It's been decades and instantly in my head I could hear Cid Moreira's voice. I'm sure I'm not the only one :-) Watching that on Sundays, with my father, as a child. Good memories.
I remember watching his show in my younger years. I always assumed/thought that 'all magicians hate him' was just to sell the show more, like surely we all know magic isn't real anyways? Apparently that's not the case, it seems.
As a former professional magician and lifelong magic enthusiast, no serious magicians hate this guy. On the contrary, his show was great because it drove interest in magic which is good for working performers. The "Magicians HATE him" shtick was just marketing hype to promote the TV show.
Of course there are probably a couple of clueless amateur magicians somewhere out there who will spout about this guy but it's not how the vast majority of us feel. Anyone who studies and understands magic on a serious level already knows they can take the exact same techniques you saw exposed on that show and fool you silly with them the next day.
I know this is true because I've seen a top notch magician like legendary Spanish card worker Dani DaOrtiz perform for a roomful of very experienced professional magicians at a magic conference and completely blow their minds. The best part is that he used a technique that every person in that room already knew! In fact, the majority of those pro magicians have studied and performed it themselves for years - and were still fooled. A layperson seeing a 60 second drive-by expose on a TV show of a single implementation of one of thousands of techniques has zero impact on a good magician.
I think out of the "serious magicians" there's also the general "fraud" style. Who were in fact truly angry.
Make a space shuttle disappear[0], or hide an elephant. The TV show revealed all those to be fake and were in fact - paid audiences. My little brain trusted that they weren't paid and wanted to know so bad how the space shuttle disappeared.
Overall the TV and the internet helped push magic to exactly where it is today. Amazing, talented folks who even when you know how it's done, it's so good - it's magic.
I hadn't heard of that one, but reminds me of David Copperfield 1983 disappearing the Statue of Liberty, which I'm pretty sure was a "real" audience? But is also pretty boring.
The audience was real for the Statue of Liberty. The “magic” was developing ball bearings smooth enough to allow the audience’s seating to be turned without them noticing, in order to give them the same view as the television audience.
it was still pretty boring TV, honestly. Being in the audience in person was probably more thrilling. As a child, it seemed like a stupid trick to me even without knowing how he did it -- that's it? I guessed some kind of mirrors or something. Maybe I wasn't smart enough as a 9-year-old to realize how hard it would be to fool the in-person audience? It didn't seem hard to me.
I watched it when it originally aired and agree it was surprisingly unimpactful on TV. Interesting backstory: I know someone who worked on the creative team for that TV special and while developing new illusion concepts, they brainstormed the idea of making the moon disappear from the night sky (as verified by a live audience augmented with astronomers with telescopes and a laser). However, they realized the concept of that effect was "too big" to play well to television audiences.
It's an interesting thought that a magic trick concept can be 'too amazing'. I think the Statue of Liberty was still 'too big' of a concept, at least for a television performance. Copperfield's illusion titled "Flying" is also really interesting in this regard. As both a magician and magical inventor, I think it's a terrific effect and Copperfield presented it beautifully. It's also one of the more difficult effects I've ever seen him do, both technically and physically. It's visually stunning, yet it just doesn't seem to have as strong of an impact on audiences as it should.
Levitating a person has long been one of the most challenging and popular stage illusions. Over the last 150 years it's been done dozens of different ways - with my personal favorite being the Asrah levitation invented by Servais Le Roy and first performed in 1902. Arguably, the Flying illusion, which was invented by legendary illusion creator Johnny Gaughan for Copperfield, is the ultimate 'perfect' levitation. It achieves levitation in its most ideal, unconstrained form yet somehow fails to 'connect' strongly with audiences. Understanding why it doesn't is one of those fascinating puzzles magical inventors debate over beer. Sometimes figuring out if you should do an effect is even harder than figuring out how to do it.
Yeah, I think there is the category of illusionists where it's just disappointing and sad if you learn the truth (oh camera angle and stage moved and thus the statue isn't to be seen anymore) and the category of masters of sleight of hand etc. where you really appreciate the masterfulness and even when you know how the effect was done are more stunned by the precision in the work.
> even when you know how the effect was done are more stunned by the precision in the work.
This is indeed true. Those who look at magic as merely a puzzle to be solved are really missing out on the beauty and wonder of it. After a lifetime of studying magic, I know how almost every effect I see is done. Sadly, knowing how they are all done is the worst part of studying magic deeply. The best part is being able to appreciate really great magic on deeper levels.
