• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Open Casting Call for the Geller/Angel show

MWare said:
I wonder if Uri is using this as a way to learn some new tricks.
Click to expand...

All he has to do is go to a Penn&Teller show! They show how they do their tricks all the time!! I learned the the whole "Ball and Cup" from watching YouTube clips over and over!

Of course, since he'd rather give himself a headache by bending a spoon with mental powers instead of taking it in your hand and bending it, it shows he likes doing things the hard way.

...or perhaps he just doesn't want to be infected with libertarian philosophy.
 
Last edited:
TheDoLittle said:
All he has to do is go to a Penn&Teller show! They show how they do their tricks all the time!! I learned the the whole "Ball and Cup" from watching YouTube clips over and over!

Of course, since he'd rather give himself a headache by bending a spoon with mental powers instead of taking it in your hand and bending it, it shows he likes doing things the hard way.

...or perhaps he just doesn't want to be infected with libertarian philosophy.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, cup & balls requires some dexterity which (from the YouTube's I've been seeing lately) is clearly not a strength Uri possesses.
 
The aliens only gave him the ability to perform a few effects.. you can't except him to start doing new stuff after 30 years, it would not seem realistic. ;)
 
T'ai Chi said:
Oh my. Expect massive complaining/bi***ng/moaning from Randi.
Click to expand...

Randi mentions it in this weeks Swift:

"For two weeks now, I’ve been inundated by notices of this impending program, about which I’ve been kept informed by insiders who are rather astonished at NBC co-chairman Ben Silverman’s decision to sign such a deal. I received a call from Criss Angel assuring me that he does not intend to endorse as “supernatural” anything that Geller or the others might choose to do, but I don’t know how much choice he’ll have in that respect… Why NBC has agreed to cast the 3-trick-pony to head up this show, I cannot tell. I guess we’ll just have to sit back and watch the train wreck…"

Can't say that it comes across as "massive complaining/bi***ng/moaning" to me.
 
I imagine the producers will be sent 100's of videos of guys screwing up the "King's Rising" affect and quarter through beer can effects. The request doesn't state the act has to use original material. It will be misery looking at all those videos of bad woo.

TheDolittle said:
All he has to do is go to a Penn&Teller show! They show how they do their tricks all the time!! I learned the the whole "Ball and Cup" from watching YouTube clips over and over!
Click to expand...

I think Penn Jillette owes me $30 for exposing the cups and balls trick. When I was 12 in 1975 I walked into Lou Tannen's magic shop in NYC and paid $30 for a really nice silver plated cups and balls set and Jillette happened to be in the store at the same time. I didn't know him from Penn and Teller but I recognized him from a TV show (I think it was Hill Street Blues). There were only the two of us in the store and he knew I only had $60 to spend and I blew 1/2 of it on one effect. Now it's useless because he has exposed it on TV many times and every day in his LV act.
 
Senex said:
I think Penn Jillette owes me $30 for exposing the cups and balls trick. When I was 12 in 1975 I walked into Lou Tannen's magic shop in NYC and paid $30 for a really nice silver plated cups and balls set and Jillette happened to be in the store at the same time. I didn't know him from Penn and Teller but I recognized him from a TV show (I think it was Hill Street Blues).
Click to expand...

1975? That would be good- Hill Street Blues ran from 1981 to 1987 (http://epguides.com/HillStreetBlues/) and IMDB shows nothing for Penn before 1985 except something on a music video in 1983.
 
Bob Klase said:
1975? That would be good- Hill Street Blues ran from 1981 to 1987 (http://epguides.com/HillStreetBlues/) and IMDB shows nothing for Penn before 1985 except something on a music video in 1983.
Click to expand...

Ok, I was born in 1962 and I am certain I was under 16. I did recognize Mr. Jillette from something I saw on TV, certainly not P&T. I remember kind of creeping him out by looking at him through the corner of my eye until he said hello to me.
 
JonWhite said:
Randi mentions it in this weeks Swift:

"For two weeks now, I’ve been inundated by notices of this impending program, about which I’ve been kept informed by insiders who are rather astonished at NBC co-chairman Ben Silverman’s decision to sign such a deal. I received a call from Criss Angel assuring me that he does not intend to endorse as “supernatural” anything that Geller or the others might choose to do, but I don’t know how much choice he’ll have in that respect… Why NBC has agreed to cast the 3-trick-pony to head up this show, I cannot tell. I guess we’ll just have to sit back and watch the train wreck…"
Click to expand...


I read that Jim Karol is a contestant on this show. He used to perform regularly on my college campus and I would always speak with him after the show. He's a magician who never claimed to have paranormal powers. In fact, he called himself "the next James Randi" and said that he and Randi were friends. I'm curious to hear how he represents himself on the show.
 
Having seen the show, of the first set of contestants only one (the unemployed steel worker who's impervious to pain) seemed to imply mysterious powers. The show itself was kind of unimpressive, I thought. In thinking about it, it's hard to imagine it would be otherwise. Dramatic lights and dramatic music can't make mentalism dramatic. I think it needs a more intimate and maybe impromptu setting for maximum impact. When it's just you and the mentalist, one one one, you know it isn't being done with stooges.
 
I severely doubt there were any stooges used in the show. (although, I could be wrong.) None of those tricks require any, as far as I can tell.

I have already seen Todd Robins do the fox trap thing, and Banachek do the rest of them, in person. But, I imagine someone who has never seen mentalist tricks before being quite impressed with that stuff.

The nail-gun guy was my favorite: Although it is fairly easy to think of ways he could have figured out which gun had the nails, he was by far the most dramatic, and "in-character" performer. The fox-trap guy was the worst: Too much hype, not enough "reward". The rest were sort-of "meh".

Gellar's prediction that the star would get chosen was a complete waste of time.
 
As I say in one of the other mutiple threads on this show, "Even I, as a non-magician, can spell the word "gimmicked"." :D
 
Wowbagger said:
... The nail-gun guy was my favorite: Although it is fairly easy to think of ways he could have figured out which gun had the nails, he was by far the most dramatic, and "in-character" performer. The fox-trap guy was the worst: Too much hype, not enough "reward"...
Click to expand...


I imagined the nail-gun guy could hear the nails rattling around in the live gun.
That fox-trap trick is pathetic. My granddad was a fur trapper; those traps just wear out after a while, and are no more dangerous than a fridge door (notice he never tested the large trap's strength on the pencils).
And the Geller star "transmission". And Geller! At least Criss Angel brought a modicum of professionalism to the critiques. Otherwise, what a mess.
 
Wowbagger said:
I severely doubt there were any stooges used in the show. (although, I could be wrong.) None of those tricks require any, as far as I can tell.
Click to expand...
I don't think it was done with stooges either, but if you read comments on the show around the internet, that's what every amateur yahoo is assuming, just to have the pleasure of boasting that they weren't fooled. For most of the skeptical general public, if it CAN be done with stooges, it's assumed that it WAS done with stooges.
 
bokonon said:
I don't think it was done with stooges either, but if you read comments on the show around the internet, that's what every amateur yahoo is assuming, just to have the pleasure of boasting that they weren't fooled. For most of the skeptical general public, if it CAN be done with stooges, it's assumed that it WAS done with stooges.
Click to expand...

I once was selected from the audience by Penn to view Teller do the "thread the needles on the thread" trick. I ain't no stooge! :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom