Penn & Teller : Fool Us - Page 2 - OOTV -- Two Plus Two Poker Forums

Two Plus Two Forums 2+2 Communities Other Other Topics OOTV

Penn & Teller : Fool Us

Post Reply Subscribe

...

Page 2 of 17

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 12

Page 2 of 17

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 12

07-06-2011 , 12:11 PM

#26

butterfly pony

old hand

Join Date: Sep 2010 Posts: 1,201

where can i find this, anyone know? something id be very interested in

Quote

07-06-2011 , 12:29 PM

#27

Megastar11

grinder

Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 644

Quote:

Originally Posted by butterfly pony

where can i find this, anyone know? something id be very interested in

You can watch the episodes on Youtube. Just put in Penn and Teller Fool us episode.

Quote

07-06-2011 , 12:30 PM

#28

Megastar11

grinder

Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 644

Quote:

Originally Posted by hennerz

busy guys remember, probably never heard of him

i feel like derren brown does a lot of his stuff on people who are easily influenced, I'd have thought P&T wouldn't be, although they do come across as very willing participants in the show.

You suggesting Penn and Teller don't know who Derren Brown is? I know they're busy and stuff, but Derren Brown is top of the foodchain.

Quote

07-06-2011 , 01:13 PM

#29

hennerz

2008 uNL WSOP Champion

Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 5,566

nah just a bad joke

Quote

07-07-2011 , 02:01 PM

#30

Yeti

Abominable

Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 23,208

good read :

http://www.rob-james.com/foolus.html

and a bit more by the guy who wrote that :

Quote:

Regarding Alan "the CD guy" - he was going to do his A act on the show - a very funny trick with balloons http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5up1fI-Veaw

However, due to a howl up involving Johnny Thompson (magical advisor) & Penn & Teller immediately before the filming of the pilot/special, he couldn't get to do this trick either on the special or the series.

The CD trick was something he came up with for the show to fool them and it DID FOOL THEM. They didn't know the method. He rose to the challenge and fooled them. However, although Penn & Teller had set the challenge and set the prize, they didn't set any clear rules on what constituted fooling them. On the evening of the filming, they did not get anywhere near his method.

September Films have edited the show to make it look like they caught him out and that he was using electronics/MP3 players etc but he wasn't. The actual course of events has been misrepresented.

Post the airing of the show Penn has claimed that they weren't "emotionally fooled" - a very ambiguous and grey area. Remember they only begrudgingly admitted that John Archer and Ben Earl fooled them in the first show and that for Ben's trick they filmed the part saying that he had fooled them back in Vegas. Were they "emotionally fooled" by them?

Penn has also said that he "hates formal rules and competitions". However, it was a rule set in place for the show that prohibited him from doing his balloon trick. Kind of ironic.

To those people who say there are hundreds of methods - there aren't. You could use electronics, MP3 players, switch wires, have sound coming out of a different place BUT THAT'S IT. However, Alan didn't use any of these. He used a clever, straightforward method that they didn't guess.

I love "Fool Us" and am very happy it's on TV but as a competition is completely and utterly flawed.

To get on to the show you have to have a trick that is either very novel (eg. Ali Cook) or has a good chance of fooling them (eg. Matthieu Bich) - Alan has more entertaining tricks that he could have done but the production company wanted him to do something with a chance of fooling them, and he did. The fact that Johnny Thompson didn't step in during the filming to point out that P&T did not know the method and the way that September Films have edited the show in my opinion means that Alan was completely screwed by the process.

Quote

07-07-2011 , 02:49 PM

#31

chicken10der

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 7,495

the cd trick was stupid, though. it was lame because there were so many methods that could've been used to make a certain song play over the speakers, and his presentation didn't rule out a single one of them - so when p&t don't happen to pick whatever specific one he actually did use, he should've won? **** that. they called out the basis of the trick (cd's not being genuine), so that's it.

and i thought this was a pretty big camera angle gaffe:

and even i could instantly spot how he forced the 9 of spades on the woman for the other half of this trick

Quote

07-07-2011 , 02:54 PM

#32

Yeti

Abominable

Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 23,208

there are many many bad camera shots on this show (at least two horrid ones on the fish tank alone). that is not one of them. you really think anyone is going to notice that in realtime?