Growing up near the Magic Castle and traveling to magic conferences over several decades I've had the privilege of seeing some of the greatest magicians in the world perform live. At the highest levels, great close-up sleight of hand transcends finger flinging dexterity and becomes all about timing, tone, pace, body language and other subtle cues which combined control the focus of the audience in stunning ways. One of the best I ever saw live was the legendary Albert Goshman, who died in 1991. By the time I met him, Al was in his late 60s and his hands were so arthritic he could barely grip his cane. Yet, somehow, it didn't matter. I watched Goshman perform at the Magic Castle dozens of times. I knew his entire act by heart, beat by beat - and it fooled me silly every time.
Al's signature routine was the Salt Shaker trick. A coin would magically appear underneath a salt shaker sitting on the table. That was the entire trick. But it kept happening. Over and over. Nothing else was on the table, no cover, nothing. And you never saw him put the coin there. The entire audience would just be burning that damn salt shaker with unblinking stares. There was no trick to it. It was just a normal salt shaker. The table was a normal green felt-covered poker table sitting under a bright spotlight with the audience at the table right alongside Al. The shaker, coin and table could all be borrowed. It didn't matter where you were or how close. You could even stand behind him.
Al's gnarled, shaking hands clearly weren't doing any sophisticated slight of hand. The only magic on display was Goshman's Jedi-like ability to control the attention of the entire audience, which he honed over decades of performing this one routine. I heard from older magicians that there was a time decades earlier when Goshman relied more on sleight of hand but he got so good at mind control, the trick still worked even when Al's hands no longer did. Toward the end of the trick he'd point out that maybe all that salt was keeping you from seeing when the coin arrived under the shaker, so he would replace the salt shaker with a clear water glass placed upside down in the middle of the empty table. Then he'd warn you he was going to put the coin under the glass. And, somehow, he managed to still do it when you weren't looking. Which was freaky because everyone in the audience would realize the coin had appeared under the glass at different moments. Then he'd proceed to do it again. And again. For the finale, a giant 3-inch coin bigger than the glass appeared under the glass. The coin was so big, the glass was actually sitting on the coin! The stunned silence usually lasted a good 15 seconds before the standing ovation.
Unfortunately, the effect of the unique misdirection ability Goshman developed over decades is largely muted in videos of him performing, So, sadly, the sheer mind-fucking visceral impact of that trick died with Goshman. A lot of good sleight of hand specialists could do every move in Goshman's act, probably better than Goshman could, but the clear glass - others could do the trick - but it only fooled people when Al himself did it. I've seen a lot of world-class close-up magic over the years, but that... that was special.
I hadn't heard that. It also strikes me as a little odd since both of those effects can be done for real so there's no good reason to cheat in that way. Houdini popularized the elephant vanish as part of his stage show over a hundred years ago and Copperfield vanished a Lear jet from an airport tarmac in one of his early TV specials. The jet was completely surrounded by blindfolded audience members who were holding hands. I know how both were done and neither relied on a stooge audience.
Streaming video and social media have been mostly terrific for the art of magic as there's a tremendous amount of excellent performance material now widely available. Even more importantly, anyone interested in learning magic can access very high-quality instruction videos. There's also interactive instruction with top notch magicians available one-on-one and in groups via Zoom. Growing up I got to see magic once or twice a year on TV and when I wanted to learn how to do it the local library had exactly three magic books. Fortunately, I happened to live in the Los Angeles area, auditioned for the Magic Castle and got accepted as as a junior member (a kind of apprentice program), where I was mentored by some of the greatest magicians of the 20th century and had access to the world's largest magic library. I was very, very lucky because 99.99% of teens interested in magic had nothing like that. Today, there's so much great magic readily available the only problem is curating what to see and learn.
The downside of streaming video magic is there's an entire generation of magicians who've only performed alone in their own house via recorded video clips. This has led to some oddly perverse outcomes. Not having a live, interactive and unpredictable audience eliminates a huge part of the challenge of magic. Some of the sleight of hand effects I've seen from Youtube-only performers only really look great from the exact angle of that one camera shot. Also, nailing some high-difficulty sleights every time can take years of practice but when you can make dozens of attempts and only post 'the good one', it's a different thing than repeatedly doing it five shows a night. Magic is really about solving for constraints, so having infinite 'backstage' time to prepare one effect as well as being able to 'cleanup' afterward hidden from the audience is profoundly different than creating a non-stop sequence of different effects while surrounded by a live audience looking wherever they want, whenever they want.
