yet to come!