Quote

07-07-2011 , 04:32 PM

#33

Megastar11

grinder

Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 644

Hey guys,

I was interested in finding a video of Teller talking and I found this one of him explaining how he pulls coins out of the air. He's got a cool New York accent. Not what I expected from the guy really (I think it's New York anyway):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5x14AwElOk

(could a mod embed this for me please..)

As for the CD guy?! Come on, he's pretty standard! chicken10der is totally right, he could never open a show for Penn and Teller imo. And the trick might not have been explicitly revealed, but it seemed obvious that P&T weren't fooled

That said, ITV have no standards so I wouldn't be suprised about any accusations. I'm just glad they've finally made a half decent show.

Quote

07-07-2011 , 04:52 PM

#34

Yeti

Abominable

Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 23,208

i think you are both missing the main point of what the guy wrote, but oh well

Quote

07-07-2011 , 06:50 PM

#35

ganstaman

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Sep 2008 Posts: 10,852

Quote:

Originally Posted by chicken10der

Yeah, that would actually seem like a good way to win -- do a trick that has about 7 easy to figure out ways and you've got a 1/7 chance of making it through!

If the show is 'rigged,' does that make it like one big magic trick? It is more entertaining if you just buy into the realness of it all.

Quote

07-07-2011 , 09:19 PM

#36

Chump Change

EuroBBVSuicideKing

Join Date: Jun 2006 Posts: 13,005

Quote:

Originally Posted by kitaristi0

I had a look round a magic forum I used to frequent and it seems a few magicians who were on the show or were edited out of the show and people who were in the audience had some doubts about how above board the whole process is. P+T have been fooled by some tricks which really shouldn't have fooled them, like Bich's trick which won a FISM award and is well known. There also seems to be little consistency in the judging process. Sometimes P+T get one guess and if they are wrong they are fooled while James Brown said they examined his effect for 20 minutes with multiple questions and extensive checks on his props before he was eventually edited from the show altogether.

Not that this necessarily takes anything away from the show.

There was also quite a bit of discussion about exposing secrets but the general consensus was that P+T are doing it pretty well, and occasionally if the original reveal is too explicit they have filmed it again in the studio, which is good.

Hey, do you have a link to this forum/thread by any chance?

Quote

07-07-2011 , 09:21 PM

#37

Yeti

Abominable

Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 23,208

might be this one

http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic37752-0-asc-0.php

Quote

07-08-2011 , 04:46 AM

#38

kitaristi0

l'étranger

Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 16,139

That's the one.

Quote

07-08-2011 , 12:34 PM

#39

Chump Change

EuroBBVSuicideKing

Join Date: Jun 2006 Posts: 13,005

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yeti

might be this one

http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic37752-0-asc-0.php

Quote:

Originally Posted by kitaristi0

That's the one.

Thanks, and also thanks for that link upthread. I'm kinda fascinated by the seemingly total lack of structure for what constitutes 'fooling':

Quote:

A layman will often claim he isn’t fooled by a trick if he is aware of how a small percentage of it may be done - eg. due to the magician being sloppy, he may see a hidden object that he wasn’t meant to. The second he sees that he believes he has caught the magician out and will state he knows how it works, even if that hidden object forms only 5% of the entire methodology. A layman will also sometimes claim to not be fooled if he thinks that a magical technique that he is familiar with could be being used, even if he doesn’t know how. Any magician who does card tricks will have been accused of using marked cards or tapered cards as these are the two most popular form of fake cards on sale. The fact that the cards being marked or tapered would not aid the trick at all doesn’t help prevent this accusation.

On the other side of the scale, magicians by and large consider themselves fooled when they can’t describe in complete detail how a trick was accomplished. For example, in card magic parlance, a “colour change” means the visual transformation of one card into another. Essentially, one card is secretly placed on top of (or taken away from) another to create the illusion that the card magically changes. In skilled hands it looks beautiful. There are countless different techniques for doing this and new ones are developed all the time. A magician can know twenty different methods for a colour change but can see a new one and if just a finger position is different to what he already knows, he will state that he has no idea what is going on - he is fooled.