As a magical inventor, the thought of creating a new magic effect solely for the context of one-stationary-camera, single-effect-per-clip with infinite attempts is like shooting fish in a barrel. It removes so many constraints it's almost not even interesting from my perspective. It's like those amazing demo scene graphical demos on a 1987 Amiga 500. They're amazing because they create those effects within the constraints of the Amiga 500. Creating the same visual effects on a Geforce 5090 is hardly the same challenge. My Mom wouldn't understand why and, in much the same way, a non-magician may not understand how some Youtube magic isn't the same challenge as creating the same effect in an unpredictable, uncontrolled live context. And I'm not even talking about video editing tricks or special effects. Performing a single trick exactly one time (out of dozens of attempts) for a 'one-eyed' single-person audience whose head is locked down on a stationary tripod at one angle and who is blindfolded immediately before and afterward is, for many types of magic effects, as big a difference as that Geforce 5090 is to an Amiga. Both the Geforce and Amiga demos can look equally impressive but the skill, artistry and challenge are vastly different. I also suspect creating the demo on an Amiga vs 5090 was a lot more fun because it's a much more interesting challenge.
Weird narrative of Mister M being famous because Brazilians "loathe deception more than anyone"
He got famous because everyone loves magic, and even more when you explain magic tricks
But most importantly, and what the author fails to mentions, it was because at that point in time anything on TV got famous, because TV was the only visual media we had that was "free"
I loved his shows when I was a kid. I was pretty into magic (e.g. going to the local shop and buying tricks) and this show was the most exciting thing I had ever seen. I get that it broke many rules, but I think it was well timed. If it had been earlier I think it would have been a true rule-breaking, “we’re exposing secrets cuz we just don’t care” type of thing. But in the 90s/00s it was a moment in which a new generation of TV kids. Whenever I would watch magic on TV I thought it was pretty lame because, after all, how do you know it was just special effects BS? This guy revealed that even though it was on TV it was still an execution of skill/engineering/performance. Super fascinating. Thanks Val!
This was exactly my experience as well. It’s kind of funny now with the internet having endless information on illusions to think folks were so miffed by his show. But also — and this might just be my personal bias as someone who always loved the showmanship and execution — it baffles me that anyone would skip seeing a magic show because they saw an explanation (not even nearly THE explanation) of how it’s done. Like I assume most people besides the Falun Gong don’t think David Copperfield is a legitimate wizard.
Exactly. It is just like professional wrestling. It’s not a matter of thinking it’s real, magic is all about being so damn entertained that you don’t care whether it’s real.
Considering for some years now, Penn & Teller's whole act is basically exactly what this guy did, I'd chalk his shunning down to him trying to protect his identity (yes, in the last episode, he dud reveal himself, I know... but I suspect that was not entirely voluntary.)
I've seen P&T's show in Vegas a few times, and I've seen many of their TV appearances. They do explain how illusions work, but they don't spoil other magicians tricks. They will do an old classic, show it from the "other side", and then while you aren't paying attention they pull off something new, giving no explanation for that one.
I used to hang out with Penn back when I was a castle member and he never mentioned that to me. I guess it's possible that happened but it would have been a very long time ago. The Magic Castle was founded in the late 1960s by two brothers, Bill and Milt Larson. Since then it has gone through quite a few different regimes. There was a brief time back in the 1980s when P&T were first breaking nationally when some older magicians made an issue about what they heard the P&T show contained (most hadn't actually seen it themselves). But this was a minority of magicians, mostly older hobby-types, and never the working pros. Every club tends to have some older cranks who focus on policing hall passes or whatever. If P&T wanted to go to the Castle in recent decades they'd be gladly welcomed. I'm pretty sure Michael Close, who's been the senior technical coordinator running the behind-the-scenes of P&T's Fool Us show for many years was on the Magic Castle board of directors at some point.
It would make more sense if perhaps P&T were "uninvited" from the UK's Magic Circle, which is a very different, much smaller and entirely unrelated private magic club. The Magic Circle only very recently started allowing female members, so I'm pretty sure P&T would be delighted to be banned there.
The Magic Castle is for Magic Circle members. Magic Circle rules very strictly prohibit their membership. They could always attend the Castle as guests of a member though.
The Magic Circle still asks them to donate items to their museum, despite refusing their membership.
The Magic Circle is a private magic club in London England. The Magic Castle is a private magic club in Hollywood California. The Magic Castle has a restaurant and regular magic shows by professional magicians in three theaters. The performers change weekly. Members of the Magic Castle can give anyone Castle guest passes to go for dinner and shows. In practice, this allows almost anyone who really wants to go to the Castle to get in as they aren't very restricted. I was a member of the Castle for over a decade until I moved out of the area and still have many friends who are members. I haven't checked lately, but in most eras, if you just called the Castle office and asked very nicely they'd send you a guest pass. I'm sure Penn and/or Teller have wanted to go to the Magic Castle, there'd be no issue.
The Magic Circle is quite different. It's not generally open to the public and is, frankly, quite old fashioned. It was only very recently that they even started permitting female members. For that reason alone I doubt that either Penn or Teller would ever want to go there. They'd probably be more likely to actively protest against the Magic Circle (at least until recently).
Or maybe they’re confusing magic castle with white castle. It’s an easy mistake to make, although I suspect it’s harder to get thrown out of white castle.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned here to your point about sharing other's work. Some (many?) sell their tricks. So assuming that you've spent time developing a new trick and some portion of your living depends not just on presentation, but also selling the trick or training.... I could see some getting upset.
Otherwise, I don't think the issue is spoiling it for audiences as the craft and presentation style count as much or more than the trick itself.
You should pretty much never trust magicians who "explain" how their illusions work. Sometimes they genuinely do explain it, but often, it's still another trick. Derren Brown does this a lot.
My absolute favorite "magician" was a card manipulator who demonstrated how several of the standard card tricks worked. Even showing the trick from the side and also from behind (his back to the audience so you see how he's doing it) the technical skill was amazing. It motivated me to learn prestidigitation. It turns out that my fingers are too short to do card tricks with standard playing cards (also too short for the fretboard of a classical guitar - I have to stick to acoustics & electrics).
I used to love watching the Derren Brown specials until he did the one predicting the lottery numbers. That made me realize all of his tv shows could be camera tricks and paid actors.
Same here. It was the lottery episode that made me realise that he is willing to lie when explaining his illusions. I didn't feel delighted by the illusion, I felt lied to.
I always thought the line that they being "blacklisted" by other magicians was some piece of advertising for the show. I don't think that makes much difference in the modern world.
P&T's whole deal is revealing the low-hanging fruit in frutherance of the greater trick. There are some circles that shun them for revealing things, but they're still respected by those same groups, and are well-liked all around. Why? Penn and Teller respect the artform. Valentino just went around being a dick about it, with complete contempt for the craft. That's the difference.
Seriously... his deal is magicians lie? You mean it's all an act? What a revelation. At no time in the last few thousand years has anybody in the history of the world ever figured that out. Nope, none at all.
To take this a step further, P&T's reveals often highlight and celebrate the complexity of pulling off a given trick. Sure, you understand how the cups and balls can be done after watching them do it, but good luck trying to replicate the smoothness of their performance. They actually make a point of celebrating the complexity of the method, even if it's revealed.
What I thought would be an interesting article about his life in Brazil ended up being… nothing.
Mentioning him as a “hero” in Brazil is quite an overstatement but whatever, but then the article goes on to bash and generalize Brazilians and paint him as a “rare” honest person that’s been lauded for it? I’d guess no one I know even know he lives in Brazil.
As a Brazilian, it has always been about a cool show that showed you cool new things, so he’s well known just like tons of other celebrities that grow beyond the US, and that’s it.
We still, to this day, say: "explain that, Mr. M" when something is not right.
"I lend you 10 bucks yesterday for you to buy lunch, today I see you are wearing a new shirt. Explain that Mr. M"
Explain that Mr. M was the catch phrase the host would say after Mr. M perform the trick (illusion Michael) and before he showed how it was done.
They're called illusions Michael... A trick is...
Arrested Development seasons 1 and 2 are pure comedy gold.
Hum, I remember it as "What about now, Mr M?" ("E agora, Mr. M?")
It's been decades and instantly in my head I could hear Cid Moreira's voice. I'm sure I'm not the only one :-) Watching that on Sundays, with my father, as a child. Good memories.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hed40Muo50
Same!
I remember watching his show in my younger years. I always assumed/thought that 'all magicians hate him' was just to sell the show more, like surely we all know magic isn't real anyways? Apparently that's not the case, it seems.
As a former professional magician and lifelong magic enthusiast, no serious magicians hate this guy. On the contrary, his show was great because it drove interest in magic which is good for working performers. The "Magicians HATE him" shtick was just marketing hype to promote the TV show.
Of course there are probably a couple of clueless amateur magicians somewhere out there who will spout about this guy but it's not how the vast majority of us feel. Anyone who studies and understands magic on a serious level already knows they can take the exact same techniques you saw exposed on that show and fool you silly with them the next day.