For some inexplicable reason on “Fool Us”, Penn & Teller are allowed to claim they weren’t fooled under either the layman’s or the magician’s rules. And, if that doesn’t prove fruitful they then start to ask questions or even request that they examine the props that are used for the trick. With enough questioning and examination ANYBODY would be able to get close to the method of ANY trick.

The show is very entertaining but it seems to do a disservice to magic. They only mention once, and then only briefly, the idea that knowing how a 'trick' is done can be much more impressive and entertaining.

Quote

07-08-2011 , 03:56 PM

#40

Goldenad

adept

Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 972

any idea where an american can watch this show? i found a stream of the 3rd episode online but other than that ive come up short

Quote

07-08-2011 , 04:01 PM

#41

Robin_Ripper

grinder

Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 485

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomdemaine

The one I was quite happy with catching was the royal flush blindfolded one. Obviously you know how it must have been done but actually seeing it 100% was fun.

Episode 2 it starts about 29 mins in

Spoiler:

Quote

07-08-2011 , 04:04 PM

#42

Yeti

Abominable

Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 23,208

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goldenad

any idea where an american can watch this show? i found a stream of the 3rd episode online but other than that ive come up short

1) these posts are not allowed and i should be deleting them
2) you have to be pretty dumb to not be able to find tv shows on the internet
3) you have to be very very dumb to not be able to find tv shows on the internet when instructions of how to do so are about 8 posts above yours

Quote

07-08-2011 , 04:31 PM

#43

kitaristi0

l'étranger

Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 16,139

Daniel Madison's attempt was a pretty big fail. How he thought he could fool P+T with that method is beyond me and having them sit on his right side basically guarantees they can't miss. The camera work is also terrible and makes it very easy to spot.

I was disappointed with Benjamin Earl's choice of effect since I like him a lot and think he has tons of great effects he could have done, though for the sole purpose of fooling P+T it was obviously a good one. P+T are such fish falling for Ben's trap of performing an effect which could be done with a very simple and easy method in an extremely difficult way.

Quote

07-08-2011 , 07:09 PM

#44

Robin_Ripper

grinder

Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 485

Also it took me a while to figure it out but there are now 3 eps out and the original hour and a half show that was in the UK at the beginning of the year... so in case you've only seen 3 there is a 4th show already out there somewhere on the interwebz

Quote

07-08-2011 , 10:10 PM

#45

foal

Pooh-Bah

Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 3,599

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yeti

woss could have said any number as could the people in the bich trick. i think you've been watching too much derren brown

Kinda off topic, but this is exactly why Derren Brown bugs me. People actually believe his psychological explanations (and btw there are some 'pick up artists' and so on that try to sell these types of techniques as legit), whereas they wouldn't believe a magician who claimed to be using "magic" to do his tricks. Not a fan of hypnotists either.

I was reminded of Derren when Penn said the "brainwashing" explanation on the show was bull****. And of course the magician readily admitted it.. but if he sold himself as a mentalist using the power of psychology and P&T weren't there, some people would have believed it was real brainwashing.

Quote

07-09-2011 , 10:55 AM

#46

DGDolly

grinder

Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 661

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomdemaine

Yeah, no real idea on this one. My girlfriend thought

Spoiler:

I thought the exact same thing. It really can't be much else, that's why the deck is "special".

Quote

07-09-2011 , 03:47 PM

#47

PartyGirlUK

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 23,530

That was a pretty awesome trick. If he didn't write it, who did? Jonathan?

Quote

07-09-2011 , 04:11 PM

#48

RubbishCards

old hand

Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 1,496

What happened with the first act (the kid)? They just said "you didn't fool us" without even hinting at the method for the twisted arm bit. Or was the thing about "it was nice you did it to yourself instead of someone else" supposed to imply the method was actually painful? Or did I miss something?

The prediction thing was crazy, I rewatched it from the end of the word choosing part and couldn't see anything even remotely dodgy.

Quote

07-09-2011 , 05:23 PM

#49

hennerz

2008 uNL WSOP Champion

Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 5,566

again i know nothing, but would it not just be that the box is rigged with a moveable pole or concealed compartment?

while brick from the middle did a good job, it seemed like he had no intention of actually fooling them due to their reactions