I know this is true because I've seen a top notch magician like legendary Spanish card worker Dani DaOrtiz perform for a roomful of very experienced professional magicians at a magic conference and completely blow their minds. The best part is that he used a technique that every person in that room already knew! In fact, the majority of those pro magicians have studied and performed it themselves for years - and were still fooled. A layperson seeing a 60 second drive-by expose on a TV show of a single implementation of one of thousands of techniques has zero impact on a good magician.
I think out of the "serious magicians" there's also the general "fraud" style. Who were in fact truly angry.
Make a space shuttle disappear[0], or hide an elephant. The TV show revealed all those to be fake and were in fact - paid audiences. My little brain trusted that they weren't paid and wanted to know so bad how the space shuttle disappeared.
Overall the TV and the internet helped push magic to exactly where it is today. Amazing, talented folks who even when you know how it's done, it's so good - it's magic.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lxX3rqhZtw
I hadn't heard of that one, but reminds me of David Copperfield 1983 disappearing the Statue of Liberty, which I'm pretty sure was a "real" audience? But is also pretty boring.
The audience was real for the Statue of Liberty. The “magic” was developing ball bearings smooth enough to allow the audience’s seating to be turned without them noticing, in order to give them the same view as the television audience.
it was still pretty boring TV, honestly. Being in the audience in person was probably more thrilling. As a child, it seemed like a stupid trick to me even without knowing how he did it -- that's it? I guessed some kind of mirrors or something. Maybe I wasn't smart enough as a 9-year-old to realize how hard it would be to fool the in-person audience? It didn't seem hard to me.
I watched it when it originally aired and agree it was surprisingly unimpactful on TV. Interesting backstory: I know someone who worked on the creative team for that TV special and while developing new illusion concepts, they brainstormed the idea of making the moon disappear from the night sky (as verified by a live audience augmented with astronomers with telescopes and a laser). However, they realized the concept of that effect was "too big" to play well to television audiences.
It's an interesting thought that a magic trick concept can be 'too amazing'. I think the Statue of Liberty was still 'too big' of a concept, at least for a television performance. Copperfield's illusion titled "Flying" is also really interesting in this regard. As both a magician and magical inventor, I think it's a terrific effect and Copperfield presented it beautifully. It's also one of the more difficult effects I've ever seen him do, both technically and physically. It's visually stunning, yet it just doesn't seem to have as strong of an impact on audiences as it should.
Levitating a person has long been one of the most challenging and popular stage illusions. Over the last 150 years it's been done dozens of different ways - with my personal favorite being the Asrah levitation invented by Servais Le Roy and first performed in 1902. Arguably, the Flying illusion, which was invented by legendary illusion creator Johnny Gaughan for Copperfield, is the ultimate 'perfect' levitation. It achieves levitation in its most ideal, unconstrained form yet somehow fails to 'connect' strongly with audiences. Understanding why it doesn't is one of those fascinating puzzles magical inventors debate over beer. Sometimes figuring out if you should do an effect is even harder than figuring out how to do it.
Yeah, I think there is the category of illusionists where it's just disappointing and sad if you learn the truth (oh camera angle and stage moved and thus the statue isn't to be seen anymore) and the category of masters of sleight of hand etc. where you really appreciate the masterfulness and even when you know how the effect was done are more stunned by the precision in the work.
> even when you know how the effect was done are more stunned by the precision in the work.
This is indeed true. Those who look at magic as merely a puzzle to be solved are really missing out on the beauty and wonder of it. After a lifetime of studying magic, I know how almost every effect I see is done. Sadly, knowing how they are all done is the worst part of studying magic deeply. The best part is being able to appreciate really great magic on deeper levels.
Growing up near the Magic Castle and traveling to magic conferences over several decades I've had the privilege of seeing some of the greatest magicians in the world perform live. At the highest levels, great close-up sleight of hand transcends finger flinging dexterity and becomes all about timing, tone, pace, body language and other subtle cues which combined control the focus of the audience in stunning ways. One of the best I ever saw live was the legendary Albert Goshman, who died in 1991. By the time I met him, Al was in his late 60s and his hands were so arthritic he could barely grip his cane. Yet, somehow, it didn't matter. I watched Goshman perform at the Magic Castle dozens of times. I knew his entire act by heart, beat by beat - and it fooled me silly every time.
Al's signature routine was the Salt Shaker trick. A coin would magically appear underneath a salt shaker sitting on the table. That was the entire trick. But it kept happening. Over and over. Nothing else was on the table, no cover, nothing. And you never saw him put the coin there. The entire audience would just be burning that damn salt shaker with unblinking stares. There was no trick to it. It was just a normal salt shaker. The table was a normal green felt-covered poker table sitting under a bright spotlight with the audience at the table right alongside Al. The shaker, coin and table could all be borrowed. It didn't matter where you were or how close. You could even stand behind him.
Al's gnarled, shaking hands clearly weren't doing any sophisticated slight of hand. The only magic on display was Goshman's Jedi-like ability to control the attention of the entire audience, which he honed over decades of performing this one routine. I heard from older magicians that there was a time decades earlier when Goshman relied more on sleight of hand but he got so good at mind control, the trick still worked even when Al's hands no longer did. Toward the end of the trick he'd point out that maybe all that salt was keeping you from seeing when the coin arrived under the shaker, so he would replace the salt shaker with a clear water glass placed upside down in the middle of the empty table. Then he'd warn you he was going to put the coin under the glass. And, somehow, he managed to still do it when you weren't looking. Which was freaky because everyone in the audience would realize the coin had appeared under the glass at different moments. Then he'd proceed to do it again. And again. For the finale, a giant 3-inch coin bigger than the glass appeared under the glass. The coin was so big, the glass was actually sitting on the coin! The stunned silence usually lasted a good 15 seconds before the standing ovation.
Unfortunately, the effect of the unique misdirection ability Goshman developed over decades is largely muted in videos of him performing, So, sadly, the sheer mind-fucking visceral impact of that trick died with Goshman. A lot of good sleight of hand specialists could do every move in Goshman's act, probably better than Goshman could, but the clear glass - others could do the trick - but it only fooled people when Al himself did it. I've seen a lot of world-class close-up magic over the years, but that... that was special.
> were in fact - paid audiences.
I hadn't heard that. It also strikes me as a little odd since both of those effects can be done for real so there's no good reason to cheat in that way. Houdini popularized the elephant vanish as part of his stage show over a hundred years ago and Copperfield vanished a Lear jet from an airport tarmac in one of his early TV specials. The jet was completely surrounded by blindfolded audience members who were holding hands. I know how both were done and neither relied on a stooge audience.
Streaming video and social media have been mostly terrific for the art of magic as there's a tremendous amount of excellent performance material now widely available. Even more importantly, anyone interested in learning magic can access very high-quality instruction videos. There's also interactive instruction with top notch magicians available one-on-one and in groups via Zoom. Growing up I got to see magic once or twice a year on TV and when I wanted to learn how to do it the local library had exactly three magic books. Fortunately, I happened to live in the Los Angeles area, auditioned for the Magic Castle and got accepted as as a junior member (a kind of apprentice program), where I was mentored by some of the greatest magicians of the 20th century and had access to the world's largest magic library. I was very, very lucky because 99.99% of teens interested in magic had nothing like that. Today, there's so much great magic readily available the only problem is curating what to see and learn.
The downside of streaming video magic is there's an entire generation of magicians who've only performed alone in their own house via recorded video clips. This has led to some oddly perverse outcomes. Not having a live, interactive and unpredictable audience eliminates a huge part of the challenge of magic. Some of the sleight of hand effects I've seen from Youtube-only performers only really look great from the exact angle of that one camera shot. Also, nailing some high-difficulty sleights every time can take years of practice but when you can make dozens of attempts and only post 'the good one', it's a different thing than repeatedly doing it five shows a night. Magic is really about solving for constraints, so having infinite 'backstage' time to prepare one effect as well as being able to 'cleanup' afterward hidden from the audience is profoundly different than creating a non-stop sequence of different effects while surrounded by a live audience looking wherever they want, whenever they want.
As a magical inventor, the thought of creating a new magic effect solely for the context of one-stationary-camera, single-effect-per-clip with infinite attempts is like shooting fish in a barrel. It removes so many constraints it's almost not even interesting from my perspective. It's like those amazing demo scene graphical demos on a 1987 Amiga 500. They're amazing because they create those effects within the constraints of the Amiga 500. Creating the same visual effects on a Geforce 5090 is hardly the same challenge. My Mom wouldn't understand why and, in much the same way, a non-magician may not understand how some Youtube magic isn't the same challenge as creating the same effect in an unpredictable, uncontrolled live context. And I'm not even talking about video editing tricks or special effects. Performing a single trick exactly one time (out of dozens of attempts) for a 'one-eyed' single-person audience whose head is locked down on a stationary tripod at one angle and who is blindfolded immediately before and afterward is, for many types of magic effects, as big a difference as that Geforce 5090 is to an Amiga. Both the Geforce and Amiga demos can look equally impressive but the skill, artistry and challenge are vastly different. I also suspect creating the demo on an Amiga vs 5090 was a lot more fun because it's a much more interesting challenge.
For anyone who never saw his show, it is (all?) now available on this youtube channel.
https://www.youtube.com/@MagicSecretsRevealed/videos
Weird narrative of Mister M being famous because Brazilians "loathe deception more than anyone"
He got famous because everyone loves magic, and even more when you explain magic tricks
But most importantly, and what the author fails to mentions, it was because at that point in time anything on TV got famous, because TV was the only visual media we had that was "free"
I loved his shows when I was a kid. I was pretty into magic (e.g. going to the local shop and buying tricks) and this show was the most exciting thing I had ever seen. I get that it broke many rules, but I think it was well timed. If it had been earlier I think it would have been a true rule-breaking, “we’re exposing secrets cuz we just don’t care” type of thing. But in the 90s/00s it was a moment in which a new generation of TV kids. Whenever I would watch magic on TV I thought it was pretty lame because, after all, how do you know it was just special effects BS? This guy revealed that even though it was on TV it was still an execution of skill/engineering/performance. Super fascinating. Thanks Val!
This was exactly my experience as well. It’s kind of funny now with the internet having endless information on illusions to think folks were so miffed by his show. But also — and this might just be my personal bias as someone who always loved the showmanship and execution — it baffles me that anyone would skip seeing a magic show because they saw an explanation (not even nearly THE explanation) of how it’s done. Like I assume most people besides the Falun Gong don’t think David Copperfield is a legitimate wizard.
I have zero patience for watching the tricks by themselves.
Watching the explanations on the other hand is fun.
To me it's like watching a trailer vs watching the full film.
Exactly. It is just like professional wrestling. It’s not a matter of thinking it’s real, magic is all about being so damn entertained that you don’t care whether it’s real.
How did I know this was going to be about Mr M?
Come on, how many pariah international magicians are there who are famous around these parts?
I remember his show was abruptly interrupted as he was detained by the Federal Police for working in Brazil without the appropriate visa.
https://www.folhadelondrina.com.br/geral/pf-multa-e-da-oito-...
Olha o Mr. M!!! Hahaha (in Brazilian Portuguese just for fun) =B
Considering for some years now, Penn & Teller's whole act is basically exactly what this guy did, I'd chalk his shunning down to him trying to protect his identity (yes, in the last episode, he dud reveal himself, I know... but I suspect that was not entirely voluntary.)
I've seen P&T's show in Vegas a few times, and I've seen many of their TV appearances. They do explain how illusions work, but they don't spoil other magicians tricks. They will do an old classic, show it from the "other side", and then while you aren't paying attention they pull off something new, giving no explanation for that one.
I just saw an interview with Penn wherein he stated that they have been thrown out of The Magic Castle, et. al for revealing tricks.
Given their popularity, I'm sure they've been allowed back in. :-)
I used to hang out with Penn back when I was a castle member and he never mentioned that to me. I guess it's possible that happened but it would have been a very long time ago. The Magic Castle was founded in the late 1960s by two brothers, Bill and Milt Larson. Since then it has gone through quite a few different regimes. There was a brief time back in the 1980s when P&T were first breaking nationally when some older magicians made an issue about what they heard the P&T show contained (most hadn't actually seen it themselves). But this was a minority of magicians, mostly older hobby-types, and never the working pros. Every club tends to have some older cranks who focus on policing hall passes or whatever. If P&T wanted to go to the Castle in recent decades they'd be gladly welcomed. I'm pretty sure Michael Close, who's been the senior technical coordinator running the behind-the-scenes of P&T's Fool Us show for many years was on the Magic Castle board of directors at some point.
It would make more sense if perhaps P&T were "uninvited" from the UK's Magic Circle, which is a very different, much smaller and entirely unrelated private magic club. The Magic Circle only very recently started allowing female members, so I'm pretty sure P&T would be delighted to be banned there.
The Magic Castle is for Magic Circle members. Magic Circle rules very strictly prohibit their membership. They could always attend the Castle as guests of a member though.
The Magic Circle still asks them to donate items to their museum, despite refusing their membership.
The Magic Circle is a private magic club in London England. The Magic Castle is a private magic club in Hollywood California. The Magic Castle has a restaurant and regular magic shows by professional magicians in three theaters. The performers change weekly. Members of the Magic Castle can give anyone Castle guest passes to go for dinner and shows. In practice, this allows almost anyone who really wants to go to the Castle to get in as they aren't very restricted. I was a member of the Castle for over a decade until I moved out of the area and still have many friends who are members. I haven't checked lately, but in most eras, if you just called the Castle office and asked very nicely they'd send you a guest pass. I'm sure Penn and/or Teller have wanted to go to the Magic Castle, there'd be no issue.
The Magic Circle is quite different. It's not generally open to the public and is, frankly, quite old fashioned. It was only very recently that they even started permitting female members. For that reason alone I doubt that either Penn or Teller would ever want to go there. They'd probably be more likely to actively protest against the Magic Circle (at least until recently).
You're confusing the magic castle with the magic circle...
Or maybe they’re confusing magic castle with white castle. It’s an easy mistake to make, although I suspect it’s harder to get thrown out of white castle.
It's the Circle that has strict rules about not revealing tricks. If they're Academy of Magical Arts members their access to the Castle is guaranteed.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned here to your point about sharing other's work. Some (many?) sell their tricks. So assuming that you've spent time developing a new trick and some portion of your living depends not just on presentation, but also selling the trick or training.... I could see some getting upset.
Otherwise, I don't think the issue is spoiling it for audiences as the craft and presentation style count as much or more than the trick itself.
You should pretty much never trust magicians who "explain" how their illusions work. Sometimes they genuinely do explain it, but often, it's still another trick. Derren Brown does this a lot.
My absolute favorite "magician" was a card manipulator who demonstrated how several of the standard card tricks worked. Even showing the trick from the side and also from behind (his back to the audience so you see how he's doing it) the technical skill was amazing. It motivated me to learn prestidigitation. It turns out that my fingers are too short to do card tricks with standard playing cards (also too short for the fretboard of a classical guitar - I have to stick to acoustics & electrics).
For small fingers, bridge sized card decks are an option!
I used to love watching the Derren Brown specials until he did the one predicting the lottery numbers. That made me realize all of his tv shows could be camera tricks and paid actors.
Same here. It was the lottery episode that made me realise that he is willing to lie when explaining his illusions. I didn't feel delighted by the illusion, I felt lied to.
My favourite example that I’ve seen of this was Asi Wind on Penn and Teller where he “explains” the trick and fools everyone anyway https://youtu.be/fg0CC99hVK8?si=6BpmQjHEe-AkP84v
I always thought the line that they being "blacklisted" by other magicians was some piece of advertising for the show. I don't think that makes much difference in the modern world.
P&T's whole deal is revealing the low-hanging fruit in frutherance of the greater trick. There are some circles that shun them for revealing things, but they're still respected by those same groups, and are well-liked all around. Why? Penn and Teller respect the artform. Valentino just went around being a dick about it, with complete contempt for the craft. That's the difference.
Seriously... his deal is magicians lie? You mean it's all an act? What a revelation. At no time in the last few thousand years has anybody in the history of the world ever figured that out. Nope, none at all.
To take this a step further, P&T's reveals often highlight and celebrate the complexity of pulling off a given trick. Sure, you understand how the cups and balls can be done after watching them do it, but good luck trying to replicate the smoothness of their performance. They actually make a point of celebrating the complexity of the method, even if it's revealed.
I wonder if the difference is the magician themselves revealing their trick vs others guessing as to how it's done?
https://archive.ph/66ffV
Link seems not to include the story
Doesn't work.
Try this: https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/magician-brazil-nation...
[dead]
No paywall: https://archive.ph/Xi1bJ
"Maybe this will finally get me on the cover of Poof..."
What I thought would be an interesting article about his life in Brazil ended up being… nothing.
Mentioning him as a “hero” in Brazil is quite an overstatement but whatever, but then the article goes on to bash and generalize Brazilians and paint him as a “rare” honest person that’s been lauded for it? I’d guess no one I know even know he lives in Brazil.
As a Brazilian, it has always been about a cool show that showed you cool new things, so he’s well known just like tons of other celebrities that grow beyond the US, and that’s it.
"Firms hire elderly office boys to wait in line at banks and notaries, exploiting federal rules giving priority to anyone over 60."
Retirement Plan Z (if everything else fails): Work as a messenger in Brazil. They're hiring.
Banks are pretty much empty these days. Everything is computer.
Pick notary.